Patriotism

I seldom agree with your political perspective, but I also rejoice in your brother-in-law's soon and safe return from Iraq.

I'm Canadian so my views are probably different from other people who might post here. And because I'm Canadian I'll answer not just what I like about the States, but also what I like about my "home and native land." (That's the second line from Canada's national anthem, O Canada!: "O Canada!/Our home and native land...")

By the way, Canada just had it's "independence" celebration: Canada Day, which was July first. Canada is a hundred and forty-one years old.

What I like about Canada: we actually have a health-care system; some of the best figure skaters are from here (Jeffrey Buttle won this year's World Figure Skating Championships; I also love watching Joannie Rochet); the best cymbals in the world are made in my home province of New Brunswick (Sabian, which is based in Meductic). I don't play any percussion instruments but it's still a source of pride for me--whenever I watch a band or orchestra play on TV I always watch for those shots where I can see underneath the cymbals and when I can I look for the Sabian logo. When I see it I'm really happy. Anyways--back to the list: one of the parks in NB is Fundy National Park. I haven't been there (yet), but I hope to visit at least once in my life.

What I like about the US: some of my favourite music groups are from the states: the Bangor Symphony Orchestra, the Nor'easter String Quartet, the Biss-Brubaker Duo, the Metropolitan Opera and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra; the Maine library system is a million times better than the one we have here in NB; Apple Computer; the street fair that the City of Calais, Maine, puts on every summer as part of the International Homecoming Festival (the festival celebrates the bond between the Town of St. Stephen, NB, and Calais--the street fair, which is on the last day of the festival, is one of the best parts: Main St. becomes a pedestrian-only street and it's filled with venders selling pizza, ice cream, hot dogs, nachos, jewelry, soap, fundraising for various causes...... I look forward to it all year long.)

I agree with MI: I spent three weeks travelling in Italy with my dad in January of '06 and about halfway through I started to get homesick. It got worse and worse and I realized that I wasn't just homesick for the place where I live--I was homesick for Canada! That was the first time I felt like that and it has stayed with me ever since.

I agree with MI: I spent three weeks travelling in Italy with my dad in January of '06 and about halfway through I started to get homesick.

Just by way of clarification...by "stepping outside the walls of civilization", I was referring to my deployment to Iraq. It was a somewhat different experience than my previous travels to Europe & Canada.

I love my country. I am beyond angry with some of the decisions and actions of the current administration (this also being true of some past administrations). I spit on anyone's accusation that I hate my country or don't support our troops.

Everything else I could say I've already said on the "The enemy is us" thread, though I will point out that Max could easily be speaking for me. Just one thing about the Chesterton quote, Max: it's not necessarily the country that's wrong in each case, it's the leadership. The country becomes wrong as well when it fails to correct that leadership, from voting them out to putting them in jail, as indicated. Yes, I'm referring to the 2004 election, though to be fair we didn't have the data then that we have now. :-(

Rod, great news about your brother-in-law. All honor to him for his service. Another Believer, the same for you, daughter of us all. Come home safe and whole.

As you know, Irenaeus, we disagree on some key points, but I see nothing there for which you need to apologize (that's how I took "I'm afraid"). I might not phrase some things the same, but I'm not you.

Have a safe and relaxed holiday, good sir.

I fell out of love with America the day we invaded Iraq. I can not love America until we return to living as a country of law at stop living as if we are under Martial Law.

This Government has violated international law, treated its citizens with contempt and violated our rights under the guise of "National Security".

I miss the country I loved so well and never left its shores. I have not and will not visit any foreign country until we return to our senses. And I love to travel.

What I do love about our country us that fact that we can change and when we recognize our folly, we make restitution and ammends.

I have a great deal of sympathy for your views, Irenaeus. Yet I love America, and am still stirred by the sight of flags fluttering or the sounds of Sousa's music. I always think of this tiny part of Walter Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel":

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no Minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

One of America's chief faults in the age of globalism has been a lack of the kind of patriotism that puts America and Americans first, that shrugs at the notion that widgets can be made more cheaply and with less environmental or government oversight in the third-world country of their choice and says, "What, am I supposed to put the people of my town, my city, my state out of work to squeeze more pennies out of an already near-obscene profit margin? Perish the thought!" and keeps right on employing the good people of Anytown, USA. We could use a whole lot more of that kind of patriotism, even if it meant that we, too, would have to put more value on the work of our countrymen and eschew the rising unofficial motto of American life, "Always Low Prices."

But to get away from the poisonous mindset we've uncritically imbibed, we have to recapture a sense of transcendence, and be ready to put more time and effort into our own souls and the needs of our neighbors than we put into our lawns or homes or cars or any other of the clattering stuff with which we've filled the rising emptiness of our lives. Years ago, my grandmother (rest her soul) held a July 4th picnic in her backyard, to which neighbors and friends and family flocked, bringing food to share and drinking lemonade (the pink was not for the kids, which was a disappointment as the color was quite pretty). There were lots of us kids popping in and out of the garage where long tables of edible fireworks beckoned (including sweet dark cherries the like of which I don't think I've tasted in years); there was laughter and chatting and fellowship from among the good people who had set aside the work of the day, or been released by employers as was the rule, not the exception, in order to join in this carnival of patriotic celebration.

Somehow we've lost something precious and priceless--and we can't run to the nearest Big Boxes R Us to replace it. But the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan know what it is, and have fought for it; my own in-laws and husband served in the Armed Forces to protect it; pastors, priests and rabbis will beg God today to restore and preserve it; and our children can be taught from whispered infancy to cherish it:

America. Not the jingoism and false pride and empty rhetoric, and certainly not the corporate multi-nationalist view that our nation is valuable only so long as we continue to be, not a nation of shopkeepers, but a nation of shoppers, drowning in consumerism for the sake of billionaires who are not yet and never will be satisfied with their wealth--but the real America, where there are still neighborhood picnics and flag-waving children singing "God Bless America," and meaning it, where the American values of thrift and common sense are still practiced and promoted, where the lines from "America, the Beautiful," which read "Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law," stand against the licentious moral laxity of our age as a rebuke against our--hopefully temporary--lapse into hedonism and permissiveness.

