From: Dan Minette [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] snip
>What mild questioning? Your arguement that its hard to tell whether the >people in Iraq are better off than under Hussein indicates that either >Hussein wasn't such a bad fellow after all or the US is engaged in torture, >wholesale murder, institutionalized rape, etc., or that these things are >not primary criteria. Since Gautam has shown that, materially, most folks >are better off, what remains to decide on? Firstly, I just cant subscribe to the view that I have to give wholesale support to the US actions or wear a "I Love Saddam" badge. Cant I be upset why whats happening in Iraq? Cant I ask questions without bing a traitor? I thought that was waht democracy was about. Secondly, please remind me in which post Gautum "has shown" that people are better off in Iraq. Look, I dont deny that they may well be so. There is enough nasty shit on my TV each night that I feel justified in asking the question. How do we show that they are "better off"? > >You talked about Gautam thinking in black and white terms. Having debated >with him over the years, I know that isn't true. A number of conservatives >do; he doesn't. I took no joy from that. I agree, all my reading of his words shows a reasonable thinking man. I objected however to being cast as Saddams secret love child just cos I asked the question. Surely some middle ground exists? I only said that cos he denied me that grey area, >What he and I agree on is that there are shades of gray. One cannot say >that both situations are gray and be done with it. One has to consider the >shades. So, where is this space. I am not being anti-American, but surely we need space to be able to debate this without being called Saddam lovers. Its even more confronting when the whole pretext of the war had nothing to do with "saving" Iraq. Its annoying to be called a traitor just cos the government moved the goalposts on you. And its distressing to see moral men forced to squirm and invent so many excuses cos their government stuffed it up. >I believe that the Catholic confession for "what we have done and what we >have failed to do" is a very valid encapsulation for morality. We are >responsible for evil we could have stopped, as well as the evil we do >ourselves. True, raping someone and standing by while another is raped are >not equally evil, but both are evil. So we did the latter for 30 years, after putting the rapist in power, and now we decided its our turn. And that makes us Princes of Morality? So you die in a paper shreder or in from a tank shot. Dead you are. I know thats a provocative way to put it, and I apologise in advance (sorry Mike) but I cant see how the unprovoked invaders of an independent nation can so easily take the moral high ground, or perhaps, to be fairer, cast aspersions on those who question the heights they seem so keen to climb. Andrew Who would rather be talking about how to solve it Maru Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
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