People often say that President George Herbert Walker Bush (the current President’s father) did a very wicked thing – that he called upon the people of Iraq to rise up and overthrow the regime and then, when they did rebel, he betrayed them (left them to die in their tens of thousands).
Now I am no fan of the first President Bush (I am not much of a fan of the second one either) – after all this was the President Bush of “read my lips” who then shoved up taxes, and this was the President Bush of the ‘Americans with Disabilities Act’ and all sorts of other regulations.
However, many people say that Mr G.H.W. Bush was a nice man who would not have set out to call on people to rebel and then left them to die.
I do not know whether the first President Bush was a ‘nice man’ or not – but there is a way he might have been, a possibility that has president in American policy.
There is a view common in American (and other) ‘educated’ circles that dictatorships do not rest on force, but are instead based on ‘opinion’. And if ‘the people’ really want to they can overthrow tyranny. So United States government has gone around making calls for populations to rise up against tyrannical rule and when populations do rebel (as they did several times in Eastern Europe) it is found to have no plans to help – it does not need to help you see, ‘opinion’ is what matters. If the ‘the people’ want to do something they can.
Where does this idea come from? It comes from David Hume. The great Scottish philosopher was very fond of upsetting the ideas of more ordinary minds.
For example it has been disputed for thousands of years whether people choose to do certain things (i.e. have ‘free will’ – are moral agents responsible for their actions), or whether the actions of human beings (perhaps ‘human shaped objects’ would be a better way of describing them), are predetermined and no more chosen than a clock chooses to tick (i.e. that humans are not agents – are not responsible for their actions).
David Hume cut through this dispute. Moral responsibility does not require agency (‘free will’), moral responsibility and determinism are quite ‘compatible’.
For the last two centuries most educated people have nodded their heads at Hume’s great wisdom – ah yes moral responsibility and determinism quite compatible.
I doubt whether Hume actually believed this nonsense (for nonsense it is), but I am sure it pleased him to come out with it. He could laugh (behind his hand) at the people who supported his position and he could also laugh at the people who opposed it – as they got upset by his attack on such unimportant things as human reason. Hume won both ways.
Hume also played with the notion that there is no I (just a stream of sensations with no being experiencing the sensations), and the notion that a thinking being (the being that he had just played with the notion of the nonexistence of) could not prove the existence of the exterior world.
[Both of these games being played to show the weakness of human reason – and to gain amusement both from people supporting him and people opposing him]
But Hume could also play political games. Hume was as annoyed by people getting puffed up with pride and unexamined self importance at their political freedom as he was with people getting filled with pride at the idea of themselves as moral agents.
There was little real difference between ‘British liberty’ and the ‘tyranny’ of various nations overseas. All government was, in the end, based on ‘opinion’. If the people really wanted to they could overthrow any tyrant – so if they did not his rule must be basically acceptable to them. So the British had nothing really to be so full of pride about and the ‘euthanasia of the British Constitution’ would not be that terrible.
Hume seemed to be proved right when (a couple of decades after the death of David Hume) Louis XVI of France (the nation the British associated with tyrannical rule) was laid low by the revolution.
Poor Louis, he was a victim of another of David Hume’s games. Hume argued (in his History of England) that Charles I had died because he had used violence – no war, no execution (the view of unenlightened people was, and is, that Charles died because he lost the war).
David Hume’s History of England was one of the books Louis XVI liked best. So he offered no real resistance to his enemies – and found out that your enemies can kill you even if you do not resist (indeed this makes things rather less difficult for them).
Certainly if a ruler never fights – never bothers to organise his forces (army, secret police and so on) then rebels can do what they like.
However, someone who wants to be a tyrant is unlikely be much like Louis XVI.
When we talk about nations such as Iraq we are dealing with real tyrants – not kindly men who read David Hume’s ideas as serious doctrines (rather than as clever attacks on the vanity of human beings).
