http://www.salon.com/tech/htww/index...ius/index.html



If you have trouble accessing this, look around for how to get a free "site pass" to view articles. You just have to watch a brief ad, then you can access the Salon site.

 

Thanks for pointing this out... this is the most intelligent thing I've seen all day.

 

Yes, nice link, thank you!

Here are a few more reasons to drive a Prius, and supposedly via the Jenkins mental contortion, drive the price of oil down (tongue in cheek):

WARNING - political rant - don't read on if you have a sensitive soul!

Oil becomes cheaper, there is less incentive to invade Iraq - 30,000 civilian lives saved, and the lives of about 2,000 US soldiers (I lost count, plus the civilian casualties range from the White-House-admitted 30k up to 100,000 by other groups).
Ok, that's past history, but maybe that applies to Iran and other middle-eastern states?

Oil becomes cheaper, oil barons' profits go down, and so does their political influence via the Cheney connection. Maybe that will bring some fresh wind (as in unpolluted) into the White House.

Oil becomes cheaper and more available, maybe the destructionist oil lobby can finally be held at bay in terms of their efforts to destroy ANWR.

NE1 else with some bright Jenkins style brain upheavals?

 

The casualties in Iraq were WAY into the 100's of thousands! Oh wait, you meant since the US went in. Yeah, the US is killing way fewer than Saddam did, you're right.

 

Remember though - all the Iraqis dying at US hands are "self-inflicted" wounds.....if they lay down their arms and accept democracy and freedom, then not one more of them will die. The Iraqis who are dying now are choosing to die for a cause which is lost.

 

Iraq is like Vietnam: getting involved only to lose is the worst of all options. I favored removing Saddam, but was very skeptical in 2003 when Rumsfield and Sean Hannity talked how easy the occupation would be. This is related to the other big problem: many in the Bush Administration needed to understand this was a totally different culture at odds with the West.

Hopefully, Iraq will have a government like Jordan or Kuwait. Then the US focuses on a serious energy policy and an economy that can succed in a Global Age.

 

I find it hard to imagine you saying the same about Americans dying fighting an illegal occupation of their homeland. I know my fellow countrymen would be heros for resisting the imperial invading army, but I guess when we are the invaders the tables are turned and any resistance is futile and we can consider it all 'self-inflicted' because we stand for 'democracy and freedom' and they stand for terrorism and tyranny. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

I guess it depends on a persons' definition of "a just cause."

If a person believes that converting Iraq from a brutal dictatorship into a free democratic society is an junjust cause, then I have zero respect for that person's viewpoint.

No one is "invading the homeland" of any Iraqis. We are assisting the Iraqi government in the conversion process from dictatorship to democracy. That is what we are doing. That is ALL we are doing. When that job is finished and the Iraqi army and police are strong enough to defend against those terrorists who would want to cause Civil War, then our job is done. To leave before it's done would be the insult to all the dead American soliders who have died for the justness of this cause.

 

I'm aware of the debate between the US and the rest of the Western world on the wisdom of going into Iraq, American society vs. other Western democracies....the differences seem to pale when compared to most of the Middle East.

This is an extreme case, but the President of Iran denies the Holocast ever happened, then suggests Israel's citizens resettle to Europe, America, Canada....scary when deluded people are leading a nation. Sadly, there are others in the Middle East with a twisted view of reality....even a very enlightened American foreign policy would have very great difficulties dealing with such people.

 

If we have a moral obligation to free the peoples of the world from dictatorship and oppression, do you think we should invade North Korea? The citizens of that country arguably experience a comparable amount of freedom that pre-US invasion Iraqis did. I'm not opposed to spreading democracy and freedom, but what made Iraq more of a pressing issue than any of the other "Axis of evil" countries? One of which, I might point out, actually has weapons of mass destruction, and has publicly expressed its willingness to use them specifically against the United States. So using the line of reasoning that justifies our incursion into Iraq, we have a lot of work to do invading much of the rest of the world.

I completely agree with you that we need to ensure the best possible outcome for Iraq now that we've gotten ourself into that whole mess'o'potamia. I would hate to have a son/daughter/father/mother die for a "huge mistake" with no positive outcome. But I hate even more that tens or hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died in the last two years, ostensibly because they stubbornly hate freedom and happiness. I'm sure that the insurgency doesn't want freedom and stability, and would actually much prefer to be opressed and live in squalor. Yeah, that's probably why they're fighting us tooth and nail.