Nov 29, 2007

Been thinking some more. Naturally, no more good came of it. :D

There was a quote in the paper today about how a person placed a peace sign in her yard and was forced to take it down because the community saw it as a protest against the Iraqi war. Well, way to go America! You have officially lost it. How are people so hypocritical? Wake up, people! If you are Christian (which, according to the census, most Americans are), then you shouldn't have a problem with one of Jesus's basic teachings. I am not saying the war in Iraq is terrible, but that is just holding a double standard. This works to an advantage to me, though, so now all you faithful readers (cancel that 's') get a nice long rant.

While the war is not one of the most unjust actions the US has ever taken (ditching habeas corpus wins that one), it was obviously not well thought out. Now we are about three years into an operation that has no end in sight. It is a nice little dilemma: do we leave and destabilize the region, letting the already volatile nation slip into civil war or be overrun by a far more organized enemy? Or, do we stick around, enforcing a system that will never work on a people who don't want it, while innocents are being slaughtered in the streets. If we wanted to get rid of Saddam, kill him, and repeat the process as necessary. Maybe one day, a ruler would come along that was bad enough that the people would actually rise up and demand freedom. But, I wouldn't count on that.

So many people have trouble understanding that there are such things as 'different cultures.' That means that the said group of people hold different standards and become happy through their system. The best way to learn about this is learn about nations that are somewhat similar to us. For example, the French go for a very structured childhood in comparison to America's turn them loose and watch them grow thing. Not amazingly different, but still an obvious contrast. Now multiply that by tenfold. There, you have the Middle East. France, England, and most of Europe fought for their freedom. In fact, most democratic nations earned it through their own blood, sweat and tears, though upheaval and civil war. The Middle East does not seem to have that drive. Perhaps, it is because, as the Cradle of Civilization, they are so accustomed to a dictatorship of sorts.

Successful kings are what kept the Middle East one of the dominate areas of the Earth for millenia. They managed to get civilization walking, running, and jumping hurdles up until World War I. That was less than a hundred years ago, for those of you who aren't history buffs. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Europeans stepped in and tried to keep the region stable, and the managed to do so, to a more or less extent until World War II. Let's put that in perspective. This region has only been on its own with out real guidance for about sixty years. The USA required about two hundred years to gel together from a bunch of colonists who were just fine making money for the motherland, to a couple of colonists who were kinda peeved about some taxes that weren't really all that bad. England went back and forth between Parlamentary control and monarchy for several hundred years. France went through fourteen or so revolutions and two World Wars to become stable (they are on the fifth republic now, and that doesn't count reigns of terror, either). My point is that it is far too soon to expect the Middle East to become just like everyone else. And, why should they anyways?

There seems to be a genuine lack of respect for diversity today. It is possible for people to be happy under many diverse circumstances. While being under the rule of a maniac would not generally be considered one of them, there were many people who benefited, along with those who suffered. It's not right, but it is how the world works. Now, I'd venture to say there are very few Iraqis who are as well off as before, and while Hussein did a fine job of killing off his one people, at least it wasn't as much of a lottery walking down the streets. All we did was shift the balance of security so that anyone could get hurt, not just those unlucky enough to be in the wrong sect. Once again, not in anyway fair, but it did work for a large portion of innocents. So far, we have spent hundreds of billions in this country. You cannot tell me that we couldn't buy off a few people to overthrow the country from with in for just a few billion dollars, rather than plunging the entire region into chaos and completely destroying infrastructure. Way to build those bridges, Bush! Too bad there were already some there before you marched troops over them!

And so ends my anti war rant for today. The moral: no matter what you do, a smart-ass teenager can tell you a better way to do it.