I’ve got a rant to get out.

March 19, 2003

With my reluctance to start the work I have due tomorrow and things headed the way they are, I thought that I’d step up on the soapbox for a moment and discuss my feelings about the Iraq situation since things are not likely to be resolved peacefully. The deadline for Saddam Hussein and his sons to leave Iraq expires tonight, and like the rest of the world, I am breathlessly awaiting what comes next. Not out of anticipation, but out of curiosity and to some extent, fear.

I’m sick of the war activism. I hate it. It’s like people have seen movies about the 1960’s and early 1970’s and have decided that they can do the same thing, except people are doing it both ways–pro- and anti-war. I’m not sick of hearing the activism, actually, but I’m sick of the untruths, factual errors, and downright ignorance displayed by both sides. On one hand, we have the vocal population against war, including many celebrities such as Susan Sarandon, Danny Glover, and Martin Sheen to name a few off the top of my head. They have used their positions of status to make their opinions known, which is their right as Americans as guaranteed by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. People such as musician Charlie Daniels have come out against these activists, criticizing both their lack of knowledge and their lack of right to say and do things like that. Well isn’t that the kettle calling the pot black? Aren’t you doing the same, Charlie? People have even said they will boycott movies and TV shows by these celebrities that have spoken out against us going to war.

As a result, these “Hollywood type people” as Charlie Daniels put it, and many others have been called “anti-American” thanks to the propaganda the US government has been churning out like mad. You know what I have to say to all those people who stand up against the activists and call them things like “anti-American”? Screw you. That’s actually not what I’d say to them, but I know that some of you wouldn’t approve of my language. Calling someone anti-American for exercising the first right guaranteed to all Americans in the appropriately-titled “Bill of Rights” is more American than anything else you can offer up. Stifling someone else’s opinion is what’s anti-American, even if you don’t agree with it. So before you speak up and do nothing but show your ignorance of both your own country and the issue at hand, do us all a favor and shut the hell up. You only make yourself sound bad and unintelligent, not the people you badmouth. These people have as much a right to be talking as you. So as you’re eating your “freedom” fries in the all-American McDonald’s and reading USA Today’s daily article about why Bush is doing the right thing–using the administration’s evidence, no less–you just think about all this.

That being said, here’s what I have to say to the vocal anti-war activists: you shut the hell up, too. I’m sick of hearing how stupid Bush is, how wrong we are, and how France has finally grown some balls for standing up against us. I’m sick of hearing about this war is about oil. Comments like that do nothing except to make me think how thoroughly uneducated people really are and how they think that everything is black and white. My father taught me after I started learning about the world in college that things are never black and white. Every time I hear that we’re going to war to get oil I can’t help but wonder if people actually think that’s why we’re going to war with Iraq. You know what, though? Bush is stupid. He doesn’t have a proper grasp of the English language and I fear that the current crisis may result in a nu-cue-ler war as opposed, say, to a nu-klee-er war. The man got straight C’s in college courses. I’m a B student–at this rate, I could rule the world. Pointing out that he’s dumb doesn’t make you or your point sound smarter, though. It makes you sound vindictive and childish. You also imply that he’s the only person in power in the entire country, another sign of ignorance. France did grow some balls and stand up against us, but not for why you think. They want Iraq disarmed as much as the next country, they just don’t want to go to war to do so. Iraq has a lot of oil, but there’s no purpose in us going to war for that. There isn’t an oil shortage, and besides, Iraq is part of OPEC, and they’re the ones that set oil prices, not individual states. Iraq withdrawing from OPEC would have disastrous repercussions in every oil-producing state around the world. If we wanted oil so badly, we could have gone through Venezuela or Kuwait instead of militarily invading another state. We could have even drilled in Alaska if we were desperate. You can bet that drilling up there is a lot cheaper both in terms of support, money, and repercussions than getting oil in Iraq. So shut the hell up about it being an oil war. Oil prices rose because we began the process of going to war, not the other way around. Saying it’s an oil war and nothing more completely dehumanizes the people that Hussein has directly and indirectly killed.

Yes, we’re in an economic slump and we can’t afford this war. World War II pulled us out of the Great Depression, but we’re not in the same sort of situation, now. This is a temporary economic condition that has been cyclical the entire century. Do you have any idea what our unemployment rate is? It’s around 5-6%. Do you have any idea what the unemployment rate in all the other Western nations are? It’s runs somewhere between 7-8%–in good conditions. We’re doing better than the rest of the world. You anti-war activists have every right to make your opinion heard, and I encourage people to do so and speak up, but tossing insults both at the administration and activists on the other side does nothing but breed hatred. State facts and evidence, not jabs and untruths. The world keeps saying how sick they are that the international community never does anything about issues that are important, and having just spent the last week learning about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, I have to agree. Now we have the United States putting its foot down and saying “Enough” to Iraq. I shudder at the World War II comparisons to Neville Chamberlin and Adolf Hitler and Chamberlin’s now-famous “Peace in our time!” statement as he stepped off the plane coming back from appeasing Hitler’s demands, not because I fear Iraq will do the same thing as Hitler, but because we’ve drawn our lessons from the wrong places. The next person who calls Hussein “Hitler”, however, will find my boot up their ass because it doesn’t increase Saddam’s monstrosity, but it decreases Hitler’s. I was furious at PETA’s recent ad campaign comparing animal slaughterhouses with Nazi concentration camps, though I digress a bit.

