Hooray! I will finally get to meet you!
I’ll be at that demonstration, and I may also go to a candlelight vigil at the US embassy the night before, organised by a group called US Citizens In Ireland Against The War or something like that. I agree it probably won’t do any good, though.
I was quite appalled to read yesterday that Killarney (tourist trap in Co Kerry) Town Council ordered the cancellation of an anti-war protest there out of fear of offending the American tourists.
No offense, Tie-Dye, but why’d you pick New Zealand, beckwall?
Nope, not illegal.
Besides, how does it jive with those who wear Flag ties, stained with food droppings, or those who wear other Flag articles?
Flags as clothing don’t signal distress as does an inverted flag.
Anyway, it is a moot point.
It’s beautiful, I can find a job there, and - most importantly - it is remote. I also have friends there who will help me settle in, when the time comes. I have some favorite spots in the world - Amsterdam and Spain come to mind - but they are too close to the “action” for me. I want to be AWAY. And if you have ever been to NZ, then you know the feeling of being really far from everyone else in the world. And I speak the same language, most of the time.
I’m not doing anything, mainly because I don’t know what to do. I dont think demonstrations will help. Canada hasnt even yet decided which way its going to go, which does scare me a bit, but I know I feel a lot safer here than I would if I were in the States right now!
I think handy’s post summed it up for me - Bush and his gang managed to keep people afraid, setting it up so that people no longer knew who they were afraid of, and then suddenly deciding to put forth the name “Saddam” to answer the question. Its a messed up, unfounded accusation* that will lead to war, and I think its a horrible thing. One of my SOs classmates is from Iraq, and she is terrified that she will lose many of her family and friends in this war. I’ve heard people comment that Bush just wants control of the oil in the area…I’m not sure that isn’t true. Heck, even Mr. Mandela’s suggestion that Bush was against the UN because its leader is black doesn’t seem any more outrageous than the rest of this “War on Terrorism”.
Hell, I don’t know. I haven’t followed all the details, and developments. Thats because I wish this wasn’t happening - I don’t want to HEAR about any of it. The “War on Terrorism”. What terrifes me is the Unites States of America, not Saddam Hussein. Seems to me, this is EXACTLY what anti-American groups want, and Bush is gonna give it to them, just to show how big and strong he is.
*I’m not saying Saddam is innocent of anything, or guilty of anything, I’m just saying that Bush is making a case out of thin air, and people are bloody falling for it
Every day I feel more and more like telling my job to go to hell and becoming a real-life, serious political activist…not that I don’t like my job (I do - it’s in the immigration field, which I feel is very important for a bunch of reasons and has HUGE potential civil rights implications).
I just feel so damn helpless, though. I’ve gone to demonstrations and signed petitions here and there, and written the occasional letter to the editor, but what can I, as an individual, do that will make a difference with wider impact? The related area where I know more than the average semi-informed schmo on the street (immigration) is one rife with ridiculous misconceptions, but there are so many lawyers fighting the ignorance battle that who the hell is going to listen to little old Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal?
How can I leverage my skills to do something more in-your-face than just marching through the Pakistani neighborhood in West Rogers Park with the assorted rag-tag bunch of lefties next Saturday? Any of you guys have hands-on grassroots political organizing experience? How can I make myself useful?
This is reply to Beckwall:
I strongly disagree with your opinon on this war with Iraq, but I also respect your right to free speech. Now I am going to excercise my right to free speech and tell you I am glad that you are leaving this country. I wish that instead of demonstrating against war you’d start a campaign to convince all your anti-war friends to pack up and move with you.
You refer to America as the “bully of the world.” What would it be like if Saddam became that bully?? We are the only country in the WORLD who has the military power to stop this madman. We have an obligation and responsibilty to stop this with whatever means necessary.
