Just curious, december, and please be as honest as you can: If Saddam were not an Arab, and Iraq were not a Muslim country, would your views be any different?
Elvis, are you trying to crash the program? 
**
I disagree. What was the main reason INS has given all these years for not being able to implement a comprehensive system to track entries, exits, and expired visas? Lack of funds and technical infrastructure. What has been the main obstacle to keeping terrorists out of the U.S., not to mention removing hundreds of thousands of common criminals and others who have overstayed their visas? A non-dysfunctional INS. Where are we about to spent untold millions of dollars which could be better used in a zillion other ways? Bombing Iraq.
As to the reason for no anti-Saddam signs; well, I think that angle is being well taken care of by the rest of the country. The point of a demonstration is to bring to public attention matters that the demonstration’s organizers feel are receiving insufficient attention.
See my last point above. Also, I, and I’m sure many others, believe that Israel’s interests are not best served by starting an all-out war in the Middle East. As much as you may think that I and some of my “bedfellows” don’t give a damn about Israel, I believe that war in Iraq will do nothing useful to promote lasting peace in Israel.
Sorry about the screwed-up coding; I haven’t had coffee yet…maybe I should do something about that.
I would be equally supportive of providing democracy in place of the governments of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong Il, or Charles Taylor. I certainly supported replacing Ceaucescu’s tyranny with democracy. Evil dictators come from all ethic groups.
In the interest of fair play, may I agree wholeheartedly with this post – except for one minor nitpick: It should of course end with "Evil dictators come from all ethnic groups. " (I would hope that an “ethic group” of good people would not produce an evil dictator! ;))
Yet, december, there’s only one regime you’re demanding a war over, and it isn’t Kim’s or Castro’s or Taylor’s. Why not?
Yes, I think most of us know the answer, but do you?
I give up. Which dictator are you referring to?
Sorry, I assumed too quickly that everyone would want to stop Iraq’s continuing atrocities, so I guess the argument does fail there.
Also I came to the hasty conclusion that since peaceful means over the past decade have failed to contain illegal Iraqi commerce and weapons build-up, most likely future unenforced efforts will fail as well. If peaceful measures advocates would give an example of what they are currently planning has worked before I’d have more confidence in their ideas.
Nobody likes war, but I think Saddam is using people’s reluctance to get away with as much as he can. What he wants isn’t peace and love with his neighbors and freedom for Iraqis… and Iraq’s oil resources makes this situation a bigger problem than, say, Pakistan or North Korea.
-k
This thread is also interesting in that the left-leaning posters bring out the fact that december’s sideways calling peace protesters “Anti-Semites” is an unfair attack. Which it was.
However, they make no apology for the ridiculous invectives they place on GW Bush and the right-wing in general.
-k
Yes, december, give it up.
Kempis, where do you get this from? “…since peaceful means over the past decade have failed to contain illegal Iraqi commerce and weapons build-up, most likely future unenforced efforts will fail as well.”
Assuming facts not in evidence, as the lawyers say on TV.
What’s wrong with assuming that what hasn’t worked for the past decade probably won’t work in the future?
-k
You probably didn’t notice from my post that I’ve switched sides on this issue, and why. As a result, I can see more clearly than most the arguments put forth by both sides and their relative validity.
But what I see absolutely wrong with what’s going on is that elements on both sides are accusing the other with invective of intentional bad faith.
I think GWB and Cheney and their supporters are acting in good faith. I also think they cannot fail to be influenced by their life experiences (including careers in the oil industry) and their aspirations for the nation and the world, which presumably include their continuing as leaders of this nation. This in no way suggests they’re being venal – what it suggests is that they’re not questioning the unspoken assumptions prevalent in any social group that they almost certainly picked up in their careers, and that in their view, an America in which they continue to exercise the authority of the Administration is preferable to one in which they are replaced, which is a quite reasonable view for them to take. There are undoubtedly Americans who believe that loyalty to their country means supporting their President and his Cabinet in the decisions they have taken. There are others, such as yourself, who feel that Saddam’s atrocities justify taking him out by whatever means are available, including a unilateral preemptive war.
