Mike James offers up a list of why NO, the event of Iraqis getting to vote was unequivocally NOT WORTH IT:
Maikimo.net › Weblog › Twenty-nine pieces of silver
The one which stuck with me was the last one on the list of 12:
not only not cared for our own poor, widows, and orphans, but instead enthusiastically created more elsewhere
Someone told me they thought the Iraqi vote was “complete and utter vindication” of Bush. To that I say, Blasphemer! It is a vindication of NOTHING , except that bad things happen to good people, and bad people get the spoils (but only for a while, and then they will know and their sin will be exposed as death.) Justice will ultimately prevail, and the ones who have deceived many, and have followed the path of greed and pride will fall. Count on it. The creator of the universe has proclaimed it.
I have one question related to the latest Bush doctrine that replacing despots with democracies is in our national secirity interest: Will Bush be able to forcibly overturn tyranical governments around the world without himself becoming a tyrant?
As far as the humanitarian side of things, Bush is obviously taking a long view of things. That there will be a few (possibly unnecessary or avoidable) casualties upfront for a greater good down the road. I am not an ends-justify-the-means type of guy, but I”™m pretty sure this is the approach Bush is taking.
Chris,
My reply to the first question is No, he can’t. Basically, he already IS a tyrant to the rest of the world.
As for “the long view”, which I do NOT believe is actually the case with Iraq — we’re in for much worse ahead than is behind us, given the hatred we have engendered trhoughout the Muslim world, on top of what was ALREADY there. As for Bush, I don’t believe he takes the long view on ANYTHING. He is after the goods, and wants them ASAP. This is why they were so determined and admaant about Iraq; screw the evidence; screw “let’s be sure” (and the lie to justify it “if we wait we die”, regardless of what all inspections and intelligence who didn’t simply tell them what they wanted to hear; in fact, everybody who TELLS them the truth gets thr axe, unless they bend over, straighten up, and fly right (way right).
I don’t believe you can even say that Bush is taking the “long view” as a “humanitarian” approach unless you actually believe in the “ends justifies the means”. Otherwise there woulod be no equation of Bush’s approach with any shape or form of humanitarianism.
Slight correction. I think Bush does take the “long view.” Him and his administration takes the long view in the goal of keeping a foothold of American imperial power around the world, and Republican political power at home. This long view of control only for themselves causes them to have no long view for anybody else.
I guess the thing that colors my take on the “long view” of Bush is how he answered Bob Woodward when Woodward asked him, at the end of an interview about the Iraq takeover, what history might say about Bush and these events: Bush held out his hands as if to say “who knows?” and said “History? We’ll all be dead.” As you said Eric, “no long view for anybody else”. He may be dead, WE may be dead. But there is such a thing as children, and future generations. IN fact, I believe the repucussions of this administration will be vistied upon us much sooner; in our own generation, and for years to come, particularly in the areas of international relations and economics. The “short view” view I believe Bush has is in terms of the “tax breaks now, tax breaks always, and tax breaks out the hilt for the largest and richest corporations, and piling up the weights on the side of the coroporations to throw the balance of power as quickly as possible in the direction of further concentration of power in the hands of the elite (and he does this, all the while, verbally assaulting “hollywood elites” and “intellectual elites”). Zinn’s writings become all the more prophetic (really just a matter of opening one’s eyes and staying informed from sources unbeholden to these pirates of civilization.