Seasons

I was crushed by Bush's victory. And to all those Forge users outside the US, I urge this for the next four years: do not trust our government. Do not listen to our government or join them in any international "crusades" (as Bush has been calling the war in Iraq). I truly beleive things are going to get a whole lot worse around here for freedom, for science, and for tolerance.

Well we in Australia have our own problems. The chipmunk who followed your leader so blindly into the last crusade has also been re elected. I don't even think the vote considered our part in the war. It came down to money, and that's pretty disappointing.

Do you honestly believe that Iraq is worse off for having Saddam Hussein out of power?

If Bush had conducted the war better, there would be no question. But with 100,000 Iraqis dead and continuing opposition years later that we cant quell.. well it's not so clear. The US left a long gulf of chaos that should have been immediately filled with a new leader.

Why do we keep putting leaders in countries and then having them screw up? Why is it any of our business who rules them, for that matter? Sure Saddam was a bad guy and all, but what gives us the right to go around saying "your leader is evil, let's kill him"? Especially when if given free choice, they probably would've put a guy exactly like him into power anyway. They're so used to that kind of life that I don't know if they know how to live in a democracy...or if they even want to.

What gives us the right to say that just because WE think democracy is cool, everyone else ought to think it's cool too? That's a little bit like saying "having blond hair and blue eyes is cool, you'd all better think it's cool too or else"...hmmm, that's a scary thought... O.o

You can only take cultural relativism so far. What about WWII? What business of ours was it if the Germans wanted to exterminate a bunch of Jews? According to the dominant German culture, that was the right thing to do, and who are we to judge... Yeah.
However much I might favor peace, certain circumstances require action. I don't think Iraq was one of those cirumstances. Bush manipulated information so that he'd have an excuse to invade. The good part? One fewer bloodthirsty dictator in the world. The bad? Read the body count, on both<0> sides. We won't know the overall effect for several years, but I would not say that the world is a "safer place" because of this war.