I do feel moved to respond to Frederick's post, this part:
>
>Yes, yes, I know, sentimental, self-righteous, partial, a half-truth.
>In these respects like so much that appears on this list, and hence a
>useful corrective. And now I'll be silent. Because I know from
>experience it will do no good to say I detest Bush and Ashcroft, that I
>regard them as being ALMOST as dangerous to civilization as the
>theologians of jihad. It will do no good to argue that DESPITE the fact
>the US helped keep S.H. in power while he served its purposes, the fact
>that it's now deposing him MAY lead to a net gain in freedom for his
>people. Against whose oppression people like us would certainly have
>signed petitions, but never physically fight. It did no good for me to
>send that material about Sayyid Qutb - it inspired no serious, i.e.
>non-moralizing, questions about real forces in the world. It inspired
>nothing whatever - it didn't fit. Some of you have to see America as
>the greater enemy, no matter what it is opposing. A mullah, a suicide
>bomber, the stoners and mutilators of women, "brilliant Osama," Saddam
>H. - they're human, they're sacred victims, they're no threat, they're
>fucking MATES compared to, say, an oil executive.
becauase I feel, from my reading here, that most of us agree with the first
few sentences, but are unsure, even against the final ones. It interests me
to hear even some US military types & analysts arguing (at least when
queried on the CBC) that following something like the Canadian proposal to
the UN, setting very specific deadlines, & getting the UN onside (because
some of what we fear is the way this 'illegal' war, this breaking of
international treaty & law set [in the USA back in the 1860s], may have
highly dangerous, unintedned consequences; & that is not even to speak to
the many deaths in Iraq). There is a boubleness to the response to the
fedayeen etc. They are rotten, & fighting for tbeir lives for a rooten
dictator, but also, with many ordinary Iraqis, fighting for their country,
against a hugely superior force, & of course they are not following the
'rules' as set by the US/UK forces. That too is terrible.
I think most of us feel that everything about this is terrible, which in no
way means we support Saddam Hussein, etc. We don't. But there's that
lingering question: which dictators will this administration choose to take
out, 7 which ones will it continue to support? Etc. I remain in dark...
Doug
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
I fear this war
will be long and painful
and who
pursue
it
Lorine Niedecker
|