I love Salon.com. Have I used this headline already?
Here, we are to believe, is die-hard-war-supporter-point-to-refute #3: "Nothing was mentioned about the benefits of the U.S. military gaining valuable experience and knowledge daily." What!? Have you ever heard anyone making this point? I certainly haven't. It's ridiculous. No one is making the point that this occupation is a wonderful living laboratory for our troops and generals.
Some other choice bits from this piece:
"[S]uch privileged access [for U.S. oil companies to Iraqi oil] would have deprived the Iraqis of their right to use the oil to their own benefit -- something they desperately need now that the Saddam Hussein regime, 12 years of brutal sanctions, and the current war have gutted the country." Nice of him to mention the regime in there, and he even put it ahead of the "brutal sanctions." I guess this would tie into the "sanctions killed lots of children" argument. Let's not blame the person whose conduct caused and prolonged the sanctions and who commanded the resource allocations that led to the deaths.
"From my point of view -- and this is the second implication I want to point out -- the undermining of U.S. credibility is one of the few good things that have resulted from the war in Iraq." No comment necessary.
"I do not believe that anything positive is likely to come from American military adventures; quite the contrary, the Bush administration (and the Clinton, earlier Bush, and Reagan administrations) have used military power to impose bad policies on other countries." It's hard for me to read past the word "adventures," with a straight face. I guess we could perhaps point to the end of the USSR, eventual good results in the former Yugoslavia, removing Libya as a terror player, dislodging the crazy Taliban from Afghanistan thereby depriving Al Qaeda of its safe haven there, etc.--not to mention saving those wacky medical students in Grenada (it would be interesting to see how many patients have died at the hands of that group of Grenadan medical graduates in the decades since we saved thier asses--maybe our intervention cost more lives than it saved.)
"The . . . premise is one held by many Americans -- that the only way to change the attitudes of those who are fighting the United States involves 'whipping their ass,' which rests on another commonly held opinion -- that 'these people only understand force.' Attitudes are never changed in this way." If someone is trying to kill you, changing their attitude is kind of a luxury, wouldn't you say?
"Every serious scholar who studies terrorism agrees on this essential point: Terrorism arises from the misery that many people are forced to live in or in close proximity to. It is misguided and criminal, but it nevertheless derives from complaints people have about their daily lives, about the humiliations they experience in the larger social and political worlds they inhabit, and about the apparent impossibility of changing these circumstances." Please. "Every serious scholar" is such a powerful rhetorical approach. That's quite an analysis. Thank you, Karl Marx (not to diminish Marx's contributions as a theoretician, etc., etc.). What about ideology?
Anyway, sorry this isn't post doesn't present a more disciplined analysis of the topic. Perhaps the Salon.com journalistic approach is rubbing off on me.
posted at 4:55 PM
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