I'm not yet ready to give up on this country, though I worry about certain present trends, and whether those will not re-create, if not for me, then for my children, the type of religious persecution my ancestors came here to escape in the first place. But we're not there yet, and there is still hope, at least to me. And even if I came someday to the sad realization that my country could no longer be my home, it would still and always be my country.

I love my country because of the regional differences. I grew up in L.A., where I thought it was normal to see vast expanses of concrete and never a living stream or river, where I, a white middle-class girl, was a minority in my public grade school. Then we moved to New York, where I learned that Italians and Irish and Poles were still invested in their cultural identity. Then went to medical school in the South, where some of the black folks still did not have running water or any access to health care, then to Oklahoma City, where the plural of y'all is "all y'all".
Now I live in New England, the most beautiful part of the country, where not only can you find poutine South of the (Canadian) border, but there are also James Joyce 10ks- a local race in which there are readers of Joyce along the way, well-stocked libraries, and multiple local farmhouses dating back to the 17th century.

Thanks, Erin. That's one of my favorite pieces of writing, what you related from Scott.

"This time of year reminds me I'm descended from an Irish lad and his brother..."

???

How did THAT happen?

;-)

I love America for many reasons, but, in answer to a previous poster, one reason is because we DON'T have some sort of monstrosity of a government-run health care system.

In America, rights are enumerated in the Constitution, and free health care ain't one of 'em, nor should it be. I love America because, for the most part, if you're between the ages of 18-62 you can tell the govt. to shove off.

I dislike any ideology that says because I work hard, somehow or other that means I need to pick up the tab for someone else's doctor visits.

That's not freedom.

You love America because it's yours? That's it? So if you had been born somewhere else you wouldn't love America? You don't see anything special about it that sets it apart from other countries? You'd be just as happy living in Spain, or North Korea, or Zimbabwe?

Saying you love this country just because it's yours reduces patriotism to an act of content-free tribalism, and it is not something to be proud of. People in North Korea can say the same thing, after all. People all over the world have said the same thing for eons. I can see being proud of being Canadian, or British, or Scandinavian... but Zimbabwe? North Korea? The former USSR? Would you love them if you were born there? No? Why not? they'd be just as much yours as America is now -- just as familiar, just as physically beautiful in your eyes.

We all love America in part because it's a great place to live, beautiful, bounteous, full of great music and food and sports, but that's not enough. I really love this country because it has stood for the best principles of the modern world -- freedom, the rule of law, opportunity, and the humility, flexibility and decency to right its own wrongs. If you love America just because it's yours, then the actions of George Bush shouldn't make you hesitate for a second. The flag still looks the same. The Grand Canyon is still there. Vegas is still open. Me, Bush's actions make me frightened that the America I love is being taken away and replaced with an autocratic system that disrespects the rule of law and individual rights, and dishonors those who have fought (militarily, rhetorically and politically) for those rights over time. I don't care about flag lapel pins, or flag burning, or flag t-shirts. I care about the Bill of Rights and the other good stuff the flag stands for. Not because they're mine by birthright and by law, but because they're right and good and true.

Thank God your brother-in-law is coming home, and thank God for America. May He protect all the other soldiers too.

Robin Thomas,

I find it a bit hard to believe that the mortage fiasco ruined a great relationship. It seems that any relationship that could have been ruined by the mortgage fiasco might not have been a strong relationship to begin with.

Regarding the larger issue, it does seem that many members of Congress are willing to use taxpayer money to bail out the big financial institutions that made all of these irresponsible mortgage loans.

Citigroup and others made loans to people without checking their employment and often letting them borrow 101 percent of the cost of the home. If politicians want to tell the lenders and the borrows that the taxpayer will have to pick up the tab for their bad decisions, count me out.

There's yet another issue on which Bush is correct. Bush has threatened to veto the mortgage bailout bill that is currently moving through Congress.

I think the best way to show one's love of country -- and for the values it was founded upon -- is to stick one's finger in a corrupt society's eye.

Ando, it's better to just ignore the hypocritical praise for Bush-Iraq. So long as such voices are silent on Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Myanmar, just to name a few, there's no point in offering a rebuttal to a non sequitur.

Afganistan was morally justified. The invasion of Iraq was not only politically motivated, but doubly wrong for its weakening of our efforts in Afghanistan.

What I love and admire about America? Let me share the words of two others that far better express how I feel than any words of my own.

[[--1--]] Something the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a short story that was published in The Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s:

"France was a land, England was a people, but America, having about it still that quality of the idea, was harder to utter -- it was the graves at Shiloh and the tired, drawn, nervous faces of its great men; and the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered. It was a willingness of the heart."

[[--2--]] From his Farewell Address to the nation, January 11, 1989, here's what President Ronald Reagan said:

"After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true ... she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home."

Happy Independence Day!!

Franklin Evans,

So long as such voices are silent on Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Myanmar, just to name a few, there's no point in offering a rebuttal to a non sequitur.

This is equivilent to a police chief of a major city saying, "If we can not catch every rapist in this city, it would be immoral to attempt to catch one rapist in this city."

Many on the Left actually believe that it was wrong for the Bush to topple Saddam Hussain's regime because he had not yet announced his intention to toppling the dictatorships of China, Burma, North Korea, Cuba and so on.

Based on this logic, it was wrong for President Franklin Roosevelt and President Harry Truman to topple Germany and Japan because they had not announced their intentions to topple Joseph Stalin's regime.

After pondering, I decided not to weigh in with personal opinions on this topic. I find myself troubled in the midst of celebration, and not equal to gathering my thoughts in a way that would be profitable for public consumption. Mr. Sig always reads aloud the Declaration of Independence--though, with the departure of the children, his audience is now limited to me and a few squirrels and bluejays. In addition, I started out the day by looking up Vachel Lindsay's "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight." From there, I went to "The Eagle That Is Forgotten." But what I ended up reading aloud to Mr. Sig was "Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan," a poem about another election, a long time ago. With apologies for the length, I decided to post the last section here.

