His book "Virtual War: Kosovo and beyond" sure made a huge impression on me. Have you read it? The conclusions in it are useful for a person like me (not a pacifist, but not a hawk, and certainly not an imperialist). The book's views are, I think, contrary to many of the positions the hawks are taking.
jmo
NB- if you are on the "evil" bandwagon, read no further. There is not point in upsetting yourself.
I was thinking today in the car about the folks consumed with the "evil" argument. And you see them here- wanting to take out Saddam because he is "evil" (in our opinion). But of course there are equally evil leaders- why not take them out? It is better, I think, to use force dispassionately, and for logical reasons, that it is to go out like Don Quixote, and use it quixotically, even if you think you ARE on a quest against "evil". If you are rational, at least you can defend your decision even to those who do not come from the same emotional place you do. Time and time again I see people, on SI for example, do things in anger, and then regret them. Why? Because they acted on impulse, reacting to "evil" or just things they don't like, impulsively, without a real reason for their actions, and unable to logically justify their actions even to themselves. Coherence and consistency are what we should strive for, because those are qualities that bring stability and peace. It is better to think things out, and to live without regret, imo. That is my problem with this war. We may have to live with regret later. Emotionally it obviously feels good to people, in the US, right NOW. But later, when other countries wish to do this sort of thing, or when the ME spawns new terrorist groups because of our incursion, or when we have to seriously raise taxes to pay for our pleasure in the ME, we may, very possibly, regret this quite a bit. If we had left Iraq alone, there is a chance Saddam would have done nothing. If he had done something, we could have lined the world up behind us. It would have been worth the wait, imo, to get world approval- because we might never have needed it. Now, it is too late for a good solution I fear. I hope I am wrong, but Afghanistan certainly doesn't inspire me with any hope that we can do anything measurable in Iraq. |
