The New Isolationist Left?
I think there are a lot of sound anti-war arguments out there, but I find some of them to be rather curious. One in particular presents what I think is an ideological break in traditional liberal thinking. It comes in this form, that anti-war speakers generally point to the fact that "Saddam can't hurt us", where "us" means the U.S.A. This is often used as a rallying point, that since Saddam poses no threat to "us", we therefore cannot be said to be acting in a defensive nature by attacking him.
Before going on, I want to say that I think of myself as a liberal, and I believe the Bush Administration is bungling this war badly, due to a massive diplomatic failure.
But I don't understand why people think Saddam has to be able to simply strike the U.S., on U.S. soil, to hurt us. To me, there is great tension between using this line of reasoning as a reason not to attack, and the general liberal principle that we live in a Global Community. A Saddam attack on Kuwait, for example, is extremely damaging to "us". It hurts our economic and strategic planning, not to mention that Kuwait is a country that we have a good political relationship with.
I understand that most people are uneasy with the idea that to attack resources key to our country is tantamount to attacking our country. I'm also not sure what I think about it. But the fact is, this has been U.S. policy since the Carter Doctrine and the Rapid Deployment Force came into being, and he wasn't exactly a hawk.
Saddam can easily put a large turd in our collective punch bowl without ever leaving the Mid East. So this issue of delivery systems, or of intent to directly harm the U.S. seems a non-sequitor to me. The issue would be twofold, in my mind: Does he have a plan to get the weapons? Does he show a proclivity to use them against another country? You'll notice that al Quaeda isn't relevant to either of those questions.
12:33:54 PM 
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