At the risk of irritating an awful lot of people --
There were a number of young men in the South who fought for the Confederacy not because they were trying to defend slavery, but because they felt allegiance to their states before their country. While the simplistic interpretation, and maybe the most correct one, of the Civil War was that it was about the slavery issue, a lot of those who fought for the Confederacy did not justify their participation for that reason. "Slavery" doesn't get to what was really going on in the hearts and minds of many of those who fought. (And those in the North weren't primarily fighting to free the slaves, either, although there were those who went to war willingly for that end.)
Some people might slap the "oil" interpretation over anything the US does in the Middle East. Evidently that is not the motivation for a large number of people supporting the current actions.
Poke at this parallel, scream at me if you like, but this is where *my* mind went in the face of the oil/no, not oil argument. Substitute any idea that might be self-serving for Bush himself but not supported by supporters of the war for oil, if you like, and I'll throw the same Civil War situation back again.
I think the analogy is very astute. Another similarity is the flood of anti Lincoln, pro-secession propaganda Southerners were flooded with that helped push them towards war.
On the subject of slavery being the simple explanation, I think that although it's easy to say that slavery caused the split, when you look at the other reasons people suggest: trade differences, states rights, differences in social structure etc. etc. they all have their roots in slavery as well. So slavery becomes both the simple explanation and underlying cause for the war.
One thing Iâd like to clear up. While I believe that had the same set of circumstances occurred in an oil poor state, we would not have gone to war against them, I do not believe oil is the reason that Bush herded us towards war. There are myriad other reasons, not least among them the idea of a U.S. hegemony that was discussed on the list at some length. The same people that compose the heart of the Bush administrationâs push towards war (and as Paul OâNeil and others have noted, it was in the works well before 9/11), Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz were members of a group of conservative ideologues calling themselves the Project for the New American Century who had been yammering for war since 1997. This link is a letter they sent to President Clinton in January of 1998: http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm
Here is their statement of principals: http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm.
Now you may be encouraged by statements like:
âAmerica has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.â
Keep in mind that these are the same people that said Iraqâs reconstruction would only cost a few billion. By this time next year we will have spent close to ten times that amount. You may recall the New Yorker article posted here late last year that documented that while the administration solicited the advice of experts on how to approach the reconstruction, they subsequently ignored the advice. Of course weâre all paying for that lapse now.
So though they sound high and mighty, these are men who have a fixed idea about how things should be done, and they arenât about to let experts or the facts get in their way.
(and ask me about what I know about the aftermath of Gettysburg any time you like)
Consider yourself asked. 8^)
-- Doug _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
