I’m not your standard issue liberal who believes in peace and flowers and the idea that we should all sing cumbaya as we’re led to slaughter. I believe that the intelligent and humane application of military force is warranted in situations where the lives of our citizens are threatened, or when innocents are being persecuted. As the leading democracy in this world, it is not only America’s right to use its force for right – it is our moral duty.
Which is why I get angry and continue to do so when I see our soldiers killed for dubious causes. Our country is invading another one, not because we were attacked or threatened, not because that country invaded another (which provided a moral backbone to the oil protection racket of Gulf War I) but because we have a president who either through perversion of the mind, a religious manifest, political cover or a combination of the above – thinks that America isn’t fine operating an empire of the psychological and economic sort. No, President Bush under the guise of advocating democracy (the definition of “democracy” varies as much as the reasons given for invading Iraq) seeks to expand American interests through the iron fist of our military.
This is not why we have the largest, and strongest military going. This is not the mindset that has given us our position (rightly so, in most cases) of global dominance. It is naked lust wrapped in the American flag, and it would be so regardless of the political party of the president.
It’s just wrong, and people would be derelict if they didn’t say what they thought.
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.
Well Oliver, you’ve taken me back 16 years.
Do you still have access to the comments we made at the time? I recall being dubious about the causes of the war but finding it difficult that the Bush Administration would lie to start it. Recent assertions that the Bush Administration deluded itself to reach the intended goal don’t help much.
Still, the war wasn’t the disaster for the US that I was afraid it might be. For the Iraqi though, it has been about as bad as I feared.
But to repeat something I said thous 16 years ago: “Terrorism” is not something one can have a “war” against. It has no cities to occupy. It has no government to replace. “Terrorism” exists when an individual feels so overwhelmed and hopeless that he feels violence is the only answer. You can not bomb hopelessness out of people. When you kill one “terrorist”; you increase the hate and hopelessness of his entire family. A “War on Terrorism” is guaranteed to be futile.