A champagne socialist reflects on Western culture and the Universe... and whilst gazing at his navel, he comes up with a lot of useless lint. It is the fruits of this navel-gazing that form the substance of this blog.
A sensationalist title to draw traffic
Published on October 28, 2004 By Champas Socialist In Democrat
I had this letter published prior to Gulf War 2:

‘I am as concerned as the next person about the prospect of Saddam Hussein having access to nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, I’m just as worried about the prospect of George W. Bush having access to nuclear weapons.’

I just don’t trust such dangerous weapons in the hands of such a trigger-happy idiot. Dubya Bush has now shown his willingness to use violence whenever he wants against thousands of Iraqis. Iraq was posing no threat to the US. Iraq had no WMDs. Iraq had no links to Sep 11, as Bush initially claimed. Given that, GW2 was a mistake. But hey, it’s only war, there’s always a next time.

I’m not saying it’s true, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Sep 11 was another Pearl Harbour. Another attack that the Government let happen in order to garner support for the war effort. The US admin seem to have had an awful lot of info about the bin Ladens prior to the attacks. And then a few months down the track, Dubya said he wasn’t worried about bin Laden, didn’t give him a lot of thought, but boy that Hussein feller was looking worrying. How on Earth can Bush not be concerned about bin Laden after what he did?!?!
I don’t like Saddam, but it seemed to me that Powell’s presentation to the UN in favour of war on Iraq was so poor that only Bush 2 would have been stupid enough to be convinced by it. If you are going to take the drastic step of war, I’m sorry, but you do need to be pretty sure that it will be better to kill a few thousand people than let whatever thing continue. You don’t make up reasons later. You have to have reason before going to war. Next time Bush decides to go to war, and there will be a next time, he may not be able to find a reason after the fact for why the war turned out to be a sort of good idea. Americans, how will you feel about letting such a man run rampant with WMDs when he can't even find any good reason for having done so?

The Bush dynasty has long wanted to take Iraq, and they needed an excuse. How can the American people leave the world in the hands of a man prepared to go to any lengths to justify killing thousands of people? American, Iraqi and Australian families have been destroyed by this war.

The Bush campaign tried to get kudos from the Iraqi Olympic soccer team being able to compete. But as one of the team members themselves pointed out, what kind of freedom is it where he lives in fear for his life when he goes to the stadium for practice? What kind of freedom is it where he fears for his family’s life every day? What kind of freedom is it where he has lost friends to the violence? The Republicans have not brought peace to Iraq. They have gone in, told the Iraqis exactly how to run their country and who should be doing it, and in the process, they have stirred up more hatred and violence.

Removing Saddam was a good thing. But you have to do it the right way. As the Baghdad blogger Salam Pax said, you have to act more like a referee and help the Iraqis. Instead, Bush’s methods have left many Iraqis with a lot of resentment towards the American Nation. It can’t be good for the Americans to have so many people who now want to wreak revenge upon America! Surely, that was what the problem was in the first place: the US foreign policy had exacerbated the rest of the world’s anger towards America, and people like bin Laden have taken out their anger in extreme and horrific ways.

The best way to be tough on terror is to not engage in foreign policy that makes everyone angry. I’m not saying that terrorists are completely rational beings, but they aren’t just pissed off for no reason. And now they are pissed off at the American soldiers occupying Iraq. And they will take their anger out on those soldiers, and probably eventually mount another attack on America.

The effects of this war will be felt all over the world for a long time to come. Please America, don’t let it happen again in another country.

Comments
on Oct 28, 2004
As you all know, I’m a left winger, so I’m always concerned about the poorer people in the Australian community. One of my regular visitors, FishHead, does not have access to the net at home (cue violins) and so he doesn’t always get a regular chance to visit this blog and criticise me. Sometimes weeks go by without the Fish getting a chance to use the net (sympathetic oooh). I am always looking out for chances to give all members of our society an equal opportunity to participate in democracy. So to help FishHead out until he gets a net session, I’ve crafted an insightful response debunking my own arguments on his behalf.
On FishHead's behalf I’d just like to say that this article is a left wing conspiracy theory designed as some sort of a conspiracy to bring about the fall of right wingers everywhere. Hardly anybody has died during the War on Terror. It was a safe and good idea and the UN are just a bunch of sadistic people who like watching Saddam being sadistic. No other country besides the US, UK and Australia has any credibility, so we should ignore everything the UN says.
on Oct 28, 2004
As the Baghdad blogger Salam Pax said, you have to act more like a referee and help the Iraqis.


How do you remove Saddam while acting in a manner resembling a referee?

Is Iraq today worse than under Saddam? It is not as though there was some utopian solution that would solve all of Iraq's problems.

The US is enforcing elections as the mechanism for Iraqis to choose their government. If not elections, how exactly do you propose Iraqis should choose their government?
on Oct 28, 2004
It's certainly not getting any better.

But is enforcing elections a good idea? They aren't happy with us being there in the first place and now we're ramming an election up their proverbial and forcing our 'democracy' onto them.
on Oct 28, 2004

Reply #3 By: Joey Joe Joe (Anonymous) - 10/28/2004 5:56:51 PM
It's certainly not getting any better.

But is enforcing elections a good idea? They aren't happy with us being there in the first place and now we're ramming an election up their proverbial and forcing our 'democracy' onto them.


Aren't they the ones who asked for the elections?
on Oct 30, 2004
>Is Iraq today worse than under Saddam? It is not as though there was some utopian solution that would solve all of Iraq's problems.

It's not worse as such and you're right there was no utopian solution to this. But just because you can't emulate Thomas More doesn't mean you should emulate George Orwell.
I'm sure you are are however aware of the study by US and Iraqi scientists that has found that the risk of death was 2.5 times greater after the invasion of Iraq, leading to 100,000 civilian deaths in Iraq. Try explaining to those 100,000 families why Bush's war is going so well.

>How do you remove Saddam while acting in a manner resembling a referee?

No one said it would be easy, but in my opinion, and in the opinion of several Iraqis I have heard speak on the matter, the Coalition of the Killing have done a very poor job at listening to the Iraqi people and incorporating them into decisions.
on Nov 01, 2004
In response to that question about what Pax said, this is what he said:

Salam Pax: No. Umcthat was very unfortunate. Bad timing. It shouldn't have happened. Part of the war the West is fighting is a moral war, showing what's wrong to the ignorant people in the Middle East. That was not good for your moral. It'scyou're losing that battle. This shouldn't have happened. But still it doesn't mean that everybody should go, "OK, 'bye," because it will plunge us deeper into chaos. People are using this to drive away the coalition. It's very unfortunate. It shouldn't have happened. It's horrible, but nobody should just lose hope. They just need to listen more to Iraqis. They just need to understand Iraqis more. They have been trying to communicate.


Find it at http://www.abc.net.au/enoughrope/stories/s1110359.htm