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my inevitable rant on the state of the union
01.30.03 10:26 p.m.
I've consistently frightened (or at least surprised) myself recently by the number of times i've argued about the probable upcoming war. The thing that's surprised me isn't that i've been arguing - i've been doing that for years - it's that i've been arguing against it. Not that i'm a sadist or imperialist, but i'm also far from the many pacifists i went to high school with. I don't condemn war entirely, but this one doesn't settle right. Bush made a thoroughly convincing case for attacking Iraq in his state of the union address; to say that he didn't for the sake of your argument is to deny fact. As evident as it seems that something must be done, however, i don't think marching into the capital city at heavy military and civilian losses is the way to go. Saddam is the cornerstone of this heavily armed regime that abuses and tortures its own citizenry. I believe that we should amend the old law against assassinating foreign leaders of state and take him out along with a couple of his key leaders. After that, disarming Iraq would be far easier. I can't justify all the loss of life that a full-on war would cost. I think a war would be a large lapse in judgement on Bush's part partially caused by outside pressures (oil prices and finishing what his father left undone, to name two). That said, my respect for George W. Bush grew with his speech last night. I have very little patience with people who would claim that most of the religiously themed phrases and declarations he made were complete bullcrap used to win over the support of Christians, then base their theory solely on the assumption that he's evil because he wants to go to war. To use language implying faith in a Christian God with such frequency as he did and to be so entirely bold and unmistakable about it in public as he was takes an extreme amount of intestinal fortitude (or faith), and it probably earned him more enemies than friends. He may be misguided on a few things, but he's probably the most Christian President we've had in a good while...and let's just face it, he's a heck of a lot better than Clinton was. We should be glad. a brief and terribly undescriptive return - 10.28.04 |