[CLUE-Talk] Going to war, how much to pay people

[Matt Gushee]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 12:03:09AM -0700, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> On Thu, 2003-01-30 at 22:48, Matt Gushee wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 30, 2003 at 07:36:53PM -0700, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> > > 
> > > The fact that Hussein has proven to be brutal is one thing, but times
> > > have changed so that today we're NOT like 1940's.  Hussein can now
> > > deploy a dirty bomb anywhere in the US since our borders are so open!! 
> > > Is this a good enough argument!!
> > 
> > No.
> > 
> > First of all, we don't know that Iraq has any such weapons. And even if
> > it does, the fact that it *could* deploy them in the US doesn't mean
> > that it would. Saddam Hussein is not Osama Bin Laden. For one thing, he
> > has a lot to lose. He's got all that oil, and perhaps more importantly
> > for him, he has several million people under his thumb. Maybe he's a bit
> > mad, but I doubt he is so mad as to not realize what would happen to him
> > and his country if he actually attacked the United States.
> 
> You actually TRUST Hussein?

1. Would you cool it with the all-caps and multiple exclamation points,
   please? I can read perfectly well without them.
2. Read what I wrote. My statement had absolutely nothing to do with
   Saddam's (un)trustworthiness. It was a logical projection based on my
   understanding of the world situation and of human nature. My logic
   could be flawed, and my understanding is certainly incomplete. Can
   you claim anything different for yourself?

> Do you think that he may have had ties to
> Osam bin Laden?

No, I don't. But your ritual invocation of the 9/11 symbol implied that
you do. At the risk of stating the obvious, my point was to draw a
distinction between Bin Laden, who is a stateless religious fanatic, and
whom we are fairly certain is a terrorist leader, and Saddam Hussein,
who is the secular dictator of a once-powerful country, and who is not
known to be an active sponsor of terrorism outside his own borders.

> On tonight's PBS about the Gulf War, Hussein was elated
> that he would stay in power and that the US was not coming after him. 

Exactly. He knows we could crush him, and I argue that that knowledge
helps keep him in check.

> It seems you always find places to support Hussein 

That is a very low blow. Not quite character assassination, but getting
pretty damn close. What on earth leads you to believe that I support
Saddam Hussein? My position is:

 * It is unproven that Saddam Hussein poses enough of a threat to
   justify military action at this time; I personally believe he does
   not.
 * It is not our job to judge the entire world and to destroy all that
   we see as being evil.
 * We and our allies have interests, and I hope that we will pursue them
   in an enlightened manner as far as possible (see next point).
 * There is very little international support for this war effort, and
   we will do serious long-term damage to our relations with the world
   if we continue on our present course without compelling new evidence
   against Saddam Hussein.

> rather than ask the Iraqie people what they want.

So you have asked them what they want? What did they say to you?

And I claim we currently have extremely unwise people at the top. If you
haven't seen that, I don't think I have the energy to even start to try
to convince you.

> > Or have you bought into Mr. Bush's Manichaean delusion, that the world
> > is divided into good countries and evil ones (the US being among the
> > good, of course), and that the good ones have the right and
> > responsibility to, as he puts it, "rid the world of evil?"
> 
> There are good, better, and best countries in terms of providing for the
> health and welfare of it's people and compared with Iraq, I'll pick the
> US anyday.  It still has it's problems, but it's the best at the moment.

Having spent eight years in Japan, I'm not so sure that the US has the
best system in terms of health and welfare. But you've missed my point
entirely. President Bush, if his rhetoric is taken at all seriously,
believes that the world is irrevocably divided into good and evil
nations, and that he is on a mission from God to destroy the evil ones.
He is, after all, on record saying that we will "rid the world of evil."
Think for a moment about the implications of that statement (BTW, any
Christians tuned into this debate? Isn't that generally considered
heresy?). If you share that point of view, then this whole debate is
utterly pointless.

On the other hand, if you take what I would consider the rational
position that nations and their actions come in shades of grey, then I
think you have to come up with compelling reasons why invading Iraq

  a) is morally justified, or at least a pragmatic necessity; and
  b) will benefit us, our allies, or the world more than it costs.

At this point I don't accept either proposition. We'll see what happens
when Colin Powell presents his secret evidence to the UN, but my
armchair prognostication is that he will fail to win new allies to the
cause, and the US will invade anyway (how could we back down now? The
Bush camp has been demanding its war for over a year now, and there
are--according to an article I read today--about 200,000 troops waiting
for the signal to invade).

> > > Matt, the game rules have been changed by the terrorists.  Before 9/11,
> > > most airline hijackers wanted money or something else so the typical
> > > response by airline pilots was to go along with their captors.  Just as
> > > when airline hijacking first began changed the rules for flying, so has
> > > the new MO for the terrorists after 9/11.
> > 
> > New rules? Do you mean the Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz rules for foreign
> > relations, and the Ashcroft rules for domestic policy? The rules that
> > amount to "destroying the village in order to save it?" The rules that,
> > in the case of the USA PATRIOT act, our so-called representatives
> > approved without having read them?
> > 
> 
> I'm in agreement with some of these issues you're advocating.
> 
> > New MO? Are you referring to the tactic of flying planes into buildings?
> > How does attacking Iraq address that terrorist tactic? How does anything
> > the Bush administration has done address that tactic?
> > 
> 
> You're clouding the issue, it's not the tactics, but WHO does it

Now you need to read what *you* wrote. The paragraph I was responding to
states that we need to think and act differently, specifically because
of the terrorists' "new MO" (whatever you think that is).

> > But if we are to remain a country worth fighting for, we need two things
> > (at least). We need the *informed* consent of the governed for any
> > anti-terrorist measures. And we need a sense of proportion. It's hard to
> > calculate our chances of dying in a terrorist attack, but I think most
> > rational people would estimate them as far less than our chances of
> > dying in a car accident.
> 
> But that's why it's called terrorism, it strikes FEAR into people. If
> guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. 

I'm less sure about gun control than I used to be, but I think overused
slogans like that one ought to be outlawed ;-)

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee at havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)