I would like to ask you what you would do in a country where if you spoke out against your leader, you would have your tounge cut out and watch your wife and children brutally murdered. Or have your family killed by a nuclear or biological weapon? Welcome to the United States of Saddam. This man wants us ALL dead. PERIOD. And he will stop at nothing to make sure it happens. Unless WE stop him. Think about it this way, on a simpler level…If I were to suckerpunch you in the face, what would you do? Talk about diplomacy?? The terroists have punched us. now it’s time to act. We have given Saddam 12 years to disarm and he has not. As civilians we only know a fraction of what our intelligence leaders know. President Bush is trying to make sure that those 3,000 people that died on 9/11 did not die in vain and prevent further American casualties.
Our government is not doing this for oil or the countries monitary gain. We have our own oil. This is a fight for the very freedom that allows us to converse in this manner. We will not and should not back down.
Patriot91, your opinion fits mnemosyne’s comment to a t:
The Politics of Protesting belong in Great Debates.
Leave!? Hell, No! We Won’t Go! This is our goddam country, purple mountain majesties and all. Born of revolution and reborn of revolution, over and over. They can have my country when they can pry it from my cold, dead hand!
But this one: in all sincerity, and it pains me, I’m pretty sure the war is going to happen. GeeDubya’s in too deep, can’t back out now. God help us, the little twerp thinks he’s a Leader of Men, chosen by Destiny. Maybe Laura Bush could save us, the way women have saved men from themselves since time immemorial. “George, honey, I love you, but Churchill?..Get real.”
The war will start, the drums will pound, and the people will rally around. It will work, it always works. There is no poet so eloquent that he can’t be drowned out by a baboon with a drum.
Worst of all, I have to hope it goes swimmingly. I have to hope it is quick, brutal and over, and GeeDubya comes galumphing back with Saddams head on his vorpal blade, to the adulation of an adoring public. I have to hope it is the Iraqi soldiers who suffer and die, thier wives widowed, thier children orphaned. And not ours.
And I will never, ever forgive the men who forced that prayer upon me, so long as I live, so help me God.
**Patriot91, ** what you are talking about was not at all the intended purpose of this thread; I was just trying to see how other people had found it useful to deal with their dissent and misgivings. But since you’ve brought it up, and since we’ve been moved to GD anyway, perhaps you can enlighten me as to why you think that after 12 years of basically status quo in Iraq, you think the curernt administration has suddenly decided that Saddam Hussein is Public Enemy #1? (Oh, and before I forget, I’d love to see how your opinion on all this would change if you enlisted and fought in infantry in Iraq. I bet you’d have some rather different views. As you yourself have expressed, don’t let the door hit you in the butt on your way out.)
Now don’t get me wrong; Saddam Hussein not my favorite person by any means, as I have discussed at length in this forum before on various occasions. I would not be sorry if he happened to meet an untimely death, which, as an avowed pacifist, is something I can say about almost nobody. And since part of my old job at Immigration Court involved coordinating State Department human rights opinions for political asylum cases, and abstracting Human Rights Watch country conditions reports (including ones on the genocide campaign against Iraqi Kurds in the '80’s that would curl your hair), I am well aware of the sort of pure, unadulterated evil that Saddam Hussein is capable of.
However, I have basically no faith that a) the current administration’s reasons for wanting a war have anything to do with concern for human rights; if that were true, why didn’t they finish the job in '91? and why have they basically done squat to overthrow this quite admittedly evil regime since then? b) that we have any idea what a military offensive in Iraq, especially one that will accomplish anything useful, will entail in terms of general destruction and loss of life on BOTH sides; c) that there is any halfway viable post-regime change plan for the country; and d) that we won’t get entangled there for many years yet to come.
Oh, and there’s the minor detail that we sure ain’t out of Afghanistan yet, plus there’s all this sable-rattling with North Korea. Anyone care to place bets re: the extent and nature of a U.S. military presence in Afghanistan a year, or even five years from now? Can’t we learn anything from the Soviet experience there?
ruadh
I agree, it feels like nothing can be done, but showing your face as an American living in Ireland who is against the war shows that we are not all war-mongers.
Unfortunately, I won’t be going to Dublin next weekend, as Yasmin apparently will still be contagious (measles!!) and is not allowed to be near any kids. I don’t want to expose her to her little nephew who hasn’t had all his shots yet.
