Little Mr Mahatma

In which the middle-aged Peacenik mouths off about War Drones--and all the other things that make him cranky.

Mr Mahatma--who is a Mr in real life--lives in the valleys of Southern California with his wife, a herd of Dears, and an impressive collection of books. Pnorny!
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littlemrmahatma@yahoo.com

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Little Mr Mahatma

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Cause It's 1,2,3,4 Strikes - Yer Out!
Broken record here. Once again going over the Bush reasons for the being in Iraq. The Bushies would love nothing more for these reasons and their history to conveniently disappear but as a Loyal American, I'm not going to let it happen. Consider that each day more of our troops are killed in Iraq, it is in their memory that I keep harping on Bush's complete and utter failure to justify going in to Iraq, much less the failure to handle things once there.

So, once again, here are the Bush reasons for pre-emptively striking Iraq:

WMDs. According to Bush our National Security was in immediate danger due to Hussein having a massive variety of WMDs at his disposal. Hussein was going to use them any moment now. After we invaded this and had trouble finding these immediate threats, the reason evolved to "Hussein had plans for WMDs" and now "Hussein wanted WMDs". Strike One.

Hussein supported Al Qaeda. Remember Al Qaeda? They were the group (supposedly) behind 9/11 with Osama Bin Laden being the bad guy. Well, we started off after Osama but Georgy decided to switch targets and part of this was due to that Hussein supported Al Qaeda. Not quite, Hussein supported Al Qaeda-like groups. Not quite. Now: Hussein supported terrorists groups and approved of Al Qaeda's actions. Strike Two. Ironically, Iraq is now a main breeding grounds for training terrorists. They get first hand experience on fighting against that Big Bad U.S. of A.. Again, and read this carefully, terrorism has increased because of the invasion and Iraq is a now a main hub.

Hussein was an evil dictator. Yes he was. He tortured and killed his own people. But we've proven better at torture and killing Iraqis. More important though is that America is not responsible for removing the worlds evil dictators. So that Hussein was evil is not a valid reason for invasion. If it was, why then haven't we invaded Cuba or North Korea? Answer: Because there's more to this than removing an Evil Dictator. This is about...

Bringing Democracy to the Middle East. Finally, this is the big reason we invaded. This is why we've spent over $100 billion and lost over 1,000 troops. This is why Bush plans to ask for another $100 billion and why more troop lives will be lost.

To spread Democracy. By force.

Granted - Democracy is a wonderful political system. However, it is not the responsibility of America to force Democracy on other nations. Democracy is simply a political system. However it has nothing inherent that demands it be the only political system. There is no mandate from God or otherwise that says Democracy must be the Way fo the World. More important, any justification to force Democracy on another nation can be equally applied to any political, economic, or religious system. Bush uses the justification of Freedom - that Democracy equates with Freedom. But other political systems can also equate to Freedom - it depends on your definition of Freedom. Socialism can equate to Freedom from Uncertainty - that you will receive what you need to survive. Communism (true communism) can equate to Freedom of Fairness. And all the -isms can peacefully co-exist with concepts like Freedom of Speech - really! That they haven't, that these -isms and -ocracies get perverted is due to the people in control, those in charge. Power corrupts.

Consider: Our system of Democracy has been severely perverted away from being for the People and, instead, regularly kowtow to Business, Religious groups, and other Special Interests. Is this a function of Democracy? No, it's due to Bush and cronies, and the choices they have made while in power. To foist this system on other countries brings the question of whether a situation like the invasion of Iraq is nothing more than a way to siphon monies from our Government to those companies who pushed for and profited from an invasion. Conflict of interest sort of thing. Expansionism for profit.

Fact is, Bush said we'd go into Iraq, depose an evil bastard, be welcomed with open arms and cheering Iraqis, and they'd embrace Democracy. Fact is, we could of gotten rid of Hussein by other means that wouldn't have cost $100 billion, that wouldn't have resulted in over a thousand American lives lost, that wouldn't have destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure. Yes, by removing Hussein and Sons, a civil war could have resulted but guess what? A civil war could still erupt.

Bush had a plan to invade and that's it. No plan for maintenenace. No exit strategy. He sought and got the glory of invasion, of "Mission Accomplished!" and nothing more. Now he's about to ask for $100 billion more while underfunding Education, Health, Science, and other departments. The death of Arafat has done more for the prospect of Middle East peace than Bush. For Democracy to spread around the world it has to stand as an untarnished, unparalled political system free from voting "irregularities". Our version doesn't meet that standard.

But I could be wrong. When Jeb Bush is in his second term as President and the yearly tithing to Iraq is $300 billion, when the body count is over 10,000, then, maybe, Democracy will come to Iraq. But by then America will be in ruins.

Kobe Out
Wouldn't it be funny if the Lakers went on a winning streak with Kobe out injured?

11:57 AM

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