> >
> > Written by: Peter Freundlich of NPR
> >
> > Food for thought... I'll take some mushroom tea,
please...
> >
> > All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this
correctly. We
> > are going to ignore the United Nations in order to make
clear to
> Saddam
> > Hussein that the United Nations cannot be ignored.
We're going to
> wage
> > war to preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The
paramount
> principle
> > is that the UN's word must be taken seriously, and if
we have to
> > subvert
> > its word to guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will.
Peace is too
> > important not to take up arms to defend. Am I getting
this right?
> >
> > Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is
to vitiate the
> > democracy of the Security Council, then we are
honor-bound to do that
> > too, because democracy, as we define it, is too
important to be
> stopped
> > by a little thing like democracy as they define it.
> >
> > Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at
home, we
> cannot
> > afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with
one voice
> against
> > Saddam Hussein's failure to allow opposing voices to be
heard. We are
> > sending our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make
the point that
> > might does not make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to
think it does.
> > And
> > we are twisting the arms of the opposition until it
agrees to let us
> > oust a regime that twists the arms of the opposition.
We cannot leave
> > in
> > power a dictator who ignores his own people. And if our
people, and
> > people elsewhere in the world, fail to understand that,
then we have
> no
> > choice but to ignore them.
> >
> > Listen. Don't misunderstand. I think it is a good thing
that the
> > members
> > of the Bush administration seem to have been reading
Lewis Carroll. I
> > only wish someone had pointed out that "Alice in
Wonderland" and
> > "Through the Looking Glass" are meditations on paradox
and puzzle and
> > illogic and on the strangeness of things, not templates
for foreign
> > policy. It is amusing for the Mad Hatter to say
something like, `We
> > must
> > make war on him because he is a threat to peace,' but
not amusing for
> > someone who actually commands an army to say that. As a
collector of
> > laughable arguments, I'd be enjoying all this were it
not for the
> fact
> > that I know--we all know--that lives are going to be
lost in what
> > amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident.
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