The Shah of Iran may have felt the same way as Louis XVI – his resistance to being overthrown by the Ayatollah Khomeini’s minions was surprisingly scant. Of course, Jimmy Carter was not exactly helpful to the Shah’s cause, with Carter’s doctrine of punishing America’s friends and helping its enemies. At any rate, the Iranian Revolution is proof-positive that non-resistance does not guarantee good treatment – the Shah’s supporters were hung from cranes.
I’m intrigued by the idea of calling it Humean…
I do think that US culture overestimates the choosability of freedom, evolving out of a long political tradition, Britain’s with much less use of police-state methods of informers, mass murder and intimidation than Continental Europe.
If this is what Hume said, then his obvious error was to assume that only arguing for a component of consent in tyranny undercuts the right of free people to be irrationally proud. Other arguments are as good, if not better.
A lucky break combined with the efforts of previous generations of a people allow freedom, and “responsible-agent” pride is just as unwarranted in this (more believable) case as in the (much less believable) consenting-to-tyranny version of events
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But when the War Party wants to justify being less touchy about “collateral damage”:
Time to speak the unspeakable
…There is another point that fits into the category of the unspeakable. People end up with governments they desire or, at least, allow to happen. There never was a dictatorship in the history of the world that sprang up by spontaneous generation like Minerva arising full blown out of the sea.
Certainly, if it ever did happen, it could not sustain itself without the support of the people. From Castro to Hitler, dictators have been put in power by the people of their country. One can remember Castro’s triumphant entrance into Havana to the adulation of tens of thousands of Cubans.
Similarly, some might find it convenient to forget the fact that in July 1932 and March 1933 Hitler was elected in free elections by the German people. Saddam Hussein and his thugs could not have been in power but for the will of the Iraqi people.
There are reports of unexpected stiffening of resistance by Iraqi soldiers, not just the elite guard units or the civilian clothed Iraqi SS troops. These thousands of ordinary foot soldiers could not have all supped at Saddam Hussein’s table, nor only performed their duties because revolvers were put to their heads.
Recent television images have depicted the American troops dispensing foods to crowds of Iraqis. At the same time there were interviews from rabid Iraqis who refused to take food from the Americans, preferring dead Americans to live ones, even live ones who were offering them food. Further, there are numerous stories of thousands of Iraqis who have previously fled the country now paying their own way to return to Iraqi….
Lenin and Stalin became dictators without the will of anything like a majority of the Russian people. That was the whole point of the break with Trotsky, who believed in mass mobilisation of popular will, against Lenin’s argument for a highly-disciplined core of revolutionaries to quickly take control without giving popular consultation the chance to question or undo their planning.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks took control within weeks by offering Russian people peace in World War I, quickly assuming power of local utilities through a big push calling for “All power to the Soviets (workers’ committees)” which they made sure they controlled, and by broking a deal with the leaders of the Cheka, the Tsar’s well-organised, enormous secret police apparatus – renaming it the NKVD.
It’s untrue that tyranny is always voted in.
Through history the commonest kind of tyrant has been an individual at the head of a big, well-organised army which wins a war and then decides not to disband itself.
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Not all of the “Iraqi civilians support their evil government so we can go ahead and bomb them” examples had totalitarian governments specifically being voted in.
Scott: There are reports of unexpected stiffening of resistance by Iraqi soldiers, not just the elite guard units or the civilian clothed Iraqi SS troops.
Oh for gawds sake… the allies have taken, what…60 K.I.A? They have overrun half the damn country of Iraq and yet somehow ‘resistance is stiffening’.
This campaign is rather like several British colonial campaigns in the 19th Century… the Brits took a few hundred losses but inevitably overran vast countries with their small proffesional army. The fact is that already in Basra, loca Iraqis are pointing out the Ba’athists to the UK troops.
As for dictatorships springing from ‘the people’… which ‘people’ is that? In many cases, all it takes is to have the support of the army and to hell with ‘the people’ (whatever that means).
He said “stiffening”, not “a stone wall” (and Iraqis are not greeting us like the Kuwaitis supposedly did when we freed them from Saddam).
What happened to the Communist block in the late 80s? Were they conquered or violently overthrown or did their people finally just give up on those governments?
