Political Rant, Part One
With the Obama/Hillary showdown proving a lot more interesting than the Obama/McCain showdown will probably be (I predict every debate will include the words, "When I was your age, young Barack...") I thought it was time for me to share the political opinions that nobody cares about.
1) Why I Oppose (and always did) the War in Iraq. Or: That's Right, I Hated the War Before it was Cool.
Does anyone remember Afghanistan? It's the other war. By the way, it's also the country where the guy who masterminded a major terrorist attack was last located. He's the one we never caught and executed.
Afghanistan seems to get as much press as Korea does in relation to Vietnam, so I thought it would be nice to talk about this little war for a while. Start with this. So the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden to another country at one point. Although it doesn't sound like the best idea--who would they have chosen, Pakistan?--it might have isolated the source of the 9/11 terrorist threat from the beginning. And maybe settled things down a bit before a major military commitment. Of course, I'm not sure that anyone in the US wanted such a bloodless victory.
The Taliban fell, though it reformed. There are UN troops in Afghanistan and Canada is currently very worried about its role there in trying to rebuild the country. Afghanistan is the major producer of heroin in the world, and like Somalia, is mostly controlled by warlords. It is no more stable now than Iraq, and the President knew when he invaded Iraq that Afghanistan would be hard to handle and Al-Qaeda, within Afghanistan, was nowhere near neutralized. So that's the commitment we made before Iraq. And the US is still committed to it, though they've left it mostly in the hands of the UN forces.
Some people want you to believe that Obama is a fool for calling for negotiations with people like Hezbollah and Hamas. Those people seem to forget that negotiations with a terrorist group, with whom Scott Card lumps the Palestinians, have worked in the past. Most recently, they worked in Belfast in 2005.
"Terrorist groups" is a terrible simplification for people like Hamas, who basically own Palestine. They build hospitals, provide medical and health care, build and maintain mosques, run TV stations, and, not surprisingly, are a force in politics. And, like with any organization, there are different forces at work within it. Scott has joined with a force that prefers to see events in black and white so that they can shift responsibility. "The Palestinians did not do what we asked them to do, therefore we have NO blame for the situation there." Of course. Just like England had no blame for the motivation of the IRA.
Finally, for all the furor about Obama's position, the truth is, no once can tell what a President will do until they're in office.
The only thing Obama has proven in his stance on the war is that he's not an idiot. He opposed the war when military resources were strained and an oil-friendly administration was trying to tighten its grip on an oil-rich country. But once US soldiers and Iraqi lives were invested and US responsibility was taken, he was a little more hesitant about incurring a bloodbath by pulling out. Now that it has become clear that there are only hard choices regarding the war, he wants to withdraw troops but step up humanitarian effort. Will it have disastrous consequences for the region? Most likely. What will happen if we keep US troops in Iraq? US troops will keep dying, and Afghanistan will get worse, and our aid won't go to places like Sudan and Liberia. Sounds like disastrous consequences.
So he's looking at the past precedent of people like Carter and Clinton who, though their truces fell apart, managed to suspend the bloodletting. Maybe, he thinks, I can suspend the bloodletting enough to have a Northern Ireland eventually, where old grudges simmer but are put aside in the name of economic prosperity.
What is our other option? More fighting? Optimism may be a risky projection, but when we see what pessimism has led to, and the hard choices on either side where lives will be lost one way or another, we need to dare to dream of change.
1) Why I Oppose (and always did) the War in Iraq. Or: That's Right, I Hated the War Before it was Cool.
Does anyone remember Afghanistan? It's the other war. By the way, it's also the country where the guy who masterminded a major terrorist attack was last located. He's the one we never caught and executed.
Afghanistan seems to get as much press as Korea does in relation to Vietnam, so I thought it would be nice to talk about this little war for a while. Start with this. So the Taliban offered to hand over Bin Laden to another country at one point. Although it doesn't sound like the best idea--who would they have chosen, Pakistan?--it might have isolated the source of the 9/11 terrorist threat from the beginning. And maybe settled things down a bit before a major military commitment. Of course, I'm not sure that anyone in the US wanted such a bloodless victory.
The Taliban fell, though it reformed. There are UN troops in Afghanistan and Canada is currently very worried about its role there in trying to rebuild the country. Afghanistan is the major producer of heroin in the world, and like Somalia, is mostly controlled by warlords. It is no more stable now than Iraq, and the President knew when he invaded Iraq that Afghanistan would be hard to handle and Al-Qaeda, within Afghanistan, was nowhere near neutralized. So that's the commitment we made before Iraq. And the US is still committed to it, though they've left it mostly in the hands of the UN forces.
Some people want you to believe that Obama is a fool for calling for negotiations with people like Hezbollah and Hamas. Those people seem to forget that negotiations with a terrorist group, with whom Scott Card lumps the Palestinians, have worked in the past. Most recently, they worked in Belfast in 2005.
"Terrorist groups" is a terrible simplification for people like Hamas, who basically own Palestine. They build hospitals, provide medical and health care, build and maintain mosques, run TV stations, and, not surprisingly, are a force in politics. And, like with any organization, there are different forces at work within it. Scott has joined with a force that prefers to see events in black and white so that they can shift responsibility. "The Palestinians did not do what we asked them to do, therefore we have NO blame for the situation there." Of course. Just like England had no blame for the motivation of the IRA.
Finally, for all the furor about Obama's position, the truth is, no once can tell what a President will do until they're in office.
The only thing Obama has proven in his stance on the war is that he's not an idiot. He opposed the war when military resources were strained and an oil-friendly administration was trying to tighten its grip on an oil-rich country. But once US soldiers and Iraqi lives were invested and US responsibility was taken, he was a little more hesitant about incurring a bloodbath by pulling out. Now that it has become clear that there are only hard choices regarding the war, he wants to withdraw troops but step up humanitarian effort. Will it have disastrous consequences for the region? Most likely. What will happen if we keep US troops in Iraq? US troops will keep dying, and Afghanistan will get worse, and our aid won't go to places like Sudan and Liberia. Sounds like disastrous consequences.
So he's looking at the past precedent of people like Carter and Clinton who, though their truces fell apart, managed to suspend the bloodletting. Maybe, he thinks, I can suspend the bloodletting enough to have a Northern Ireland eventually, where old grudges simmer but are put aside in the name of economic prosperity.
What is our other option? More fighting? Optimism may be a risky projection, but when we see what pessimism has led to, and the hard choices on either side where lives will be lost one way or another, we need to dare to dream of change.
posted by Spencer at 8:51 PM
1 Comments:
I like your musings. As we've discussed before, my "stance" on the war has never been firm one way or another. I appreciate your informed opinion.
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