As we approach a war, one would think that its opponents would bring forth good arguments against it. I have yet to hear a single compelling one. Bankrupt reasoning prevails.
A lack of ideas has crippled the nascent anti-war movement. The slogans are even weak--"No blood for oil!" is not going to cut it. If Iraqi production should become what it can be, the price of oil would fall due to increased supply. I suppose ExxonMobil and Shell and various assorted Friends of Cheney are manipulating Bush like a puppet so that the price of oil can fall and their profits fall in the process. Uh, huh. The befuddled anti-war folks can't seem to see how this bit of economic reality eviscerates their lame slogan. These sillies don't seem to understand that the Friends of Cheney are likely against the war. More supply means a lower price, resulting in lower profits. Simple economics compels the conclusion that the Evil Oil Giants do not want the Iraqi oil fields running again.
If we wanted to control oil, we'd be sending C5As full of troops to Venezuela to impose order in that rattled and infinitely nearer and more important source. What? Venezuela is being left alone? Don't tell the anti-war folks that yet another reason for getting rid of their cockeyed "No blood for oil" slogan lies a bit to the South.
But more importantly, don't tell the sillies that without our assistance, the Kurds would have been by now gassed out of existence. The only difference between how Saddam has treated the Kurds and how Jews fared under Hitler is that Saddam does his gassing outdoors while Adolf did a lot of his dirty work indoors. The scale, of course, is also different, but the principle is not. Both intended to wipe a race of human beings off the face of the earth. The sillies don't seem to recognize that to not take on Saddam is to essentially allow him, with his proven genocidal tendencies, to have nukes. I suppose they can't imagine a world in which Hitler had nukes. Another failure of imagination.
But the real failure is the failure to recognize how 9/11 changed the world. If there had been no 9/11, OBL would be hidden away in Afghanistan, the Taliban would still be in control, and we'd be dealing only with the occasional Embassy bombing, right? Perhaps. But the sad fact is that 9/11 took place and it influences the coming war in a manner which the anti-war folks don't seem to comprehend.
We have been fighting every hue of ME whack-jobs for a long time-- the Talibs, AQ, the Libyan whack-job, Saddam, you name it. These folks would like nothing better than to kill many more than a mere 3,000 New Yorkers. They want to explode a nuke in Central Park or within eyesight of the Capitol. Their grandest design is to do so while at the same time controlling the flow of ME oil so that our economy and those of our allies fall apart like a bad souffle. Why do we hesitate to take whatever measures we must to stop them?
I suspect that ultimately the reason for the left's failure to see the true nature of the dangers posed by Saddam is Darwinian. Its instinct for self-preservation does not seem to be engaged. Thank God we have a President who sees these things clearly. |
