Sorry to be so disruptive of the groupthink.

Caroma, you might consider working on your tone. Is it no longer legitimate that people disagree passionately with you? I tend to take the longview, and notice how (rightly or wrongly) other nations' poor opinion of the US may cause havoc in the future, but isn't that a legitimate opinion to have?

Is an opinion any less well-reasoned -- or nuanced, or encompassing of ambiguity -- if it happens to be the majority opinion at a cocktail party? More frustrating, perhaps, for one who disagrees, but not necessarily less well-reasoned.

We can throw our weight around without simultaneously insulting the people we're ignoring.

This makes me laugh (in that I-agree way). Because it shows how much politeness matters, even when politeness is intended to mask something really obnoxious; because sometimes obnoxiousness is a legitimate tool of statecraft, but there's no point in crowing about your own obnoxiousness.

Hypothetical and not looking for any certain answer, but this question came to me as I was reading the paper this morning. There was a very successful peace rally in Boston (successful in that it was peaceable and resulted in no arrests) yesterday and it got me to thinking.

What would happen if the Bush administration and its allies listened to the protesters? What if (how more hypothetical can you get) the coalition said, "Okay then, we'll stop," -- what then? How should they handle it? Do we just pick up our ball and go home? What would the peace movement want to see happen from there? What would the coalition's responsibility (for bombing their country) to the Iraqi people be? How could they meet it with Saddam still in power?

Gosh, can we understand better now why getting OUT of Vietnam was such a problem for everyone? (That sounds more sarcastic than meant, but I'll let it stand.)

Getting in is always easier than getting out. Isn't it? It's too bad. The world would be a better place if that were reversed.

I think the news did say, in the case of the Boston protest, that the rally permit was applied for several weeks ago, before things got officially war-y.

Then again, what is the direct purpose of a protest? It's not necessarily to cause immediate cessation of the protestable activity; but to register displeasure with it in a public, numerous way. I don't think most of the protesters think that just putting everything away and going home would work, in this case; but they may be signalling their intent to vote against such policies in future, or even just trying to redress the opinion of their country in the world press. (I, for one, think it's a great idea to remind everyone that a country of 280,000,000 people ddoesn't all think the same way, and by "everyone" I mean both within and without the country.)

In answer to your (theoretical) question, Cindy, I think the only thing more irresponsible than getting into the current situation would be to acquit oneself half-assedly, once in it.

We can't just leave at this point-- but I wish we hadn't started. I tend to think I personally would demonstrate for peace rather than anti-war at this point because the horse is out of the barn now.

I've been wondering that, too, Cindy. As somebody who thinks this war is wrong (and who really, really regrets not DOING more about that), I don't know what I want the government to do. If the Good Fairy comes down, waves her wand, and says "For the next month, George Bush will do whatever you tell him to do", I have no idea what I say.

I cannot imagine us leaving with the war unfinished. It embarrasses us in front of the world, it reduces our ability to tell other countries (Korea much?) to "Drop that NOW!" But I can't see any way we can finish this war quickly, either. It's a tar baby.

Caroma, when you say "groupthink", that comes with connotations. The connotation is that people hold their position, not because they have reasoned it though, but because they have succumbed to peer pressure. I'm 43. I was raised among pacifists. I've been at best uneasy about war all my life. I assure you, it wasn't the Buffistas who made me disapprove of this war.

Sorry to be so disruptive of the groupthink

I do sympathise with your feelings, Caroma; so far in this discussion your view of current events hasn't been shared by most of the other people who have entered the conversation, and I know that must feel uncomfortable and perhaps frustrating.

For what it's worth, though, I'm very rarely in Natter and most of my conversations around here have been to do with fan fic or glitter or mememe stuff, rather than politics. Please don't devalue my opinions by suggesting that I'm just trying to fit in with some standardised Buffista worldview. I am acutely aware of the fact that I'm not an expert on politics, and I am prepared to question my own assumptions as well as those of others. If you are sufficiently interested in the discussion to engage with my points and show me that my understanding is flawed (as it may well be), then fair enough. I'm assuming that you have reasons for your views, and so I'm treating them seriously. If that isn't the case - if you're just making throw-away comments to be provocative, without caring one way or another about their accuracy, then tell me. Sometimes I don’t realise that people are joking, with this medium. I understood that you were serious.

Now, since I'm rarely in Natter I can't speak for the instance you cited. "Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children" is, I sincerely trust, an exaggeration of the numbers of children that we're going to kill. So if you're pissed off about that exaggeration being allowed to pass, when a similar exaggeration that was pro-war probably wouldn't have been allowed to pass, then I can see why you'd feel irked. I don't agree with your take on this, but I can see why this could rankle. But, you know, we *are* already causing the deaths and injuries of civilians some of whom will be children. Even if it transpires that the market bombing was down to Iraqis - and, based on our past record with bombing the wrong bloody places time and again with our 'Smart' technology (and based on how many of our own soldiers have already been killed in "friendly fire" in this war, not to mention the fact that the Pentagon admits at least seven of its Tomahawks haven't hit their intended targets) I'm not very optimistic that we can pass the buck for this, but one lives in hope - still these attacks are the direct result of our presence. Perhaps whoever it was in Natter should just have bewailed the "unknown number" of innocent Iraqi children we were going to kill - but the underlying sentiment there is surely "our actions will cause the death of innocent people. Probably a lot of innocent people. This seems to me to be A Very Bad Thing." Perhaps this is too sentimental for your taste, and somebody should have responded with a post explaining why it would be worth inadvertently killing X many innocent people for the (presumed) greater good of the Iraqi population as a whole. But I can't agree that the statement was ludicrous, even if it was an exaggeration.

