[lit-ideas] Turning the tables...
- From: Ursula Stange <Ursula@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 04 Feb 2006 09:09:42 -0500
Lawrence Helm wrote:
Perhaps Bush would have followed the advice of those who thought a benign
dictatorship most appropriate for the region if not for the Neocon idea of
exporting democracy...
You sure know how to make Bush sound good, Lawrence. A benign
dictator...yeah right. As though Bush or anyone around him really cared
for the freedom of the Iraqi people. The US government was perfectly
happy with Saddam Hussein when he was their bad guy. They didn't mind
his internal repression. They didn't mind his wars -- even helped him
-- even encouraged him. But when he didn't want to play at being their
bad guy any longer and struck out on bad guyness of his own, they
planned to take him out. They assured him that he had the right --
maybe even their blessing -- to invade Kuwait (for their stealing of
Iraqi oil, he said).
Iraq had for decades been a secular counterweight against the Islamic
fundamentalism in the Middle East. It was the most western, the most
modern Arab society in the Middle East. Now it will surely fall into
the other camp with a vengeance. For ordinary Iraqis, things will get
much worse before anything gets any better And my world will be less
safe because of it.
And as for benign dictators, the US would only approve if they kept the
upper hand and controlled the profits (and how benign could that be?).
And people being the same the world over, opposition would grow, and
benignity would have to end.
Imagine for a minute that your worst fears had come true some fifty
years ago. We, for almost all our lives and our children for all
theirs, have lived under an Islamic dictatorship, controlled from
overseas, which steals our national wealth, which looks down on us,
which persecutes us, which kills us when we don't cooperate, which
installs brutal dictators over us who also rule only for their own greed
and survival. Wouldn't you join our version of Hezbollah and if not,
at least secretly enjoy its successes against the infidel? Wouldn't
the fundamentalists (religious and American) use every opportunity to
recruit young people to rally round the flag and the cross in secret
organizations? And when those young people were found out or betrayed
and whole towns of women and children made to pay with their lives for
hiding them (whether they did or not), wouldn't you begin to support
(maybe even seek) the death and destruction of any and all Islamic
fundamentalists, even when they are not personally guilty? And when
that happens, picture them standing tall on their stolen wealth and
asking "Why do they hate us so."
Picture, also, Canada having seen this going on for generations and
fearing for its own safety. Wouldn't Canada be smart to develop a
nuclear capability to ward off such a future for ourselves -- maybe even
to push the infidel back out of North America entirely?
Those are people over there just like us over here. When they're
shoved, they shove back. When they're scared (as they should be after
the display of shock and awe next door), they swagger and shout to hide
it. How do you think Iranian citizens feel when they see the hell Iraq
is in and hear Bush talk about how they must be next. They support
their government, of course, when it tells them the only way to be safe
is to be armed, even if it bankrupts their national treasury. Look what
US citizens are willing to put up with just because they're scared. If
we send a bully with a big dog to their neighbourhood, they will push
their biggest bully with their biggest dog out to meet him. And why not?
And I haven't even mentioned the immorality of assuming that you have a
right to keep this from "possibly" happening to you by making it
"certainly" happen to someone else.
I can't believe that you really think the US is on some mission to make
the world safe for democracy. Their only mission is to make the world
safe for themselves. Unfortunately, they're so stupid and so morally
bankrupt and so unimaginative, they think the way to do that is to be
the biggest bully on the block. And all of us will suffer for it.
They're taking us back to the days before the UN when everybody had
secret treaties with everybody else and when someone stepped on someone
else's toes, whole regions of the world screamed in pain and fell into
war before anyone could stop it. It all makes the late forties and
early fifties look positively hopeful.
Ursula
dismayed in North Bay
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