A musing that occurs to me as I stay up past my bedtime. One. Nobody has any moral credibility w/respect to acting in the interests of the Iraqi people, which makes all moral posturing over the issue highly suspect, no matter who does it. (Too many opporunities to help the Iraqi people have been passed up or betrayed by the US and the rest of the world already.)
Two. The way to create moral credibility on the matter is to put forward a detailed long-term plan explaining either (a) how Iraq will be rebuilt and improved after a war, or (b) why Iraq and the world will be better off left alone. The closest the US/UK have come to achieving the former is Bush mumbling a rehashed version of manifest destiny suggesting it's America's turn to take up the 21st century version of the White Man's Burden. Plus some mumblings about putting Iraqi exiles (whom Iraqis living in Iraq mostly hate) in power; plus other mumblings about how costs of an invasion might be defrayed by later oil profits, maybe. The details of occupation and rebuilding are not forthcoming, not even in the sketchiest of terms. But frankly I haven't heard anything from the European nations to justify leaving Saddam in place, either; mostly it all seems to be complaints about American hubris - not entirely unfounded - with a strong underlying intimation of, "Look you Yankee jerks, your allies are trying to secure favorable arms and oil deals with Iraq; why must you interfere?" I can think of a number of ways in which a war might go wrong, but the UN could play a huge part in ameliorating those risks if it cared to do so; and I've yet to hear a convincing argument that the Iraqi people will be better off long-term with Saddam than without him, even at the price of a war. A man who would be king is everbody's best customer. There is a positive moral case to be made for dethroning Saddam, but BushCo has done a miserable job of explaining why its war plan isn't just a way to cut everybody else of a deal, IMO. If anybody in the UN gave a damn about the Iraqi people, it seems to me, then there should be lots of argument and wrangling over how to manage a post-war Iraq with a coalition of interested parties. That would be the proper mix of idealism and cynical opportunism. But everybody's pretending that self-interested opportunity (TWAT aside) isn't an issue; it's a matter of principle! Which suggests to me that everybody is lying. About different things, maybe, but lying nevertheless. Marvin Long GSV Call me conflicted Austin, Texas Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Poindexter & Ashcroft, LLP (Formerly the USA) http://www.breakyourchains.org/john_poindexter.htm _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