Similarly, there may be idealists – I know a few – who believe that the call to be peacemakers and to promote peace and concord among the nations precludes war. There may be others who believe that there are such things as just wars, and that the evidence set forth publicly to date does not make the proposed attack on Iraq one of them. There are those who feel that 225 years of American tradition of only fighting back when we or our allies are attacked should not be overturned in the emotions of the moment. There may be those who feel that what we need to do is fight terrorism, and that the evidence made public to date suggests that Saddam deserves Pitworthy invective for his attitudes and policies but is not sufficient to tie him to Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups.
I was one of the latter, until reading a series of posts in the Pit that (along with other data) have convinced me utterly that we as a nation have the evidence to justify this war and for good security reasons may not make it public. And so from being a person who felt that while Saddam should in the best of all possible worlds be eliminated from power, it was not our call to jump in and do it, to one who supports the judgment of our leaders that the elimination of terrorism requires it.
All the people with all the attitudes listed above are acting in good faith, and exercising their rights and responsibilities as Americans to guide the policies of their country beforehand. IMHO, moral pacifists to one side, we will need to unite behind our nation and our troops once the war is in fact begun. But the time to question and challenge whether it’s the right decision is in fact now – before the final decision is taken.
I do not dispute that there are those motivated by evil or selfish ends on both sides of the dispute. But I do not believe this describes the overwhelming majority of those who have been vocal on either side.
I know; I’ve been there.
Ah yes. We’ve been told that sort of thing before, haven’t we? Something to keep in mind, however, is that the cool thing about classified material is that those setting the policy have some control over what can and cannot be released in some form. Thus, it tends to happen that more is released that supports the policy than that opposes it.
As for trusting Bush et al., see if they hadn’t lied and deceived constantly on economic and environmental policy then I might be willing to believe them and trust their judgement on a foreign policy matter where our knowledge is necessarily limited. In other words, the fact that I don’t trust them is their own fucking fault! You want trust? You earn it. Saddam certainly hasn’t earned our trust but unfortunately Bush hasn’t either.
I really find this “why were there no anti-Saddam signs?” to be a rather silly argument. To quote from something I posted yesterday in other thread in response to the question of why shouldn’t Saddam just step down and why aren’t the peace protesters marching for this:
Ah, but jshore, I’m not in the position of trusting a politician here; I’m putting my trust in a man I know, a member here, with whom I spent an evening on Jonathan Chance’s porch while he briefed yet another service-member Doper on what to expect at an upcoming training session on how to act if captured by the enemy. His job (assigned to the NSA) is one that I am absolutely positive gives him access to the classified data that cannot be made public, and his own ass is on the line if we do go to war, so he’s not advocating that other men get killed for his political gain.
That he, whom I trust implicitly, says that if we knew what he knows, we would not be opposed to taking Saddam out unless we’re absolute moral pacifists, and he is honorbound not to make that data public for excellent reasons related to the safety of Americans generally and servicemen in particular, tells me what I need to know.
I have no reason to either trust or distrust Bush and Cheney. I’ve given my views as to their motivations above. I have every reason to trust a friend whose integrity, patriotism, and willingness to risk his life for a cause he believes in are known to me personally.
For clarity I should point out that the above quote was jshore repreating his own words, rather than something I said. I don’t buy jshore’s explanations for the lack of anti-Saddam signs.
In reality I do not expect the march to have any appreciable effect on Bush or Saddam. However, one could make a case that the only way to avoid war is for Saddam to give up his WMDs or to leave Iraq. Dissent takes the pressure off Saddam, thus making war more likely. An anti-Saddam demonstration might help frighten him into complying with the UN.
But, did this stop leftists from opposing Pinochet, Le Pen, Georg Haider, Ariel Sharon and other “evil right-wingers”?
This might make sense if Bush and Saddam had committed similar levels of misdeed. But, Saddam tortures thousands, starts wars that kill hundreds of thousands. Bush is pushing for a war that may not be fully justified.
Do you really expect this demonstration to change Bush’s conduct of the war? Or, are you taking a moral stand to show yourself what a good person you are?