In the 1980s an unusual chairman of the USSR Central Committee, Gorbachev, a protege of senior (ex-NKVD) KGB officials experimented with reform from the top, sincerely aiming to make sclerotic state socialism work better by incorporating some free-market elements.
East-European satellites of the Soviets (Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria etc) were told by Gorbachev that they should loosen up, and could not expect Russian help if they used force to maintain unreformed power. Senior Hungarian communists, not ordinary Hungarians, speeded this process by opening the Iron Curtain to East-German holidaymakers in Hungary, allowing them to cross unrestricted into Austria. This emboldened protesters in East Germany to go ahead and destroy the Berlin Wall, because the stream of German families reuniting via Hungary gave the public signal that East Germany’s leader Honecker did not have Gorbachev’s support in sticking to his hard line.
None of it was genuinely initiated by mass protests. In every case mass protests only started after Gorbachev publicly told East-European communist leaders repressive acts against their citizens would no longer receive Moscow’s support.
Sadly, the manner of East Europeans’ freeing (from the top down) was as autocratic as the manner of their enslaving. Brave groups had repeatedly resisted those states over decades only to be killed or tortured every time in response. They only succeeded once an executive decision was taken at the top to stop killing and torturing. It was then discovered that violence was indeed the main thing that had held the previous regimes in place, and they fell without it.
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Should we invade Iran or let the people there settle dealing w/ their government?
Scott
There are several comments on The Command-post war blog by Iranians. You might find them quite interesting.
Probably not. There are good signs the Iranians are about to manage it by themselves – which is much better if and when it is possible. Iran’s post-1979 mullahs never had a secret-police apparatus as sophisticated or repressive as Iraq’s.
The Somalis, on the other hand, could definitely benefit from being invaded and conquered by folk more civilised than their own warlords.
Whether it is in our interest to spend lots of money and kill people to do that is a separate issue entirely of course.
If they get conquered, it will be by someone wanting to install a central government, with tax powers, to make them pay off the loans their previous idiot government took out.
Will I be exposed as a total geek if I remind Scott Cattanach that Minerva sprang fully formed from the head of Jupiter. It was Venus who came from the waves.
Oh yeah, all that stuff about people choosing to be opressed is wrong, too.
I would also like to remind everyone that our *allies* and the UN prefer STABILITY (& contracts)over getting rid of Saddam.
The resolution/*the world* forbade US from doing removing him. And frankly, it’s *the world’s* fault we had to do it now. *The world* appeased him and again, we have to go in and clean up the mess. And now *the world/UN* wants the largest piece of the pie. While my people and the Iraqis die FOR NO GOOD REASON OTHER THAN THE STATUS QUO!!!
When will *the world* lose it’s enchantment with stalinst dictators?????
Whether *the world* likes it or not, we’re in WW IV and you had better get used to it. Yes, I am really upset with *the world* and so are a lot of Americans.
And Scott, check out the Movement of Iranian Students for Democracy. Iran just needs a “push.”
Perry’s reading on the fall of 89 is correct. Gorbachev let it happen. And the world owes him a great deal for it. He could have crushed those revolts had he chosen. Maybe he was scared of America’s reaction. I don’t know. Or maybe he simply thought it was time.
But, it should be noted that Romania’s government didn’t go quietly, but again, proving Perry’s point, it was the military of Romania that chose not to step in so Cheuchescu’s (sp?) police apparatus were torn apart and he was put in front of a firing squad if memory serves. So, it was still kind of a top down revolution.
One other note regarding Bush Senior and the Iraqi Shia revolt that was crushed while we stood idly by. I agree with Paul that he seemed like a nice guy. All accounts were that he was a nice guy. I always thought he was a nice guy who was thoroughly outmatched in domestic politics by the Democratic congress. But, I always hedge my bets when I say things like Bush 1 “is a good guy.” It’s always important to remember his resume: Oilman, Congressman, Envoy to China, Ambassador to the U.N., Director of the CIA. That last one is the one that gives me pause on the whole good guy bit. Director of the CIA in the 70s implies that while he may have been morally grounded, he probably got his hands dirty a time or two and did things that would hurt the nice old man image. Just a note.
