Neo Pacifists
Every time we have war nowadays, there are people who oppose the war on the grounds that war is unjust, and there are people who oppose the war on the grounds that the particular war in question does not make sense. On our current Iraq issue, I am staunchly in the latter camp, and I am starting to become increasingly annoyed at "tree-hugging hippies" in the former camp that make me look like an idiot by association.
It's the difference between Kyle saying "Kick the Baby!", Wendy going "No! Don't kick the baby! Don't kick anything!" and Stan saying "Don't kick the baby, kick Cartman first!" I'm Stan, and the Wendys make me want to puke.
Here and here are two people responding to the anti-war crowd (the former variety).
The second entry (politburo.com) makes the following excellent point - and one which is not made nearly enough (I suspect primarily because the hawks that should be making it are typically conservative repeaters re-transmitting their Rush or Hannity):
Even though the stated reason for attacking Iraq has little to do with Saddam’s appalling human rights record, it is important to remember the lessons of the past century: while Blair and Bush are bound to first ensure the safety of its own citizens—and Saddam surely poses a threat to every American and Briton/ at home and abroad, an abandonment of the core principals of international human rights is a moral abdication of democratic leadership.
Two good words: Moral Abdication.
Posted by Peter at February 19, 2003 12:24 AM
Comments
Why? Because it sounds much better to the antiwar activists if we are doing it for the good of the people. People who might otherwise be against war will support a war to "free" oppressed people. I mean come on. "Freeing oppressed people" is such a emotionally charged term. It's like repeating over and over again that terrorists are targeting "innocent Americans."
Like you pointed out in the next post, we haven't heard too many convincing reasons why we are going to war. It's like if you can think up enough mediocre reasons to go to war, it will have the same weight as convincing reasons. We need to go to war because they might have ties to Al Quada, and uh, they might be developing weapons of mass destruction, and uh, they are being oppressed, and uh, they bit their thumbs at us, and uh, the didn't listen to the UN....
Now, some of those reasons above might well be dangerous enough to declare war if they weren't all just allegations.
Fact: Iraq had chemical weapons during the Gulf War.
Is that a WoMD? Originally, Bush alleged that Iraq is developing nukes and then carefully slid over to using the term "weapons of mass destruction" which I guess covers chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Should we go to war if any or all of these are being developed?
Fact: The people are being oppressed by a dictator.
We normally don't "waste" lives to free people from dictators; otherwise we would be at war all of the time.
A question I have is as follows: Has Bush stated that there are definite strong ties to Al Queda? I've only heard that there was one incident of a Al Queda person talking to someone with Iraqi ties in like Amsterdam(?). Or are we now avoiding the topic of ties to Al Queda, so we don't have people pointing at Saudi Arabia?
MORE ON TOPIC. (no way to do titles for comments?)
I was reading your second link above and the comments that follow it.
I haven't been thinking too much of antiwar protests in other countries, because basically they can all go to hell (unless we are really burning a lot bridges), if we have convincing reasons to go to war. However, some of the comments make the statement that most of the neo pacifists are fueled by anti-american sentiment.
Someone even asks the question, "were it Iran, for example, rather than the U.S., that was contemplating an attack on Iraq, do you believe that [people] would have turned out in such large numbers to protest?"
What does everyone think about this?
Brad, thanks for visiting The Politburo. I will be posting on this subject later today. As an American living abroad, I can say with some authority that anti-Americanism in Europe is the motivation for most of this anti-war pap. Like I said, I will be posting further on this along with some good ol' anti-American photos from the Stockholm hate march.
Michael Moynihan
www.thepolitburo.com
Why? Because it sounds much better to the antiwar activists if we are doing it for the good of the people. People who might otherwise be against war will support a war to "free" oppressed people. I mean come on. "Freeing oppressed people" is such a emotionally charged term. It's like repeating over and over again that terrorists are targeting "innocent Americans."
Like you pointed out in the next post, we haven't heard too many convincing reasons why we are going to war. It's like if you can think up enough mediocre reasons to go to war, it will have the same weight as convincing reasons. We need to go to war because they might have ties to Al Quada, and uh, they might be developing weapons of mass destruction, and uh, they are being oppressed, and uh, they bit their thumbs at us, and uh, the didn't listen to the UN....
Now, some of those reasons above might well be dangerous enough to declare war if they weren't all just allegations.
Fact: Iraq had chemical weapons during the Gulf War.
Is that a WoMD? Originally, Bush alleged that Iraq is developing nukes and then carefully slid over to using the term "weapons of mass destruction" which I guess covers chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons. Should we go to war if any or all of these are being developed?
Fact: The people are being oppressed by a dictator.
We normally don't "waste" lives to free people from dictators; otherwise we would be at war all of the time.
A question I have is as follows: Has Bush stated that there are definite strong ties to Al Queda? I've only heard that there was one incident of a Al Queda person talking to someone with Iraqi ties in like Amsterdam(?). Or are we now avoiding the topic of ties to Al Queda, so we don't have people pointing at Saudi Arabia?