"Where is McKinley, Mark Hanna's McKinley,
His slave, his echo, his suit of clothes?
Gone to join the shadows, with the pomps of that time,
And the flame of that summer's prairie rose.

Where is Cleveland whom the Democratic platform
Read from the party in a glorious hour,
Gone to join the shadows with pitchfork Tillman,
And sledge-hammer Altgeld who wrecked his power.

Where is Hanna, bulldog Hanna.
Low-browed Hanna, who said: “Stand pat”?
Gone to his place with old Pierpont Morgan.
Gone somewhere... with lean rat Platte.

Where is Roosevelt, the young dude cowboy,
Who hated Bryan, then aped his way?
Gone to join the shadows with mighty Cromwell
And tall King Saul, till the Judgment day.

Where is Altgeld, brave as the truth,
Whose name the few still say with tears?
Gone to join the ironies with Old John Brown,
Whose fame rings loud for a thousand years.
Where is that boy, that Heaven-born Bryan,
That Homer Bryan, who sang for the West?
Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld the Eagle,
Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadours rest."

Just read the poems, and think about it. Think about which side are you on.

Franklin Evans,

Let me also point out something else that gets too little attention regarding the issue of toppling dictatorships.

It is often said by many on the Left and some on the Right that "Freedom must come from within a society and can not be handed to them from outside."

Again, history shows that this is incorrect. Some Germans attempted to kill Adolph Hitler and thus end Hitler's regime. But ultimately Hitler's regime was toppled by forces outside of German society.

Similarly, the French were unable to liberate themselves from Nazi occupation. It took forces from outside French society, the US and Great Britain, to bring freedom and democracy to France. Same for the Netherlands and Belgium.

Again, when you take the time to analyze what many on the Left are saying regarding Iraq, freedom, democracy and toppling dictatorships, it quickly becomes clear that the arguments of the Left doesn't hold up to any kind of historical analysis.

Rock, I have neither interest nor energy to attempt to show you the fallacies of such an analogy. Perhaps someone else will take up that challenge.

Have a pleasant and safe weekend.

Like the itch that must not be scratched, I can't help but respond to your 10:32 post, Rock. I'll first point out that my 10:36 post was in response to your 10:20 post.

Anyway, the simple destruction of your logical construction is that the US was fighting a declared war against the aggression of Germany, and France was our ally by tradition and treaty as well as a victim of that aggression. While "toppling Hitler" was an expected outcome, the primary goal of that war was to defeat the German armies and remove them from the countries they had conquered and occupied. Where you get an abstract connection to Iraq and Hussein is beyond the imagination. The Nazi-conquered European countries were free before the Nazis, and the Allied victory returned that freedom to them. Where you fail to see the disconnection between that and a decades-long dictatorship also escapes me.

I won't even begin to mention the political pressures of a successful Soviet army coming in from the east, and its effects on Allied strategy.

Respond or not as you wish. I concede to you the last word at this point.

So long as such voices are silent on Sudan, Zimbabwe, North Korea and Myanmar, just to name a few, there's no point in offering a rebuttal to a non sequitur.

Hey, the people of 'Myanmar' would love it if we were just silent about them, instead of allowing Chevon to pay their fascist leadership for oil and keep them in power.

And, BTW, Rock, the last I checked we did not choose to go to Iraq to free anyone. We chose to go there because it was threatening us with WMDs and supporting terrorists.

Whether or not we should attempt to free countries is fairly irrelevant to the fact that we invaded Iraq, as we didn't do that because we chose to free them. We didn't 'stand up to a dictatorship', we attacked a country that we were informed was a threat, which is hardly some noble idealist concept. Countries do that all the time. In fact, that's the basis of almost every attack in history...people in country X are informed that people in country Y are a threat, and thus they attack country Y.

And, like many examples in history, it turns out they were no threat at all, and all the claims were either bad information or deliberate falsehoods or somewhere in between, so a good proportion of the population, if they had a chance to change history, wouldn't attack them again.

And the rest of the population, suffering from some sort of lunacy, has decided that we attacked them out of the kindness of our heart. Maybe that's something that could have happened, if we'd been asked to decided if we wanted Saddam to remain in power or overthrow him to free the Iraq people, but that is patently not what did actually happen, which was we were informed of a threat to us and attacked him based on that fact.

Mr Dreher, convey to your brother in law a big fat WELCOME HOME from me.

I'll be home soon, God willing. And this is the last deployment for me.

DavidTC you pointed out the basic differences between what we mean by freedom and the way it has been interpreted by several Iraqi partisan groups. Without a basic sense of unity, and that everyone should be held to the same rules, freedom becomes mob rule, or a free-for-all power grab.

I would recommend anyone read a few books by Fareed Zechariah. If I'm spelling his name right.

What does Independence Day mean to me? I cannot put it into words. My country is not above reproach or criticism. But that is sort of the point of its Bill of Rights, now isn't it? I could point to its great natural and cultural diversity, to its resources, to the attitude of its people. I could speak of its Constitution, which is able after all these decades to ensure that the center holds and that we all walk in freedom. I could go on about how with each passing generation, we have come a bit closer to applying the ideals of the Constitution more fully. And to be sure, we have not arrived yet, nor shall we ever. We are finite and flawed human beings.

But beyond all that, patriotism for me is a sense of fidelity, and the sense that all this freedom comes at the cost of duty - duty to reflect on it, to support it, to defend it, and when necessary to criticize it and spur it on to a better realization of its founding ideals. Remember that it is no small thing to salute the flag.

I can't see the flag anymore. I see the faces of men I have known, and some I have loved dearly, who put on uniforms and put their lives on the line in defense of our nation. Regardless of whether this war does much to defend us, those of us who serve are merely dedicating a few years (or a few decades) to be the ones who stand in the gap. We don't choose which wars we will fight, we do not determine which wars are just, or which are worth the fighting. That is the responsibility of our elected officials, and by extension, of every man and woman of voting age.

The onus of freedom and liberty is that we have to count the cost carefully - not just of war, but of our foreign policy, our trade policy, our environmental policy; and the impact of each of these on not only our own citizens but on every human being our decisions affect. We are all directly responsible for all of our country's greatness and all of its failures. That is the point of a nation which is for the people, by the people, and of the people.