Also, he and his entire national security team were students of Kissenger. They were Realpolitik guys to the core. That is why we left the Shia out to dry. They feared another Iran. Going on Sandy P’s post. They worried about stability and containment more than anything more nobile. Thankfully, Bush 2 seems to have his own moral compass and has a bigger view of things post 9/11. And it is many of his dad’s national security team who have been the biggest critics of his policy from the right. They don’t want to accept that we live in a new world. As Sandy said, stability is what they valued most. (and probably their boss, Bush Senior). THey haven’t quite figured out we live in a new world. I’m sure Hume would have something interesting (and full of crap) to say about that.
Since, I’m flat ignorant of Hume, I don’t have much to add there except to say that he seems the type of guy I might have enjoyed to have a drink and a discussion with all the while thinking “what a nutjob.”
Just chiming in.
The Minerva thing was a quote from an article – you can feel superior to the original author if you really want to.
Are you guys really, honestly asserting that freedom is basically a gift of government (either your own, or a friendly foreign invader – which makes me wonder how any free societies came about, since freedom evidently only comes from outside)? Solzhenitsyn, Walesa, and Havel should have just shut up and waited for a Gorbachev to come along? Tiananmen Square was idoitic, pointess suicide?
Do you assert that people have no say in their fates? That oppressive governments are wasting time and energy on “we love our great leader” propoganda since fear is enough? That the people of this world should sit passively by and wait for Uncle Sucker to come free them, since its pointless to resist a government?
Do you believe that a free (or or at least decent) society can only be built for you by your government? Nobody would choose poverty, like nobody would choose oppression, so we should wait for government handouts?
And you claim to oppose Big Government?
Mark: The Somalis, on the other hand, could definitely benefit from being invaded and conquered by folk more civilised than their own warlords.
For once I must agree with Scott… the Somalis are an armed society and will resist in ways that the Iraqis never will and the US has NO business interfering in what is not a top down tyranny oppressing the Somalia… in fact there is no nation-state called Somalia in any meaningful sense and that is not a bad thing at all. How is a so-called ‘warlord’ keeping order at gunpoint within a clan area different from the paramilitary police in the USA keeping order within say, South Central Los Angeles, trying to stop the Bloods and Crips from killing each other? Who is really ‘more civilised’? At least in Somalia the ‘warlord’s’ people are not regarded as an occupying army by some of the local population.
Certainly the north (Somaliland) is a fairly successful functioning Kritarchy and I fail to see what makes them less ‘civilised’ than any western nation, given they do not engage in the systematic theft (redistributive taxation) that western nations do.
I am going to take Scott’s side in this thread – in contrast to disagreeing with his non-interventionist stance vis the current Iraq crisis. (I lost my temper a bit the other day at the anti-war crowd, mea culpa).
He is dead right to point out that many tyrannies have started with overt public support. Hitler’s rise to power was a clear example, though of course he was assisted by the vagaries of the proportional rep. system adopted in elections at the time. Lenin’s rise to power was clearly a putsch, though again, he benefited from support in certain quarters. The French Revolution had wide support from certain elements of society, although they did not have polling then, so I admit much of this is informed guesswork from my reading of history.
More broadly, I don’t think regimes can change until there is a clear shift among not just the chattering classes, who make much of the din, but among the broad masses. In short, ideas really do matter. And of course the force of ideas can emerge with astonishing speed.
Of course, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the democratic changes in the former Warsaw Pact countries is a clear example of an upswell of opinion making a clear difference.
Which is why we scribble away for this blog.
Johnathan
Scott: Do you assert that people have no say in their fates? That oppressive governments are wasting time and energy on “we love our great leader” propoganda since fear is enough?
[…]
Solzhenitsyn, Walesa, and Havel should have just shut up and waited for a Gorbachev to come along? Tiananmen Square was idoitic, pointess suicide?
This endless talk of ‘the people’ makes me chuckle. Who is this ‘the people’ you keep talking about? Can you point them out for me? The fact is that Solzhenitsyn, Walesa, and Havel (who are probably not really the sort of people you think they are) did indeed have to wait for a Gorbachev to come along to actually make any difference.
