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March 26, 2003
Where am I?
Ever wake up from a dream--one where everything was so vivid and coherent that you thought it *was* your real life--only to find yourself sitting in your bed and looking around at the world wondering, "Where am I? What world is this?"
For a long time, I eschewed the news. This wasn't hard, since I didn't bother hooking up the TV to anything other than an Xbox (later the DVD player and a PlayStation 2) after I moved. I didn't listen to the radio. I didn't read newspapers, online or off. I kept on blogs sporadically. I had a period of depression where looking out at the world really just made me feel worse, so I drew in on myself, which is typical of my defence mechanisms. Things just stayed flat and didn't get better.
Then a friend of a friend visited from Baltimore. He's a lot like me in temperament and humour, so we got along fine and ended up hanging out a lot for a couple of weeks. That helped draw me out from my shell. Right about the time he left was when I lost the use of my computer. For the next three weeks, I spent a lot of time out of the house, visiting friends, camping out in stores, imprinting my ass on a lounge chair at a Starbuck's in Union Square. I spent more money than I should have, but somewhere in there, I got some retail therapy. That's when I started reading the paper, almost religiously every day.
Where am I? What world is this?
I have to echo a sentiment that Doyce voiced earlier in the week or maybe it was last week: I'm of two minds about this whole Persian Gulf War II thing. On second, thought, I've got thirds and fourths on that. While my initial reaction to the whole thing was decidedly anti-war and still is, generally, there are so many arguments:
Saddam Hussein has, time and time again, show his belligerence in dealing with UN weapons inspectors and his horrible treatment of the people under his rule, with the Kurds and the Shiites in particular. Without little need for imagination, you can take that EVIL sticker and slap it on his forehead.
However, he hasn't done anything in twelve years. He's been a non-threat or a low-level one at best since 1991. Whatever talk there is of weapons of mass destruction is fraught with maybes and uncertainties that couldn't even be considered "circumstantial" in a court of law. The links that the Bush Administration has tried to draw between Iraq and al'Qaeda are more tenuous than the drooling afterthoughts of a Ron Jeremy money shot.
Add to that the rather apparent "Shotgun Diplomacy" that this Administration seems to prefer and the whole thing really raises my hackles. Ever since it came into power, the Bush Administration has done nothing but systematically destroy any international goodwill that previous administrations had created. Kyoto Protocol, Star Wars, GATT... and then the strong-arming of other nations to bend them to the will of the US, which ultimately led to the US chickening out of even putting up the UN resolution to legitimize the invasion of Iraq.
As if that wasn't enough, the Bush Administration has decided to do all of this when the US economy is very weak, with foreign capital and investment fleeing the country, with a large trade deficit, and with a budget deficit of $300 billion dollars (not including the price tag of war, which was recently set at $75 billion for the next six months). Now, I'm not expert market analyst--Hell, I didn't even take economics in high school or university--but even the crackhead on the street can tell you that you can't buy rock without a Jackson. The economy is going down the tubes and the President wants to spend money he doesn't have... money he doesn't have because he gave away most of the money that the last President gave him on tax cuts for his wealthy friends.
All the while, he's still pushing for another tax cut for the top 1% of the population amounting to $726 billion dollars that will do barely a thing for the bottom 60% of the population, the part of the population that needs it most. This seems patently ridiculous to me, and if I actually had cable or broadcast television, maybe I wouldn't be able to hear myself think over all of the propaganda or the pretty explosions on TV.
I am pro-troops. I support the fighting men and women that are in the Gulf now, fighting this war, but I am against the policies and commanders that put them there. Leading up to the war, there was a lot of talk about liberating Iraq and being met in the cities with the adulation and cheers of an Iraqi populace. It is with a sad kind of joy that I can look on the military planners and the Administration as they have to choke down on that crusty, old, slightly-overcooked pastry filled with crow. Honestly, how could anyone have expected that American troops would be welcomed in such a way. This isn't Berlin, nor is it Hitler. The conceit of the Administration for believing this projection is sadly indicative of the kind of arrogance that is distasteful to so many non-Americans in the first place.
I can't help but feel that the American incursion into Iraq will only anger the international community more. Sure, they'll pay lip service to stand behind the US, but it's the kind of support that a beauty queen gets on stage that turns into gossip and character assassinations once the lights are turned off. America is hated because it bungles its way into the affairs of other countries and if this war isn't the ultimate in interjecting American interests into another sovereign state, I don't know what is. The US has a lot of countries in the world by the short and curlies by dangling the threat of withdrawing foreign aid. I don't imagine too many people would be happy about being in that position.
I don't imagine the US population would like it much if some other country--let's say the UK--imposed itself on it and told it how to run its government. It's happened before and the result was revolution. Why, then, should the Bush Administration feel that it should impose its will on another nation? Bush calls it nation-building and liberation, but it reeks of conquest and imperialism. The extension of the US armed forces to serve national interest. Not defence, interest.
However he may try to legitimize the war through loopholes in previous UN resolutions, the sense is that the world community views this as the US going out on its own (with a couple of friends) to do whatever it wants. In this case, it smells of vendetta. Bush has set a very dangerous precedent in instigating this war: he has established the pre-emptive strike as a means of defence. While "the best defence is a good offence" may be good from such military strategists as Mel, the cook on "Alice," it hardly seems appropriate for the world's single hyperpower. It behooves the US to behave in a more civilized manner than being the bully that cows other nations into following its line or risk being trampled under its big feet.
In summary, the US has no more moral imperative to fight this war than it did five or ten years ago and it can hardly afford it given its current economy. By appearances, fighting this war with the current President cannot shake the spectre of vendetta for a conflict that was not resolved fully by the President's father. Dangerous international precedents are being set and the continuation of antagonism toward other nations by this Administration cannot bode well for future foreign relations.
In short, Bush taken the US and given it a really good swift kick down the slippery slope of wretched global citizenship and looks to be getting ready to give it another kick every step of the way.
I only pray that this conflict can end sooner, rather than later, so that the world I woke up in this morning wouldn't look so strange.
Well, what do you know? I found my street.
Posted by KinCross at March 26, 2003 12:38 AM