I’m going to be off line for a few days, as of tomorrow. So, while I’m gone, make a point of checking out the Iraqi bloggers on the sidebar. It’s difficult for some of these people to get net access, and its expensive. The least we can do is read what they have to say, as an reminder to us all that there are those among us who would gladly send them back in time, and return them to Saddam Hussein.
I suggest you begin with this; Omar translates comments from ordinary Iraqis.
For a long time I’ve been listening to the apologists and critics of the war in Iraq. They generally begin “Of course it’s a good thing that Saddam is gone…” and then with a simple three letter word, leap forward with their criticism, accusations, conspiracies, and dire predictions – to tell us what they really think.
To these people: Drop the hypocrisy. Stop trying to hide in that clever and convenient alternate Universe of What If – for it does not exist. You have no third choice to pluck from a world of your imagination. Indulge your negativity and partisan agenda, if you must, but stop insulting the people of Iraq with the word “but”.
Try some intellectual integrity – stop prefacing your statements with approving nods to the removal Saddam Hussein. You don’t mean it, and we know you don’t mean it. If you believe that the “war was a mistake”, then stand up and own it – all of it. Reclaim ownership of Saddam. Take him to your breast and hold him tight.
Don’t protest that this is absurd, that it’s not at all what you mean, for it is. You cannot have your cake and eat it too. You cannot declare the war in Iraq was a mistake without propelling the Butcher of Baghdad back into his opulent palaces, without flinging thousands of innocents back into prisons, without pulling the Omars from their beds in the night, amputating their hands for the crime of writing, cutting out their tongues because they dared to speak.
If you believe the price has been too high, fine. Say so. But you must bring Saddam back. Take to the streets if you must. Demand the return of Iraqi women to the depravity of the rape rooms and their children to the silence of mass graves.
You know how to use a shovel, don’t you? Get digging.
Take your pick. Either A or B. Omar or Saddam.
You cannot have them both. Omar cannot exist in the world of Saddam Hussein. Omar is alive and speaking to the world today as a free Iraqi is because the decision was made to remove Saddam by force.
Too black and white you say? You prefer to layer your world view in varying shades of rippling grey? I’m afraid that the truth is not available in that colour. There is no halfway point between life and death, freedom and slavery, so take your greys, take your alternate universes, set them aside and make your decision.
Omar or Saddam?
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How about the question of – Allies supporting
Stalin vs Hitler.
We know which sides the Allies chose in that war.
To be opposed to the Stalin-run Holocaust does not mean that one was opposed to stopping the Hitler won Holocaust.
Or do you really think Stalin was a “good guy” simply because he helped stopped Hitler?
Your suggestion is not “black and white” as you claim Kate. In fact it’s rife with the “Fallacy of Exclusion” and is a massive straw-man arguement.
I didn’t ask about Stalin or Hitler.
I asked you to choose.
That post is not worthy of this site. Thanks Kate. Too many people in the West have too short a memory. “9/11?” “Isn’t that the emergency number?” The Iraqi’s have been living a 9/11 for 30 years now. As we recline in our pools sipping Mai Tai’s with those stupid little umbrellas, is very easy for some of the intellectually lazy clods in the West to opine we don’t prosecute war with enough sensitivity. Diverting attention from the subject in such a sophmoric way is a fallacy as well. We won’t spend the next 40 years or so in a Cold War with Omar.
Getting rid of thugs will never be neat, tidy, and with 100% approval. Look who’s approval we don’t have: Jacques Chirac? How deep was his arm up the “Oil-for-Food” Program’s rear-end?!?! “Oil-for-Food.” Even the name is insulting. “Give us oil and we’ll throw some food down into the deep, dark, miserable cellar we know you are in but won’t help you out of.” The Iraqi’s embracing the UN as their saviors? I don’t think so, Tim. Especially after reading more about what Iraqi’s suffered with as we sipped our Mai Tai’s, watched ESPN on the big screen, and The UN SecGen exchange hugs and kisses with Tariq Azziz.
No, either say Saddam needed to be overthrown and accept the messiness that goes with such an operation, or be TOTALLY against everything that happened there for the past year and two months, or shut the hell up. Those are our choices. Actually, there’s only two choices:
“For evil to prosper, good men must do nothing.” That includes digging up excuses for doing nothing.
OK Notworthy, what exactly is the proposition here? You said “a massive strawman argument”, so not the real issue, with those who oppose the war in Iraq. Then what is the real issue?
Stalin the bad guy? Thats not what the New York Times said in the 1930’s. Stalin and communism were the savior of the Russian people.At least thats what the media and the intellectuals said.There were a whole series of articles written by a N.Y. Times reporter about the great life Russian people had all over Russia under Stalin. HE NEVER LEFT MOSCOW! Sound familiar?
It’s really a laugh to read about a biker chick from Canada, with a bunch of little dogs who appear to be the love of her life, who loves and trust Bush with more zeal than a room full of GOP hardliners.
Do you have any idea what this WAR ON TERROR has done to my country?
You see Katie, there is this thing called the PATRIOT ACT and it’s basically a way for the Federal Government to turn the military and the police in our country to a new version of the fucking KGB or STASI.
But go ahead and believe the Bushaganda. You are such a ditz. I’ve been a Republican for my entire life. My family have been Republicans for all of their lives. We hate George Bush II. We won’t be voting for him. You can be sure of that. Won’t vote for anybody next election.
Wow, a real stereotypical ignorant american. How can you be so smug? If you were in Iraq, under rule of Saddam, someone would already have chopped your hands off so that you could never type again. I really don’t understand the reason behind the Bush-haters, and I have to wonder if the anti-war-on-terror crowd is deluded enough to believe that the terrorists won’t try again.
no…you arwe right…kate is a twit and her arguments are those of a 7th grade forensics club drop out. sad reallty to read such bullcrap. makes you wonder if the canadian education system is really very good. i meany,anyone with half a brain could take anyone of her arguments apart, but what would be the point. she’s not really very smart. it’s a waste of time, kind of like trying to teach a little doggy to read the wall street journal
“i meany,anyone with half a brain could take anyone of her arguments apart, but what would be the point.”
Well, what’s stopping you? (Aside from bad grammar and lousy punctuation?)
Please, be my guest – argue away. I’m sure we of the half-brain contingent can muddle through.
Hey Kate, About your guests who display such an animus toward your blog and opinion, we in the Marine Corps call them Maggots. Of course when you run over field rats and kill them you get –what else– maggots.
Hey there USAisNOTyourCountry, you want to tell me to FO? Maggot.
Kate,
Good post. You know your on the right track when they start hurling insults. Keep up the good work. I doubt that USAisNOTyourCountry is really even a Republican. I mean, come on! They guy hates chicks, bikes, AND dogs? That’s just not right.
I think that sometimes these people forget that it isn’t just the US that has troops in harms way. There are Canadian troops in Afghanistan, albeit not as many as some of us would like.
But, Canad’as level of involvement is an issue that goes way beyond the GWOT to the contempt that successive Liberal governments in Canada have had for the military. Until they are voted out, there will be little hope for Canada to reclaim even a small part of a once pround military tradition, in which we “punched above our weight”.
Just want to say that I must fit somewhere in the grey area. I have no problem with a war to liberate a people who were being cruelly repressed by their head of state. I just wish that the justification was for bringing justice to the Iraqi people. Prefaced in that manner it would be viewed as a successful venture rather than a questionable motive (to find WMD’s) by a US president who seemed to have an axe to grind.
You don’t get to pick grey. You have a choice between two realities – the reality of last year’s status quo and the reality of today.
I’m new to this site, just browsing around