Now that I’ve torn apart both sides, I’ll use my first amendment rights and tell you what I think. Saddam Hussein should not be in power in Iraq. Saddam Hussein should not be in power anywhere. Saddam Hussein should be in a prison cell, sent there by the courts in The Hague for crimes against humanity. It is not propaganda to say that Saddam Hussein has had tens of thousands of his own people killed. Intelligence about the conditions of dissidents in Iraq has not been proven because not many people are allowed to go in and report on those things (as in, none), but with the great amount of circumstantial evidence aside, Hussein’s treatment of the Kurdish population alone should should have send him to prison. Over five thousand Kurdish civilians were gassed using chemical weapons in the town of Halabja in the late 1980’s, and that was just one incident. Iraq has shown that it is capable and willing to use weapons of mass destruction on other states (Iran) as well as its own population. That in itself is reason enough why he should be out on trial. Are we the ones to go in and drive him out? No, we are not.

The world, particularly the Western nations that can afford to do so need to make more of an effort to end humanitarian abuses, terrorism, and other things along the same lines, but it can’t be done by one nation alone. The world came together following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait at the behest of the United States, and whatever you may think about the justifiability and reasons for that war, a large coalition of nations worked together to drive the Iraqis out of the state they did not just invade, but stripped and plundered on their way in and on their way out. The Iraqi army set the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire as they retreated to spite both the Kuwaitis and the liberating armies. This is an issue for the world, not the US. That is what we must do again. The United Nations has made it perfectly clear they want Saddam Hussein disarmed, and it is through them that this must be resolved. The US going over the head of the UN does nothing but to increase anti-US sentiment around the world and to reduce the authority that the UN has. The United Nations is the most important body that has existed in the entire history of the world, and by thumbing our nose at it we’re destroying an already-fragile and increasingly powerless organization. We even split NATO over our decision, a body, I might add, that we formed.. I don’t think either organization will dissolve like the League of Nations did before World War II, but the reason the League of Nations dissolved is because states stopped taking it seriously, began acting outside it, and eventually made it useless. I don’t want that to happen to the UN, and the US doing whatever the hell it feels like is the first step down those lines. To make a pop culture reference, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Just because we have the means, the motive (real or not), and the opportunity to fight Iraq doesn’t mean that we should.

If Iraq is to be disarmed, or even better, Saddam Hussein removed from power, then the majority of the world needs to rise up and with one voice make it so. Have you looked at our list of “allies” in the war? When we gladly publish such illustrious allies as Eritrea, Afghanistan, Albania, Romania, Iceland, Denmark, and Macedonia, to name a name a few of the magic 30 yet conspicuously leave out France, Germany, Russia, China, Mexico, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, and even Israel, then things have gone to hell. You know why those states were not listed? Because they don’t support us. Hell, even Iran doesn’t support us, and Saddam Hussein fought an essentially pointless eight year war with them that killed hundreds of thousands on both sides. Our strongest allies around the world have stepped back and said no to this. Bowing to international pressure isn’t a sign of weakness, but a sign of solidarity. Do I believe that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction? I don’t know. That’s why I want the inspectors there, to find out. If the combined might of the UN can’t find evidence of these weapons, then I will accept that at face value, no matter what the US may say. Invading is going to cost lives of both Americans and Iraqi. We’ve gotten better at waging war in the last 60 years and as a result not nearly as many civilians will die, but they still will. People who have nothing to do with the conflict will lose their life, maybe without even knowing how or why. Do I believe that Iraq has ties to terrorism? I don’t know, but I’m not going to accept the word of our government alone on this particular issue.

So where do I think we should go from now? If I had my way, then I would send the inspectors back into Iraq with a doubled team as well as a security force provided by the Security Council, made up of the nations that did not support military action. These would be to guarantee the safety of the inspectors and to guarantee the access of the inspectors. Iraq may stand up against weapons inspectors but they will not stand up against the Security Council. Let them make a move against the UN. Go ahead. I’d like to see them do so. File a formal complaint. Instead of this, tonight the deadline expires and we may begin bombing Iraq paving the way for a ground invasion. Iraq reportedly has armed some of its southern units with chemical weapons according to several news sources, and frankly, I say go ahead and use them on our troops. That would be the dumbest thing Iraq could possibly do at this point, and I hope they don’t realize that. Not using them or dare I say it–not having them in the first place–would just be egg on the faces of the US administration, unable for us to say to the world “I told you so!” We’re going to lose American lives in this conflict no matter what, and if they’re going to die I say let them die conclusively proving the existence of the weapons Iraq says it doesn’t have and wouldn’t use. France has said they would reconsider their decision to not use force in that event, and if that were to happen then I’m sure our other allies would come to our aid, as well. Hussein and Iraq’s days would be numbered. Since we are likely going to invade in the end, I have but this to say to the tens of thousands of American and British troops stationed in the Middle East right now, including my friend from Beloit Megan Bondehagen: good luck. I personally don’t think that you should be over there but I know that you don’t have a choice. Keep your head down and stay out of trouble.

I have a paper to write tonight but I think I’ll take a network cable with me into the study lounge so that I can keep an eye on the news as I write. I may find it difficult to write in the end. Dan got off this morning for his trip to Hamburg. I took him to the Ramada at 8:15 this morning, and now I have his car until Sunday. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it yet, though. Heather is going out of town this weekend as well, going down to Chicago to visit a friend, so my two best friends will be AWOL. Plus I don’t have a lot of money right now. I’d like to get out of town for awhile, maybe just drive down to Rockford and go to dinner at Olive Garden or someplace. I need a change in pace. I’ve been swamped with work over the last few weeks, barely able to get a few moments rest. Tomorrow I have the first draft of a paper due as well as having to talk about the reading that I have to do for the very same class. Next week is another presentation and another paper. Then it’s back to work on my project You see why I need some rest?

And the war isn’t going to help things because I’ll want to know what’s going on. The inevitable backlash against the US will create even more news, maybe even another terrorist attack. It’s going to be a tough few weeks coming up.

What the hell is wrong with this world?

Posted in Beloit, General