OK, I still don't get it. No way in the world do any of the Bush adminstration's stated reasons for war hold up. This, via LiveJournal is a pretty decent representation. A sample:
A Warmonger Explains War to a Peacenik
A Warmonger Explains War to a Peacenik
By Bill Davidson
| PN: |
So, likewise, if the world called on us to do something, such as find
a peaceful solution, we would have an obligation to listen?
| | WM: |
By "world", I meant the United Nations.
| | PN: |
So, we have an obligation to listen to the United Nations?
| | WM: |
By "United Nations" I meant the Security Council.
| | PN: |
So, we have an obligation to listen to the Security Council?
| | WM: |
I meant the majority of the Security Council.
| | PN: |
So, we have an obligation to listen to the majority of the Security
Council?
| | WM: |
Well... there could be an unreasonable veto.
|
It'd be hilarious if a few thousand people weren't about to be deconstructed on the strength of this kind of reasoning.
And there's the risks. I watched an anti-war protest on Friday her in Melbourne, Australia. Peaceful enough, as you'd hope. But then I read of police bashing protesters in San Francisco.
So, what happens if the war drags on? If civilian and military casualities mount? If the protests escalate? Police against citizen.
Perhaps the dock workers go on strike in protest at the miserable, daily loss of life. Perhaps transport workers too. Perhaps various, essential administrative functions. The economy starts to wind down.
The US government must have seen these as possibilities, played them out as scenarios, constructed strategies to mitigate against them. But it's all risk management, risk assessment, not guaranteed risk avoidance.
We haven't even thought of what the international community might do in an extreme situation.
So, what, what, what is the motivation? What is so important as to be worth the risk of international oprobrium, prosecution for war crimes, massive civil unrest, and massive economic slump? It's tempting to think that it's nothing more than a cowboy president, for whom failure is an alien concept. But, Britain has weighed in too. (Forget Australia: John Howard is a man who has made many thinking people ashamed to call themselves Australian.) So, what did the US say to Britain that was so compelling that it, too, was willing to risk all of the above? What is it that Bush, Powell, Blair, et al know that the rest of the world, possibly including Robin Cook does not?
I expect, for a long time, we'll never know.
Edit: I was avoiding the obvious but frightening explanation: a simple-minded man has whipped an entire nation into an ill-advised, ill-informed, patriotic frenzy, which transcends reason, and then used economic leverage to bully major allies into going along with it.
10:38:14 PM 
|
|
