|
all the claims that justified the war in iraq are demonstrably false. the question then of whether one can accept this or not is then a psychological matter having to do withdissonance and how much of it one can accept if you supported the iraq debacle because of these claims in the first place.
these arguments were obviously false in 2003 and they have been proven to be false repeatedly since. on this score, host is right, like it or not.
the question of the legality of the war itself is more problematic because, as has been pointed out above, the procedures were followed and it is apparently not a crime to advance patently false arguments if those arguments are accepted as true by a weak, reactionary-controlled congress.
arguments from the "support our boys" position in the abstract are in the end simple tautologies, not worth the time to respond to.
however--and this is the reason i am posting here (this because i see no possible arguments to be made against the above at this point, and so there is really no point in debate as far as i am concerned)--- i have to say that i respect seaver's reasons for wanting to enlist----because they are not wholly shaped by disinformation or fantasy and the arguments are internally coherent. i do not share his motivations and might argue with some of the reasoning because of that, but that's fine. the arguments cut through the administration's ludicrous campaign to maintain its own credibility by treating the military as effectively sacrificial victims--they are based on an acceptance of the fact of the conflict itself and a set of correlates based on his assessment of the implications of a continued spiral into at best ambiguity, at worst defeat.
the only surprise in all this is that this willingness to sacrifice himself for the reasons that he adduced above is conflated with a continued support for this administration: i cannot understand how it is that these people are confused with supporters of the military when they are willing to allow for the individuals to be killed--american and iraqi--without anything like a coherent strategy SOLELY in order to prop up such political credibility as they imagine they have left.
so in a perverse way, while i sympathise with your disappointment, seaver, i have to say that while we disagree and no doubt will disagree, i am glad that you are around and think it a better thing for this community at least that things worked out as they did.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|