Two of our Samizdata contributing writers grew up under communism (and one knows Havel) and they both think that it was external military and economic realities which kept them under the heel of tyranny for so long. To simply throw away your life in a pointless open revolt when the centre of your oppression is not next door may be heroic, but it is also pointless… so ultimatly Tianamen Square was heroic but it was indeed pointless as when Chinese communism was tested by them, it proved to be far from a spent force. In 1968, did ‘the people’ in Czechoslovakia acquiese in their oppression? I don’t think so. So when they did not revolt again in 1969, and again in 1970, and again in 1971… does that mean ‘the people’ were acquiessing to communism then? No, but it does prove what should be screamingly obvious: fear works.
Perry, thanks for introducing me to the word kritarchy, don’t know if I’d never encountered it before or if my memory fails me, but it’s a concept I’ve been wanting a word for for a while now.
An interesting depiction of a future America with a techno-kritarchy is in the novel “Snow Crash”.
Of course, it being America, the judges are franchised (in quasi-sovereign ‘franculates’, membership of which is voluntary).
thanks! knew there had to be a word for that concept, I was familiar with it from Irish and Germanic history, and not having a label had made it difficult to discuss the topic with others.
So I guess I’m a kritarchist at heart. Oh and typing kritarchy into google and hitting “I’m feeling lucky” gives you a good, longish, background on it.
Scott: Mark Perry’s words…he got it right. There are no ‘people’ in an oppressed regime. There is only a number of scared individuals trying to make ends meet. Staying out of trouble is your priority. Resisting oppression is a ‘lifestyle choice’, if I may use that ‘Western’ term. No career, no comfort, constant harrassment, isolation etc. There are very few willing to make that sacrifice without a clear signal that their oppression will be removed externally. The dissident movements in Eastern Europe had very little actual impact on communist regimes. What they did was to foster an alternative view of the world and were able to move into the power vacuum created by the Soviet Union going belly up economically and socially. So yes, ideas, dissent, underground stuff matters. But it is essentially an intellectual and moral resistance that can only bear fruits once the existing power structures are loosened by their own contradictions or by external force.
Agreed Perry. Sadly, it’s simply false to believe that freedom can only come from below and that mass shifts of opinion can happen in tightly controlled societies. Change from below is preferable [Eastern Europe would be a better place now if Walesa, Havel and their supporters really had achieved openness for themselves], but it is not always possible. That doesn’t mean I think we should always intervene, but we can stop blaming people living under terror for not freeing themselves.
North Korea’s massive system of informers is a huge waste of economic effort [as well as a hideous edifice of cruelty] and directly leads to the starvation that they have there, but the actual coercion [torture + precise shifts in daily food rations depending on perceived loyalty to the regime] works so ‘well’ to its own ends that any freer regime would have fallen long ago. Yet this one still stands, however unsteadily.
I said first time whether imposing order in Somalia [a small part of coastal Somalia might make more sense] would be worthwhile was a separate topic – it would be a huge challenge, probably a massive waste of money and lives.
But – though both ‘states’ are different – neither ordinary Somalis nor ordinary North Koreans are going to do it for themselves, and, whatever we do, we should not be so spoiled and uncomprehending as to blame them for that.
/
Actually I don’t think this view originated with Hume. See e.g. The Politics of Obedience: Discourse of Voluntary Servitude by Éttiene de la Boétie, written back in the mid 16th century (thanks to Paul Coulam for putting me on to de la Boetie).
Speaking from a position of agnostic ignorance, my instinct is that the truth of the matter lies somewhere in between. The notion that enslaved peoples can overthrow tyrants simply by “withdrawing consent” (whatever that may mean) seems a little naive. On the other hand, who can doubt that (for example) the Nazis were helped on their way by the tacit complicity of many (a majority?) of ordinary Germans.
David
Iraqi women demonstrate outside the United Nations Development Program offices in Baghdad on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2003, to show support for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and to protest a possible attack by the United States.
