In a
previous entry I asked what reasons people had to oppose Iraq. This combined with a discussion about Dean's
real Iraq stance has put a bug in my bonnet.
I'm seeing far too many convenient arguments to oppose the Iraq war, which speaks to me of a lack of discipline among many of the minds here.
"There are so many other dictators oppressing their people like Hussein did. Why are we not invading their countries?" For anyone making this argument, are you actually in support of the U.S. invading any country that has an oppressive dictator like Hussein?
"Unlike the Iraq War, the first Gulf War had an international multilateral coalition! It was completely different!" For anyone making this argument, would you all have been in favor of the Iraq war had we had a coalition? Were you all in support of the first Gulf War?
"We shouldn't have invaded Iraq because we weren't finished with Afghanistan/Osama!" So, you were in support of invading Afghanistan? And, had we found Osama beforehand, then you would have been in favor of invading Iraq?
"Our soldiers are dying at n men per day!" So, if we weren't losing soldiers at this rate, you'd be in favor of the war?
I understand that these are all along the lines of "making a point" in the debate. But honestly, sometimes I hear too much of it and it just starts to strike me as chickenshit. Because I doubt these are offered as the reasons to oppose the war. If you answered "Well, no..." to any of my provocative questions, then when you've made these points, you weren't arguing your REAL reason for opposing the war.
We're doing a good job of opposing Bush, but it isn't far enough yet. When we make these arguments - these disingenuous arguments that go against our personal integrity - we are still ceding the terms of the debate to those that we oppose. We are still arguing in reaction, rather than advocating our own vision of what is right.
I want to encourage everyone to continue trying to argue their own actual viewpoints, rather than arguing on someone else's terms. When all you succeed at is destroying someone else's foundation, you're left standing in a void.