Posted by PHlooG at proxy3-out.whirlpool.com on April 10, 2003 at 10:15:30:
In Reply to: Re: By that logic... posted by Smalls on April 09, 2003 at 16:53:40:
: Iraq does not and has never posed a threat to us. And the only way it ever could is as a part of a unified "Arab Street" that... hey, we're creating with this war, aren't we?
Smalls,
Without chiming in vigorously pro- or anti-war, I would like to point out that this part of the anti-war argument is, in my opinion, weak to the point of being laughable.
Are you suggesting that this war might actually cause large numbers of Muslims in the Arab world to hate our country? Crap! I never thought about that possibility.
My goodness, I really hope we don't make them angry at us, because up to this point they've been sending me cash and Hershey bars on a weekly basis, and now they might do something mean...like flying a plane into one of our buildings or something.
We should never take any actions that they don't like, because we would NEVER want something like that to happen
And as long as we stay home it never will.
So I get your point.
Frankly, what the Arab world should probably realize is that one reason Bush did NOT (perhaps) worry too much about their concerns before going into Iraq is that they've seemingly dedicated themselves to hating us no matter what we do. So it becomes a non-issue.
You lose the ability to influence a person (or nation) when they realize that anything they do will be interpreted in the worst possible way, and you will find SOME reason to hate them anyway.
Rather than simply engage in emotional hair-pulling, think about the last several times that the U.S. military has seen action, and think about how many times it has been to HELP Muslims (free them from invading nations, protect them from ethnic cleansing, etc.).
And yet those who hate us still hate us, and perhaps always will. A huge chunk of their animosity toward us is still routed in the CRUSADES, for shit's sake.
And here we are fighting someone they all hated, who acted directly against those of their faith, who GASSED their neighbors, and it's a rotten thing for us to do in the opinion of most of the Arab world.
In my opinion, THIS is why George Bush probably isn't crying too much over some of the complaints from the Arab world.
And this argument extends to the shrill domestic voices. Imagine George Bush's inner turmoil:
'Oh shit...you mean that going into Iraq might cause me to lose the endorsement of Martin Sheen AND Susan Sarandon!!! If only I hadn't gone into Iraq, they and Al Franken AND Michael Moore would be wearing Bush 2004 pins right now' . . .
This is the risk that these celebrities take when they decide to be exclusively in one camp or the other - they lose influence when it's obvious they will never support anything done by Bush.
Think about your own opinions, Smalls, and how you voice them. Try to answer this honestly:
If Bush had made some eloquent speech about peace and given the U.N. more time to search Iraq, would you REALLY have cut him any more slack?
And this applies in a similar way to the French. When the French announced that they were going to veto ANYTHING that we put forward, no matter what it was, and without even seeing the proposal, we realized that we couldn't win with them no matter what we did. And that's amusing because France had great oil deals with the regime, and about 20% of the Iraqi imports were French products, and yet for US it's all about oil and money...
So we stopped giving a shit about what they thought.
I understand the way you dislike this war, and I do too. But I get the feeling that for some people it's entirely black and white. And that bothers me because many of the people who aren't willing to budge an inch are pretty smart people (on both sides).