Friday, October 20, 2006

Lets Let 'Em Stew

I do not support the war in Iraq. We should be allowing these faulty societies to stew in their own crapulence. It is not our place to invade and rescue them. Iraq was an autonomous nation with its own borders and culture. It was no different than North Korea or China in its rejection of human rights and freedoms. George Jr did his dad a favour . It’s as simple as that. Saddam is now imprisoned and the Bushes are loving it. Saddam was, previously, the leader of a nation. Not the leader we would prefer, but a leader none the less. Who are we to decide who should be the leader of a foreign nation? And why did we single out Saddam among so many undesirable leaders? Maybe because we could? And because it accomplished certain, as yet, undisclosed political objectives?

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about our role in the world and have concluded that we should cut the middle east loose. Let them deal with their own problems. (Except for nuclear issues. In that case we need to act immediately and punitively.) They will not gain freedom by having it imposed on them by us. They need to do it on their own. Either they, as a people, can summon the strength, or they cannot. Nothing we can do will help them. They need to help themselves, just like we did here in North America.

It’s a common theme among conservatives that individuals should help themselves, rather than look to government to help them. Why then do we abandon this simple truth when it comes to the middle east? Why do we trust our government to go there and force our way of life upon people when we would not tolerate this approach in our nation? Is government not a thing to be distrusted?

Look, the question is simple - either we trust government or we do not.

Personally, I do not. In fact the only entities I trust less than corporations are governments. Or maybe it’s the other way ‘round.. Whatever the case, here we are. We are trusting our government to seize control of a foreign nation and give them a way of life that they very well are not ready for or want.

It’s pretty easy for us, here in our world of secular, commercial, consumeristic plenty, to make value judgements about other nations. We are pretty smug in our understanding that all others must want the same thing that we have. Well, maybe they don’t. Maybe they really are different from us. Maybe Islam really is what they want.

Sure, when they come here, they should live by our rules. But to impose our rules halfway across the globe in nations that know nothing about our values – well, there’s a word for that, and it’s colonialism.

Let me be clear. I do not respect Islam or the societies it dominates. Islam has a lot of work to do before it becomes worthy of my respect. But I do not presume to have the right to force my values on them when they are half way across the world living in a culture that is so different from ours that we could never hope to understand it.

That’s OK though. Because a culture that unleashes such monsters among us, does not deserve our understanding. Rather, it deservers our unrelenting attention and criticism.

4 Comments:

Blogger RightGirl said...

We can't cut the Middle East loose until we give up oil. Oil isn't what caused them to be bastards (they were always bastards), but it gave them the money they needed to spread that "crapulence" all over the globe. Until we stob buying the oil, they have the rest of the world by the short & curlies.

RG

11:16 AM  
Blogger Lester Price said...

If oil is the reason our soldiers are in Afghanistan and Iraq, as opposed to fighting for the higher ideal, then we are truly lost.

10:41 PM  
Blogger RightGirl said...

I don't think we're fighting for the oil per se, but we're fighting for control over the monster we created. Like Frankenstien. The monster we created will destroy us. Happy Halloween.

RG

9:57 PM  
Blogger Winston said...

this was a BS post...

12:11 AM  

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