Iraq in retrospect (I told you so)
I wrote this to my brother 4 years ago, right after we invaded Iraq. It's amusing (or soul-wrenchingly depressing) that most of the country has seen the light and agrees with me now.
Background: I forwarded a few articles on the war from The Onion to my brother, who at the time, was 100% in favor of the war, and a hardcore pro-Bush Republican. (He's neither of those things anymore. I guess people can be reached, eventually, so that's encouraging.) I figured humor was a good way to underline the flaws in what we were doing there. He didn't appreciate them and told me to stop sending him that shit. It annoyed me.
Here's what I had to say to him in April of 2003:
Voicing any criticism of Bush or expressing doubt that we should be involved in the war in the first fucking place gets you at best dirty, suspicious looks, and at worst, well I dunno, boycotts of your records by backwoods hillbillies whose opinions sound kinda like Bruce Willis in Die Hard: "Yippee-kay-ay, motherfucker!" Ok, so I don't have that problem, but it also gets you open, unkind, undiplomatic criticism by family members--all of them--who have always mostly disagreed with you but generally didn't care enough about whatever issue it was to bother messing with you about it. (The worst part of that is hearing insipid, unoriginal tripe repeated verbatim from something they heard on Fox News and didn't bother to research themselves.) Or being asked the same incredibly lame question, phrased so innocuously, over seven times in the space of 20 minutes, even though you've repeatedly answered it.
In all honesty I guess I've been lazy lately. I've avoided the task of sitting down to express, in my own words, what I think about the war, how I feel about it, and what I believe should be done instead. Do you know why? Because even if I e-mail it to all of you, and you actually read it all without stopping halfway through thinking "Gee, she's such a damn good writer but she's always so liberal, I know where this is going, don't need to read further" and going on to the next forwarded e-mail about how stupid Hollywood celebrities are for voicing their opinions... it won't change anything. Even if you get to the end (and you would, Danny, although most wouldn't), you'll disagree. Not because you stopped to think about it and came up with a good reason why we should be there, but because you already disagreed. You know what I mean?
Don't get pissed off at me for saying this. You know it's true. I'm not saying you, specifically, don't think about things analytically, but you know what I mean nonetheless. "Disagreeing" to most people means their minds are made up--they are done thinking about it and have moved on to feeling about it. That's what propaganda (in the strict definitional sense, Danny, think about "bandwagon" and "flagwaving" and "common man"; I know you learned about that stuff somewhere) does. It takes away the incentive to think and replaces it with overwhelming emotions. Watching the news every day, especially Fox News whom one day I might make it my mission to destroy, has that effect. Who could listen to those jackasses ("we report, you decide") talk so enthusiastically about raping with broken bottles, chemical warfare, taking American soldiers prisoner, and not feel very strongly that we should just bomb Baghdad into a parking lot? That's what they do--MAKE us make decisions based on visceral emotion. There are plenty of anti-war people who have done the same thing. Some of them are against the war because they like to be against things, not just war, but anything that the majority is for because it's cool to protest. I mean, a "die-in", how cool is that? Looked pretty fucking cool on TV even if you thought most of them should be run over.
Seriously. Other than me, do you really know anyone who takes the time to sit down and think and actually do research before deciding what stance to take on a political issue? I don't. Even the most thoughtful people I know usually have their minds made up for them, if not by the media, then by their own pre-conceived ideology. Because they're Democrats, they criticize Bush's tax plan even though they have no idea what it actually says. Because they're Republican, they criticize social programs, even though they have no clue what to do in lieu of those programs or how to improve them. Because they support the Green Party, they damn sure criticize this war and pretty much all wars on general principle, not taking the trouble to analyze each one separately.
Sometimes they're right. I myself don't know all the details of Bush's tax plan, but I can predict that I'll probably hate it when I do learn about it (and the things I already know about it back me up on that). The difference between me (and I hope you) and them is that I will look it up, read about it, learn what people on both sides have to say, and THEN come to a decision about it. Or not. The great thing about refusing to have your mind made up for you is that you also have the luxury of not deciding. I am not so arrogant that I can claim to be right about everything, or maybe it's just that I am so arrogant that before I endorse something, I want to be sure it's worth endorsing, that there's not some fatal flaw I've overlooked.