There will be an estimated 10,000 people there. I’d love to hear from you how it goes. John may or may not be going to the demonstration, as he’s still off to Dublin without us! It mostly depends on if he takes the bus out on Friday evening or Saturday morning.
Oh, and as usual, what EvaLuna said.
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I don’t think that the administration has ever said that Hussien is public enemy #1. We have troops actively participating in the ‘War on Terror’ from the Philipines to Afghanistan to Georgia, among other places. This just happens to be a large ‘flare up’; Visible to the fickle public eye for a few more weeks.
**
You want relief aid sent to various impoverished peoples? Good. Get off your ass and start hauling sacks of rice. You want social programs? Great! Open your wallet and pay for them. While I am all for a libertarian society, I don’t think that the consequences are often thought of all the way through.
Our armed forces are composed entirely of volunteers. Furthermore, recruiting is up. Several hundred thousand young men and women have decided to serve, and if ordered to, fight. I have no worries on that front.
**
So you should know best how persecuted peoples suffer under the reign of dictators. Not that we are going to Iraq expressly to lift the reign of the Baathists over the Kurds, but it’ll be a nice fringe benifit, no?
**
This administration is not the Bush '41 adminstration or the Clinton administration. Bush and company have evaluated the situation and are acting as they see fit, given the problems and resources at hand. I agree, Bush Sr. should have done it, coalition and UN be damned. Clinton should have done it during Desert Fox. But G.W. seems to be the one who will actually do it; Bravo for him.
We have ~10,000 troops in Afghanistan. And we have learned from the Soviets experience. Oh, how have we learned. We are bending over backwards to get the humanitarian aid and bribes out. $100,000 in bribes can be more effective then $1,000,000 of ordnance in that tribal ‘country’. But I would guess that we will be there for over a decade, if at a reduced force size. And I wouldn’t bet money that Afghanistan will ever be ‘civlized’. Unfriendly to anti-American terrorists is the best we can hope for.
I could go off about the NATO troops in former Yugoslavia, and the possible parallels with Afghanistan, and the long-term hopelessness with such missions, but this much hijacking is going to get the Homeland Security folks on me! 
North Korea can be deterred, for the time being, maybe. If they launch a conventional attack on S.Korea, there is little or no doubt that the RoK and our forces in the area would handily defeat them, albeit with grave consequences for the civilians. If NK goes nuclear, well, it probably best that we don’t have too much in the area anyhow…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Brutus *
**
You want relief aid sent to various impoverished peoples? Good. Get off your ass and start hauling sacks of rice. You want social programs? Great! Open your wallet and pay for them. While I am all for a libertarian society, I don’t think that the consequences are often thought of all the way through.
**
Well, due to the plate and screws holding my left fibula together, I’m not very useful for heavy lifting. I do, however, contribute to refugee social programs. (I just don’t do it full-time for pay anymore.)
To anyone in the Chicago area who cares to join me, here’s where I’ll be on Saturday:
International Day of Protest Against the War on Iraq
Feb 15, Saturday, 12 PM
Devon & Leavitt (2200 W. Devon), Chicago
In the heart of Chicago’s Pakistani Community
Co-sponsored by numerous organizations including Iraq Peace Pledge
Other ideas for concrete action are welcome. Hope to see some of you there!
I got really fed up with this war talk a few weeks ago so i got on the net and found a site where you could write letters to all of our politicians. I wrote a letter to the president telling him how i opposed military action yadda yadda yadda… I hope that he actually read it, seems to me he must get alot of letters, how does he read them all? (like santa clause ha ha…) I felt more like i was doing it for myself than making any impact…
Any suggestions how i could make an actual impact???
Whoa- powerful… those last two paragraphs are definetly worth a re-read. Sorry- just wanted an excuse to re- post this.
If the US attacks quickly, it’s a rush to war. If the US waits 12 years while all other options are tried, it’s disturbing the status quo.
Is there any particular amount of delay after Iraqi treaty violations when a attack would be permissible?
About two minutes after the UN asks us for help.