a great read
the following article cuts precisely to the heart of the iraqi situation in a way nothing else i've seen does.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...3-2003Jul1.html

this quote from the article is very telling :

< "I am sorry for America," Sidawi said. "You are stuck. You have become a country of the Middle East. America will never change Iraq, but Iraq will change America. >

it touched off in me the book-length response which follows.



i've stayed away from this forum and topic for quite some time, pissed at both the "evil imperialist america" and "great american savior" crowds.

i personally think the rest of the world ought to be thanking us for doing them a huge favor that no one else would ever have expended such enormous effort to undertake. altruistic as we are as a people we risk our men and our treasure time and time again on the naive notion that people everywhere shall live free without fear of despotic governments or genocide. in truth, some societies simply are not ready to fight for their own freedom, be this because of irrational religious beliefs, extreme racism or tribalism, a fear of change, a desire for security, or any other of a host of reasons.

and so to expect we can simply remove one despot and magically the tendancy towards despotism will disappear is naive at best and idiotic at worst. by investing so much of our national political, moral, military, and financial capital in this thankless and largely untenable action, we have deprived ourselves of the opportunity to act in other situations where our interests are more directly affected.

but now, i think, the american people are getting it. the world wide opposition to action on behalf of everyone is demonstrating clearly that the isolationist position our founders endorsed is truly the only way to operate as a principled and successful nation. our constitution calls for a declaration of war by both houses of congress shall have the power to "declare war" and "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions ". an act of congress, agreed upon by both houses, is clearly a difficult standard to attain. our founders realized this - and made it so very intentionally. this was not to be an empire. this was not to be nation that was involved with foreign affairs. if the nation was truly at risk, agreement of both houses would not be difficult to come by. if there was any question, it would be very difficult to obtain.

why would this be a good thing? because it would prevent the endless cycle of war and death. the whole of the nation would have to feel personally, directly, and unquestionably threatened for a military action to take place.

but now, with the enormous success of WWII, we have forgotten these lessons. we have shredded this portion of the constitution. a sense of empowerment to change the very fiber of societies for the better has set in amongst the american populous. we are naive. but we are learning. the hard way.

there are hateful, spiteful, evil, irrational people in the world. not an isolated individual or two, like here at home, but whole societies founded on hatred and spite. and in trying to change those socities, we are hurting ourselves. better they be left to wallow in their wretched misery, and hate amongst themselves, killing each other and decaying in their own unproductive filth unassisted than that they bring us down into the muck with them. better we withdraw into the much maligned "fortress america" and defend our borders and our people with the greatest military man has to offer than that we destroy ourselves trying to pull the rest of the world up with us. and most of all, better that we retain the rule of law as written in the contractual founding document of our country than that we turn our governanace over to the whims of a faceless tyrant that, while perhaps benevolent today may be mutated into something we fear in the future.