In the case of this particular war, reading up on some history of the region is crucial. 99% of the people in this country don't realize that Iraq was our ally when Iran was the bad guy not so long ago. They also don't realize that Iraq is (or was) probably the least anti-Western country in the middle east. Now that we've invaded them it really doesn't fucking matter any more. But I'm trying to illustrate, as I've tried before, the arbitrary nature of this invasion. Using the overt reasons for the invasion, it could just as easily be Iran (much crazier and just as dictatorial), or Saudi Arabia (much more hatred of America). But whenever I say this people ask me where I got the information. Which pisses me off more than you can imagine. I'd like to tell such people to fuck off, but some of them are family members whom I care about. I'd also like to tell them to look it up for themselves, but they won't. They certainly haven't yet at any rate. So what the fuck am I supposed to do? Just keep my mouth shut? As I said before, this isn't any ordinary difference of opinion. In this case, not only do people--my own goddamn family--think my opinion is wrong, but my morals are in question. My very Americanism. My loyalty to my country is called into question. So is my stance on human rights (you know, the chemical weapons and broken-bottle rapes), which would be hilarious if it weren't so fucking moronic. It's funny how human rights weren't anything these people gave a shit about before the war, and equally funny how they aren't important in other parts of the world. Ha ha. Hey, remember how I've been a vocal member of Amnesty International since 1995? Or does that not count?
Now I'm rambling, and I'm pissed off, because I just now read the other email you sent telling me not to send you stuff like this anymore. That sends me a clear message. Not only do you disagree with me, but you have absolutely no respect for my opinion, and you have no intention of listening to what I have to say on the subject. That really hurts. It's also pretty fucking humiliating. And did I mention it pisses me off? If you were anyone else, the rest of this e-mail would be nothing but venom. Because you are who you are (you lucky bastard), I'm letting it go. And that is a huge undertaking. I think I roll over too easy for you most of the time. This is not easy, you little fucker. :/
Note that the first half of the paragraph below was written before I read message number two.
Danny, I send this stuff to you because I think it's funny, and because I'm lazy, and what's in those articles expresses my views better than I have the energy to right now, but mostly because I still think there's hope for you. I'm not being facetious. You have the potential to be truly intellectual (not in the negative sense of the word). I want to make you think, even if that means sending you stuff that annoys you. I know that you, like me, are lazy, and for you that means being Republican for no reason other than the GOP taxes poor people instead of wealthy ones. You're hard on the surface, and I know for a fact there are things you actively choose not to think about because the hard surface covers a mind of incredible depth. I don't like to think about it slipping into disuse because its owner thinks it's cool to adopt a "what's in it for me" facade. And it's not that I assume your pro-war stance automatically, necessarily means you didn't think before you made up your mind. It's hard for me to tell sometimes, though. In this case I wonder if you thought about it, or if you bought the government's bullshit (and I know you aren't in full accord with Lisa thinking the government knows what's best; you're too damn cynical and you read too much Tom Clancy), or if you like the idea of bombing a country into oblivion because you're so angry at the world--hell, not at the world, that's cliche, just angry in every direction.
[No offense meant to Lisa. She's the normal one, and you and I are the paranoid conspiracy theorists, me more than you undoubtedly.]
I know you don't know much about the political and social history of the Middle East and our relations with those countries. Please don't take that as an insult; it's merely an observation. It doesn't matter to me what your opinion is as long as it's informed. Is it?
I also know that you're quick to react, especially in anger. Your initial reaction to this will probably not be good (especially since the bottom third of it was written while I was highly pissed off and that will come through). That doesn't matter to me either. What matters is whether you take the time to re-read it, notice the parts where I'm being ironic and the parts where I'm being sincere, and honestly try to think about where I'm coming from. Will you?
Because the whole point of this is not the war and what people think about it. It's your mind and HOW you think about anything. Why do I care? The obvious answer is that you're my brother and I love you. The less obvious and more honest one is pure ego--you're a younger, male version of me with even less impulse control. I'd really hate to see all that go under-utilized.
EDIT: He's now (as of Spring 2007) about to graduate from law school, and his opinions and attitudes on many things have changed dramatically. It's hard to believe he was ever the person I had to say this to. I can honestly say that he really is a "thinker" and not just a "feeler". Yesssssss! It's really amazing what in-depth study of the Constitution and jurisprudence will do to a person.