Did anybody laugh or ask her how long she'd been working for the Saudi media, or tell her to get psychiatric help…

Okay - my grasp of international affairs is patchy, I willingly admit. My understanding was that Saudi Arabia was pretty much allied with the US on most things. I mean, certainly that's part of the reason Bin Laden and co are so angry, as I understood it - because Saudi Arabia (which has a lousy human rights record itself) has a close and co-operative relationship with the US, largely based upon oil trade. The Saudis were key members of the allied coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait back in '92. Within the context of the Middle East, my understanding was that they're about as pro-US as it gets.

…or even say what exactly led her to believe that the military of three very civilized countries was too evil or dumb not to target children in the first place?

Just because our soldiers don't go out there specifically looking for innocent people to bomb instead of soldiers, we can't say "well, it's not *our* fault that we killed innocent people. How could we know? What the hell were they doing there?" That's impossibly disingenuous. We're bombing the places where people live. I do think that we have to accept responsibility for the fact that our bombs are killing, and will continue to kill, innocent people. Some people will weigh up the pros and the cons and decide that it's worth it. Some people will weigh up the pros and cons and decide that it isn't. But I don't think this means that they need psychiatric help.

There's a few people, like Cindy and Wolfram and Gar and Victor, who try to steer the conversation from the endless rounds of Bush-bashing. And thank God for that.

Respectfully, I'd suggest that you re-read this discussion, because there has been very little mention of Bush. I'm not interested in personally bashing Bush or Blair.

But people, relax, chill, Bush might be gone in 22 months!

As I said, I balk at accepting that he's anything like as stupid as he's portrayed in the media, and I also balk at accepting that any one person has the power to make *serious* world-altering decisions without input from a shedload of advisors. I'm working on the assumption that both US and UK policies do have something deeper than machismo motivating them, and that decisions to wage war aren't taken lightly. I'm not persuaded that these decisions have been taken for morally viable reasons, and I'm scared stiff of the long term effects, but I'm not putting it down to stupidity or evil.

edited for clarity.

But whether it's Bush in power in 22 months or Jo(e) RandomAmerican (ditto Blair, whose career is on the line with this) we're still going to have created some serious problems - because quite apart from the enormous bill we'll have at the end of the day, the way things are shaping up, more and more people are going to start thinking that terrorism is the only viable response to what they perceive (not entirely without reason) as brutal and ruthless western imperialism. We're making ourselves look like the bad guys here.

Terrorism is something I'm very keen on not encouraging. The limited exposure I've had to terrorism (frequent bombthreats on the London Underground, a carbomb going off outside my local pub only hours after I'd been sitting very much in range, bomb-making factory found in a house only streets away from mine etc etc) pretty much reinforce this feeling. But bombing Ireland to pieces (leaving aside the absolute injustice of any such tactic) was never going to be a successful way of discouraging terrorism. Similarly, bombing the Middle East is not going to win a "War on Terror". It's going to create terrorists, and it's going to alienate our allies. If people are willing to die in order to hurt you, then it doesn't matter how strong you are. We can't apply 19th Century ideas about warfare to the 21st Century world.

Burning bridges is a really, really bad idea - but it's something that the US appears, at least from the outside, to be fairly unconcerned about. But, like it or lump it, it's a Global economy we're all living in and we *need* the rest of the world - both to buy our stuff and to sell us stuff. We can't just say "Screw You" to everyone.

Evil Jimi - Excellent post.

Cindy - We're buggered. I can't see any viable way of withdrawing from this war, even if we wanted to, because of the tremendous loss of face both at home and abroad. I don't pretend to know how things are going to unfold, but everything I can see suggests that the repercussions are going to be bad, and that we need to be doing our damnedest to look to what we can build once it's all over, and how we can keep this from poisoning our relations with other countries throughout the Middle East and throughout the rest of the world.

edited for clarity

Caroma, don't think that your opinions aren't listened to, they are. In fact you seem to be able to see some of the complexities of the current world situation at a far deeper level than just war/US/Bush bad vs peace/everyone else good. Some of the points that you raise really are at the heart of the matter...

Of course they're being "selfish"--it's called trying to make money for their workers and shareholders.

Yes. In a corporatised shareholder driven economy profit comes before morals.

Most of our Congress came from the private sector, and that's what we want, instead of the professional polticians. And as more and more rich guys like Bloomberg get into politics, it's going to get stickier and stickier. The ties will just multiply.

Again yes. Corporate sponsored politics, the triumvirate of government, industry, and the military. We have allowed the situation to develop where it is very difficult, if not impossible, to fix many of the problems of the world without a complete overhaul of many parts of the system. In times gone by this usually required a bloody revolution.

But people, relax, chill, Bush might be gone in 22 months!

But what does this do about the anti-US sentiment that has been fermenting for years and appears to be exploding around the world art the moment. It is not really anti-Bushism it is anti-American imperialism. And IIRC the current figures are that 93 countries have ratified the Kyoto ptotocol.

Evil Jim that was a great article, you're right it sums it all up pretty well.