So let your hearts swell with pride when you see the flag. Dwell if you will more on our successes or more on our failures. But, regardless, don't think for a moment that freedom doesn't cost each of us, whether we serve in a combat zone or not. It is just that of us who serve may see the cost more clearly than many of you at home.

Yesterday I did what us Americans do best. I worked.

I'm also glad to see Rod's brother in law coming home. From the perspective of being a two tour vet of another war along time ago I can appreciate a homecoming better than most.

One of the great things about Americans is we remember. Let's hope that of the things those that follow us keep close to heart is the legacy of this administration and their many failings.

Opponents of the Iraq war prefer to pretend that people can only overthrow their oppressors by themselves and can not have their oppressors removed by people from outside their society.

And proponents of the war prefer to pretend that their warmaking methodology is flawless and beyond ethical criticism. Proponents prefer to pretend that the deaths and disfigurations of hundreds of thousands of people and the destruction of billions of dollars of essential infrastructure are mere broken eggs for the democracy omlette they think the Middle East needs. And sadder still, the slothful proponents prefer to pass the tab for this moral nightmare to their children and grandchildren.

Bob,

Again, let's go back to an analogy.

You see a man raping a 25 year old woman. You could decide that the matter is none of your business, jump in your car and head to your golf game.

This was essentially the position that Canada, France, Germany and Russia took.

In fact, France, Germany and Russia wanted Saddam Hussain to remain in power because they had many business dealings with Hussain's regime.

Or you could decide to intervene and help the 25 year old woman who is being raped. This was position that George W. Bush took.

Only a moral idiot would think that the former position is morally superior to the latter.

Rock, I finally have a brief way to describe the flaw in your reasoning here: you actually believe the propaganda. It makes perfect sense, then that you are spouting the propaganda of the side with which you agree, and lambast the propaganda of the opponents.

That's okay. We are all susceptible to this flaw. The gods know I do it still even as I sit here pointing it out in you.

So, what shall we do? Are you willing to step back and let others guide you in this? I confess, I have no motivation to do it. Indeed, my closing statement to you is this: AnotherBeliever, with her post above, speaks for me in all matters on this topic. She is a soldier deployed in Iraq. Listen to her, if you can't listen to the political opposition you read here from myself and others.

When George W. Bush spoke at the United Nations in the fall of 2002, he mentioned, WMD, terrorism and the oppression of the Iraqi people.

The American people are not the UN. Moreover, the mention of three motives does not mean that 'we' decided to go in on the motive that benefits your argument.

There might have been people who 'freeing the people' was the tipping point, but there's a reason that Bush spent months presenting evidence that Iraq was developing WMDs and evidence they were tied to al Qaeda. Because not only would the American people not invade a country to overthrow a dictator, there were plenty of better countries to invade and if that had been the motive it would have been rather stupid to pick Iraq.

I think you need to read the actual Iraq AUMF yourself.

Of the twenty-two reasons given to attack Iraq, we've got a single reference to removing Saddam from power, and a half reference that mentions repression of civilians. All the other reasons talk about it having WMDs, or how hostile it is towards the US, or its support of terrorists, or how it's breaking UN resolutions about WMDs, or random ramblings about terroristm and WMDs.

Moreover, the president was not given authority to 'free' Iraq. The president was given authority to use force to 'defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq, and enforce all relevant UN Security Council resolutions concerning Iraq'. (And it's worth mentioning that none of these UN resolutions talk about Iraqis not being free.)

We, or rather, our representatives, did not vote for him to invade and overthrow the Iraq government because it was tyrannical, we voted for him to invade and overthrow the Iraq government because it was threatening the US. It is there in black and white in the AUMF.

The fact it wasn't threatening the US doesn't magically change our motives to something else.

You see a man raping a 25 year old woman. You could decide that the matter is none of your business, jump in your car and head to your golf game.

Your analogy is flawed on several levels. If we were to follow your analogy, we'd have to admit that the rape of the woman (Iraq) was facilitated and tacitly sanctioned by US administrations going back to Bush 41. The US has a long, sordid history of covertly playing Iraq against Iran, alternately aiding one country and then the other while they war against each other.

And more fundamentally, no one advocated ignoring the rape/situation in Iraq. The Bush administration's response to the rape was to destroy the neighborhood where the rape - the same rape they enabled - was occurring. Bombing the rapist and the victim stops one particular instance of rape while setting the stage for larger tragedy and mayhem.

And furthermore, it's becoming clearer by the day that the justification of our intervention in this "rape" was not to end the suffering of the victim, but to loot the victim's neighborhood of precious crude oil.

I'm irritated by Rock's continuing use of a woman being raped as an analogy to the invasion of Iraq. First of all, men very seldom stop each other from assaulting women. I wish this were more often the case, but it isn't. And I'll bet that you, Rock, have never personally participated in such a rescue action. Secondly, you keep qualifying your rape cases in what seems to me an odd manner. First you referred to rape of an "innocent woman." Then to rape of "a 25 year old woman." Why? Rape is rape is rape. Are you implying there are some women who are not innocent in some way, and that it would be A-okay to stand by while those women were raped? What about old women who aren't 25 anymore, making the analogy less titillating? Do you have to help them, too, or only the nubile ones?

This isn't as far off topic as you might think, because in point of fact, the US occupation of Iraq has driven many thousands of Iraqi women into prostitition and exposed them to rape, by destroying the infrastructure of their society and killing off their male family members. Iraqi women have been raped by US forces as well. American woman working for US contractors have been raped by American men, and American female soldiers serving their country have been raped by their fellow soldiers. So if you're trying to say that the war helped women avoid being raped, you are dead wrong. Find another analogy to belabor. This one isn't working.

sigaliris,

My analogy is right on target.

We all have the option of looking the other way while others are being brutalized by people like Saddam Hussain or rapists.

The ideology behind this is that we as human beings owe nothing to other human beings. If Jews are being exterminated in Nazi concentration camps, this ideology says that it's none of our business. If Saddam Hussain and his sons are digging mass graves and filling them up with dead Iraqis, this ideology says that it's none of our business.

