30th Jan 2004
Iraqi Takes Issue With Dean’s Anti-War Stance
I think it’s fair to say Dean’s campaign is imploding at this point and that worrying about his latest stupid statement is really moot, but I was annoyed to hear his comment the other day:
“You can say that it’s great that Saddam is gone and I’m sure that a lot of Iraqis feel it is great that Saddam is gone. But a lot of them gave their lives. And their living standard is a whole lot worse now than it was before.”
As if this were about “living standard,” a phrase that makes me think of color TVs and air conditioning. Despite all of my friends and family thinking I’ve turned into a Bush-loving conservative, I still consider myself a liberal (perhaps a neo-liberal or some such designation I haven’t yet pinned down). I still think Bush is evil and stupid and must be stopped. I still love the environment, feel sorry for poor people, etc., etc.
But, despite everything, I still think going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do, for most of the same reasons I blogged about here on the war’s eve. Yes, I’m as disappointed and surprised as anyone that there were no chemical and biological weapons, but for me, this was about more than that. It was about demonstrably changing the U.S.’s historic pattern of coddling fascist dictators. I am no pacifist. I believe we have it too easy at the expense of most of the rest of the world that lives in terror and poverty, which we do nothing about. Sure, we’re hippocrates and still coddling many of them (notably in Saudi Arabia), and, yes, it may not be practical to send in the army to chase out every tyrant. But that is not a good excuse for not starting somewhere, like notably with one of the worst there is. Let the rest of them think hard about what it might mean for them, as the Iranian Mullahs and Colonel Qaddafi seem to have been doing.
I realize it is not my place to tell mothers of dead U.S. soldiers that it was worth their sons’ and daughters’ lives to liberate Iraqis from tyrany, but I hope, for their sake, they believe so, as it would be tragic for them to believe their loved ones died in vain. But considering how many lives have been lost and ruined around the world making Americans’ lives more comfortable, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for us to sacrifice in exporting justice and democracy and hopefully prosperity to other parts of the world. And I’m not the kind of patriot, unlike most of the popular media, who believes that American lives are somehow worth more than Iraqi lives or lives elsewhere. Were I to believe in God, I would agree with Bush that democracy is a divine right, one all people should enjoy.
What I find particularly odious about Dean’s comment above is that he’s making the judgment call on behalf of Iraqis and parents of dean American soldiers that it wasn’t worth it, that the soldiers died in vain and Iraqis were better off with Saddam. What an ass.
Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to link to this Iraqi’s blog where he says the same thing, asking who the hell Dean thinks he is. Oddly, the guy seems more perturbed on behalf of the dead American soldiers than in everyday Iraqis hope for a better future, but either way, he clearly has the moral authority to have an opinion on this that Dean certainly lacks.
Moreover, I was also pleased to find this essay from Paul Berman, published in Dissent Magazine no less, making the liberal case in favor of war. It’s lonely being a pro-war liberal these days, but I know that I’m not alone, including among my friends (who I won’t name, as I don’t know how public some are about their feelings or their continued self-identity as liberals) and commentators such as Thomas Friedman and Christopher Hitchens.
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