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I am an eternal optimist, and I generally only like to think good thoughts. I look for the beauty, the elegant solution, the good. Every time I try to write something otherwise, I struggle to find the words. I have tried on a number of occasions, and thrown away my attempts. It is alien to me, and I'm probably not being coherent at all. But it has become too much to bear, and something must be written.
Once upon a time, in a different world, in a bar in the east village, I heard the words "I believe in war". That band is gone now. They spoke to me in many ways, most of them simple joys, but this was one thought I could not share.
I don't believe in war.
I don't believe in fear. I believe that humanity is meant for something better than simple violent evolution. I believe that the fact of our conscious thought gives us the right to imagine a better future. Anything less would be a waste of our enormous potential. If war is the answer, the question is the wrong one.
To those who would hurt for the sake of hurt, I say "find a better way".
To those who would feed the cycle of distrust and destruction, I say "find a better way".
There are things we wish we could uninvent, more ways to die than to live, more ways to kill than to help. Violence in the name of peace is not an answer.
I have witnessed the shadow of death slide gracelessly along my path, and it is a feeling I could go the rest of my life without. To those who live with it and cannot escape, you have my sympathy. To those who would bring it on, you have my pity.
There are unanswered questions:
Did we bring this on ourselves? I don't think I did. Did our foreign policy bring this on us? Possibly. I don't think I have a way to tell. Do other people have a right to try to kill us, simply for being us? I don't think so. Is this about oil? Maybe. Should we reduce our dependence on oil? Absolutely. Is there any way to break the cycle? Not without breaking the cycle! What do the terrorists want? I have no fucking clue.
But, setting aside the evidence or lack thereof, here are the vastly simplified possibilities:
| Iraq is funding terrorists | Iraq is not funding terrorists | |
| We go to war against Iraq | We liberate Iraq. Much death. The terrorists that are already funded declare open season on the US if they can. Things get messy from here, as the Middle East destabilizes. The cycle runs amuck. Everyone lives in fear. | We liberate Iraq. Much death. Things get messy from here, as the Middle East destabilizes. Maybe. Maybe it's a quick and simple operation. Seems unlikely though. Everyone lives in fear. |
| We do not go to war against Iraq | Terrorists declare open season on the US. Much death. The administration says "we told you so". We stumble about blindly looking for invisible enemies. We live in fear. | The status quo holds. There's a chance of breaking the cycle. |
I don't believe in war. This is a path without end, and no good can come of it.
Anonymous
February 13 2003, 13:52:47 UTC 9 years ago
I believe in war.
It seems, according to your assessment, that the only option yielding a fear free world is contingent upon Iraq not being the source or at least not funding the terrorists. Since we have no way to really know I think your chart is irrelevant. Unfortunately, fear has become and will remain a constant in our lives, because the people out there who want to terrorize can not be eradicated. The peoples of many countries cheered when the buildings came down, while you experienced a near death epiphany. Killing in the name of peace is not good, but neither is getting killed. Just leave us alone. And I mean the royal us. All of us. The problems arise from very basic and simple conflicts. That is mine and I want it. We used to be afraid of the struggle to survive our environment and now we are afraid of each other. Welcome to the top of the food chain!February 13 2003, 14:26:51 UTC 9 years ago
Re: I believe in war.
I agree, it's a pretty simplistic analysis. But it's more honest than any I've seen in the media.But I do think that yes, a world without fear is by necessity a world without terrorism. How do you end terrorism? Got me. I'm not convinced that the answer is "hunt them down and kill them while freaking out the populace". I can see a few problems with that:
1. How do you know when you've found a terrorist? Sometimes it's obvious, but, like serial killers, maybe they look just like the rest of us. Does that mean that civilized society is no longer allowed to have a "just like the rest of us"? That seems to be the direction we're heading.
2. Is freaking out the populace (and by that, I include all encroachments on civil liberties) even going to work? Are we any safer than we were before?
Is terrorism even about resources and oppression? Do the terrorists want to kill us because we stepped on their oil (or them), or because of some religious fervor that tells them we're just bad and deserve to die? Does it make a difference?
Maybe being at the top of the food chain entails having a little responsibility.
Anonymous
July 18 2005, 08:13:41 UTC 6 years ago
Eternal optimism?
For an "eternal optimist", you can't come up with a sunnier outlook than these?July 18 2005, 08:39:31 UTC 6 years ago
Re: Eternal optimism?
Being an optimist doesn't mean you ignore the facts.The real rosy outcome here is that the War in Iraq helps the world overall by bringing democracy to the middle east (never mind that that's a complete side-stepping of the stated reason we're there in the first place).
That's not happening.
The world is NOT safer because we "liberated" Iraq. Bombing-related deaths worldwide are up.
My optimism hopes that my fellow Americans can realize this and put those who brought us here out on the street where they belong.