If you listen to US Senator Robert Byrd, you will hear him say that the US invaded the "sovereign nation of Iraq," as if Saddam Hussain had the right to oppress the Iraqis and use all of Iraq's oil wealth for his own purposes and any nation that might try to interfere with Saddam's thugocracy is a bad nation.

This kind of inverted moral logic shouldn't be swallowed; it should be challenged.

I think as long as we have people like AnotherBeliever standing for this country, we have a country worth loving. Your post from 1:25 a.m. was very moving--God bless you.

Max, I am dealing with Rock's persistent use of an analogy that doesn't hold up to scrutiny. It seems to me that my point was obvious, but I'll break it down for you if you insist. Rock's assertion: "Men stopping rape = US invading Iraq." So, first of all, we'd have to establish that men actually do stop rape. With the numbers of rapes that take place in the US every year, I think we'd have to admit it doesn't happen very often. Your own remark, "I don't know of anyone, man or woman, who's been in a position to stop a rape" would seem to bear this out.

I think there are more people than you think who may have been in a position to stop a rape, however. They may not have actually spotted the rapist with his pants down, but they may well have seen men behaving aggressively and inappropriately toward women, but decided to turn a blind eye, or to assure themselves that this was normal and not something that required intervention. You don't know how many of those instances may have turned into rape when the perpetrator got an opportunity. Men allow and enable each other's bad behavior. They don't, as a rule, step forward and say firmly, "Stop it--that isn't right." For those who are reading this, and do that, more power to you. It would be great if you'd post with your support for ending male assault on women. I'm not expecting a flood of replies, however.

So, Rock's analogy is posturing from the get-go. He's claiming credit for good deeds that he doesn't, in fact, perform. Rock, go ahead and correct me if you're actually a shining knight. Specific instances, please, as they are more inspiring than self-praise in the abstract.

Then, he further uses these non-existent rescue operations to justify the attack on Iraq. There's little evidence to show that Iraqis consider themselves like rescued rape victims, and the US as their chivalrous savior. There's overwhelming evidence that US invasion of Iraq has caused a lot of misery, especially to woman and children. As I said, thousands of Iraqi women and girls have been raped and prostituted as a direct result of the invasion. That's not even mentioning the hundreds of thousands killed, maimed, starved, and reduced to abject poverty. Rock's analogy is misleading in every aspect.

Here's one notorious example of men not stopping a rape: the case of Abeer Qassim Hamza al-Janabi, raped and murdered along with her family in Iraq, at the age of 14. She had been repeatedly menaced and stalked by American soldiers before the attack that took her life. Numerous American men saw this happening. Did any of them step forward to tell the perpetrators "Stop it--that's not right"? It's not recorded that anyone did. She was killed and raped by a group of men. Did any of them try to stop the others? No. This atrocity didn't come to light for over two months, and it's still not clear how many men knew about it and said nothing.

But if you want to talk about what men do and don't do to prevent rape, and what they should do, that would be a whole other post. I just don't think Rock has the moral standing to use this as a justification for an American policy that comes much closer to being the rape of Iraq than a defense against rape.

Sig, I can't help but think that you have a very low opinion of men as a group.

For what it's worth: Back in my pub crawling days, I saw many fights that resulted from some guy taking objection to another guy treating a woman poorly in a physical way. Granted, most (all?) of these were likely fueled in part by too much drink, but men do (or at least "back in my day" did) take seriously the idea of protecting women from abuse.

I one such instance I saw a mob form and beat a man to a pulp for slapping a girl (turned out she was underage, but in the bar nonetheless). I'm not sure the individual lived. He didn't look so great when the paramedics finally arrived. Several cars in the parking lot were dented with his head and body. It was a frightening thing to see. I wanted to stop that, but didn't want to join the other guy in the hospital.

This is totally off topic, other than to say men are not all the same.

Meh. I'm not talking about drunken fools beating each other to death. What I had in mind was something rather different. But agreed, men are not all the same. Also agreed, this is getting rather off topic.

Rock, Have you read any real books on genocide and what happened in Iraq in the past? You do realize that the bulk of Saddam's atrocities occurred against the Kurd's beefore 1992? Do you also support our actions in Bosnia/Kosovo where they were literally raping the women? What about Darfur? Why did we not go into Rwanda? Heck, what about Cambodia? Tibet? Myanmar is run by a group of thugs rather than just one. Should we intervene there?

Have you read any credible books on the invasion of Iraq? If you read critiques from either right or left wing writers ( I read both), you really do not get much of an interest in freeing the Iraqi peoples, other than it being a side benefit. There was some fear of WMD, terrorist concerns, oil, setting up a launching pad for Iran, making Iraq into an ally, etc. The very methods used to invade speak to that lack of concern. We invaded a country of 27 million, disbanded their military and police and brought in only 3 battalions of MP's (that is about 3,000) as opposed to the 20 battalions that Zinni had planned for.

By deed, and by word IMO, we have been very American-centric in our war in Iraq. As time went on we found that we needed the Iraqi people to have a chance at a good outcome in this war. Hence, we developed our current COIN tactics, which emphasize the safety of the population. I find no compelling evidence, even in Feith's book, that the Iraqi people were a principle cause for our invasion of Iraq. It was primarily a security driven, national interest driven war. Please remember that Rumsfeld etc. were the people who opposed intervention in Bosnia because we had no compelling national interest.

I am in the Mark Twain camp. 'My country when she is right.’ Because patriotism is supporting your country all the time, but your government only when it deserves it."

Steve

Clafication. I was born in the mid-1960s. So, while I was not around to witness the US effort to liberate Europe, I do remember being in high school and college when the US confronted the Soviet Empire and, eventually, defeated it.

The bottom line is that I think I would be pro-American even if I wasn't an American.

A Belgian friend of mine told me that his 74 year old father was astounded when he told his dad that the US liberated Belgium not once, but twice, in World War One and World War Two.

We often forget how great a nation the United States of America is. It's not just great because it is a free society.