An Iraqi Kurd raises a portrait of Iraq President Saddam Hussein over his head during a demonstration Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003 in Baghdad. Thousands gathered in Baghdad to protest against a possible U.S.-led war against Iraq and in support of Saddam.
Don’t make the circular argument that they must be paid govt lackeys or there at gunpoint, because its an oppressive regime, and therefore can’t be used as an example of oppressive regimes having popular support (i.e. “it can’t be true because it conflicts with what I believe”).
A quote I found today on an obscure website called “samizdata.net”:
When governments start incarcerating their political opponents for life, it is because they are frightened and deeply worried and usually with good reason. I suspect the game [in Cuba] is nearly up.
And, just as an aside, doesn’t this show up the juvenile, publicity-seeking, egocentrism of the ‘Bush is Hitler’ mob in sharp relief? While genuine freedom fighters risk their very lives by taking on ‘Il Presidente’, the likes of Michael Moore can pose as ‘oppressed heroic victims’ while being chauffeured around to their various awards ceremonies and public speaking engagements.
Doesn’t the whole “this is a clash of ideologies” explanation for the war imply some degree of public support for Islamofacism? Would you expect pro-western governments to be freely elected in Arab nations right now, if they could vote for people who want to do violence to us?
Scott
Got any pictures of mass protests for good old Sadam dated after January (say in March or April) ? I mean, don’t use the circular argument there are none because they must be paid lackeys of the CIA or under gunpoint from Americans or anything like that.
🙂
In Kashmir, any ‘moderate’ Muslim politicians are threatened or killed by the ‘Islamofascists’ for daring to suggest people should participate in Indian run elections/government. It tends to have an interesting effect on popular ‘support’ for the government.
Maddie, so they supported Saddam before we started bombing them, but must have stopped afterward (despite the fact that people tend to close ranks when threatened from outside)?
Yes, Saddam uses fear. No, not everyone demonstrating in Iraq on his behalf is doing it purely out of fear. Pro-US “thank you for liberating us” demonstrations are/will be a mix of opportunism, “please give me some food now”, and genuine gratitude (and how long the gratitude lasts is anyone’s guess). Some Iraqi support will be genuine, some will be revenge against enemies (personal or political).
From little I gather of this Hume character, he’ be quite pleased with how this discussion is going. You have a bunch of intellegent logical people who have allowed themselves to get pigeonholed into absolutists arguments.
The problem here is that most of the comments on this discussion are correct, at different times and under different circumstances. Do people vote in their oppressors? Sometimes. But not always. Do “the people” rid themselves of dictators. Sometimes, but not always. Comparing one dictatorship to another is necessary but also dangerous.
Let’s get down to brass tax a bit. What do most successful bottom-up revolutions have in common? The revolutionaries organized, met and communicated enough to be able to gain a large enough contingent to revolt. If those revolutionaries had a vision that had appeal to the larger masses, the masses would grasp on quite quickly. In the case of Casto’s revolution in Cuba, the revolutionaries met and organized mostly outside of Cuba. But they were able to communicate enough with the main island to get a decent following. They likely would not have been able to do all their planning, training and organizing inside Cuba, without running a huge risks of being discovered.
But, in modern day police states, police states that have a couple thousand years of history to learn from, they have discoverd that brutality mixed with control of information is quite effective at keeping a population in check. In the case of Iraq, the Soviet Union, the former Yugoslavia, you have the added bonus of being able to play ethnic rivalries against each other in order to foment distrust and complicating the organizing process even further. Gabriel’s point about the “People” of Iraq being really a mixture of scared individual’s is dead on. To revolt against a police state as pervasive as Saddam’s requires communicating, meeting and organized a resistence. In his police state it is simply impossible to do that. On top of that, the costs of getting caught is usually death. Usually, a particularly nasty death at that. Also, likely death, rape or torture for a family member too. As Perry said, it may be heroic to stand up to that, but it’s also probably pointless. Asks the Shia of ’91. Even the brutal Cuban dictatorship tends to jail dissedents instead of killing them (for the most part).
