Finally.

alternateorg on June 19, 2003

What I’ve been thinking all along, and what I’d hoped more Americans would be:


As an article by Thomas Powers in the Globe notes, Bush, in his State of the Union Address, contended that Iraq possessed the following: 30,000 warheads, 500 tons of chemical weapons, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin. In a dramatic appearance before the United Nations that helped convince many of the justification for war with Iraq, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iraq maintained a factory for making poisons and explosives in Khurmal, chemical munitions bunkers at Taji, rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents ”hidden in large groves of palm trees,” and a ”suspicious caravan of trucks” at the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, a center for testing biological and chemical weapons. As Powers reminds us, ”None of this has been found.”

…
Hillary Clinton took $8 million from a book publisher and possibly didn’t tell the whole truth about the Lewinsky scandal. George W. Bush took the armed forces of the United States of America, put lives at risk, and shook the world order to wage war against Iraq. Maybe he told the whole truth about why we were going to war and maybe he didn’t

I honestly can’t understand why more of us aren’t outraged at what this country is doing; to ourselves as well as the rest of the world. I’ve never cared much about politics or government; I’m an American. We’re basically taught not to. What’s really difficult for me to trying to explan to my 5-year old that no, Iraq people are not bad. American people are not all good. He’s looking for a Star Wars-esqu Good Guys/Bad Guys type explanation and I just don’t have it for him. How do I tell him that we’re the bad guys?

Reader interactions

8 Replies to “Finally.”

  1. trk June 20, 2003 at 9:05 am

    This *IS* one fucked up country. Thats for sure. Explain the Iraqi people as the ewoks/gungans, repressed by the dark side and then set free by the rebels. LOL.

  2. trk June 20, 2003 at 9:06 am

    Of course, we both know its not that simple.

  3. tom June 22, 2003 at 11:55 am

    You don’t have to tell your child that “we’re” the bad guys. You don’t have to generalize and stereotype every American as ignorant and willfully malevolent. You seem to have done a decent job of explaining that not all Iraqis are evil people. You might try explaining the difference between normal Iraqis and Ba’athists. Further you might explain that the war didn’t target all Iraqis. just the Ba’athists. Of course, you’ll also have to explain that “war is hell” and that many of Iraqi civilians were killed along with the Ba’athists. I find it curious that you say you don’t have a star wars good/bad type of explanation for your child’s simple understanding of the world, but in the very next sentence indicate that you have the very same level of understanding: “we’re the bad guys.” Just as most civilians in Iraq have different levels of responsibility for the atrocities of the Ba’ath regime (from actively involved to not involved to victim) similarly citizens of America have different levels of responsibility for the events that upset you so much. Please don’t pass on your simplistic outlook to your child.

  4. Dale Huber June 22, 2003 at 11:19 pm

    Central Valley of California. Just show your boy the video tape from 9/11. Unless you were naive enough to think you would be able to depend on the liberal media to show it as a reminder once in awhile. Then tell him Sadam and Osama are buddies and we go take care of our own when things like that happen. Then he won’t grow up with the same anti -american , world view and attitude his daddy has.

  5. trk June 23, 2003 at 8:45 am

    kev, where did these patriot right wing pro war readers come from? Thats not our target market… lol.

  6. kev June 23, 2003 at 11:30 am

    yeah dude.. i dunno. google searches? what i meant to say in the “we’re the bad guys” statement was that to other countries, especially ones we’re fighting wars with, we’re the bad guys. That there’s no hard and fast rule that says Ther Are Good Guys and There Are Bad Guys, no matter which side you’re on. That even when he thinks we’re good, there are other sides who don’t. And that the other sides may be the ones with more pointing to them being right. Oh, and you can take your “Then tell him Sadam and Osama are buddies and we go take care of our own when things like that happen” and fuck right the fuck off.

  7. Kyle Swiger July 5, 2003 at 12:12 am

    *Found this site with a google search on the Plilips HDD100*

  8. kev July 5, 2003 at 4:42 pm

    thanks for letting us know. I’ll delete that post so fucktards like yourself stop showing up here.

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