In the rathouse 'o interpretation (WAS Re: politics and religion...)

[Mutualcode at aol.com]

In a message dated 2/22/2003 5:16:29 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
jbor at bigpond.com writes:


> It's more and more apparent that many of those in the U.S. (and elsewhere)
> who propagandise for "peace" don't care one bit about the plight of the
> Iraqi people. It's all about what's best for themselves: it's not our
> business; it doesn't affect us, it's the other side of the world, we're not
> in danger; Iraq's a "sovereign state". So leave Saddam alone. He's OK
> really. He's sure to keep killing Iraqi people, but "there's not much I can
> do about that."
> 

I have yet to meet an advocate for peace that feels Saddam is OK.
Working for peace requires time and commitment. It is much easier
to sit back and do nothing, or joke about "duct tape" or continue to
be good consumers as Bush has encouraged us to do, especially
with an all volunteer armed forces.

I live and work in the most ethnically diverse region in the world, 
which includes the largest middle eastern population in the U.S.
certainly more Arabs and Jews than anywhere else outside of the
middle east. I have day to day contact with representatives of 
almost all these groups. Because I wear a peace button my 
opinion about war is obvious. Even  those people I have met who
advocate war with Iraq are respectful of my advocacy for peace
and understand that I care about the Iraqi people. They have, to
a person, been polite, even in disagreement.

The vast majority of my Arab colleagues and friends, which includes
many Iraqi's, Jordanians, Palestinians, Egyptians, Lebanese, Syrians,
Saudis (fewer Saudis) and all the Gulf States, as well as Iranis,
Pakistanis and Indians are against a war in Iraq at this time. My
Jewish colleagues are more ambivalent, but very courteous, and a
significant number of them do not believe war is answer to the Saddam
problem. I have been in nunerous discussions which have included
Arabs, Jews and Americans of european descent about this issue.

Based on my experiences so far, I would have to say that your
characterization of "those who progandise for peace" as being
only self-centered, and not caring about the Iraqi people, is baseless
rhetoric. The idea that advocating for a peaceful resolution of the
current situation is somehow helping Saddam is likewise a not well
thought out position, somewhat akin to the attempts to link Osama
and Saddam as a justification for war.

A careful consideration of the history of U.S. military intervention in
the past forty years suggests a strong tendency to distort the truth
and magnify the supposed threat. This was true both in the Gulf of 
Tonkin, as well as, the Persian Gulf War- where supposedly an Iraqi
build-up of one million men on the Saudi border was documented by 
U.S. spy satellites and trumpted by the compliant media- and turned 
out to be a fabrication.

respecfully

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20030222/04c5a2ce/attachment.html>