[thechat] protests?

[Erik Mattheis]

On Friday, March 21, 2003, at 03:25 PM, Bill Haenel wrote:
>> 1. Have blind faith Hussein has WMD and furthermore feel personally
>> threatened.
>
> I'm not saying I buy the WMD thing, but if I did, why would my faith be
> blind while yours sees so clearly?

I didn't mean to imply that I believe Hussein doesn't have WMD.

I'm saying that it's not possible to believe he does without making a 
leap of faith, or trust if you rather.

>> 2. Disagree with International Law that has for half a century
>> effectively contained the reign of ruthless dictators.
>
> Which ones did International Law contain again? And how were those laws
> implemented?

The matter at hand is Hussein. Inspections and the military enforcement 
of the No Fly zones have contained him for over a decade.

There is and has been no evidence that he intends to be aggressive in 
any way other than defending Iraq.

> A. Have a legitimate belief that someone in the White House knows what
> they're talking about. (not sayin' it's my belief, mind you)

That's covered in my #1.


> B. Feel scared by the unknown. (which is usually why people strike out
> aggressively when they don't have all of the facts, no?)

OK, yes, that would be another.

But at this point, I'm more afraid that Russian or French ICBMs are 
headed toward my neck of the woods: such a launch would be  a legal act 
of war according to the UN Charter. I'm barely afraid of that at all, 
but I think even that fear is more rational than thinking that an Iraqi 
sponsored dirty bomb is going to go off down the block.

>> There is no middle ground on this issue.
>
> Whoa, man. There is ALWAYS middle ground.
>
>> You either back unprovoked
>> aggression, are against it, or have no opinion.
>
> That's almost exactly what Mr. Bush said when he couldn't get the 
> world to
> think like he does..."You're either wid us or agin us"? (paraphrased, 
> of
> course)

I don't think there's middle ground on today's developments. Have you 
seen pictures of Beautiful Downtown Bagdad today? A Western reporter 
reported "Every building I can see is on fire. And I doubt there were 
Western reporters in legitimate military targets.

So, indeed I'm saying "You are either with us or against us." Can there 
be any middle ground on whether the Bush administration's stance that 
starting a war can be a GOOD THING is right or wrong?

The Bush statement "with us" referred to marching in lock-step with the 
way his administration felt terrorism was best to be dealt with. That 
is an extremely complicated and nuanced area with lots of room for 
disagreement. Invading a sovereign country without provocation is a cut 
and dry issue.

Playing devils advocate, pretend for a moment that Hussein did have the 
ability to stage an attack in the United States. We could have done 
most of what happened today with a few hours planning: the majority of 
the firepower unleashed was from B-52's that took off from England or 
was launched from ships hundreds of miles out to sea. I would still 
have no doubt that refraining from responding to a non-imminent attack 
until the attack becomes imminent is the moral thing to do.

>> Among the reasons I protest ...
> And thank God you can and do so, Erik. Our country needs you to do it. 
> Thank
> you.
>
> I'm not saying you do otherwise, but please protest peacefully and 
> tell all
> of your friends to do so as well. One bad turn does not deserve 
> another. Who
> is to blame if someone is hurt during a protest? Who holds the
> responsibility for the protestors' actions?

You're welcome! And please think of joining us whenever you can, it's a 
domino effect. I'm all for non-violent civil disobedience ... but will 
apologize for not thinking and acting quickly enough when I realized 
that dumb ass next to me intended to hurl the TV set, which broke a 
tile in the beautiful park in front of the Federal Building. Pic at 
<http://shockingelk.com/pictures/protest_2003_03_20/>


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