It is great because, as the Iraq war, World War Two demonstrate, America has fought to liberate people living in foreign lands.

BTW, I really wouldnt use actors as exemplars in any kind of serious discussion. There are many reasons why this is a great country. Many people who exemplify its beliefs. Actors? Not so much.

I mentioned John Silver as an example of someone supporting the Iraq war for primarily humanitarian reasons. If John Silver were a cook at Chili's the point would be the same, that some supported the Iraq war because they wanted to see an end to one of human history's worst dictatorships.

If we are interested in liberating people, why arent we in Darfur, Myanmar and Tibet?

Maybe too many people have been arguing that to do so would represent "a violation of national sovereignty."

You can't call someone ugly on Saturday and then expect them to take you to the dance on Sunday.

If you want the US military to use its powers to stop a humanitarian crisis abroad, you can't spend all your energy denouncing the US military as a group of baby killers and oil stealers.

Let us not forget that in 2000 Bush actively campaigned against "nation building". I voted for him and remember that very distinctly. He, and most conservatives, were critical of Clinton interceding in Bosnia. There is little evidence that we interceded in Iraq for humanitarian reasons and much to support other reasons.

No. There's no evidence we interceded in Iraq for humanitarian reasons. Read what the Iraq AUMF authorizes the president to do:

(a) AUTHORIZATION. The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to

(1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and

(2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions regarding Iraq.

And that's it.

And none of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions said anything about 'liberating' anyone or removing Saddam from power. (In fact, regime change is explicitly forbidden as a lawful cause of war by the UN Charter. So it's rather unreasonable to even pretend a UN resolution might say anything of the sort.)

DavidTC,

No. There's no evidence we interceded in Iraq for humanitarian reasons.

I disagree.

In President George W. Bush's September 2002 speech to the United Nations, he specifically mentioned Saddam Hussain's brutal treatment of the Iraqi people.

In January 2003, President George W. Bush's state of the union address, Bush mentioned liberating the Iraqi people from the clutches of Saddam Hussain's regime.

Days before the US began the effort to topple Saddam Hussain's regime, President Bush made a speech arguing that once Hussain's regime was toppled, the Iraqi people should have democracy.

So, I do think that humanitarian concerns were part of the mix along with national security concerns.

Sigh, in every war there is almost always a throw away line about helping the other people, that it is just their leaders who are evil. There is almost no citation of the Iraqi people as a PRIMARY reason for invading Iraq amongst people like Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolfowitz etc. This was a national security issue. They wanted an ally in the Middle East. They wanted regime change in Iraq. They cared very little about the Iraqi people.

Actions speak loudest. They invaded with no plans to secure the population. They either wanted to topple Saddam and get out, more Rumsfeldian, or use Iraq as a base for the Long War, classic neocon ideology.

Bush has not even asked for any help for Darfur, Myanmar, Tibet or any other countries under a dictator. The only one he went after was Iraq. He left Afghanistan unfinished. Ever read anything on Afghanistan? Those who dont know history are doomed to repeat it. Iraq's worst atrocities were over 10 years old and we had to suddenly liberate the Iraqis? Why then? Makes no sense. If you wish to propose liberation as a primary reason, then why just Iraq?

Bush severely mistimed this war. It should not have happened until Afghanistan and Pakistan (the Muslim country WITH nukes). If and when he then invaded Iraq it would have been wise to at least LOOK LIKE liberators. Doing that would have meant protecting those whom we had just "liberated". Sending in enough troops to secure the borders might have been a pretty neat idea too. The military had already war gamed this out.

The saving grace here has been our military. The political incompetence has been pretty bad. Even now it s the military promoting better political competence. The new Fm 3.07 by the army addresses this very issue. It will be out soon. If you want a preview go read it at SWJ.

Steve

Steve,

I think President Bush has suffered from the same problem that President Lincoln suffered from. Both initially had generals who had difficulty adjusting to complex battlefield situations.

Eventually Lincoln found his general when he found Grant. Eventually Bush found his general when he found Patraeus.

I also think that Lincoln and Bush are similar in the sense that they put the mission at hand above any desire for short term political popularity. Lincoln believed that he wouldn't win the 1864 Presidential election, but continued ahead with his war policy against the South.

And back in the 1860s, you did hear then as we hear now that Lincoln's army was getting involved in "other peoples' business."

Robert Novak, do you not realize how immoral you sound?

As far as I'm concerned, both Lincoln and Bush-the-Younger are scoundrels; Lincoln because he virtually destroyed the Constitution (especially with his suspension of habeas corpus and his domestic military tribunals) and allowed his generals (particularly Sherman) to actively commit war crimes. I've never understood why he is honored as a hero instead of condemned as the foe of liberty he actually was.
And don't give me any line about "Preserving the Union"; to give up limited government in order to preserve one's political regime is an error of the first rank.

I consider Bush-the-younger an incompetent who a) failed to listen to the advice of his generals and either commit 500,000 troops (instead of the 125,000 actually sent) or call off the invasion, and b) allowed a pack of utter incompetents to mishandle the occupation by doing things like sacking most of the Iraqi Army (putting thousands of unemployed ex-soldiers on the streets with weapons) and failing to do an appropriate job of de-Baathification (sacking essentially non-political Baathists who only joined to secure their jobs), thus wiping out the Human infrastructure of the country and radicalizing large portions of it.

What really and truly confirms Bush-the-Younger's position as a fool in my book is his mad insistence in pursuing the Iraqi War while ignoring the more immediate and serious danger posed by another, closer enemy nation: Mexico. By choosing to fight a voluntary war halfway around the world while ignoring the de facto invasion going on right at home, Bush-the-Younger demonstrates his utter disregard for the real interests of the people he is supposed to be defending.

Your servant,

Lord Karth

Así siempre a los tiranos!

Chris:

Your post is beautiful. The comments about your childhood patriotism remind me of my own. I had a wonderful elementary speech teacher, Mr. Kennedy, who arranged and directed the school's patriotic program every year. It was the high point of the school year, and every grade participated with patriotic songs and skits. (This was the height of the Cold War, and the threat of the Soviet Union with its ICBMs trained on us, was never far from even a 4th grader's consciousness.)

