YAIWR (yet another anti-war rant)
Mar. 23rd, 2003 10:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteThe Colorado Channel 9 news is calling their coverage of the 'war' with Iraq "Operation Iraqi Freedom". They even put a special banner for it on their website. Some young graphic artist got paid ten bucks an hour to make that banner. What was he/she thinking at the time, I wonder?
There are young boys and girls who grew up in Colorado, who joined the military and are now camped out in the desert blasting people apart. I wonder what they think of it all?
No, seriously, I'd really like to know, down on the personal level, what these kids think of it. What it means to them, as a job, as a task they do. Do they think of their parents, back home? When they look through the scope of their rifle at the manic face of some desert rat, do they say, "This one's for you, Mom?" just when they squeeze out the round?
If they're going to do that, if they're going to put themselves in immediate danger, they deserve to do it for a real reason. Not for this. Not for a handful of blurry COMSATs, some jingoism, and the pompous despot of a shattered desert country. If they're going to come home with any chance of feeling good about themselves, they need real reasons to go.
The massive economic machine of the military is clamoring for a reason to exist. They can't catch terrorists with their big, clumsy, obsolete hands so they're finding other ways to justify themselves.
Pardon my language, but this just does not make any fucking sense. No more than the invasion, and subsequent abandonment, of Afghanistan did. If we spent one hundredth of the money we spent heaving bombs into rocky hillsides, on rebuilding New York, we'd have our twin towers back right now.
I'm ashamed that my federal tax dollars are paying for this. I'm paying for this. Hell, if I didn't pay for this, I'd be jailed for tax evasion. I feel like there is blood on my hands.
You can't trade dead people for live ones. I want all my brothers-in-law back home and safe.
There are young boys and girls who grew up in Colorado, who joined the military and are now camped out in the desert blasting people apart. I wonder what they think of it all?
No, seriously, I'd really like to know, down on the personal level, what these kids think of it. What it means to them, as a job, as a task they do. Do they think of their parents, back home? When they look through the scope of their rifle at the manic face of some desert rat, do they say, "This one's for you, Mom?" just when they squeeze out the round?
If they're going to do that, if they're going to put themselves in immediate danger, they deserve to do it for a real reason. Not for this. Not for a handful of blurry COMSATs, some jingoism, and the pompous despot of a shattered desert country. If they're going to come home with any chance of feeling good about themselves, they need real reasons to go.
The massive economic machine of the military is clamoring for a reason to exist. They can't catch terrorists with their big, clumsy, obsolete hands so they're finding other ways to justify themselves.
Pardon my language, but this just does not make any fucking sense. No more than the invasion, and subsequent abandonment, of Afghanistan did. If we spent one hundredth of the money we spent heaving bombs into rocky hillsides, on rebuilding New York, we'd have our twin towers back right now.
I'm ashamed that my federal tax dollars are paying for this. I'm paying for this. Hell, if I didn't pay for this, I'd be jailed for tax evasion. I feel like there is blood on my hands.
You can't trade dead people for live ones. I want all my brothers-in-law back home and safe.
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I'm no soldier, but
Date: 2003-03-24 12:49 am (UTC)Re: I'm no soldier, but
Date: 2003-03-24 01:43 am (UTC)Re: I'm no soldier, but
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Liberation is all well and good. But EVERY TIME the U.S. has destroyed a corrupt government, it has then moved out and moved on, and a regime just as bad as the last has taken hold. (No, I don't count the post-WW2 'liberation' of Germany. Europe, by and large, was responsible for that.) We have to pull our big egotistical thumbs out of our asses and realize that people are responsible for their own revolutions.
What would we think, if France declared war on the United States, because they were convinced that it was the only way to take 'that warlord' George Bush out of office? If they flew over our beloved cities and dropped fire on our heads, to this end? If they landed a hundred thousand troops in Florida, and then started marching for the capitol, arresting everyone along the way? Would we fight back? Would we cheer them, from our hospital beds? What would we think? Would we applaud their bravery, or curse their damned arrogance?
In my opinion, there is only one good way to encourage revolution. Pry open the channels of free trade, commerce, and cultural exchange. Make the people prosperous, make them educated, make them able to listen and think for themselves. Then, perhaps, when they rise up on their own, back their revolution. Because ultimately, a nation's people will establish and tolerate the form of government it deserves -- and nothing better. We have to educate them, not push them down and handcuff them on a march to Baghdad.
If -- perhaps even when -- Saddam and his family are torn limb from limb, or gassed or whipped or hanged or jailed to our satisfaction, what will Iraq do next? These questions really bother me.
A fun link for you
Date: 2003-03-24 07:28 am (UTC)Re: A fun link for you
Date: 2003-03-24 09:06 am (UTC)For some reason, the Sunday Herald always reminds me of this fun stuff: http://www.watchtower.org
BTW, what the hell is that in your icon. It is wonderfully disturbing.
