More Pressing Issues

Went to CrawlingWestward for a quick look and came across this. You can read Salam's letter to Bush, James Lileks' "Fuck You" to Salam, Daniel Drezner's "Fuck You" to Lileks, and Ken Wheaton's "I agree with Lileks--Fuck You, Too, Salam" post, from Timshel's page.

Fuck.

Haven't really had a chance to check out the BigTimeBloggers like Atrios, Billmon, Kos, et al, and work calls, but I can't pass up the opportunity to add a line or two. First, Lileks sure does think big of himself, and, by extension, America, for being the cop of the world. And if the world is a little ungrateful for our assumption of the badge, stick, and gun, well--it's not like they elected us. The United States rode roughshod into Iraq because WE decided to--not the Iraqis. If they're glad we sent Saddam packing, well, jolly good. If they're sullen that we broke all the furniture, spit on the wife, kicked the dog, and pissed on the rug--well, let's go back to the first part of the sentence: Iraq, and the Iraqi people did NOT invite us in. We invaded for all sorts of reasons--not the least being that our intelligence indicated that Iraq was militarily weak (true) and that the people would hug and kiss us when they weren't throwing flowers on our tanks (disasterously untrue).

Hussein being a two-bit punk asshole of a despot didn't factor into this at all, except as a nice little ancillary bit of propaganda. Period. If respect for human rights was central to the US mission abroad, we would never have supported:
The various governments in El Salvador over the years.
Pinochet
The Argentinian Junta
Papa and Baby Doc Duvalier in Haiti
Mobutu in Zaire/Congo
The Military Junta in Argentina
Strossner in Paraguay
The Military Junta in Brazil
Various Despots in Central America/the Carribean Islands
Saudi Arabia
The Shah of Iran
Saddam Hussein in the 60s, 70s, and 80s
Despots in the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia
Yeltsin/Putin in Russia (Chechnya, anyone?)
The Secular Government in Turkey (with a Kurdish issue of their own--and an Armenian genocide in their not so ancient history)
Indonesia under Suharto
The Phillipines under Marcos
The Apartheid Regime in South Africa (Constructive Engagement--I guess that our policy in Communist China these days)
South Korea under Syngman Rhee and various despots until the 1990's
Franco in Spain
Business Dealings, including some by the Bush family, with Nazi Germany in the 1930's

And that's a far from complete list. So, please, right-wing web loggers, spare me the righteous indignation regarding all the good things we bring to life--that's GE's slogan.

If you want to embark on an excellent adventure with the added thrill of guns, don't expect the world to be so goddamned grateful. Consider that accidental death, mistaken identity death, plain old death, and being frightened to death because a young man who doesn't speak you language is hollering at you and pointing said gun at your face, might just make you a little upset at the do gooders who "liberated" your wife, child, girlfriend, sibling, or friend on a permanent basis. Yeah, Salam might still be keeping his head down and shying away from the cops if Baathist Rule still carried the day--but that's a decision HE'S entitled to make as an Iraqi. Do the right-wing web loggers think it would be ok if Middle Easterners suddenly appeared on our streets, searched our homes, blasted away our buildings, and fired our bureaucrats because George W. Bush is CLEARLY a despot? I don't think so. Yet it's ok when it's OTHER PEOPLE'S countries that get blasted to smithereens.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with the right-wing: they just don't get the fact that not everyone thinks EXACTLY like they do--or, if they do dimly understand this, they brand it "enemy" and try to blast it to bits. Or ship it off to Guantanamo. Like I'm sure they'd do to Pax if he was in their jurisdiction.

Fuck them.