Somewhat vaguely pro-war musings

[xiphias]

Sometimes, when a situation over which I have no control really scares me, I try to figure out how things might work out for the best. Even if I think something is a terrible idea, I can sometimes try to look at the other side. If I make a good enough argument, sometimes I feel a little better about it.

So. . .
Let's start by accepting that the end result of this will be an improvement for the Iraqi people. I think pretty much everybody agrees on that -- there may have been a better way to "affect regime change", in our Beloved Gummint's words, but I think it's pretty clear that, as far as the Iraqi people are concerned, "affecting regime change" was neccessary. (I'm less convinced that it was neccessary for me personally, but, that's not the argument I'm making now.) But the expatriate Iraqi community, although the visuals of the bombing of Bahgdad are traumatic, are nonetheless behind this war 100%. (Of course, it's not neccessarily a good idea for a country to take its foreign policy from expatriates from that country; isn't that one reason we can't come to an accomidation with Cuba?

So, let's assume that a post-war Iraq will actually be more pro-Western. Perhaps that fact will lower the "fanaticism quotient" I talked about previously. Maybe having a large, relatively pro-Western Muslim country will be, in the long run, benificial for the United States.

I hope so, anyway.

Comments

[rmjwell.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I think the Bush administration is sowing the seeds for many more al Qaeda-like terror organizations. In attempting to kill the Hydra, they will create many, many more.

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

The incredible thing is, the Muslim fanatics were always criticizing Iraq's government for being "too secular". You just can't win. The sort of guys who are strapping dynamite to their chests won't be happy with anything less than a full-on, repressive, Taliban-style theocracy.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

So do I. But I'm trying to be optimistic.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Good idea. Okay, this is me, trying on the pro-war hat.

1) Saddam Hussein is Bad For Iraqis, esp. those who happen to be Kurds. We need to step in to prevent current and stop future ethnic cleansing. Yes, we should have stepped in elsewhere for the same reason, and yes, that casts doubts about the sincerity of our leaders' motives here, but two wrongs don't make a right, and motives are less important than effects. Just as the Civil War freed the slaves even if that wasn't why we started fighting it, this war is worth backing if it frees the Kurds and the rest of Iraq.

2) Hussein's son, apparently, tortures Olympic atheletes for losing. So we can't expect the ordinary course of succession to take care of the human rights abuses.

3) Economic sanctions primarily hurt the poorest Iraqi on the street, as opposed to those in power. Indeed, like most scarcities, they offer opportunities for those in power to get further entrenched since they control the distribution of scarce resources. At least in theory we can target military attacks against their military.

4) The UN, like the US before the Constitution, has few if any teeth and therefore often waffles and wavers when it needs to be decisive. We can't assume that a war is wrong just because the UN doesn't back it.

5) The U.S. sold a lot of these weapons to Iraq in the first place, when Iran was the bad guy of the moment. So arguably we're cleaning up our own mess, which is something more countries should do.

Okay, that's the best I can do. I still lean heavily towards the anti-war position, but at least I can think of some arguments to the contrary that make sense to me.

Mer