This whole war thing is really bugging me. I actually agree that Saddam is an evil
man and a menace, but I'm not sure that the problem is ours to solve at this time.
Or maybe just not ours alone. It worries me when we scornfully reject proposals to
use diplomacy. If we rejected those proposals is a measured fashion with logical
arguments, even, I'd feel easier. Colin Powell's presentation helped, but why
didn't we start there instead of ending there?
I do agree that we
need to fight terrorism directed against us. And we may need to attack Saddam for
that reason, -- now -- since he's been calling for suicide attacks against us. And
no matter what we did to him, that doesn't excuse calling for those attacks. But,
well, if you're fighting a wild pig, you don't corner it, because you know
that's when it's most dangerous. I am not a diplomat; I have little skill at
manipulating people. But we are supposed to have diplomats who are smart about
that -- if I can see this is a bad plan, why can't they? Plenty of the other Arab
states dislike Saddam as a bad Muslim -- wouldn't it have been more productive to
target that weakness?
I can't get away from feeling that this is all
a result of George Bush trying to compensate for a small dick. That accounts for
both the scorn toward proposals of diplomacy, the irrational drive to attack Iraq
and ignore Korea and the vicious total war plans they've been hinting at. The idea
that people will die because of a man mired in a puerile insecurity upsets and
offends me more than anything. I keep hoping for proof that I'm wrong, waiting for
Colin to explain why Iran and not Korea, waiting for the allies to draw a firm
line -- displomacy "thus far and no further" and it hasn't happened, and hasn't
happened, and still hasn't happened.
I want to be governed by
people who are smarter than I am, or at least as smart and better informed. Where
are they?