My friend marya is a Buddhist, and a sincere, well-meaning pacifist. I think this is because she's from California, so it was inevitable, like little Palestinian kids growing up to hate Jews. : -)

A few days ago, she posted on a maillist we share a fairly anguished plea for a few of us that she characterized as being "pro-war" to explain why we should go to war with Iraq, and even more importantly, how we would heal the wounds, and assuage the hate, the survivors there would feel toward us in the post-GWII era.

Gee, what an easy assignment. :-) She reminds me of a college prof I had, that if asked a question that seemed critical of her theses as preached in class, would ask the questioner to present his arguments in a five thousand word essay. She passed them out like M&Ms. It will surprise no one that knows me and my loquacious ways that I never let that shut me up. :-)

This is not a reply to all of her questions, but does address one of them, specifically, why is this war needed, and worthwhile. I've addressed the reasons in several previous posts, but they are mostly buried in long posts that include other things about the war in general.

Then, just like there is a deity up there that knows and cares about my everyday, mundane existence, I get sent an email that will serve to explain the why of this coming war, in terms that her feminist, liberal, empathetic soul can identify with. (For the record, I use none of those adjectives in that last sentence in a perjorative manner.)

You can read the whole thing here, but here is the telling passage, about an event that happened in Saudi Arabia, a religious oil theocracy, Ground Zero of the Islamic faith: On 11 March at Girls' Intermediate School No 31 in Mecca at just after 8am an accidental fire took hold. It quickly spread and the teenagers fled outside. But within minutes the religious police, or mutawwa'in, had also arrived. Incredibly, as some girls fled out of one gate the police forced them back in through another. Fourteen girls died in the blaze. Dozens more suffered horrific burns. Their mistake had been to flee the fire without first putting on their black robes and headscarves. Some were still in nightdresses. That was enough for the police effectively to condemn them to death. Some even beat rescue workers trying to save the children. 'Instead of extending a helping hand, they were using their hands to beat us,' one rescue worker said.

I am not a cultural relativist. I am unashamed to stand on my hind legs in front of the world and state that there are some regimes and cultures that do not deserve to have a place in the human community. The sooner that these cultures, malignant cankers on the global body politic, are removed, even though it be by force, the more wholesome and happy that body will be.

A major concern of hers was the problem of healing the hurts of a war that causes the deaths of many innocent people, and how the survivors could ever come to not hate us. In this, I think, she overestimates the love that these people have for their current leaders, woefully underestimates their desire for the freedoms that we take for granted, and incorrectly suspects that those soon-to-be-freed peoples will blame us for the deaths associated with the regime change, and not those tyrants that they wish to be quit of.

The everyday people of Iraq are effectively prisoners in their own country, ruled over by a murderous warden. He has been directly responsible for millions of their deaths, both directly, at the hands of his security forces, and indirectly, by starting wars with his neighbors Kuwait and Iran. They are nothing more to him than a tool to use in consolidating and maintaining his power. Each individual there lives another day only at his whim, and only for his purposes.

We are coming to storm the walls of that prison, free those people, and kill that warden, along with his small circle of tribal henchmen. Some of us will die. Many more of them will die in the crossfire, as it were, in the battle. Most of the casualties, I believe, will come when he decides to take down as many of the Iraqi people as he can as revenge for "betraying" him, as they surely will, and unleashes his nerve gas and anthrax upon them, in a final apocalyptic frenzy, Samson in the temple.

The survivors will understand that the deaths are the work of the warden and his guards, not the rescuers. I truly believe that they will welcome us the way that Paris did the Allies in 1944, and the subsequent establishment of a representative democracy there will be much less difficult than it is proving to be in countries like Afghanistan, that lack both an educated middle class, and a modern infrastructure.

Much has been made of late in the press about the fact that Saddam has been "laying low," not recently giving us any extreme provocation to go after him.

Folks that think that it's a Good Thing to continue to hunt down ancient Nazis for crimes of the WWII era act as if the statue of limitations against genocide and the use of chemical weapons against civilian women and children is Saddam's case has expired.

As I've stated in other essays, Iraq is the keystone that supports the entire arch-evil of repressive Islamic fundementalism, and it's removal will foster a renaissance of freedom and enlightenment on the Middle East. We could simply choose to pursue an isolationist course, wipe our hands and our consciences clean of the plight of the millions of people there. but I believe that this isolationist course to be morally bankrupt, like watching a stranger being mugged, and not offering to help him against his assailant.

It is one thing to decline to help for fear of personal safety, if the mugger is a beefy monster of a man, and you, the prospective savior, are a ninety-eight pound weakling. At least, in that case, we can understand a reluctance to act. We can understand why Andorra, Taiwan, or even any of the European nations do not move to free the Iraqi people.

It is quite another when you are easily able to overpower the criminal. By virtue of our economic and military power, a happy accident of national history, political system, and geography, we are the only option. No one else can do it.

For us to ignore Iraq, even if Saddam loved us, was our best buddy and most trustworthy ally, and not a credible threat, an avowed enemy, would be cowardice on a national scale. Here, happily, if it is not blasphemous to use that term in this case, we have an instance where the Right Thing To Do, and prudent self-defense, and one and the same thing.

Some will argue that we will unseat Saddam for selfish economic reasons, to exploit the nation as a trading partner. I can answer that in one sentence. It is never wrong to do the Right Thing, even though that action may eventually benefit you also.

Saddam knows that he cannot survive this war. His army will for the most part desert him, and his own people hate him, though with a muzzle pointed at their heads, they will mouth platitudes of support.

Even at this late date, if he were to offer to abdicate his throne, to live out his life in exile wherever he could find someone to take him, (Did you know that Idi Amin is alive and living in luxury in Saudi Arabia? I wonder if the ICC cares... snort) I think we would be forced to accept such a bloodless compromise, to save both US and Iraqi lives, justice be damned. Better one, or even a few hundred, or a thousand murderers go free, than tens of thousands die. This is an offer that I feel should be made, and publicized throughout the world, but we should take special care to ensure that every adult in Iraq hears it. While I have no great hopes that this stratagem will succeed, it will be important both for the prosecution of the psychological war against the regime, and winning the subsequent peace.

So, this could end peacefully and reasonably. But I think we all know that he will never accept that. That leaves us little choice but to take him down.

It's the Right Thing to do, and millions will come to thank us for it.

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Slogging through my referrer logs, I see a hit from an AOL search.

The search term?

"stories of unbearable itching" Heh.

If you're wondering, that hits a skit I wrote for an event at TRF, titled As The Worm Turns.

The story was inspired by, and in the fashion of, Moliere's "The Imaginary Invalid"

I don't know if it's that funny to read, but as performed, it was sidesplitting. :-)

I'd like to point you to a link to the original play, but oddly enough, it seems there is not a script online, at least in translation. (It was written in French) Somebody with a few hours of time on their hands, and access to a library, could make a welcome contribution to the the sum total of human knowledge on the internet.

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