So, it’s really a pie in the sky argument to say why can’t the people of Iraq revolt. The barriars are simply too great. That’s why the 1989 revolutions are important. These were quite effective dictatorships. But, Eastern Europe took all it’s pointers from Moscow. Moscow said “sorry, we’re out to lunch.” This gets back to my point about an appealing vision taking hold quickly to seemingly disorganized masses. Once East Germany fail, it was simply a domino effect. EVERYONE new communism was brain dead. THey just needed a little push. The wall falling gave them that push. But, sadly, it happened because the leaders didn’t have the will to fight for the most part, and they didn’t have their security blanket of the USSR there to help.
But, these examples are mainly relavent to those situations. They have lessons for others, but each police state is different. Each situation is different. Hell, as much as I love my country (the USA), I’m not so ignorant not to recognize that the government we revolted against was lightyears more enlightend and civilized (for the lack of a better term) than Nazi Germany. North Korea, Cuba or Iraq. That was certainly important to it’s success.
And Scott, you’ve made some fair points, but your last picture of the Iraqis is simply ignorant. They may not have been paid. But, when you’ve been conditioned for the better part of 25 years that you love Saddam or else (especially when the cameras are rolling), the necessity to “pay” isn’t there. As someone else said here: “Fear works”. Am I saying they all really hate Saddam? No. Some probably buy into his fascist routine. However, if they had organized an anti-Saddam rally, they would have been treated about 20 times worse than the dissedents at Tianemen were treated.
And that’s really all I was saying (i.e. its not the case that everyone there longs for an invasion to free them), althought we may or may not disagree on how much propoganda induced support vs. how much raw fear keeps Saddam in power.
Although I do think “I hate Saddam but I hate foreign invaders more” plays a part when we decide to liberate people.
We were immoral to firebomb Dresden and nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki, because we were basically killing innocent hostages of their evil governments, who had no more say in things than the Chinese, Poles, and French)?
Scott: so those pictures are ‘the people’, then who are the Peshmerga? Who are the Shiite Dissidents? Who were the people of Halabja? Are they ‘the people’ too? if so, then what is proved by those pictures? If not then what is proved by those pictures?
What does this ‘the people’ actually mean? If 50% voted for Bush and 50% voted for Gore, what did ‘the people’ choose? Hell, if ‘the people’ voted for Blair in the UK, does that mean I am not one of ‘the people’ because I sure did not vote for him? What the hell does it actually mean?
No, those pictures aren’t “the people”, my point was that there is some support for Saddam among “the people” who happen to live in Iraq. It clearly isn’t 100% and I never said that it was.
You can’t say there’s no such thing as “the Iraqi people” then favor a war to free “the Iraqi people”.
So Scott, what is your plan to stop the suffering of ‘certain’ people in Iraq (surely, some are suffering due to the regimes’ actions)?
Options:
1. You can go to war.
2. You can fund the opposition.
3. You can encourage an uprising.
4. You can have sanctions.
5. You can put pressure on neighboring governments to put pressure on the regime.
6. You can assassinate/plan/encourage a coup.
7. You can continue with the status quo of no fly zones to protect the Kurds/Shias and leave the Sadam loving Sunnis out of it.
7. You can do nothing because it is up to Iraqi’s to choose their government and if they ‘choose’ Sadam, too damn bad (as long as you don’t blame others for doing nothing because that is extremely annoying).
Any others I’m missing? 🙂
Maddie, it sounds like there are lots of non-war options.
Except 2-6 have been tried and really haven’t worked and 7 is sort of a stop gap, but I doubt we’ll ever agree on that.
At what point do you choose war?
Kind of too late now, anyway.
For now a real tyrant is being dealt with and I hope and pray (with much trepidation) that another tyrant does not take his place.
Maddie, if you want a war, go right ahead and fight one, or are you choosing for me as well?
You make a good point.
I suggest that you not vote for Bush in the next election 🙂 :).
You do make me think about things in a different way, and I do appreciate that!
Thanks. I hope the generally good vibes amongst all of us who don’t exactly trust government in general aren’t one of the casualties of this war.