10/14/2002
EJ writes:

Well, well, well....

The debate on war is heart wrenching and bitterly funny because the crux of it comes down to who can foretell the future best.  If we knew that another 3,000, 30,000, 300,000 or 3,000,000 Americans were going to die if we did not go to war, what would the debate be? Or vice versa.

The argument against war is not about saving innocent Iraqis. Because Saddam has already killed via bullets, gas and biological weapons many hundreds of thousands of his people. If it was about saving Iraqis we would have finished the job 12 years ago.

Master Plan? Grand Conspiracy? From the guy who used to own the Texas Rangers baseball team and was part of the ownership group that created a baseball strike that costs the owners billions of dollars? Well, maybe, but it goes to the crux of the problem: Bush is an inexperienced, naive man of average intelligence with the best government talent of 1975 leading the government of 2002.

For me, the debate is about trust. Our leaders are out of touch. Our intelligence agencies have had numerous catastrophic failures. How are we supposed to trust them? I have little doubt that they believe and are men trying to do right. Whoopee.

Reminds me of that old conundrum: I'm a liar. Everything I say is a lie. I'm lying now.

That being said, if I don't trust my government, am I going to trust Saddam more? I think not.

It makes me nauseous, but if I have to make the decision and the intelligence I'm getting is what we are told it is, even if I am dubious it is all I have, then I have to say "fuck it. They started it." My guess is, if you count Iraqis as people and include other nationalities who will suffer terrorist and military actions, then less people will die if we invade than if we don't. 9/11 was the biggest terrorist loss for many countries including Arab. Hey, I'm just a cut-rate fortuneteller from LA, but that's based on the historical record.

PS - A friend of mine through happenstance rode with Bill Clinton on the NY-DC shuttle last week. They shared a row and had a nice talk. Bill is pro action. He believes it has to be done. Bill is smart but of course he got the same intelligence Bush gets.

PPS - Hey, we did win the Cold War, right? So the government must know what it's doing, right? Right?