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May 23, 2004

CLARIFYING MY POSITION

I nitpick. I can't let things go. Often, when arguing with someone in the comments section, when I see that there's no point in saying any more, they say that my silence means I can't respond. And I continue arguing.

I admire people who can respond to a troll's lengthy comment with a witty one-liner. I feel I need to respond point by point, however absurd their assertations.

I don't follow the WMD angle because I think the WMD were the most important reason for the war. I do it because I have argued that it was stupid to assume that Saddam had no WMD. And even though my point has never actually been whether he had WMD - but rather that it would have been stupid to think he didn't, with all the signs to the contrary - and as such, the validity of my argument doesn't rest on whether any WMD are actually found, I still follow the news, and - let's face it - hope to one day say I told you so.

And why did I argue that? Because other people said the contrary. And I couldn't let it go. Countless times I have participated in arguments that start with one simple aspect of the Iraq war and end up going in a dozen different directions far off the original topic. Because when someone says something I know to be false, I can't let it go. It's a vicious circle.

But even though I argue with many of the points the anti-war crowd make, I have always had only one reason for supporting the Iraq campaign. It's the same reason I supported the Afghanistan war. And the same reason I will support any others that will overthrow dictatorships. That people may be free from tyranny. That's why simply continuing UN inspections, even if they had been effective, did not sit well with me. Saddam would be left in place.

There were other reasons for the Iraq war, indeed that may only have been a fortunate bonus, but it's the only reason that matters to me.

And now the usual suspects will apparently see a contradiction. How can I claim to support freedom and saving lives, if I support a war?

Ordinarily that would spark another long and pointless argument. So I'll pre-empt it. I'll condense my position into three points:

First: arithmetic. Quote Bill Whittle:

Take the number of people Saddam has murdered in unmarked graves – at least 300, 000 and rising, and add to that the number of his own conscripts he has killed in wars against Iran and the various coalition forces deployed against him.

No less than a million Iraqis have died at his hands. No less than that, surely.

In the twenty-five years or so that he had absolute power, that averages to 40,000 men, women and children a year – no less.

This past year, despite the number of casualties we inflicted, there were perhaps thirty thousand Iraqis who were not killed because we invaded that country. Next year there will be forty thousand more – forty thousand who will survive, and have children, and grandchildren, because we did what we did in 2003. And the year after that, another forty thousand will live. Ten years from now, which in the world of our critics might have been year three of Uday or Qusay’s reign, there will be five hundred thousand people alive – because of us.

A dictatorship kills. It imprisons, tortures, rapes and kills. That's how it survives. If a few thousand people die, and 25 million live free - as opposed to fourty thousand people a year die, and 25 million live under tyranny.. well, my choice is clear.

Second: Let's say for argument's sake that the US did go to war for oil and so that corporate fat-cats could make a killing at a 4% profit margin. Do you deny 25 million people freedom, do you deny those 40 thousand people life, just because you disapprove of the motives? Is stickin' it to the man more important than the lives of millions?

Third: One is a free democracy. One is an oppressive tyranny. There's a war. Choose sides.

Posted by dr.dna at May 23, 2004 01:54 AM | TrackBack
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