To put myself in this picture, leaving Baker, driving through a landscape
close enough to the Iraq desert's thAt US troops trained here for the
conflict, I bacame aware that I had been thinking, "shit, I'm missing the
invasion of Baghdad," and then, "it's ok, there'll be lots of reruns."
Just like missing Buffy the Vampire Killer.
Mark
At 11:05 AM 4/5/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>I was going to post an article from an embedded journalist on the front
>page of this morning's NYTimes. It's called "Barrage of Fire, Trail of
>Death in the Capital," and it could make angels weep, whatever their
>politics, but I realize that the arguments about the war are, at their
>best, not about one side being more bloodthirsty than the other, nor even
>about the immediate cost in lives and suffering, but about what course of
>action has a chance of lessening human misery (I recognize that many in the
>highest positions have other, less appealing motives, but none, I think, on
>this list share those motives). Those arguments have a lot to do, I think,
>with time-frame and an idea of what the sphere of action is. At the moment
>human misery is winning, big-time, but its locus is limited. The question
>is whether, in the first place, the near future will be better and safer,
>and in the longer view, say over the next thirty years, the quotient of
>human misery will have been increased or decreased by the present war and
>its locus limited or vastly increased. And to the extent that the future is
>predictable in only limited ways, the further question is whether, given
>not just the present misery, but the possible consequences, the evidence
>for one position or the other was and is so strong that the risk of taking
>the wrong action was worth the gamble. I don't think it was--no one even in
>the administration has been saying that the Iraqis would have been prepared
>to use biological or chemical weapons in a significant way in less than a
>year, and inspections backed by the threat of force, which seemed to be
>having results, for that much time seemed a reasonable way to hedge all
>bets. It's not as if the Iraqis could have conceivably in that time become
>strong enough to neutralize US forces--the inequalities of strength and
>technology are so vast we might as well be mowing down an army of
>spear-carriers.
>
>The issues for those of us in the US border on the unreal. While the
>consequences for our position in the world of having placed the wrong bet
>are daunting, the increase in misery, if we've bet wrong, will be largely
>felt very far away: occasional acts of terrorism will happen here regardless.
>
>How far away? I just spent two days in the desert maybe 200 miles from LA
>and 100 miles from Las Vegas. I stayed in a motel for the one night I was
>away in the crossroads town of Baker. The TV got a whole bunch of movie
>channels but nary a news report. The local paper, a weekly, was the only
>paper available.
>
>I don't pretend that Baker, CA is typical in the unavailability of news. I
>do suspect that it may indicate the answer to the question that the polls
>aren't asking: "how much do you really care one way or another about a)
>short-term, and b) long-term, consequences."
>
>Meanwhile, for those of you who worry about pretty minor excesses of
>language, note that they are the result of real anguish and sleepless
>nights, on both sides of the argument.
>
>Mark
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