war sucks, mmkay

[rone]

Here's another voice against war, via dr_memory. I would recommend this one especially to you pro-war folk, as it's very well written.

Comments

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

It is almost exactly why I'm annoyed at both sides of the debate using Hussein's victims as justification for their views (save the people on the pro side and wait to hear what exactly the peope want on the anti side). That the war liberates the people is a happy coincidence, but it is not the major reason. I'm okay with it being on a list of secondary points, but anything else puts us in the position of having to either go after all of the world's state torturers or give compelling reason not to. That's not a tenable position.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yay! We agree! Hugs all around!

What about beer?

[therobbergirl.livejournal.com]

Beer. We always agree about beer.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Wow.

He took the niggling little thing that has kept me from saying, "Yeah! Let's go! Kick some ass!" and just busted it wide open.

Bush, presumptuous? Who would have thought?

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Not only is that a great essay, I love dr_memory's other journal entries.

[huaman.livejournal.com]

I'm curious if you're running across many people who are genuinely pro-war, as in, believe this is the right thing to do and it needs to happen right now. For my part, while I do know a good number of people who are in the 'support the troops' camp, I can only think of one person (who I know only in email) who explicitly believes it's a justified military action. That guy is basically certain Saddam Hussein was involved in September 11th, and September 11th justifies anything -- military action abroad, martial law in the US, rounding up anybody who looks like an Arab, you name it. I can't take anything that guy says seriously. I want to find some rational, thoughtful stuff to read that contains serious and plausible justifications for this war, but (surprise!) that seems in short supply.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I do, in fact, know some people who are genuinely in favor of the current campaign. None of them are reality-challenged like the fellow you mention. Nonetheless, i don't find from them any serious justifications that i find plausible. It boils down to a difference of opinion, i guess.

Reasons for war

[blarglefiend.livejournal.com]

Tony Blair gives a pretty good outline of his reasons in this (http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/cm030318/debtext/30318-06.htm#30318-06_spmin2) speech to Parliament. You'll note that "liberating the Iraqi people" is not exactly high up on his list of reasons which is a bit of a contrast with the rhetoric coming from the White House.

My own view these days is that some sort of conflict was pretty much inevitable. It would've been better if it had been a UN rather than US/UK action, but Bush seems to have made that impossible quite a while back by his handling of the foreign policy sphere. It's amazing how quickly he managed to kill off the sympathy and support you guys got all over the place after Sept. 11.

[jeff2001.livejournal.com]

I'm pro-war. I've got a bunch of good reasons why.

September 11th is not one of them.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Hua: There's a lot of more-or-less rational people out there who are 100% convinced that this war is absolutely necessary to protect the security of this country. I'm surprised you haven't run across more of them.

A good place to start: James Lileks, the guy behind the Gallery of Regrettable Food and other similar things that I've pimped to you before, has a daily weblog-ish thing called the Daily Bleat (http://lileks.com/bleats/), and it's mostly been talking about the war recently. I tend to use Lileks as my personal dipstick of what middle america is thinking: he's well-educated, articulate, thoughtful, Republican without being a frothing paranoids or cryptonazi...and 100% convinced that if we don't invade Iraq now now now, Iraqi agents are going to be releasing VX nerve gas in the NYC subways next year. He also links to a lot of people with similar positions, so it's a good place to start.