working through things
alright, y'all, i'm about to make a confession.
i don't know how i feel about the potential of troop withdrawals from iraq. that's not a coy way of saying that i don't support troop withdrawal; it's an honest statement -- i have no fucking sense of where i stand on the issue.
on the one hand, you have to be willing to say at some point that what you're trying just ain't working. no matter how much counseling we and iraq go to, we'll never be a good couple. why keep spending exorbinant dollars and lives on a war that was likely illegal, patently immoral, and potentially unwinnable? for fuck's sake, smoke 'em if you got 'em; we're toast over there, right?
on the other hand, human beings aren't a deck of cards; you can't just fold when the pot's not full of money but full of human suffering on the grandest scale. it seems that withdrawing wouldn't be quite fair to the everyday folks living in a country we've torn to pieces, i think. this whole, "iraqis have to stand on their own two feet" business is sort of like the cops in the incident at ucla this fall telling the guy they'd just tazered to hell to "stand up." here's that video, just to remind you, but be warned -- it's long, it's loud, and it's brutal:
is it a reasonable expectation by us to demand that iraq solve its own problems, now that we've so furthered them? should we pull out all troops, even as peacekeepers, because we've fucked everyone, ourselves included, over so thoroughly? i know that the iraqui leadership wants the u.s. troop presence out, but what about the "normal" citizens? i think that if i were on the brink or in civil war, with no guarantee of electricity or infrastructure or protection, i might be reticent for the one potential source of protection to go away.
that's the rub, though, isn't it -- our troops, as they exist today, aren't a source of protection. i keep thinking about germany and japan after wwii. broken countries, decades behind in terms of technology and our notions of social progress, surely unhappy about what was then an occupying army. today, they're the second and third largest economies, after the united states; they're political and social leaders on their respective continents; they, for the most part, like the u.s. what gives? is it that the united states invested not only troops to keep the peace -- for i'm sure there were what we'd now call "insurgents" left to oppose the occupation back then and there must have been disparate factions vying for power -- but also resources to rebuilding the nations. germany didn't get custodial rights over its government back for a decade, if i remember correctly, and the government was shaped -- or dictated -- by the u.s., the u.k., and france. plus, it's not as if all the soldiers who won the war came home happy campers and never thought of deutschland again; they stayed behind, or new troops were posted, to build roads and open schools and keep the nazis from regaining power.
and this attitude that "we've got to WIN, or else," that's the terrifying thing. maybe the difference was that after wwii, there was a clear victor and a clear loser. maybe it's the mindset we've got to change primarily, to give up this notion that changing or abandoning a shitty and disingenuous plan is letting the other guys win. the administration, on both sides of the aisle, seems to have lost sight of the fact that we ruined lives. that we have a human responsibilty to try to alleviate the suffering we've added to the planet, and that it's not about winning or losing. it's not about "get them before they get us" or about the u.s. being the "policeman of the world."
but, yeah, it IS about the u.s. being the policeman of the world, but not in the distorted sense that we've started to use it. the police are there to serve and protect, but too often we experience police with inflated egos overstepping the bounds. we've become the latter: we've become the LAPD of the world. i'd be happy if the u.s. were the mayberry police of the world. (would i? i haven't seen a full episode of the andy griffith show in probably 20 years. still...we've already got a perfect match for barney.)
fuck it. i just want this to stop making everybody's lives miserable. i want us to just be nice.
i don't know how i feel about the potential of troop withdrawals from iraq. that's not a coy way of saying that i don't support troop withdrawal; it's an honest statement -- i have no fucking sense of where i stand on the issue.
on the one hand, you have to be willing to say at some point that what you're trying just ain't working. no matter how much counseling we and iraq go to, we'll never be a good couple. why keep spending exorbinant dollars and lives on a war that was likely illegal, patently immoral, and potentially unwinnable? for fuck's sake, smoke 'em if you got 'em; we're toast over there, right?
on the other hand, human beings aren't a deck of cards; you can't just fold when the pot's not full of money but full of human suffering on the grandest scale. it seems that withdrawing wouldn't be quite fair to the everyday folks living in a country we've torn to pieces, i think. this whole, "iraqis have to stand on their own two feet" business is sort of like the cops in the incident at ucla this fall telling the guy they'd just tazered to hell to "stand up." here's that video, just to remind you, but be warned -- it's long, it's loud, and it's brutal:
is it a reasonable expectation by us to demand that iraq solve its own problems, now that we've so furthered them? should we pull out all troops, even as peacekeepers, because we've fucked everyone, ourselves included, over so thoroughly? i know that the iraqui leadership wants the u.s. troop presence out, but what about the "normal" citizens? i think that if i were on the brink or in civil war, with no guarantee of electricity or infrastructure or protection, i might be reticent for the one potential source of protection to go away.
that's the rub, though, isn't it -- our troops, as they exist today, aren't a source of protection. i keep thinking about germany and japan after wwii. broken countries, decades behind in terms of technology and our notions of social progress, surely unhappy about what was then an occupying army. today, they're the second and third largest economies, after the united states; they're political and social leaders on their respective continents; they, for the most part, like the u.s. what gives? is it that the united states invested not only troops to keep the peace -- for i'm sure there were what we'd now call "insurgents" left to oppose the occupation back then and there must have been disparate factions vying for power -- but also resources to rebuilding the nations. germany didn't get custodial rights over its government back for a decade, if i remember correctly, and the government was shaped -- or dictated -- by the u.s., the u.k., and france. plus, it's not as if all the soldiers who won the war came home happy campers and never thought of deutschland again; they stayed behind, or new troops were posted, to build roads and open schools and keep the nazis from regaining power.
and this attitude that "we've got to WIN, or else," that's the terrifying thing. maybe the difference was that after wwii, there was a clear victor and a clear loser. maybe it's the mindset we've got to change primarily, to give up this notion that changing or abandoning a shitty and disingenuous plan is letting the other guys win. the administration, on both sides of the aisle, seems to have lost sight of the fact that we ruined lives. that we have a human responsibilty to try to alleviate the suffering we've added to the planet, and that it's not about winning or losing. it's not about "get them before they get us" or about the u.s. being the "policeman of the world."
but, yeah, it IS about the u.s. being the policeman of the world, but not in the distorted sense that we've started to use it. the police are there to serve and protect, but too often we experience police with inflated egos overstepping the bounds. we've become the latter: we've become the LAPD of the world. i'd be happy if the u.s. were the mayberry police of the world. (would i? i haven't seen a full episode of the andy griffith show in probably 20 years. still...we've already got a perfect match for barney.)
fuck it. i just want this to stop making everybody's lives miserable. i want us to just be nice.
posted by stella at 4:21 PM
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