[Vision2020] Re: Courageous Barbara Lee!

[Art Deco aka W. Fox]

Joan writes:

(BTW, Doctors Without Borders has withdrawn its personnel from that country
because the U. S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai cannot keep them safe.  The
Taliban is resurgent, warlords again control most of the provinces, and
Afghanistan will this year produce a bumper crop of opium.  Happy days are here
again in needle parks around the globe.  And where do you think that drug money
will go?  Guns?  Terrorists?  To buy nuclear bombs from the failed states of the
ex-Soviet Union?  So much for the American attention span.)

Excellent point!  And another reason not to have invaded Iraq:  We need far more
troops, support, reconstruction, and humanitarian aid in Afghanistan to finish
what we started (with perhaps justification) there.

Wayne

Art Deco  (Wayne Fox)
deco at moscow.com

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Joan Opyr
  To: Vision2020 Moscow
  Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2004 12:53 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] Re: Courageous Barbara Lee!


  Ted writes:

  >We can get as nuanced as we want, but I knew with certainty, as I think
anyone studying the intentions of the Bush >administration and the PNAC ideology
made clear in the 1990s would know, that Bush was going to invade Iraq, no
>doubt.  So the distinction between granting the threat of the use of force or
the actual use of force is somewhat >meaningless when you know the intention is
to use this granted authority to go to war.  And I think a careful reading of
>the authority granted did not forbid the use of force, only allowing threats,
so Joan, where is the reality in your >distinction?  Let's say I know the guy
with the boxing gloves will cross that line no matter what his opponent does and
>beat him up?  Do I still grant him authority to use threats?  Paul O'Neill from
the W. Bush administrations early days >reported the focus on invading Iraq was
active before 9/11.


  Let's not get confused.  These aren't my arguments, Ted; they're John Kerry's.
I would not have voted to grant Bush the authority to use force.  I was out
protesting both before and after.  Now, would I have voted to grant Clinton the
authority to use force?  Perhaps.  Under those circumstances, I might have had
cause to believe that war was a final resort, not an inevitability.  Then again,
I might not.  I wasn't happy with Clinton's decisions regarding Kosovo and
Bosnia, nor yet Somalia.  I haven't said that I agree with Kerry's reasoning on
this point, just that I understand it, and I used the boxing analogy to explain
it.  I've also pointed out that Kerry has not changed his stance despite strong
public opposition to the Iraq war.  This doesn't exactly endear him to Deaniacs
like me, but it does seem to me a principled consistency.

  I admit that, on the ground, a principled consistency might be
indistinguishable from a foolish one, but as we've been governed these last
three-and-a-half years by self-evidently small-minded hobgoblins, that's a
chance I'm willing to take.  Who knew that Bush would make such a hash of Iraq?
Some guessed; most didn't have a clue.  Many, myself included, thought Iraq was
rather beside the point.  We were still thinking about Osama bin Laden and
Afghanistan.  (BTW, Doctors Without Borders has withdrawn its personnel from
that country because the U. S.-backed government of Hamid Karzai cannot keep
them safe.  The Taliban is resurgent, warlords again control most of the
provinces, and Afghanistan will this year produce a bumper crop of opium.  Happy
days are here again in needle parks around the globe.  And where do you think
that drug money will go?  Guns?  Terrorists?  To buy nuclear bombs from the
failed states of the ex-Soviet Union?  So much for the American attention span.)

  Would it be better to be Barbara Lee?  Of course!  I'd much rather be right
than reasonable.

  Yours sincerely,

  Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
  Agnostic Peacenik Cynic



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  _____________________________________________________
   List services made available by First Step Internet,
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
                 http://www.fsr.net
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  /////////////////////////////////////////////////////
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20040812/3dee5ace/attachment.htm