To this day, I still remember fondly all the patriotic songs we learned at Mr. Kennedy's behest. (May God bless and keep him, whereever he is today.)

Part of the ennui that I experience today is caused by the realization that our nation is not what it was intended to be. The great experiment of power restrained by law has failed. Not one in a hundred even realize what it was all about. Fewer still care. Today our so-called Congress respects no limits on its powers, seemingly having the credo "Whatever law we desire to enact, we have the power to do." Limited government? The phrase has absolutely no meaning today.

This is not what America was designed to be.

Rock,

I admire your persistence in the face of a cavalcade of facts and reality; perhaps that is how you got your name. But, like they say, you brought a knife to a gun fight. The justifications for this war are painfully specious. I, myself, was somewhat skeptical at the outset, but I kept telling myself (and those who were critical of the buildup to war) "they MUST have something they are not telling us. I mean, there must be some big secret that will be revealed to us after the invasion." I was wrong.

It's pretty simple, really. We have a Department of DEFENSE. Not a "Department of Nationbuilding" or "Department of International Freedom." The oath of enlistment speaks of "support and defense of the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." The oath of office for elected representatives is very similar in its duties. We chafe at the thought of the UN trying to override our sovereignty, yet some (such as yourself) think it is perfectly acceptable for the US to do the very same thing. Our military's purpose is to DEFEND our nation, not to try in vain to remake other nations in our image.

This war has only served to kill or maim tens of thousands of humans (combatants and civilians), drain our Treasury of money we do not have, exhibit the limits of our power for the world to see, and created a generation of Iraqi's who will grow up viewing the US not as a shining city on a hill worthy of emulation, but a nation of occupiers with no respect for their cultures or boundaries.

I implore you to check out some of the works on Iraq and the concept of non-interventionist foreign policy by the following writers. You may end up agreeing with them, or you may succeed in honing your arguments to a finer point. Either way, the exposure will be worthwhile...

Pat Buchanan
Andrew Bacevich
Gen. William Odom
Glenn Greenwald
Ted Galen Carpenter
Michael Scheuer

Peace be with you.

(cont.) This war has only served to kill or maim tens of thousands of humans (combatants and civilians), drain our Treasury of money we do not have, exhibit the limits of our power for the world to see, and created a generation of Iraqi's who will grow up viewing the US not as a shining city on a hill worthy of emulation, but a nation of occupiers with no respect for their cultures or boundaries.

I implore you to check out some of the works on Iraq and the concept of non-interventionist foreign policy by the following writers. You may end up agreeing with them, or you may succeed in honing your arguments to a finer point. Either way, the exposure will be worthwhile...

Pat Buchanan
Andrew Bacevich
Gen. William Odom
Ted Galen Carpenter
Michael Scheuer

Peace be with you.

C. Fountain,

It's pretty simple, really. We have a Department of DEFENSE. Not a "Department of Nationbuilding" or "Department of International Freedom."

You make it sound as though the US led invasion of Iraq was the first time the United States intervened in "some other nation's businness."

If you look at history, you will see that a huge percentage of the wars the United States has fought were fought on foreign shores. You see the Iraq war as an exception to the rule. I see the Iraq war as the same United States of America that I have always known: the leader of the free world and the nation that often spends its own blood and treasure liberating others.

Your description of the United States of America is more of an accurate discription of a nation like Switzerland, a nation that took a hands off attitude towads Nazi Germany as long as Nazi Germany didn't lay their hands on Switzerland.

Exactly. Now, there are some countries we couldn't help. For example, we cannot 'liberate' Tibet from China without starting WWIII.

WHAT? You're just gonna stand by while Tibet is raped and sodomized?!!

Where's your manhood, Rock?

OK, you have made it abundantly clear that the primary responsibility of the $600B/year US taxpayer financed military is the removal of People We Don't Like from power, regardless of the level of threat they pose to these same United States. At what point do even you say enough? Is it worth $1 Trillion to remove Saddam Hussein from power? $2 trillion? Is it worth 5,000 dead US soldiers? 10,000? How about the 100,000+ civilians that have died as a result of this conflict? Is it worth 4 million Iraqi's who have lost their homes or are too afraid to come back them? Is it worth the decimation of the ancient Iraqi Chaldean Christian community? Is it worth all of this?

If your rationale were accurate, we would expect to see scores of data showing how appreciative those in the Middle East are for your donation to Iraq's future. The fact is the data shows the opposite:http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/events/2008/0414_middle_east/0414_middle_east_telhami.pdf

Please Rock, how much 'more' are you willing to 'give' the Iraqi people?

Peace be with you.

Saying you love this country just because it's yours reduces patriotism to an act of content-free tribalism, and it is not something to be proud of. People in North Korea can say the same thing, after all. People all over the world have said the same thing for eons. I can see being proud of being Canadian, or British, or Scandinavian... but Zimbabwe? North Korea? The former USSR? Would you love them if you were born there? No?
Posted by: Muskrat | July 4, 2008 5:31 PM

Muskat, what's wrong with loving former USSR? Maybe it will be a complete shock to you, i am absolutely happy to be born and to live on the territory of the former USSR, and wouldn't like to be born eslwhere even in Canada, USA or Scandinavia. I like people, culture and nature of the former USSR. And Scandinavians and Canadians seem more alien to me than Tajiks or Kazakhs, because i never met them in person.

If you love your country because it stands for the best principles of the modern world as you stated, ahead of all planet in freedom, rule of law and flexibility, does it mean that if one day by some miracle America will be left behind by North Korea, you will spit on American land and emigrate to North Korea? That seems to be rather praiseworthy attachment to progress, democracy, and other good things listed than patriotism.
For me political freedoms are in the end of the list of reasons why i love this or that place, authorities can be annoying or dangerous but they are all temporary and in the end they vanish as last year's snow. Not a reason to escape for me. Besides I agree with one second-rate philosopher who said: to love motherland which is great is not a big merit. Exactly when our mama is drunk, lies and all tungled in sins we shouldn't leave her.
As for the war in Iraq i am not among those who call american soldiers serving there 'suckers'. Many of them are from emigrant families and can't get money or promotion in other way, others have military careers and simply have no other choice. But how can one say on public that he is proud of serving there and wear awards with pride is beyond my comprehension. If it makes my commenting here unwelcome, i will only read and not get offended. I like this blog and many commenters.
Generally I like America because of some Americans who are very sympathetic.

