Asymmetrical Information

Most of the people protesting are actually quite happy with the prospect of turning Iraqis over to the tender mercies of those whose notion of legitimate political activity includes beheading folks who don't agree with them, or setting off car bombs in crowded marketplaces and mosques. These protests are all about opposing the U.S.; what happens to Iraqis is of little or no concern. As long as U.S. interests are defeated, Iraqi corpses can be stacked to the horizon, and Iraqis still living can suffer the worst of totalitarian zeal.

This is simply a replay from the mid 70s, when all that mattered was that the U.S. be defeated in Indochina. Thus, a then-recent Presidential nominee, along with many others, stood up and publicly proclaimed the "progressive" nature of the Khmer Rouge, in support of their argument that the U.S. should withdraw from the region. After the bones were stacked in many large, neat, pyramids, some (but certainly not all) had the decency to say, "Whoops, I guess we were wrong", but a fat lot of good that did for the few million souls who had their skulls caved in. At the time, all that mattered was that the big, bad, U.S. suffered a defeat.

This also reminds one of the recent story of the Indonesian national who was attending a business meeting predominantly comprised of Western Europeans a couple weeks after the tsunami disaster. He couldn't believe his ears when the business people thought the occasion of a human tragedy of unspeakable proportions was merely fodder for making jokes about stupid ol' George Bush sending an aricraft carrier as a conduit for aiding those suffering.

The people who braved billy clubs, German Shepards, and firehoses to protest Jim Crow had dignity. Most other protests, in contrast, are peopled by moral masturbaters with too much time on their hands.

Have you been to the protest signs that take up the block across from Parliament yet? Good times.

If you switch a letter or two in Blair's name you get Bliar.

Certainly makes you think about things.

Most other protests, in contrast, are peopled by moral masturbaters with too much time on their hands.

Mixed metaphor alert!

I get the feeling Jane will be mixing with people who will be likely to tell a soapdodger to sod off.

There's an AWFUL lot of people who are hating the direction Blairistan is sailing in, we just keep quiet..

Do "all those Iraqis" really want the US to stay?

Quite possibly whatever intermediate government they have wants the US/British troops to stay so that all hell doesn't break loose, and at the same time, the average Iraqi is heartily sick of being occupied, what with the prospect of being shot at a roadblock or dragged off for some unclear reason and then being beaten to death (even if that is clearly relatively unlikely for any given Iraqi.)

...

Makes me think that being occupied could be like an addiction:
1) You hate it
2) You need it
3) It makes things worse
4) You always need a higher dosage just to stay the same.

And yet, Mr. Wesson, addictive substances often have substantial therapeutic value. Any doctor will tell you that the risk must be measured against the potential benefits and the consequences of inaction.

A quarter million dead Iraqis in mass graves speak to the latter, and recent events in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Lebanon (might) suggest the former.

But think about it for a second. Which would you rather have, a cocaine-based dental anaesthetic, or a medieval molar extraction?

Will-

Who was the then-recent presidential nominee??

I did a couple of quick web searches on McGovern (who, it looks like, was on the right side of this one) and Humphrey, and didn't turn up anything...

Clint, this is McGovern when advocating that aid to the admittedly corrupt Lon Nol government be ended.

"The growing hysteria of the administration's posture on Cambodia, seems to me to reflect a determined refusal to consider what the fall of the existing government in Phnom Penh
would actually mean.... We should be able to see that the kind of government which would succeed Lon Nol's forces would most likely be a
government ... run by some of the best-educated, most able intellectuals in
Cambodia."

Later, after a few million folks had been murdered, McGovern, to his credit, reversed positions. Unfortunately, if he hadn't been so hell-bent on seeing that what he considered a flawed U.S. policy changed, it would have been quite obivious, as it was to nearly any observer not consumed with a "U.S. policy bad" fervor, that having the Khmer Rouge succeed the Lon Nol government would be a disaster for the Cambodian population of titanic proportions. After a few million skulls were caved in, he woke up to that fact.

"all those Iraqis you care about seem to want to have the US stay for the time being. Plus now they've got a government that can tell the US & UK to leave."

None of that matters to the 'bring the troops home NOW' crowd. Their belief is that the 'Iraqi government' is a puppet of Bushitler and corporate Amerika and whatever the people of Iraq are saying is filtered and we do not hear the 'truth'. They believe what they think and that is all that matters.

Go to Democratic Underground, register and try to post a logical, well thought out, respectful counterpoint to the liberal democratic, hand wringing diatribe and see how fast you get excommunicated. This happened to me and I found out the posting rules include this: If you have a conservative perspective, think Bush is doing a good job, or support the war, you will be banned.

Sounds like theres no democracy at Democratic Underground. Discuss amongst yourselves with no dissenting opinion sounds rather stagnant to me.
A metaphor for the Dem Party at large.

The sub-text is, "If I kill you, then I am bad; if you die because I failed to act, then I am blameless."

Specifically, Iraqis who die because America et al invaded Iraq weigh upon America's conscience, but those who die at Saddam's hand somehow do not.

The moral insulation provided by passivity is a reasonable subject for debate. All of us, in some form or another, take advantage of this concept. You _could_ have sent five bucks to feed some starving kid in Africa, but you did not. Are you guilty of negligent homicide?

Specifically, Iraqis who die because America et al invaded Iraq weigh upon America's conscience, but those who die at Saddam's hand somehow do not.

Try debating this point with the extreme American leftist, or the average Western European, both of whom enjoys as much of an oil-debauched lifestyle as anyone else in the contemporary first-world. They either disappear, hide behind an argument about "stability," or divert to some invented anger about "Bush lied."

Every...single...time.

The moral insulation provided by passivity is a reasonable subject for debate. All of us, in some form or another, take advantage of this concept. You _could_ have sent five bucks to feed some starving kid in Africa, but you did not. Are you guilty of negligent homicide?

Depends. Has your lifestyle, present or past, made a significant contribution to the present condition of those so-afflicted? In the case of the oil-producing states, the answer is arguably "yes" -- I doubt any of us, looking around our home or office, could find many products that weren't somehow directly a result of oil or the petrochemical industry, and arguably unrealizable by other means.

Plastic, synthetic rubber, various chemicals and machines used in semiconductor production -- all from oil, one way or another. Perhaps if you're wearing cotton clothing and leather moccasins, sitting on a cross-cut stump and working with an unvarnished wood pencil by the light of the sun, you can claim exemption.

Millions of opressed Saudis, Iranians, Iraqis, et al from roughly the mid-20th Century onward -- in order to enable our lifestyle in the present.

"Stability" can be a well-reasoned argument, but in that context, it also has the potential to be a very selfish argument.

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