Follow up to previous post:

You could catch this same metaphor over on a comments link at CrawlingWestward, but what the hell--I might as well add it to my own web log--which seems to have a readership in the low single digits (me).

Regarding Pax's letter:

If someone gives me a lottery ticket, I'll say thanks. If it wins the jackpot, there is a good chance I'll share some of the loot. After all, I like to consider myself somewhat generous (I give spare change/dollar bills to panhandlers when I've got a little extra).

If the same person were to break down my door, piss on my rug, kick my dog, accidentally shoot my mom (and kill her), shatter my windows, shoot holes in the engine block of my car, rifle through my belongings, all while I'm pinned to the floor with a boot shoved into my back and my hands in plastic cuffs--well, don't expect me to be so damned generous if the lotto ticket you dropped to the floor on the way out comes up big. In fact, expect nothing. Period. If you're really lucky, I WON'T mention the fact that you've killed my mother--but I still might try to take revenge. Because no one messes with my mom.

It still amazes me, regarding this little controversy, that ANYONE still thinks we invaded Iraq because of our innate sense of righting a wrong. Bullshit. Anyone who believes this is hopelessly naiive in regards to the game of very realpolitik the US plays on the world stage. Besides--hello--liberation of the Iraqi people was the summer replacement series justification for the war. Since the real television season began in September, the spin has been something like 'going on offense in the War on Terror."

For being on offense, we sure don't seem to have the ball a whole lot. Yeah, we can drop 2,000 pound bombs till our release-mechanism finger gets tired, we can raze houses faster and quicker than the Israelis, we can set up Provisional Governing Authorities to the point where everyone in the whole damn country can be President for fifteen minutes--but we can't get people to accept our authority JUST BECAUSE WE ARE THE USA. Guess what? Those letters, USA, don't mean to them what they mean to us. Here in the United States, we still, in spite of garbage like the Patriot Act, behave, for the most part, like a lawful nation--well, minus horrible actions like the shooting of Amadou Diallo--but in Iraq, USA means supporter of Israel (which they refer to as The Zionist Entity), which represses Arabs (Palestinians), USA means supporter of Saddam for almost ten years officially (and a good bit longer under the table), USA means exporter of decadent culture, and so on...is this true? Quite frankly, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT IS OR ISN'T--Iraqis consider this to be true. Hell, some Iraqis think we STILL support Saddam, given that we haven't been able to catch him--their line of reasoning is that the US will let Saddam return to power once we've exited the scene. A ridiculous notion, to be sure--but I'm sure some Iraqis hold that to be truthful--just as some Americans believe, against all evidence, that Saddam and bin Laden are working together.

Oh, and I don't want to give people the impression that Iraqis are a monolithic people--sure, plenty of Iraqis look to the United States as a beacon of hope--and want to give us the benefit of the doubt--and, far from considering American culture decadent, embrace it--but the mistake we've made is not figuring out who those folks were PRIOR to the invasion. We could have/should have/needed to have a reliable base of popular support BEFORE we invaded--but now, we're spending a lot of political capital alienating the shit out of all kinds of people who would otherwise sympathize with us--by invading their homes, confiscating their weapons (and, believe it or not I'm a STRONG supporter of the 2nd Amendment--both here AND in Iraq, where weapons serve a protective purpose--shit, the NRA ought to be condemning this in the strongest possible terms), detaining their children, and so on...

One final analogy: if the right thinks the ensuing chaos in Iraq is ok, because it resulted in the end of Hussein's grip on power, then why doesn't the right call for assaults on St. Francisville (home of Baton Rouge serial killer Derrick Todd Lee), Yonkers, New York (Son of Sam), the Upper Northwest (Ted Bundy, The Green River Killer), Milwaukee and Adams/Friendship, Wisconsin (Jeff Dahmer and Ed Gein, respectively), etc. etc. Hey--do you right-wingers endorse an invasion of Pakistan because that's where Osama bin Laden has taken refuge? Oh yeah, that's right: Pakistan is an ally, ruled by Gen. Musharraf, who was elected--well, he wasn't exactly elected, was he...but who has shown concern for human rig...well, not exactly, either, especially considering that Pakistan security forces may well have assisted in the abduction/execution of journalist Daniel Pearl.

At least Pearl, tragic as his death was, is remembered to some extent. Thousands of Iraqis, though, have been killed in this latest Gulf War without even a decent apology from the United States, much less any recognition that civilian deaths are supposedly prohibited under various conventions regarding conduct of war. Of course, there will be those who say that this is merely a tragic consequence--the result of urban combat, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and 2,000 pound bombs. I would like to conclude, though, by asking: does this mean that there is an inverse relationship between the technology of war, and our respect for civilization? Is this inevitable? If so, I must wonder about the future of civilization.