--- Andrew Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Gautam Mukunda [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >--- Andrew Paul <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> From: Gautam Mukunda > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Gautam, its terrible what is happening in Iraq. I > dont deny your feelings on the subject, > and I dont treat the commitment that America has > shown lightly. It _is_ terrible, yes. What _used to happen_ in Iraq was considerably more terrible. The great moral blindness in your posts is your unwillingness/inability to see that. > I do however proclaim my right to wonder if there is > another way, > and to question the moral, and equally, the > strategic basis for the methods > used so far. And to do so without being painted as > an asslicker of Saddam. > I see it as a basic right of democracy. I am a > democrat, and strange as it may seem, > support the American Hegemony. I dont support a > fascist America that cannot > deal with criticism. And if you are asking me to > hail GWB as the New Christ, > and Donald Rumsfeld as the leader of the New > Apostles, all incapable of sin or error, > then sorry, I cant. Being elected the American > President is a great honour, but it does > not, as far as I know, sanctify you. Your rhetoric betrays your point. You can wonder all you want. As have I, as have many people. But when your wondering leads you to places like things are worse in Iraq now than they were, then you reveal that your wondering is not built on moral foundations. Moral reasoning and judgment is the fundamental duty of any human being. The capacity to make moral judgments is what separates the human from the animal. If you can't make a moral judgment between Iraq now and Iraq under Saddam, you have a problem. > > I can believe whatever I like. Yes, but what you believe says a lot about you. As I am occasionally forced to mention on this list, you are entitled to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts. There is an actual objective reality about what used to happen in Iraq and what is now happening in Iraq. > My interest is not > with the > spin bullshit of either regime, its about life for > Iraqi's, wake up, eat > work, sleep kinda life, not whatever crap the regime > of the day is trying > to sell us. Again, the moral equivalence. You reveal yourself. The spin bullshit of either regime? What nonsense. In _Saddam's_ regime, you'd be dead. In the United States, you get to write freely on the internet. Does that make the moral distinction between the two sufficiently clear? > I dont even begin to understand how we, > safe behind our keyboards > could make a judgement about wheter its better or > worse. I never claimed to know. > I just posed the question, and said I wasn't sure. > I thats a sin, then mea culpa. It is. The _Iraqis themselves_ have made a judgment - that's what the opinion polls consistently seem to reveal. Even more than that we behind our keyboards can look at a country and say "gee, removing Saddam Hussein as your absolute ruler is likely to improve the welfare of a country". > So those folks rioting in the street, waving > placards and tearing people apart, > they are just having a bit of fun are they, a bit of > a giggle. There were die-hard Nazis in Germany in 1946. You think their objections to the new government means that Germany wasn't a better place for the old government's removal? > I dont know if its better or worse, all I can say is > that, from my couch, > it does not look pretty. And those who claim its > undeniably better, > cos now they are "free" need to take a walk down the > back streets of Baghdad > or Fallujah and then I may listen to their opinion. > I haven't, and thus I cant say. Well, I've _tried_ to do that, and still hope to do so. I've spoken to many, many people who have done both those things. But, again, all you're doing is abdicating your moral responsibility. You haven't been to Baghdad, but you have plenty of available information that allows you to make a moral judgment. I note, in fact, that you _have_ made that judgment. Your judgment is that what the American government has done is worse than Saddam. So you do say, actually. > You would lose that bet Gautum. I think they should > have got rid of him in 91. > Why must I be a Saddam lover just cos I question the > strategic correctness > of the American invasion? Can I infer from the US > lack of an invasion of > North Korea that Bush enjoys licking the ass of Mr > K? But, of course, you _aren't questioning_ the strategic correctness of the American invasion. It may have been a bad idea. Dan thought it was a bad idea, I thought it was a good idea, but we differed civilly on the issue. What you are questioning is whether removing Saddam was a good thing. That's _completely different_ from the question of whether it was worth the sacrifices by Americans and our allies to remove him. > >Fine. I don't either. But if you hold those > >positions with _equal intensity_ then you're > morally > >obtuse at best. > > You have lost me here. I either love Saddam and want > him extradited to Australia > so I can vote him in as President, or I want him > drawn, torn and quartered in front of the > Lincoln Memorial? Cant I have something in between? > Like something sensible? Well, wanting him (emotionally, as opposed to rationally) drawn and quartered in front of the Lincoln Memorial doesn't strike me as all that unreasonable, given what he has done. But your judgment of equivalence is what is morally obtuse. I'm not accusing you of "loving Saddam". I'm accusing you of being unable to morally distinguish between him and the imperfect people who removed him. > Are they? How do we know that? > Ahh, CNN said so, of course !! Well, the Iraqis too. Why don't you care about _their_ opinions? Given CNN's history of giving Saddam favorably publicity (something admitted by _its own senior staff in the New York Times_, not a judgment on my part, although I always knew that they did that) I would think they'd be fairly credible as well if they are saying something good about present-day Iraq, but that's a different story. > And is that the question? > I thought the question was about how best to > safeguard the world from Terrorists? A good question, and an important one. But a very different question from the one of "Are the people of Iraq better off now than they were under Saddam?" Which was what started this discussion. > I disagree. A lot of other questions are more > interesting. > But thats my take. And you seem to have cast me in > a mould I dont think I fit. > If I (and the world community) thought invading > Iraq was going to make the world a better place, > then I'd be there > with bells on. I see. Yet (again) this contrasts with your earlier statements. First, I find your faith in the world community to be somewhat odd. You really think that if (for example) the Chinese government thought that invading Iraq would make it a better place they would have supported it? Apart from that issue - did you oppose the war because you thought it was bad for the US, or because you thought it was bad for Iraq (or both)? I'll focus on the second argument. It is my belief that the Saddam Hussein government was, for all practical purposes, distilled evil. There's no reason to go over its various barbarities here. Now, either you think the current regime there is an improvement for the people of Iraq or you don't. It's a binary set, one or the other. You can disagree with the war and still be making an honest moral judgment. Dan did, and I respect his opinion. But if you say that the current government in Iraq is as bad as the one it replaced, that's something else entirely. You're going to have to tell me what, exactly, it's doing that makes it as bad as that of Saddam. Finally, a note on your final description of invading Iraq as "fascism". I can't quote it, unfortunately, as Yahoo truncates replies. No, it's not fascism. Fascism is a word that has a meaning. This meaning is something very different from any government action which you dislike. Describing anything you dislike as "fascist" is literally Orwellian - the distortion of language in pursuit of political ends in order to obscure the truth. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
