The mail is pouring in…
I really, really try to understand how my friends could support George’s invasion of Iraq. Afghanistan, I understand and supported. I just wish we would have finished the job before invading a country that was not involved with 9/11.
The idea that because of 19 guys with box cutters hijacked some airliners and rammed them into buildings killing 3,000 or so people does not give the USA the right to be stupid. Invading, occupying and imposing our brand of capitalism on a whole region just because we are afraid of guys with boxcutters does not make any sense to me.
Are we wimps? Are we not smart and strong enough to deal with fascist Muslims without causing the deaths of tens of thousands and spending $300,000,000,00 and making a mess of the region? Other costs are not easily measured, like our countries esteem, influence, etc. I am an American living in Europe with my German boyfriend, soon to be husband. The low point of me being American was sitting at LHR waiting for a flight, everyone around me reading newspapers plastered with full page color pictures of Abu Ghraib.
To quote W, you are either with us or against us. Your support of the war is going to cost us 4 more years of W, no chance in hell of federal civil unions, no same sex immigration, dirtier air and water, no chance of basic useful healthcare for everyone, and on and on. Bush used this war to divide our country. I feel sorry for you regarding the mistake of supporting W’s invasion.
Larry R., London
As a Seattlelite I have read may of your columns over the years, and since I read Andrew it was fun to see you step in.
Your arguments in favor of going into Iraq are full of lefty justifications, but very short on pragmatic reality. Doing what you propose requires a LOT of troops, and a LOT of political commitment. More than we have of either. So it sounds neat, just like doing a crash program to reduce greenhouse emissions sounds neat, but it is not real world-thinking. It ain’t gonna happen.
Also, it is utopian. Why should we think we could reform entire societies to our liking? That just sounds fantastically unlikely. There is, in fact, no precedent for such a project (no, Japan & Germany are not precedents, they had to lose catastrophic wars they instigated to get the necessary conditions on the ground). How do we deal with Al Qaida & their ilk? Not with your grand plans, but in smaller, less dramatic steps:
1. Overturn state sponsors of terrorism. This means you, Taliban. No Islamo-fascist client states propped up by terrorists.
2. Concentrate hard on containing fissile material. That means deal with N. Korea before they break the UN locks (whoops, too late), pay lots of $ to former USSR states & scientists, etc. Yes, germs and chemicals are bad, but nuclear is the real threat. Fissile material requires a state to produce. It is too difficult for a terrorist group to make. They can only buy or steal it.
3. Reduce dependence on oil. This means CAFE, windmills, nuclear, gas taxes, mass transit. Side benefit: lower greenhouse emissions.
4. Don’t base US troops in Muslim dictatorships. Turkey or other reasonable governments are OK. (I know the only other decent Muslim governments are Bangladesh, Jordan, & Malaysia. Tough.) Infidels colluding with corrupt and cruel dictatorships to base Christian troops in the Mid-east just throws fuel on the fire.
5. Collaborate with our erstwhile pals in Europe and elsewhere to track and monitor terrorists. A lot of sustained police work.
6. Be allies with Israel, but don’t reflexively take their side over the Palestinians. The Palestinians are really getting the shaft, and we can’t forget that even though they choose rotten leaders and support terrorism. We have to be seen as at least slightly independent of Israel.
7. Preach tolerance, and live that way at home. This means you, Dobson.
8. Don’t torture people, especially using tactics designed to offend Islam. Duh.
I know this is less satisfying in the short run, but it is sustainable and can work. A good President (Gore) following 9/11 would have done a lot of this. He would not have listened to you, by the way.
Tom W.
It is also overstating the case that the West made the Middle East what it is today. The winning European Powers of World War I drew those lines with the collusion of those Arabs in power at the time. That they were trying to stack the deck in their favor doesn’t change the fact that they had plenty of help. The point is, time always changes the playing field, and France was once our ally, now they are our adversary. Others who were our enemies are now our allies. We have to make our foreign policy decisions based on what we think is in the long-term favor of America. Not an easy task. President Bush has done a tremendous job in the War on Terrorism; despite the opposition internally and externally. You were right to support the war then and would be in the right to support it now.
Darell
Let me see if I have this right. Immediately after the worst attack on our soil, rather than allow the emotions surrounding such an event to unfold you immediately rushed to judgment about “the west” having to invade the Middle East. And this is because the British did plan borders well enough. 100 years ago.
And it was those darned leftist liberals, who by and large supported the invasion of Afghanistan (you know, where the terrorists were set up), that just couldn’t understand why Iraq had to be invaded. Because the US has a responsibility to fix the world’s problems. Through violent warfare. And it shouldn’t matter that the justifications for this war have been changed more than my underwear. We should be okay with being lied to.
But now you don’t support the war because the current regime is screwing it up. Not that the left was saying this all along or anything – no they were to be ignored because they just don’t have a grasp on reality.
But even though we (and indeed, every other imperialist invasion throughout recorded history) have failed in Iraq, we better get behind the idea of bombing the hell out of the Middle East at some point in the future and setting up democracies because, again, the British didn’t plan those damned borders well enough 100 years ago.
I suggest that you keep to sex advice columns.
Michael M.
Yes, the US has had a range of alliances with nasty ME dictators. That does not make us responsible for what they have done. Alliances are often a matter of choosing among a set of bad options. The US chose to ally with the USSR in World War II. That does not make us responsible for all bad that the USSR did.
In short, I don’t see a compelling moral obligation for the US to remake the Middle East. It might (or might not) be a praiseworthy thing to do, but I suspect in practice that it will not be. It is just too complicated and costly a thing for a single state to undertake, even for the sole superpower. The US public is quickly losing interest in and commitment toward the enterprise, which surprises me not at all. Wars of attrition are not the strong suit of democracies.-Matt K.
-posted by Dan.
The Dish 