How to explain Iraq to your child

[piece-it pete]

This post was a joke I read on another forum - who'd thought it would generate into serious political debate - I don't even agree with it necessarily but I can still find it funny.

I have two friends - history students - one is a Mormon fellow who I enjoy discussing with because he his WAY over to the right. He brings up some good points that I often agree with. Very little do we agree with on social issues because well he's religious and I'm with Bill Maher with religious people. Then i have a friend who is obviously left - pretty far left - and he brings up excellent points. For instance I didn't know Reagan tried to sell a part of Canada - and he was arguing thet Qadafe(SP?) was no terrorist at all but invented as one because he would not play ball on oil - and that Libya had huge money invested into infrastructure and excellent education etc. Obviously these two are fun to listen to asthey debate the rhetoric. It's all about oil on one side and he points out that Cheney and the Bush family are heavy into the oil buusiness and had Bin Laden in the US years ago discussing it. Then the other guy is arguing basically what the government has argued.

Which is right is probably somewhere in the middle. For instance, ask Chinese people about lack of freedom in China, a communist dictatorship, you might find you get surprising answers. Quite often it's "Freedom is relative." Freedom is an overused and abused term and so is communism - there is China Communism, USSR communism and Vietnam Communism - and people like Castro who was/is only communist because he needed the Russian to save him from being invaded years ago. You ask people who live in those countries and they are not lacking a good life. Saddam is a different story - all of them have problems.

Manifest Destiny is not an ideal way to run things though. The fact of the matter is not everyone needs saving from themselves - it's not America's place to impose demcracy - it's up to the people to finally say enough is enough and revolt.

My fear is that this Shiite leader who the Americans have let sit at the table IS another Hitler he's a thug who managed to weasal in. If America leaves this guy in then i fear in 5 years we'll all be wishing Saddam was still in charge. Religion is the lack of logical thought - why countries continue to have such leaders running countries frankly scares me. Religion is all about control - my book of analogy tells me in crypt that it's my way or the highway - and since I have a big gun - you have to live by my rules.

I know plenty of Left leaning people though that liked Nixon and Reagan. If your pretty much center and a bit on the right you're probably pretty safe. I mean Clinton was pretty center - the best thing a president can do as an outsider looking in - is to serve your eight years and not do anything necessarily good but nothing really bad either.

Of course we're the minions - we will never truly know what is really going on what percentage was about oil what reason was getting rid of a bad dictator - how much they thought Saddam was an imminint threat etc. I know I'm happy to see Saddam gone - whether the reason was valid and of course whether they had proof (guilty until proven innocent?) Saddam didn't comply with the rules - and Revenge needed to be taken even if the atackee was made up to appease the lynch mob.

The bottom line is if you're too far out on one wing your plane will probably fly around in circles. But power does corrupt absolutely - and America and the American president has the power - and people MUST question every move they make - and these civil servants should not be afraid of it.

It would have helped though if Bush was not the Republican canditate. People go by gut reactions and C'mon the guy is an inarticulate seemingly incompetant doofus. I'm sure he's no dummy but half the battle is public perception. I mean it was Bush the bumbler or Gore the Robot. People can obviously better associate to Bumbling slack jawed bumbling hicks than no personality Vulcans.

Reagan may have bumbled but at least he seemed intelligent and good souled. Ya just gotta sell-it better.

RGA,

I missed the funny part but I've got to admit I've been a bit touchy latey, for some reason I think I've offended a few people here recently!

But it ended up to be IMO a good discussion, many viewpoints. Great thread.

Of course we still disagree on a lot of stuff but hey, I'm right!

Pete

[karl k]

I found it to be ironically funny and accurate.(even if in the most simple terms)


Keep'um commin'!