On Sun, 09 Jul 2006 20:05:52 -0700, Jay Honeck wrote:

only varying shades of gray
-- how can you possibly ever decide that *anything* is worth fighting for?

[...]

people intuitively understand that only
standing against things isn't a workable solution to anything.

This is an interesting juxtaposition. You require that one be able to
decide upon something being worth fighting for, and yet "standing against
things" isn't workable.

You make several other logical errors, perhaps the largest of which is
mixing "left" and "anti-war". In fact, even "anti-war" is a misnomer and
simplification. There's a difference between a pacifist that is against
war as an institution and someone that is against the current "war" in
Iraq.

But this is all a game of public relations. Just as the debate about
illegal immigration was framed as one about "immigration" by those looking
to avoid a true debate on the issues, people like to reframe the "war" in
Iraq as being about the "war" on terrorism.

The reality is that one can be for the "war" on terrorism w/o being for
the "war" in Iraq. In fact, there are those of us that have a heightened
concern about our waste of time and resources in Iraq precisely because
we've this other "war" to which we should be paying attention.

The question you need to ask yourself is whether you're willing to look
past the silly PR on the news every day (primarily in politicians'
speeches) and actually see the situation in Iraq for what it is distinct
from the situation with terrorism. Yes, there are insurgents in Iraq
today using terrorist techniques. But that's largely a civil war amongst
its own population. We didn't cause that, but we did permit it. And we
should do something about it...although, to be honest, I'm not sure that
we can do enough. Can a central government be sufficiently strong to
govern in the face of the sectarian tensions w/o simply recreating the
horrors of the Saddam regime?

But this has nothing to do with the [more important, in my opinion] "war"
that we should be fighting on terrorism.

Of course, neither action is truly a "war" in the conventional sense.
Both really should be seen more as police actions. In Iraq, we're trying
to enforce a peace between sectarian groups (thus "peace officers" {8^).
In the case of the terrorists, the conflict is largely not one of applied
military force but instead tracking, identifying, and locating the
individuals involved. This is more the task of a police officer than a
soldier (though of course "intelligence services" play a role either way).

There may be some real wars in our "war" on terrorism. Afghanistan was
one, and I suspect it's not the last. But the overall process isn't
really a "war" (though perhaps "cold war" as a description might work).

- Andrew