Re: I'm no soldier, but
Date: 2003-03-24 09:24 am (UTC)I am glad he asked. I see the Phiilipnes, Panama, Grenada, Nicarauga and even
the fledgling democracy of Afghanistan as answers to that question, I think
he is talking about Chile (hey, he wasn't as bad as the commies at least)
and perhaps South Vietnam as well. Also bear in mind that many of the new
democracies in Eastern Europe looked to us for guidance that we did provide
to them, especially Hungary. It is easy to get discouraged and only see the
bad. I am not immune from that, nor is anyone else. Taking the long view and
delving into the books of history does help.
Other cases in point might be the Pahlevis in Iran and the military in
Baghdad. Here, it is more difficult to say who was right or wrong. The
Pahlevis were of course deposed by Khomeini and the fundamentalist
revolution in 1980. In Iraq, the military were deposed by the Baath Party,
and today all the world knows the problems there; just turn on Fox News or
CNN.
It is interesting to note that most of the governments we helped change AFTER
the Cold War were more stable and more humane.
~
Re: A fun link for you
Date: 2003-03-24 12:20 pm (UTC)As for the icon, it's a detail from a still of a late 1890s short film "A Night at the Spritualist's" (I think that's the title). Since so many people have asked me about it, I'll probably post the full image and the description of the film in my journal later today :)
Re: I'm no soldier, but
Date: 2003-03-24 04:14 pm (UTC)Phiilipnes, Panama, Grenada, Nicarauga:
Okay, ya got me here: I concede Nicaragua. Good point there, but it strikes me that the U.S. invested a lot of time in making sure that the region remained stable, long enough for a new government to really take hold. (Incidentally, want to buy a house in Granada?)
I don't see this Bush-led U.S. government as having the patience to occupy Iraq for years at a time, turning it's troops into policemen, waiting through a campaign and an election. You need infrastructure to do that, and ... the U.S. has so far been blowing that infrastructure up.
Panama: I can't say. The U.S. established a presence there mostly for strategic military purposes, and it seems to me that they don't really care who is in command, as long as they get preferential use of the canal. I don't know how much of the income from managing that canal, if any, actually filters down to the common man, even as government aid and programs.
It still seems pretty clear to me that invasion, bombing, and murder are not the most efficient encouragement for democracy.
Re: I'm no soldier, but
Date: 2003-03-24 05:32 pm (UTC)Afghanistan is moving forward. You don't go from anarchy to democracy overnight. Give them a few years and the time to learn from the mistakes they will inevitably make along the way, just as all the great deomocracies in the world have had to learn from their own.
Iraq, I feel will turn around much quicker than many expect. They are an educated people, and rather cosmopolitan for that part of the world. I have faith in their ability to learn from the mistake of autocratic fascist rule, just as Japan and Germany did. We might have to stay a while, it happens. I feel that time invested in Iraq is time well spent. Their 7000 year history is one of change and overcoming all sorts of troubles and setbacks. Look for them to join the Community of Civilized nations much sooner than we think possible.
I regret it came to this with Iraq, but in a sense it is not even with Iraq itself. it is with one man and his arsenal that he has turned on 3 other sovereign nations that border him in the space of 10 years. A man armed with tons of deadly and ghastly poisons. A man with the motive, the means and the willingness to give them to others to strike at us and anyone else he perceives as an interference in his Anschluss-fest he has had going on since 1980. Sometimes, NOT acting is worse than taking action, even if it turns out you were not entirely right. In this day and age of WMD, it is insanity to place ourselves at the mercy of whichever comic-opera dictator is the LEAST stable.
There be my two cents on it all. Many thanks to
Re: I'm no soldier, but
Re: Afghanistan. A quote : " Much of the country remains under the sway of warlords and is split by ethnic differences that have fuelled fights for decades and raised doubts about the viability of a national army in a country where tribal loyalty far outweighs loyalty to the state. "
That about sums it up. How is the U.S. going to enforce 'democracy' in such a diverse place? Kill all the warlords? And their sons? Re-educate an entire generation, against the ideas of their ancestors, by establishing Don't Serve A Warlord University?
What's the upper limit, of citizens killed, before the U.S. is no longer freeing a people -- but is just freeing land? From the people who used to live on it?
As for the ousting of "a man" in Iraq, how can such a simplistic approach render any real results? Kill the dictator, and all you've made is a dictator-shaped hole. If you have to march your ass over a hundred miles to get there, taking prisoners along the way, have you really done a net positive for the image of your nation, in the eyes of revenge-minded terrorists?
Osama Bin Laden financed his favorite anti-American organisation with his Saudi parents' money. Even with this being the case, I'm glad Bush didn't decide to topple the Royal House of Saud, and bring "democracy" to their country too.
no subject
Date: 2016-02-20 08:00 am (UTC)