Best it is not to have power, to be a weak little country or a weak little person--an old woman or a child or a cripple or blind--because then one is not responsible for the use or the non use of the power one does not have to affect the outcome of a situation for good, assuming that there is a definition of good. Rock used the example of strong men standing by when a woman was being raped; when I taught high school juniors, and they seem to be around here in abundance, I used the example of a husky 11th grader standing by while an 8th grader was beating the shit out of a first grader. Same point. And same chorus who don't get it.

For a powerful country as for a powerful individual there is no escaping the responsibility of power. Not using it is using it. Prudence might dictate when and to what extent to use power but power will be used.

Perhaps before the end of this century we will become a blessed and powerless country which cannot do evil either positively by what it chooses to do or negatively by what it chooses not to do. Then God will loves us, the world will love us and, above all, we will love ourselves!

Rock
That's exactly my point. The premise, that toppling brutal dicatorships is morally wrong, is flawed. We need to assert an alternative idea, that toppling brutal dicatatorships is praiseworthy and certainly nothing to hang one's head in shame about.

No, that wasn't your point. We can discuss this new theory if you want, but your original claim was actually that we did invade Iraq to topple such a dictatorship. (Although, as I'm explained, that wasn't the stated reason legislatively and barely touched on in the speeches that repeated what what a huge threat Saddam was and how he was violating UN resolutions.)

So I'm not certain how you want us to look at the 'alternative idea' that you assert we already used. If, as you claim, we invaded Iraq to free Iraqis, then obviously the discussion is over and that's new premise we're operating under.

Of course, it's not the premise we're operating under, because previous to the Iraq invasion, the American people would not willingly invade a country that posed no threat to us, which is why we had to be told falsehoods to start the war. The US, as a country, has never gone to war when our national interests were not threatened, or at least when it was claimed they were threatened.

You're trying to retroactively, make the fact we did go to war with Iraq when our nation wasn't threatened into a noble act, imagining an imaginary motive that has never before motivated Americans into war and was, at best, a tertiary justification for invasion, when in actuality we were just wrong about the threat they posed.

Of course, you are free to argue that we should choose to go to war when our interests aren't threatened, in the name of freedom, and I might even agree with you. I don't really care about that discussion. But the American people, as a whole, do not agree with that, and do not go to war like that. They never have. They did not do so with Iraq.

DavidTC,

By the way, I am glad that "you might even agree with me" that humanitarian concerns should be part of the discussion when the United States of America decides when and where it will use its military to topple a dictatorship.

Then Prime Minister Tony Blair, when he was advocating Great Britain's participation in the Iraq war during a parliamentary debate, responded to an anti-war Labour member saying, "You make it sound like there is something distasteful" in ending Saddam Hussain's regime.

I guess that is what I have always found puzzling about anti-war types. They make it sound like Saddam Hussain had a right to brutalize his people, load them into mass graves and use Weapons of Mass Destruction.

DavidTC,

I should have also mentioned that humanitarian concerns were one of the main reasons why the US and Great Britain created the "No-Fly Zones" in Iraq, to protect the Kurdish population from Saddam Hussain.

Getting back to Rod's original article: (and speaking as an American who's spent maybe a total of two weeks overseas in his 30 yrs as a grownup):

To me, being an American is like being a carbon-based life form: its something that I didn't create, its something I just am. Do I love being a carbon-based life form? Do I love carbon? Ummm... I guess I can't imagine being anything else enough to love it or not love it.

DavidTC,

And need I mention that President Bush mentioned the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussain's regime in many of his speeches during the 2002-2003 period, including the September 2002 UN speech, the January 2003 state of the union speech and the March 2003 speech to the American Enterprise Institute.

Not only that, by November 2004, when WMD was not found in the quanties expected in Iraq, Bush still received more votes for President than any candidate for president in the history of the United States.

I think that many Americans were proud that we had toppled Saddam Hussain's regime; I certainly was and still am.

Nations go to war for practical reasons. Citizens require high ideals to voluntarily put their lives, and the lives of their children, at risk. I first read that in the writing of Robert Heinlein. I can't think of a war or similar action that is an exception to it. Look at every unpopular war, and I'd expect to find that the government has failed to sell the citizens on the high ideals it chose to use.

I can think of a few wars that were not presented as being for practical reasons. 'Practical' being defined either as 'national security' or 'imperialism/their land is rightfully ours'.

For example, the War of 1812 on the part of the British. The British caused that war because they wouldn't stop conscription American soldiers into the British navy for their war with France. They apparently failed to believe that America would actually go to war over that, and events spiraled out of control to the point of actual war between the US and Britain without any British politician ever standing up and saying that they needed to go to war with the US for any reason at all. (In fact, the US declaration of war on Britain probably came as a complete surprise to the average British citizen.)

These, in the long run, get regarded as the more stupid of wars. Vietnam may be regard as a pointless conflict, but at least that had a logical goal. The war of 1812 is just incomprehensibly stupid, cause the British kept poking America with a stick and then for some reason was honestly surprised when America punched them back, embroiling them in a war they couldn't possible fight at the same time they were fighting France.

Unfortunately for Rock, none of the examples of 'nonpractical wars' I can think of were for altruistic reasons. All of them were for 'honor' and the inability of a government or its people to back down or apologize when they either, accidentally or on purpose, pushed some other government too far, and thus ended up in a war they didn't actually want.

All other wars, all wars that a government willingly entered(1), have been presented to the population as being for 'national security' reasons, or, back when it was acceptable, empire building. Or 'recovering land that is rightfully ours', which is actually empire building but pretending to be national security.

1) By 'willingly', I'm including invasions there. The government usually doesn't get 'willingly' invaded, but I mean they're willingly fighting the invasion, if that makes sense.