Friday, September 20, 2002

Those Who Benefit from the Denial of Freedom are the Enemies of Freedom Those Who Benefit from the Denial of Freedom are the Enemies of Freedom    I was so mad last night.  I thought I had written a great comment, and I accidentally clicked on a link, and poof-  gone!! I went to bed, but thought Radio could add a feature to the script that saved the html as it was being created.  Now I write in Word first.   Great news.  Bush is coming to Boston Friday Evening, Oct. 4th for a fund raiser—looks like a great opportunity for a big, noisy, anti-war demonstration.   Anyway, last night our vigil in Lexington almost qualified as a demonstration itself.  More than 30 people held signs and one enormous banner saying “No War With Iraq”.  The ratio of waves and thumbs up vs. the “bomb them / nuke them” crowd was at least 3 to 1, and there were enough people that traffic slowed to read the signs and see what we were doing.  We have majority support here against the war.  But in the heartland, more and more democrats are falling in behind Bush in this phony war.  They seem to fear the accusations of the hyperventilating war advocates, rather than stand up to them.    So in a small attempt to try and stiffen democratic backbone, here are a couple of reasons why the war is a bad idea.   We can’t spread freedom by conquering others.  We can support Iraqi dissidents all we want, but once we become the masters, we aren’t exporting freedom, we are exporting tyranny.    As soon as those pesky locals act democratically and want something different than us, watch how fast we set them straight about who is in charge.  Second, those who benefit from the denial of freedom are enemies of freedom.  Bush is essentially re-establishing a colonial relationship with the Arabs because  of oil.  His Congressional resolution today is for a carte blanche to impose peace and security for U.S. interests not just in Iraq, but the entire region.  Our new anti-war slogan will be U.S. Troops Out of the Middle East!!  I predict it will become very potent. Finally, Bush has a China problem.  The China problem is when a government badly craves economic development and investment, yet fears the free flow of information.  But free flow of information is the life blood of economic development.   Our China problem is global inequality.  It breeds desperation not in the poorest of the poor, but in the educated Arab university graduate, the Pakistani software engineer, the Russian nuclear scientist.  Al Qaeda with 20,000 soldiers mostly still at large, has cost us $200 to $300 billion if you include costs of the war in Iraq.   We can’t win a war where our enemy can force us to spend $10 million to $15 million fighting each recruit,  while their cost is a few thousand dollars.   If our goal is ultimately to defend our wealth, Al Qaeda and terror groups like them have hit on a winning strategy to undermine us.   So is there an alternative. Yes, its called multilateralism.  It means standing up for a world where we are mutually dependent on each other for our wealth.  This means not defending the oil fields, but obsolescing the oil fields with hydrogen or other energy sources.  It means not attacking Al Qaeda alone, but with global cooperation.   If Bush had allies and was more successful against Al Qaeda, he would not need the political cover of a new war against Saddam.    But the type of mutual respect and sharing demanded in a more equal world  is the polar opposite of the CEO mentality of greed—which Bush and Cheney simply translate from the Board room to the political sphere.  They are not entitled to Iraqi oil any more than Cheney is entitled to his 20 to 30 million dollar pension, than Bush was entitled to the Texas Rangers, or Ken Lay was entitled to Enron.  We have a power grab here for which many people will lose their lives instead of their 401 K’s, and our democratic men and women in Congress are too corrupted to oppose it.  12:32:30 AM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:30:20 PM.