Ron changed his mind on Iraq
Wednesday, 16 May 2007 | 226 readers so far
Over at Grouchy Old Cripple, someone named Ron has changed his mind on Iraq.
Well, I was wrong. Not in a flash of insight or dazzling epiphany or sudden comprehension, but over years and months of subconscious analysis and data collection I’ve come to realize that the people of the "birthplace of civilization" are savage, barbarous, worthless bastards. We are wasting our time and money and energies trying to come up with a silk purse from a sow’s ear. The entire Middle East, from Afghanistan to Morocco, from Turkey to Somalia, is a sty, a sick primate breeding pen, a cradle of suspicion and fear and intrigue whose only currency results from the rest of the world’s addiction to liquid fossil fuels.
Well, I think Ron is wrong. Ron never got to meet the janitors I grew to care about, the ones who cleaned up after my unit during my year in the Green Zone. They were good guys. They loved soccer, and they loved our weight equipment. They loved posing for pictures and they had families they loved talking about. They were human beings trapped in terrible circumstances, and they wanted to live as much as me. I hope they’re all well.
We’ve made many mistakes in Iraq, most of them were made long before we invaded in 2003. Human beings in need are the same everywhere. They deserve hope. When you live in hell, you deserve some sort of lifeline to the paradise outside.
Is the U.S. government doing a good job of providing that lifeline? No. But there are millions of Iraqis who deserve better.
The same applies to places like Darfur and North Korea. We can’t fix everything.
I’m willing to debate foreign policy. I am not a fan of empire building. I do believe we have a moral responsibility to help our fellow humans when we can, whether they live next door or across the globe. How we help is up to each of us individually, and sometimes is up to all of us collectively.
If the Iraqi government voted today to ask the Coalition to leave, then I would say we should gracefully accede and leave in an orderly fashion. My janitor friends would probably last a month. I want to hope for the people of Iraq, as much as I hope for the people of the United States of America.
1 May 17th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Gringo_Malo says:
Ron probably goes a bit too far, but history has shown us that it’s pointless to impose European-style governments on non-European peoples. American nation building efforts in Latin America and the Caribbean Islands have been dismal failures. The British left a replica of their government in Iraq in the 1920s. We’ve seen what became of it. The same fate will befall the replica of the French government that we’re imposing on Iraq now, only faster. In my humble opinion, we should either allow the Iraqis true self-determination or make the imperialistic oil grab that we’re so often accused of making.