IMHO these demonstrations were driven by anti-Bush feelings (and, outside the US, by anti-American feelings as well.) I had dinner with my sister Saturday night, after she had participated in the NY demonstration. We pretty much stayed away from discussing politics, but at one point she passionately said, “I hate Bush.” Last weekend a friend who was planning to participate made a similar comment.
If demonstrators took an anti-Saddam line, they would automatically be making a case for him to be overthrown. That would make Bush’s position look more reasonable. However, it wouldn’t do to present Bush’s (and America’s) policy as merely incorrect. Bush was to be portrayed as a monster, a hate object. That’s why there were no signs urging Saddam to comply with the UN and give up his WMDs, IMHO.
[damn hamsters ate my post, so here’s Attempt #2]
So **december, ** what about the explanation I provided earlier for the lack of sufficient amounts of anti-Saddam Hussein signs and rhetoric, i.e. that the purpose of demonstrations is to call to public attention viewpoints that demonstration organizers feel are getting insufficient attention, and that Saddam Hussein is being vilified right and left?
Do you seriously believe the anti-war demonstrators are unaware of the truly horrible things going on in Iraq? Do you believe that anyone who hasn’t been living in a cave on an uninhabited Pacific island doesn’t know what’s been going on in Iraq? Why do you have such a hard time believing that we can be operating on essentially the same information base as you, and yet have reached opposite conclusions?
And I ask everyone’s pardon in advance for what I’m sure will be my even grumpier mood until this situation is over; I just found out a couple of hours ago that my much-adored and admired cousin shipped out for Kuwait yesterday. He’s a journalist, and will presumably be covering whatever is about to happen in Iraq. Really, the parallels with Daniel Pearl are quite astounding; he is a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey, about the same age, with a pregnant wife at home. He also covered the immediate aftermath of 9/11 from Afghanistan. I’m sure his wife is just thrilled speechless. (And as his mom said the last time around, “Well, I didn’t sign his permission slip, but he went anyway.”)
So yet another reason for me not to want war.
I don’t buy this explanation for a couple of reasons. First of all, I think demonstrators march for what they care deeply about, regardless of how much attention it’s getting. I marched against the Vietnam War and for Civil Rights because I supported those causes. The more attention those causes got, the more I was encouraged to march for them.
Also, the anti-war position already gets a lot of attention. Many leading American and foreign political leaders are anti-war, such as Ted Kennedy and Jacques Chirac. Hollywood stars and other celebrities too numerous to list are very vocally anti-war. Much of the media has been sympathetic enough to the anti-war side, so that they give good coverage to that position.
Of course not. Nevertheless, the demonstrations were designed to not focus on that aspect of the situation. By comparison, there was plenty of anti-Israel stuff at some of the demonstrations. Why did the demonstrations include more anti-Israel than anti-Saddam? Saddam’s behavior is worse than Israel’s behavior, and it is also more relevant to the coming war in Iraq.
I do agree that we are operating on essentially the same information base, and yet have reached opposite conclusions.
I hope things go well for your cousin.
December, I think Polycarp made a damned good point above, about either side accusing the other of intentional bad faith.
This gets right to the root of what’s wrong with this and so fucking many of your OP’s: intentional vilification of those who’s positions you disagree with, through what appears to be vicious intentional misrepresentation of them and thier views.
To wit:
Anti-war demonstrators: anti-semitic, pro-fascists boobs.
Democrats who object to Estrada: self-serving political goons posturing for attention.
And on and on and fucking on.
Maybe I’ve gathered a bad impression, but it seems to me that in DecemberWorld, it’s just not possible, even a whit, that people opposed to his viewpoint (no, wait, you let’s make that “the GOP’s viewpoint”) are acting in good faith and for the reasons they say they are.
Is the world really so black and white, December, that only your political allies are smart and well-guided, and your political opponents are always, in every case either misrepresenting thier interests or misguided boobs?
I don’t think you’re the only one, on either side of the asile, who takes this approach. But your posts certainly provide a prolific example of the practice on this message board.