Anonymous
July 18 2005, 09:49:12 UTC 6 years ago
optimism
You just haven't given it enough time to work -- these things certainly take time, as shown in japan and germany for example. Your personal support of such an outcome might also help. The power of positive thinking is in fact, contagious. So is the power of negativity.July 18 2005, 10:40:55 UTC 6 years ago
Re: optimism
I don't think it's overly negative to say that this was a mistake and the people responsible for it should probably not a) gone to war on false pretenses or b) gone to war at all. I wrote the original piece before we invaded, and I maintain that doing so was predicated on misinformation and possibly some lies.We weren't there to bring democracy to the middle east. We were there because Saddam Hussein had or was developing weapons which he intended to use directly or indirectly against Americans. Of course, once we got there and that turned out to be completely untrue, then the course changed to democracy in the middle east. Well - after that, what else are you going to do?
I DO NOT think that holding that view automatically means that we should leave now. But what we're doing there is apparently not nation-building, it's dying, in the midst of what seems likely to turn into an actual civil war. Even as our country's "leadership" continues to say that everything's going just dandy over there.
I didn't support the war, and I don't support the war. However, having had the war perpetrated for us, I think it would be a mistake for us to leave the country in the state it's in now, and we have an opportunity to leave things better than they were when we found them.
That said - how about someone in charge come up with an actual plan for accomplishing this instead of just assuring the public that everything's fine while the death toll mounts?
Anonymous
July 18 2005, 12:44:45 UTC 6 years ago
Re: optimism
An actual plan??? You mean you can't even see that there is an actual plan in place? I mean, they don't have to share all the details with peons like you and me, but after drafting a new constitution, holding free elections, and training a diverse and all-volunteer police and army, isn't it obvious that indeed there IS a plan to bring democracy to the middle east?July 18 2005, 13:39:00 UTC 6 years ago
Re: optimism
Really?No, it's not at all obvious.
Elections and the constitution are a step in the right direction, I agree. But there can't be said to be Democracy in Iraq until the occupying army (our occupying army) leaves, or at least stops being a presence. The general consensus seems to be that the training is largely insufficient, and the Iraqis are FAR from being able to take over.
As in everything else, the plan needs to also take into account contingencies for what happens if things don't go as well as you'd expect. I don't see a plan here. I see a checklist of things that a democracy requires, and no ideas about how to make it work if they don't stick when they're thrown up against the wall.
A few questions that I'd like to see answered:
- How do we get the Iraqi police force trained? How much does it cost? What do we do if the violence keeps escalating?
- At what point do we decide that the hundreds of billions of dollars we're spending over there aren't cutting it, and in trying to bring democracy to Iraq, we've bankrupted our own economy and cut the legs out from under the future of our own country? Hypothetically speaking, of course.
- What's supposed to happen next? Even assuming that Iraq stabilizes, and we can pull out.... then what? Is democracy elsewhere supposed to just happen?
Anonymous
July 19 2005, 11:23:01 UTC 6 years ago
Re: optimism
First, i suspect that all of your questions above have good and well reasoned answers. I can think of a few possibilities, but the fact remains that such lower level details are never going to get the attention of our sound-byte media machine. Youd probably have to delve into the whitepapers of some foreign policy think-tanks, and ask some of the commanders on the ground.But one thing's certain -- you're NO optimist! "cut the legs out from under our future"?? That's not a hypothetical -- that's pure hyperbole!
July 19 2005, 18:20:45 UTC 6 years ago
Re: optimism
I disagree.Here's a good article from today about how the war is likely to be the most expensive ever in the history of the US, topping a total cost of 700 billion dollars, paid for with deficit spending, credit drawn on the future taxpayers of America.
All of this in the face of the evidence that the war hasn't made us safer, and according to that article, even the Senators believe there's no plan. And I quote Senator Hagel - '"The White House is completely disconnected from reality." He added that the apparent lack of solid plans for defeating the insurgency and providing stability in Iraq made it seem "like they're just making it up as they go along."' If the Senate doesn't qualify as higher-ups in the administration who might be privy to this information, who does?
Meanwhile, there aren't places back in the domestic economy that have been badly starved for cash, where 700 billion dollars wouldn't be better spent?
Education, maybe? The US is losing its edge in the sciences. Perhaps $700 billion would help there? That's just one thing, and there are many others - training local police departments to deal with terrorist threats, better security (and I don't mean more invasive security), building out the broadband infrastructure. $700 billion is a lot of money - that's about $2300 for each and every single person in the country.
And that's just the war itself. As an additional cost, the paranoia and increased "security" around travel is costing us brainpower and educational foundations as foreign students either don't want to come here or can't get in to study here.
Again - I'd really like to look on the bright side of this, but I don't think that means ignoring the evidence of the fact that this war ain't free, and it has yet to be demonstrated that any of it is either working, or worth the massive costs.