Background: I forwarded a few articles on the war from The Onion to my brother, who at the time, was 100% in favor of the war, and a hardcore pro-Bush Republican. (He's neither of those things anymore. I guess people can be reached, eventually, so that's encouraging.) I figured humor was a good way to underline the flaws in what we were doing there. He didn't appreciate them and told me to stop sending him that shit. It annoyed me.
Here's what I had to say to him in April of 2003:
Voicing any criticism of Bush or expressing doubt that we should be involved in the war in the first fucking place gets you at best dirty, suspicious looks, and at worst, well I dunno, boycotts of your records by backwoods hillbillies whose opinions sound kinda like Bruce Willis in Die Hard: "Yippee-kay-ay, motherfucker!" Ok, so I don't have that problem, but it also gets you open, unkind, undiplomatic criticism by family members--all of them--who have always mostly disagreed with you but generally didn't care enough about whatever issue it was to bother messing with you about it. (The worst part of that is hearing insipid, unoriginal tripe repeated verbatim from something they heard on Fox News and didn't bother to research themselves.) Or being asked the same incredibly lame question, phrased so innocuously, over seven times in the space of 20 minutes, even though you've repeatedly answered it.
In all honesty I guess I've been lazy lately. I've avoided the task of sitting down to express, in my own words, what I think about the war, how I feel about it, and what I believe should be done instead. Do you know why? Because even if I e-mail it to all of you, and you actually read it all without stopping halfway through thinking "Gee, she's such a damn good writer but she's always so liberal, I know where this is going, don't need to read further" and going on to the next forwarded e-mail about how stupid Hollywood celebrities are for voicing their opinions... it won't change anything. Even if you get to the end (and you would, Danny, although most wouldn't), you'll disagree. Not because you stopped to think about it and came up with a good reason why we should be there, but because you already disagreed. You know what I mean?
Don't get pissed off at me for saying this. You know it's true. I'm not saying you, specifically, don't think about things analytically, but you know what I mean nonetheless. "Disagreeing" to most people means their minds are made up--they are done thinking about it and have moved on to feeling about it. That's what propaganda (in the strict definitional sense, Danny, think about "bandwagon" and "flagwaving" and "common man"; I know you learned about that stuff somewhere) does. It takes away the incentive to think and replaces it with overwhelming emotions. Watching the news every day, especially Fox News whom one day I might make it my mission to destroy, has that effect. Who could listen to those jackasses ("we report, you decide") talk so enthusiastically about raping with broken bottles, chemical warfare, taking American soldiers prisoner, and not feel very strongly that we should just bomb Baghdad into a parking lot? That's what they do--MAKE us make decisions based on visceral emotion. There are plenty of anti-war people who have done the same thing. Some of them are against the war because they like to be against things, not just war, but anything that the majority is for because it's cool to protest. I mean, a "die-in", how cool is that? Looked pretty fucking cool on TV even if you thought most of them should be run over.
Seriously. Other than me, do you really know anyone who takes the time to sit down and think and actually do research before deciding what stance to take on a political issue? I don't. Even the most thoughtful people I know usually have their minds made up for them, if not by the media, then by their own pre-conceived ideology. Because they're Democrats, they criticize Bush's tax plan even though they have no idea what it actually says. Because they're Republican, they criticize social programs, even though they have no clue what to do in lieu of those programs or how to improve them. Because they support the Green Party, they damn sure criticize this war and pretty much all wars on general principle, not taking the trouble to analyze each one separately.
Sometimes they're right. I myself don't know all the details of Bush's tax plan, but I can predict that I'll probably hate it when I do learn about it (and the things I already know about it back me up on that). The difference between me (and I hope you) and them is that I will look it up, read about it, learn what people on both sides have to say, and THEN come to a decision about it. Or not. The great thing about refusing to have your mind made up for you is that you also have the luxury of not deciding. I am not so arrogant that I can claim to be right about everything, or maybe it's just that I am so arrogant that before I endorse something, I want to be sure it's worth endorsing, that there's not some fatal flaw I've overlooked.
