Rant re: war, and recent Bush interview

[johnpalmer]

War sucks.

War is horrible, evil, despicable, and without any redeeming qualities, save one:

It is occasionally the only real option. And, when you only have one option, that makes it your best option, and that lends it some redemption, no matter how horrible it is.

The US President said that, *EVEN KNOWING* that there were no stockpiles of banned weapons in Iraq, he still would have gone to war.

Without the *SLIGHTEST DANGER* to our country, he would have gone to war.

Without *ANY* viable threat posed by Saddam Hussein, he'd willingly sacrifice the lives of

*TEN*

*THOUSAND*

*INNOCENT* *CIVILIANS*.

*TEN THOUSAND*. Think about that. If there are forty houses in a block, and 5 people living in each house, that's every single person living in 50 blocks. How long would it take you to walk 50 blocks? Now imagine every single person you pass on those blocks being dead.

Are you starting to get the picture?

I mean, *FUCK* Abu Ghraib; *FUCK* the billion dollars every *WEEK* we're there, *FUCK* the damage this has done to our preparedness if there's a real threat, fuck *ALL* that, and just think.

Ten thousand people. All dead, despite their leader not being any threat to us.

Folks, I don't want Bush in the office. I want a real, honest-to-goodness man. A whole man; one with real balls.

Bush ain't got 'em. His are obviously brass fakes.

Because, see, he also claims that he'd he'd have his glorious little war because he understands "the stakes". He'd kill ten thousand people, over some questionable claim that it will make us safer - we don't know who the Iraqis are going to elect, and there are worse monsters on this planet than Saddam - and *HE* says that he understands the stakes.

Gotta be balls of brass, and the rectum of a bull because ordinary human cojones and an ordinary asshole ain't enough to generate that big a pile of bullshit.

Ten thousand civilians, and a thousand of our own people who swore to protect us, not to throw their lives away on a non-existent threat.

If he wakes up for the next 11,000 nights, screaming about dead people crying out for justice, it'd be nothing less than he deserves.

Don't forget this. Don't let *ANYONE* forget this. He said it; now nail him on it. Ten thousand of "them" is an acceptable price for him to force regime change, regardless of the danger the people, or the regime, poses.

Comments

[wolfette]

I keep getting an image of a wasp's nest these days, and Bush with a stick, poking it.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

"Ten thousand of "them" is an acceptable price for him to force regime change, regardless of the danger the people, or the regime, poses"

Espcially since the only regime he is really interested in happens to be the USA.

Which is what it was really all about. Acquisition of power, securing that power and demonstrating that he has that power. After all, nobody votes out a wartime president, right?

10,000 people, a middling sized town, all dead. Just so the alpha male can grunt and beat his chest, proving he's got bigger cojones than his dad.

And the majority of americans let him do it.

Then they wonder why the rest of the world is just a touch peeved at them.

I am sooo with you on this one mate.

[rickvs.livejournal.com]

My current working theory on the justifiability of any war boils down to the following question:

"If you're certain a tyrant is about to murder ten people, and you can only stop him by murdering five yourself, is that a moral act?"

All else seems to depend on plugging in different values above for the words "certain", "ten", and "five".

Myself, I think that America being viewed by the world as a white-hat is a valuable, life-saving commodity, and that commodity shouldn't be pissed away on a non-direct threat. And yes, that means letting dangerous tyrants prove they're dangerous tyrants to a greater degree than President Bush would prefer.

[nsingman.livejournal.com]

We always forget it, John. Abraham Lincoln started an unnecessary war that cost the lives of about 600,000 American soldiers just to keep tariff dollars flowing from southern purses to northern coffers, and he's on the penny, the five dollar bill and the Washington Mall. Woodrow Wilson maneuvered us, unnecessarily, into a war that cost us over 100,000 American soldiers, and produced the abominable Treaty of Versailles. FDR maneuvered us into a war that cost us over 500,000 American soldiers and gave eastern Europe to the murderous communists, and he's revered by many Democrats and Republicans.

I highly recommend The Costs of War. A brief persual of American history will show that Bush is simply the latest president to send American soldiers to their deaths unnecessarily, in support of an empire we were never supposed to have. Bush is bad news, but he's far from the worst, and he won't be the last. If I had even the slightest hope that John Kerry would hew more closely to the Constitution as president, I'd vote for him. I don't, and he won't, so I won't.