RE: META: Dishonest debate (was "cluster bombs")

From: Jeff Davis (jrd1415@yahoo.com)
Date: Sun Jun 15 2003 - 15:58:43 MDT

  • Next message: Kevin Freels: "processing power and chemistry"

    > Michael Wiik writes
    >
    > > You know, I hear that the US troops occupying Iraq
    > are driving up to towns, and searching house to
    house for hidden weapons. It appears some Iraqis are
    signalling their arrival to others by flickering their
    porch lights. Hmmm, citizens warning their fellows
    about occupying troops coming to search for guns,
    using lights.... I seem to have heard something
    similar to that before somewhere, maybe from
    elementary school.... help me out here Ron...

    To which Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> responds:
     
    > Doesn't it bother you at all that you would consider
    > the Baathist murderers to be analogous to the U.S.'s
    > original revolutionaries and founders? Those like
    Saddam Hussein ---criminals against humanity of the
    first degree--- need to be hunted down after they lose
    wars!

    Hmmmm.

    You have a point, Lee. Our culture holds the
    revolutionaries in high esteem, and the comparison
    thus colors the Iraqi-porch-light-flickerers in a
    positive glow of dubious warrant.

    Which leads us to notice--thank you, Lee--the missing
    piece of the puzzle: what is the truth about the
    porch-light-flickerers? Are they remnants of the
    Baathist regime, color them criminal, or are they
    Yankee-go-home Iraqis, color them how: troublesome,
    uncooperative, unwise, patriotic? I don't know. I
    guess we'll find out.

    Anyway, take Michael's spin off the matter, and what
    have we got? At best, pockets of resistance, at
    worst, a guerrilla war.

    What we can hope is that the US actors improve the
    situation rapidly enough so that the Iraqis are won
    over and cooperate by turning in or self-enforcing the
    violently intransigent. I'm not optimistic that the
    Bush crew will achieve so optimal an outcome.

    We shall see.

    By the way, I was conflicted on the war. There were
    pros and cons. (When it became apparent that GB2 was
    committed. I hoped for what I called "The One Bomb
    War": find Saddam, kill Saddam, call it a day. And,
    to his credit, GB2, gave it a shot. By the way, where
    is Saddam?) What finally put me in opposition was the
    combination of three factors: the poor US record vis a
    vis nation building, the extreme "degree of
    difficulty" of such an undertaking in Arabistan, and
    the (to me) seeming implausibility of the notion that
    born-on-second-base-thinks-he-scored-a-triple GB2
    would be up to the task.

    OK. Cheap shot. I'll eat it without relish if it
    turns out well done.

    We shall see.

    Best, Jeff Davis

    "No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental
    ills of society. If we're looking for the sources of
    our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we
    should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and
    love of power." - P. J. O'Rourke

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