Brian: >>Mike, you believe there can be a just cause for war? I thought you were a >>pacifist?<< I'm not an absolute pacifist, never have been. If violence is absolutely necessary to stop someone from killing or injuring one's self or others then violence is justified. Homicidal psychotics must be stopped. So must political homicidal psychotics. Sometimes in the political realm though it's difficult to determine who's the real psychotic. From the beginning I've thought our invasion of Afghanistan was justified. When the Taliban government would not arrest and extradite the leaders of Al Qaeda -- people who openly professed their involvement in the attacks on the World Trade Center -- I believed that, due to the scope of the crime and the goals of those who perpetrated it, we were justified in invading Afghanistan for the purpose of arresting and bringing those responsible for the attacks to justice. We conquered the Taliban with little trouble (no surprise there), but botched the arrest of Al Qaeda. That was a surprise -- an immensely regrettable, blunderous surprise, probably due to the fact that the attention of the Administration had alreary shifted to selling the invasion of Iraq to the the American people. They couldn't catch the leaders of Al Qaeda, but by God, they could sell a war. Sell it even though our invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. Nothing to do with the attack on this country. The justifications were based totally on conjectures that turned out to be totally wrong. Not only that, but the conjectures were known to be highly dubious by those making them. The invasion was nothing more than a Realpolitik grab for power in that region of the world. From certain points of view there were very attractive political reasons for invading, but there was absolutely no justification for it. Not by any standards. No more so than the attacks on the World Trade Center could ever be justified. I consider them equivalent crimes. And I honestly hope the leaders of this administration are brought to trial before an international court of justice. I don't know if that statement shocks you, but I think it's imperative that all nations be reigned in by international courts of justice. We committed these very same crimes only 40 years ago. And we'll do it again (already the rhetoric that led to this atrocity is being used against Iran) if we're not brought up short by some international tribunal. Otherwise these military adventurisms will continue until China or India or Indonesia finally overwhelms our economy and turns us into a "kinder, gentler" country and they assert their turn at imperialism. The world belongs to no nation. Only international rules can keep the world under some semblance of justice and order. I believe that strongly. >>There was plenty of cause - see Nicholas Lehmann's arguments for going to war >>in this 2003 article in the New Yorker. He's a liberal writer commenting in >>a liberal magazine and detailing the reasons. They haven't changed.<< I don't know this Nicholas Lehmann. But I read the article you cited. If he's a liberal, I'm a Maoist. Possibly in his defense, the article was written in 2003 when even the NYT and the WP were supporting this fiasco. I couldn't any justifiable cause for invading Iraq in his article. I found a bunch of Neocon bullshit, but nothing that justifies killing three hundred thousand people, throwing away a trillion dollars for and making all the world hate us -- just some wistful conservative think-tank trash. Sorry. Maybe next time. >>What I'm embarrassed by is the lack of wisdom on the Left.<< Yes, but of course, I shake my head in sorrow over the blindness of the Right. >>There are good people with good intentions but little wisdom and moral >>clarity.<< Those leftists opposed to this war you mean? : ) Yes, well, there are few things more open to interpretation than moral clarity and wisdom. We all believe we're the true possessors of both, else there'd be no disagreements. I don't think that supporters of this war are evil and stupid, just immensely confused. >>I posted a report that Iranian Quds forces may be responsible for the attack >>that resulted in the murder of five Americans in Karbala and you ask me if >>I'm embarrassed by American involvement in Iraq.<< Two points here. First, I don't believe anything this Administration puts out as a justification for any policy. They've been caught in too many lies too many times. But suppose that this intelligence conjecture is accurate (conjecture is all it is at this point), so what? Does it really surprise you that Iran is involving itself in the conflict? They share a border, Iraq invaded them 20 years ago, they lost over a million men to that war, of course they have an intense (even extreme) interest in the outcome of this chaos and seek to influence that outcome the best they can. Get real. Would you also be surprised that Syria is involved in Iran? or Jordan? or Turkey? or Saudi Arabia? I'm almost certain they are. This is what Old Europe tried to tell that dimwit Bush and his boys when he started all this shit. But no, oh no, they knew best. They knew how the world works. Weren't they the rich elite, eh? The Bechtel, KRB, Halliburton boys. Why, they're so bright they can manipulate anything to their ends. Ha! Mike Geary Memphis ---- Original Message ----- From: Brian To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 9:11 AM Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Quds forces * Do you want us to win? * Would you prefer that more Americans were dead so that it would even out the war scorecard? (and don't give a mealy-mouthed answer that you would prefer we beat our swords into karaoke machines like the Japanese) On Jan 29, 2007, at 10:39 PM, Mike Geary wrote: Brian, aren't you at all embarrassed complaining about Iran's involvement in Iraq when your own government invaded the country with no just cause