apple juice

I feel I should clarify my position on the whole Iraq war, President Bush thing. At least for myself, because it’s confusing just thinking about it.

I have no doubt that Saddam is a bad person, evil even. I am sure that he has researched, and used chemical weapons. I think there is evidence of this. I am sure he has tortured and killed his own people, and basically rules the country with an iron fist. I would not want to be living in Iraq under his regime.

I also think that President Bush, and our government as a whole, does not always act in the best interests of the citizens of this world. The government probably acts with the best interests of American citizens in mind, (most of the time), but rarely (if ever) would our government act purely in the best interests of a group of people other than our own. Rarely do we show any sort of patience in dealing with the rest of the world when it comes to issues confronting the EU, the UN, etc.

Since we are the defacto world power now, we should act in the interests of others. That should be our mandate. Why? Because we can! We have no reason to make our economy any stronger, or our military any mightier. I read somewhere today that we’re at level 10, we’re at the top, and instead of dedicating our massive resources to developing countries to help them get from level 1 to level 2, we’re out there trying to get to level 11.

Of course by going to war, we can say we are acting in the best interest of the Iraqi people. Are we? We’ve left them there for the past 12 years, and now it has become an issue?

Anyways, war is always bad. It is never something we should enter into on a whim, without exhausting every option. Have we, as a country, exhausted every option? Have we built a broad consensus? We haven’t, and it will reflect very poorly on our already tarnished world image.

Bush and his buddies have been claiming that they ‘know’ Saddam is evil, that he has WMD, he’s torturing his people, starving them, etc. They also claim they have evidence of this. So I say to them, out with it. If this evidence is so sound, that it implicates Saddam and his government of everything Bush has accused them of in the past year, then I think that we will gain the broad coalition that we need to remove Saddam from power.

If this evidence is not so sound, then the inspections must continue. We must exhaust every single dimplomatic and economic pressure that we can lay on Iraq before turning to war. I don’t think anyone is doubting that we have military might unmatched by any country in the world. I’m not worried about that. I’m worried that we go off, by ourselves, and attack, just or not. This incites a new wave of anti-americanism and terrorism unseen to this point. What have we accomplished? We’ve removed Saddam and installed a ‘democratic’ government in the center of the anti-america. We just pissed off the majority of our European friends. We’ve pissed off China, the Koreas, and the Soviet Union. And we’ve pissed off a whole group of people that are more than happy to sacrifice themselves for their cause.

It is not worth the risk to human lives, home and abroad, to roll in there without a world mandate. With the backing of the UN and all of our strongest allies, our case for removing Saddam is sound. Without those allies, our actions, just or not, will only be seen as America over-reaching its bounds, playing cowboy, etc.

Now if this is another case of a Hitler, doing horrible unspeakable atrocities as we speak, and we have the evidence of this, show the evidence and the world will jump to action. Believe me, there is no one in the world more sensitive to this than the Europeans. Obviously, if there is inaction at that point, then we cannot wait. I highly doubt that faced with undeniable evidence that there would be inaction by the Europeans.

To this point, we have shown no evidence, and given no reason for the rest of the world to think that this is anything but a chance for America to extend its reach, influence and power into another corner of the world.

But I fear it is already too late. Our forces our amassing in the gulf. After an extremely mixed world reaction to the SotU address, we have given Iraq weeks before the bombs start falling. Colin Powell is supposed to present the ‘smoking gun’ evidence in one week. Is it going to sway world opinion? If it doesn’t, Are we going to pull back at this point? Are the cowboys going to put their guns back in the holsters? I doubt it.