...it's a bit long, I thought. Anyway, in response to Scott's post:
Hey Scott, much as I know you dislike reading, and a lot of the essay doesn't have a point you'd like, I recommend "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell.
Though not just the Republican Party, though these days you see so much more of it from them, we're hearing vague words like "democracy" and "freedom." Come on, there is no set definition for democracy; it's just what people in the world come to assume is a "good thing" and thus many nations say that they are. They just throw "Democracy" into the title and all of a sudden they look a lot more respectable. Ms. Rice said we've begun "democratization" of Iraq. Not only do I applaud her invention of a new word, but the fact that she said something that really made no sense but sounded good. For us, democracy works. Have we looked over at Iraq? Soldiers are over there. They're working to keep the hostility low, they're being kind, they're waving, they're giving toys to kids, and then they get back to the base and the insurgents in northern Baghdad fire mortars at them. Let's look at this...it's kind of common knowledge that the Iraqi people do not want American "democracy" over there. How many more rebel guerrilla attacks will it take? How will we shift from war to rebuilding the nation when the nation doesn't like the architect doing the building? It doesn't WORK.
By the same token, what do we accomplish by leaving? We've left an entire country in turmoil, succeptible to other countries, or to radical groups within. There is no winning in this situation. The real question is which the lesser of the two evils is. Is there one? The American name does not hold the prestiege it did. To leave the nation to collapse is still to hurt our name. To stay there is also to hurt our name. We die and Iraqis die if we stay there. If we withdraw, people will still die.
It's stupid to say that we never should have gone. If you look at it with all the facts, Bush was misinformed by government intelligence officials from more than just our own nation. The intelligence said there were WMD. So he made a choice...you can argue all day which was the right choice, it doesn't matter. The choice was made.
What matters NOW is the choice ahead: what's the next move? Is there an approach we haven't looked at? Which is the way to go? The leader of a nation, while needing to be decisive, also needs to take these things into consideration. Decisiveness and rushing into things are two different things. Sadly, Bush's path is set. Has he considered? I don't know. It doesn't seem so. The path has been set in stone from the beginning...not very safe. Now the question is: what would Kerry do?
Sadly, Kerry has only verified that he and Bush are not the same person. I've heard a bunch of flowery language, a bunch of vague, unspecific things about pride in America, Vietnam, and nothing specific. But that's politics. You say things without really SAYING anything. It's all vague, almost hypnotic, and good-sounding.
But in the end, I would, if I could vote, vote with a prayer similar to a gambler's that Kerry's different approach is not just different, but BETTER.
The world's going downhill.
4 comments:
Yeah, it was never about terrorism. They had a plan for the invasion and control of Iraq in March 2001. 9/11 just gave them a convienent oppurtunity to claim Saddam could and was supporting terrorists. Bullshit. We took out the only secular government in the area and now it very likely will become a theocracy once we leave because the majority Shi'ites will vote as a block and make all the decisions. But it was a secular dictatorship. Spending some more time before the invasion, maybe we could have gathered NATO aand/or UN support and made it an international message about how the world will not tolerate dictatorships. You are right Mike, the Middle East is probably not the place democracy will flourish. But it will make progress on its own if we don't interfere. Iran, in the 80's, had a tolerant and progressive leadership until the Reagan administration supported an effort to replace it with the Shah and his government by the Qu'ran. We just need to leave them alone and figure out some new energy sources. Too bad the enormous oil industry and their lobbyists are constantly suppressing new fuel alternatives. Congress needs to fund more research to make America more independent. I don't think that's gonna happen with W in office.
post script
Shutting down newspapers is not usually a positive step towards democracy. According to NPR, there are four times as many insurgents now as when we started. I can't wait for the debates.
I'm way too out of it to reply fully, but like you said, the vote for Kerry's completely a gamble. I'm something of a gambler by nature, and it I see better chances with Kerry than with Bush. Like I said in the first post, Kerry is not the answer. We watched Barack Obama's speech from the DNC in History on Friday, and one of the things he said was something along the lines of Kerry being the best America has to offer. I don't buy that at all, and as I said...Kerry's not the best solution. But with politicians (with the exception of a few), it's who's not AS bad, and that's pretty much the best you can do.
Like my dad said in the 2000 election...they're both idiots, Gore's just the lesser idiot. Same with Kerry.
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