In the case of this particular war, reading up on some history of the region is crucial. 99% of the people in this country don't realize that Iraq was our ally when Iran was the bad guy not so long ago. They also don't realize that Iraq is (or was) probably the least anti-Western country in the middle east. Now that we've invaded them it really doesn't fucking matter any more. But I'm trying to illustrate, as I've tried before, the arbitrary nature of this invasion. Using the overt reasons for the invasion, it could just as easily be Iran (much crazier and just as dictatorial), or Saudi Arabia (much more hatred of America). But whenever I say this people ask me where I got the information. Which pisses me off more than you can imagine. I'd like to tell such people to fuck off, but some of them are family members whom I care about. I'd also like to tell them to look it up for themselves, but they won't. They certainly haven't yet at any rate. So what the fuck am I supposed to do? Just keep my mouth shut? As I said before, this isn't any ordinary difference of opinion. In this case, not only do people--my own goddamn family--think my opinion is wrong, but my morals are in question. My very Americanism. My loyalty to my country is called into question. So is my stance on human rights (you know, the chemical weapons and broken-bottle rapes), which would be hilarious if it weren't so fucking moronic. It's funny how human rights weren't anything these people gave a shit about before the war, and equally funny how they aren't important in other parts of the world. Ha ha. Hey, remember how I've been a vocal member of Amnesty International since 1995? Or does that not count?
Now I'm rambling, and I'm pissed off, because I just now read the other email you sent telling me not to send you stuff like this anymore. That sends me a clear message. Not only do you disagree with me, but you have absolutely no respect for my opinion, and you have no intention of listening to what I have to say on the subject. That really hurts. It's also pretty fucking humiliating. And did I mention it pisses me off? If you were anyone else, the rest of this e-mail would be nothing but venom. Because you are who you are (you lucky bastard), I'm letting it go. And that is a huge undertaking. I think I roll over too easy for you most of the time. This is not easy, you little fucker. :/
Note that the first half of the paragraph below was written before I read message number two.
Danny, I send this stuff to you because I think it's funny, and because I'm lazy, and what's in those articles expresses my views better than I have the energy to right now, but mostly because I still think there's hope for you. I'm not being facetious. You have the potential to be truly intellectual (not in the negative sense of the word). I want to make you think, even if that means sending you stuff that annoys you. I know that you, like me, are lazy, and for you that means being Republican for no reason other than the GOP taxes poor people instead of wealthy ones. You're hard on the surface, and I know for a fact there are things you actively choose not to think about because the hard surface covers a mind of incredible depth. I don't like to think about it slipping into disuse because its owner thinks it's cool to adopt a "what's in it for me" facade. And it's not that I assume your pro-war stance automatically, necessarily means you didn't think before you made up your mind. It's hard for me to tell sometimes, though. In this case I wonder if you thought about it, or if you bought the government's bullshit (and I know you aren't in full accord with Lisa thinking the government knows what's best; you're too damn cynical and you read too much Tom Clancy), or if you like the idea of bombing a country into oblivion because you're so angry at the world--hell, not at the world, that's cliche, just angry in every direction.
[No offense meant to Lisa. She's the normal one, and you and I are the paranoid conspiracy theorists, me more than you undoubtedly.]
I know you don't know much about the political and social history of the Middle East and our relations with those countries. Please don't take that as an insult; it's merely an observation. It doesn't matter to me what your opinion is as long as it's informed. Is it?
I also know that you're quick to react, especially in anger. Your initial reaction to this will probably not be good (especially since the bottom third of it was written while I was highly pissed off and that will come through). That doesn't matter to me either. What matters is whether you take the time to re-read it, notice the parts where I'm being ironic and the parts where I'm being sincere, and honestly try to think about where I'm coming from. Will you?
Because the whole point of this is not the war and what people think about it. It's your mind and HOW you think about anything. Why do I care? The obvious answer is that you're my brother and I love you. The less obvious and more honest one is pure ego--you're a younger, male version of me with even less impulse control. I'd really hate to see all that go under-utilized.
EDIT: He's now (as of Spring 2007) about to graduate from law school, and his opinions and attitudes on many things have changed dramatically. It's hard to believe he was ever the person I had to say this to. I can honestly say that he really is a "thinker" and not just a "feeler". Yesssssss! It's really amazing what in-depth study of the Constitution and jurisprudence will do to a person.