On the matter of apples and oranges

Submitted by Edward (South Africa), Jul 11, 2008 at 02:01

Dear Rick, and everyone,

By giving statistics only on iraq does not mean i dont have the numbers applicable to other middle east countries and the world over where president bush in particular and America has presided over the deaths of millions of innocents. By taking me to the spanish civil war, WW1 and WW2, you are simply begging my questions and going defensive, bringing irrelevant detail with the intention to confuse. I wont get confused though. And i wont even yield to the temptation to talk about vietnam, japan and others where the american nation has engineered suffering without any reasonable justification.

I will pick just one sentence from your article and disregard everything else as, to me, irrelevant to our debate. That "Eventually, Saddam would possess WMD and we know from his own history ,he would use them". I honestly find this statement unintelligent. For a nation which went to war with the strongest boisterous promises ever that there was incontrovertible evidence to the effect that saddam had WMDs, to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent women and children and then come out blubbering that "look, he actually did not have them. But eventually he would posess them!" Christ! What happened to reason?

And this now brings me to the all critical matter that i like to call the American arrogancy. For a fact, America is a powerful country. The religion of america is democracy. Anything in contravention of democracy and liberty is anti american. The very reason we have some of the most disgusting vices among humans being tolerated and bred in the american society under the umbrella of personal freedoms. This is ok, if you ask me; BUT only to the extent you dont force other societies to adopt! Here is where america gets it wrong.

Now, it surprises me, when you suggest that the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and 4,000 Americans (look again at that ratio!) is worth changing the not only of Iraq but in the Middle East from despotism to democracy! What makes the americans think that they are obliged to spread their ideology to the whole world at whatever cost? What makes you think that american democracy is good for us all? What is the difference then with the 7th century crusaders who took it upon themselves to assure the whole world of how Islam was good for them amd how they had to accept it forcefully. Blood was shed. If that is not arrogancy, what is it?

The american idea of democracy is having a puppet government in each and every middle east country, which they can manipulate and siphon enough oil to quench the thirst of those chevrons and other monster SUVs on american roads, period! It does not have anything to do with the good of the people. That is why you come here and slaughter them like their lives carried no meaning. If america is so keen on spreading democracy, as it claims, why doesnt it spread it to zimbabwe, Uganda, cuba and others? Simple, because there is no money to steal in those miserable countries yet their leaders kill at will, change constitutions when and how they want, steal elections and all.

Let the americans enjoy their liberties in their country unabated. But for them to think that they will forcefully spread their religion worldwide at the cost of hundreds of millions of lives is stinking arrogance. What do you think, rick?

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