Well, well, well..
Jul. 18th, 2003 04:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
misscamChange of tone from Blair
So now suddenly the emphasis is on how utterly horrid Saddam was and that itself was justificasion for war... I gather they are not expecting to find evidence of WMD (at least not substancial enough) any more, then. So we are to forget that the pre-war case was all about how big a threat Saddam was and his WMDs then?
My problems with this are plenty, among them:
1) Saddam has been a horrid ass for decades, and the West has known and done nothing. In fact, the US supported him, even when he gassed the Kurds. So suddenly *now* we all got a conscience?
2) There are plenty of horrid asses out there ruling countries. North Korea, Burma, Zimambwe, to name three. So, since Saddam was a horrid ass and he was disposed of for being an horrid ass, then the aforementioned three countries should be having a regiment change too. Otherwise, it's being a big fat hypocrit.
3) Where do you draw the line? Shall we invade all countries who have asses in power, or just the really bad ones? How do one know which ass is being the most horrid? What if the people of a country elect an ass to power - does the world really have a right to step in?
4) If the US and UK cannot prove that Saddam had WMD, there goes any lingering trust. The Arab world will think this was about oil, because the US very conviniently overlooks what to them is a much worse ass (Israel - I'm not saying Israel is, I'm just pointing out that to the Arab world they are, due to the Palestinian situation)
Either way, I'm feeling a great deal of dread over it.
Blair said he believes history will justify the war on Iraq. I fear the world can't really afford for him to be wrong. If the cap between the West and the Arab world widens, terrorism is only likely to get worse. There's always someone willing to die for a cause. There's always fundamentalists - be it Osama bin Laden or George W. Bush. Sometimes I wonder if not good intentions create just as much harm as those who has only bad things as their purpose. What does that then say about me, who like to think of myself as having good intentions?
I guess if the world was easy, it would come with a manual. Blair could use one, if he wants to smooth things over with Europe, his own party and his own voters. When I was last in the UK, people had started nicknaming him 'Dictator Blair'. I liked Blair once. (Note the past tense, please) Now, I don't know.
In other news, writing desire seems to return slightly, so I've scribbled a bit. Huzzah. There's a heatwave over Norway nowadays, so it's hard to not just stay outside and laze days away in the hot sun. We had a very dramatic thunderstorm today, though. Also found Discworld Noir among my old stuff, so have been playing it. Ah, Pratchett. I worship thee.
It seems to me that the more dire the world gets, the more important humour is. But then, I am from Northern Norway, where humour has always been a way to deal with the world's shittiness. There's not much else you have, when even good intentions sometimes do more harm than good.
So now suddenly the emphasis is on how utterly horrid Saddam was and that itself was justificasion for war... I gather they are not expecting to find evidence of WMD (at least not substancial enough) any more, then. So we are to forget that the pre-war case was all about how big a threat Saddam was and his WMDs then?
My problems with this are plenty, among them:
1) Saddam has been a horrid ass for decades, and the West has known and done nothing. In fact, the US supported him, even when he gassed the Kurds. So suddenly *now* we all got a conscience?
2) There are plenty of horrid asses out there ruling countries. North Korea, Burma, Zimambwe, to name three. So, since Saddam was a horrid ass and he was disposed of for being an horrid ass, then the aforementioned three countries should be having a regiment change too. Otherwise, it's being a big fat hypocrit.
3) Where do you draw the line? Shall we invade all countries who have asses in power, or just the really bad ones? How do one know which ass is being the most horrid? What if the people of a country elect an ass to power - does the world really have a right to step in?
4) If the US and UK cannot prove that Saddam had WMD, there goes any lingering trust. The Arab world will think this was about oil, because the US very conviniently overlooks what to them is a much worse ass (Israel - I'm not saying Israel is, I'm just pointing out that to the Arab world they are, due to the Palestinian situation)
Either way, I'm feeling a great deal of dread over it.
Blair said he believes history will justify the war on Iraq. I fear the world can't really afford for him to be wrong. If the cap between the West and the Arab world widens, terrorism is only likely to get worse. There's always someone willing to die for a cause. There's always fundamentalists - be it Osama bin Laden or George W. Bush. Sometimes I wonder if not good intentions create just as much harm as those who has only bad things as their purpose. What does that then say about me, who like to think of myself as having good intentions?
I guess if the world was easy, it would come with a manual. Blair could use one, if he wants to smooth things over with Europe, his own party and his own voters. When I was last in the UK, people had started nicknaming him 'Dictator Blair'. I liked Blair once. (Note the past tense, please) Now, I don't know.
In other news, writing desire seems to return slightly, so I've scribbled a bit. Huzzah. There's a heatwave over Norway nowadays, so it's hard to not just stay outside and laze days away in the hot sun. We had a very dramatic thunderstorm today, though. Also found Discworld Noir among my old stuff, so have been playing it. Ah, Pratchett. I worship thee.
It seems to me that the more dire the world gets, the more important humour is. But then, I am from Northern Norway, where humour has always been a way to deal with the world's shittiness. There's not much else you have, when even good intentions sometimes do more harm than good.
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Re: Continued...
Date: 2003-07-24 09:42 pm (UTC)I'm always suspicious of (not to mention afraid of) people who claim to have the One Right True and Only Universal Moral Truth. The Nazis and the Inquisition thought they had a monopoly on Absolute Truth, too. So does Osama Bin Laden and all the other terrorists who believe so strongly they know what's Right and Wrong that they're willing to blow up buildings and fly jet planes full of helpless civilians through crowded skyscrapers in its name. Why is your Truth any better than mine? What gives you the right to try to force it upon me?
The burden of proof is on such people as you to prove that your morals are correct, not on the rest of us to disprove it. I think uncertainty, self-doubt, self-questioning and ambivalence should be celebrated as positive virtues, and that conviction and certainty should be regarded as suspicious, at best.
And let's get one thing straight, right here: America is NOT, nor has it ever been, a nation "under God". This is NOT a theocracy. Iran is a theocracy. To quote the Treaty of Tripoli in 1797 (often misattributed to George Washington):
(Check this page for some details. And yes, that was a treaty made with a largely Muslim nation.)
And Thomas Jefferson: "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government."
And the notion that "being under God made this country great" -- I consider this magical thinking, just as much as when the shaman of some primitive tribe claims the drought struck the crops because some spirit or diety wasn't properly sacrificed to, or the pathetic Ghost Dances that the Plains tribes resorted to in an attempt to make the invading whites disappear.
We'll improve our students' education when we spend more money on schools, not by legislating school prayer. We'll lower crime when we eliminate our massive social inequality and the remnants of racism, not by calling on the laws and precepts of a desert tribe from millenia ago in an Old Testament. We'll have true economic prosperity when we learn how to live within the Earth's means, stop rewarding greed and ruthlessness and find a sustainable, stable-state economy, not by flying the flag everywhere. And so on. This point in history is a time to rely on our brains, our common sense, whatever basic human decency we have and our own efforts, not on symbolism and mysticism. If we don't, the U.S. will crumble, much as many other nations now found only in the pages of history have done, and the world will go on, and other nations will take its place.
Re: Continued...
Date: 2003-07-29 10:33 am (UTC)Lee