Thank you. Just... thank you.

[hermionesviolin]

I was thinking last night. All of us complain and bitch about President Bush, but in the future, 20 years later in textbooks, he won't be remembered for all of this shit. Not for the rejected environmental laws or the pretzel or the Patriot Act. The only people who'll learn about the messed up elections are AP US History Students. Years later, Bush will be remembered for liberating two countries that everyone was afraid of.

Whenever Afghanistan was mentioned in the past, you'd hear about how horrible it was for women. Now that's no more. Girls can actually get an education. For Iraq, everyone hated Saddam (if you said you didn't, it's b/c you're afraid of getting shot) and people pitied the Iraqis. Now that's no more. All because someone decided not to sit back and watch and talk about what's going on, but to actually go out there and change it.

I'm not Republican. I'm not a Bush-supporter. I wouldn't have voted for him. But you must admit, knocking down two horrible regimes during a single term is pretty up-there. Yes, a lot of people were killed, but all of this would happen eventually. It just waited for the person with enough guts to do it. Even if you hate Bush, you have to agree that it's going to be better without the Taliban and Saddam. I didn't know how much Iraqis despised the latter until they were knocking down statues and smacking them with sandals. That's amazing.

You can be the person that leans back and complains about what's going on, or you can be the person that goes out there and changes it.

It makes me wonder. Perhaps the 2000 election wasn't as wacked-out as we think. The butterfly ballot scandal came out of nowhere; it was such a random thing, with a huge effect. If those old people in Florida voted correctly, Gore would've won. If Gore was president, all of this undoubtedly wouldn't have happened. Women in Afghanistan would be stoned in streets and people would be afraid for their lives to speak their minds in Iraq. It makes me wonder if this is the way it was meant to be, if this is a plan of someone above us.

Comments

I can't agree with this article . . .

[lilithchilde.livejournal.com]

I can't go with what this person is saying, and that is not because I am some sort of blind Bush-hater.

Not for the rejected environmental laws or the pretzel or the Patriot Act

Is that (excluding the pretzel) a good thing? Is it good that all sorts of environmental laws have failed to pass, or have been repealed or loosened up, without much of anybody noticing? Is the Patriot Act a good thing, especially if it stays and is enforced?

Is that the way it should be?

Even if you hate Bush, you have to agree that it's going to be better

I don't know about this. Sure, the Taliban and Saddam were horrible. I can't stress how much so. Sure, the countries they were ruling over will be much better off without them. (Well, hopefully. Post-war turmoil can result in many different ends. Also, I'm not sure US occupation of these countries for the next decade or however long it continues is a good thing, even if it is better than being under the regime of murderous dictators.)

But in the meantime, the only system for international government that we have has been undermined (sure, the UN was already ineffective, but I think it's an extremely important institution, and I worry that this is the death blow), and the whole "pre-emptive strike" thing has been put on the books as US policy and precedented (I know not everyone will agree with me that this is a very very bad thing, but), and the US has lost much of its political credibility with the rest of the world (it remains to be seen if international opinion will change its mind). And so on, and so on.

The Taliban and Saddam were inexpressably awful, but I'm far, far from convinced that this was the best way . . . or even in any way an okay thing for this country to do.

Um, I kinda went off on this article...

[laynamarya.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I can see, sort of, what this person is saying, up to a point.

But I have two issues. One is with going out and changing things. I am trying to get into the peace corps, right? So, I really truly believe that there are other ways to change things than violence. Yeah, so we toppled two regimes. Ok. But that's not the end-all, be-all. America is just showing itself to be more dominant, more let's take over the world, than ever before. We think your government sucks. Let's drop bombs on your country. Yeah. And ok, a lousy government is bad, dictators are bad. But war and death and all the pushing and shoving that America is doing is worse. And I don't think, in the long run, it'll fix anything. Who's to say the next ruler will be better? Shouldn't America just go in there and run the country for them? They are so obviously inept.

I mean, where do you draw the line? Where do you stop being helpful and start being destructive? Whose side are we on, anyway?

We have GOT to share the world. We can't just tell everyone else what to do. We can make suggestions, we can help where it's reasonable. We can try to initiate change. But at some point, we have to back off. America just can't stop when it needs to.

It's not like we're the Mommy of the World, and all the other little countries are our children, and we have to do everything for them and keep dangers away from them just cause we don't want them to get hurt. We're all grown-ups here. We have to deal with our own problems. And we have to respect other countries as being valid, even if we don't like their governments or policies or cultures or whatever. Being rich and powerful doesn't give us inherent rights to tell everyone else what to do.

And about inherent rights. What is this implication that God put Bush into power? I don't think so. God does not have anything to do with screwy ballots. Don't you dare bring God into this. THIS IS NOT A HOLY WAR. And even if it were, it's the same God on each side.

This war is not about freeing citizens, this is not about toppling evil regimes.

This is about power. This is about American supremacy. This is about holding grudges. This is about saving face. This is about oil. This is about blood.

You know, come to think of it, I don't agree with this article at all.