Supporting wars
January 14, 2004
I understand some people are asking if Dean’s support of earlier military action doesn’t make him, you know, some kind of hypocrite given his “anti-war” stance.
It’s as though you either have to be “for war” or “against war.” You know, if you’re for war, then any war that comes along, you’re bam-right-there-where’s-my-gun-sarge. And if you’re anti-war, no matter what you’re in the streets screaming “no blood for oil.” The idea is insane.
I am and always have been — and I am sure Dean was and always has been — for the intelligent use of the military. Bush and his cronies never convinced me this war was the right one.
Some wars are worth fighting and some aren’t. This really isn’t a Pepsi/Coke issue. You kind of have to take wars on a case-by-case basis.
Posted in Archived Unsorted, Speaking Very Slowly
content rss
January 17th, 2004 at 7:56 pm
Some wars are worth fighting and some aren’t. This really isn’t a Pepsi/Coke issue. You kind of have to take wars on a case-by-case basis.
Well, the question then becomes: ‘What makes Iraq so much different from Kosovo?’
There are certainly some differences, yes, but not too many strike one as morally relevant. And when you start quibbling over degrees of this, and difficulities of that, and likelihoods of the other thing, then it’s much harder to maintain a profoundly anti-war stance.
Moreover, the reasons for both conflicts were largely the same — protecting global security and addressing serious humanitarian concerns. So it’s not analagous to comparing the US Civil War with WWI, where massive and obvious differences exist. These were similar wars, and so any stance against one but in favor of the other has trouble drawing any firm distinctions.
What I’d like to hear from Dean, along with most of the anti-war crowd, then, is why Kosovo was fully-justified while Iraq was an evil, misguided conflict. I haven’t heard any satisfactory explainations.