A Question for Those Who are Still Complaining About the War in Iraq.

Let’s say that in six weeks, there’s a coup and a military general takes control of our country. When he gets himself in power, they round up every single gun from every registered gun owner in the country, and then start cracking down hard on the major cities so that by the time they get done, no one in the populace has firearms. Just knives and whittled down spoons to protect themselves.

Then let’s say that this fictional general decides that if people speak badly of him, he’s going to send soldiers to their front door to shoot them in front of their friends and neighbors to make an example of them to the people.

Let’s say we live this way… for a few decades.

Then China gets ticked off at this guy and decides its time to oust him from power.

Would you honestly care about how much money it cost them to take out this general? Would you care about their reasons for going in? Is there any reason that you would not want them to do it?

You can’t tell me that the honest answers to any of these questions, from deep in your heart, is yes.

Now realize, that what you have just pondered and considered as a possible future for America is what Iraq and Afghanistan have been going through.

Still feel like you have a right to complain?

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  By Anonymous, November 6, 2004 @ 11:02 pm

  >Would you honestly care about how much money it cost them to take out this general?
  No one I guess.

  > Would you care about their reasons for going in?
  YES! Definitely. Because their reasons for going in are a good indicator of what they will be doing next, i.e. if they’re going to be any better. And if I’ve been living in a fictional American dictatorship for a few decades, I will have no way of knowing that the Chinese are in fact very kind people.

  > Is there any reason that you would not want them to do it?
  Yes. Some of those are “rational” reasons, others are more based on feelings and might actually be complete irrational.

  *) Because I personally might have found out how to avoid being bothered by the regime. I wouldn’t want the Chinese to risk my life and my family’s life for something as intangible as “freedom”, which I’ve never known anyway.

  *) Because I might seriously doubt the invaders motives. After all, they were responsible for the sanctions that destroyed my country’s economy (at least that’s what I’ve been told), and I know that they’re only doing it for my country’s natural resources. Also, they’ve been known to install or support dictatorships in other countries (this is true of China in case of North Korea, but the US isn’t innocent in this respect either…).

  *) The perfect education system installed by Our Supreme Leader has tought me that we ought to Love Our Supreme Leader and Stand United As A Nation, and not let any foreigners determine our faith.

  *) The Chinese are Communists, and therefore they’re our enemies.
  (… and the people in Iraq were told that the US is the enemy of Allah …)

  So yes I do understand why a sizable portion of the Iraqi population did not want Americans there. Most were willing to give you a chance, though. It feels to me like it’s too late to take that chance, but who knows, there’s always hope.

  Think about a less extreme example. Four years ago, Bush won an election. But a sizeable minority of Americans, and probably even more people in Europe, believed that there was election fraud involved and that Bush shouldn’t have won. A few years later, France and Germany and many other countries got ticked off at this guy. OK, that really happened.
  What would have happened if the European nations whose governments didn’t like the fact that Bush was in power had started actively supporting the democrats in America? As in, take as much money as they can possibly afford from the EU budget and invest that in Kerry’s campaign.
  That much money can make a real difference in a presidential election – but if the money comes from foreign governments (worse, from foreign governments that recently opposed the US), would the American people have accepted that? Would the democrats have gladly accepted the donations (publicly) and thanked President Chirac for it? Would the republicans have stood by and let it happen?
  Or would there have been a public outcry? Wouldn’t many more Americans have re-elected Bush just to show those crazy Europeans that America is still run by Americans, and not by foreign governments?

  > Still feel like you have a right to complain?

  In your post, you’ve argued about the Iraqis’ right to complain, not about mine. I think I’ve given you reasons why they might feel that they have a right to complain.

  As for why I feel like I have a right to complain…
  I’m from Austria, and complaining is part of our culture. I guess we’ve got more words for “to complain” in the Austrian dialect of German than any other culture in the world has (sich beschweren, etwas beanstanden, raunzen, maulen, quengeln, …).
  In a recent poll, only 7% of Austrians said they would vote for Bush if they were American citizens. A different American president might have convinced me to support the war, but Bush did too many other things that I feel like I have a right to complain about. So let’s not go into this, I’m probably too anti-Bush to be able to have a meaningful discussion with you.

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