I can’t hold it in any more. My apologies to my friends who are American, because I know you, and I know that you’re intelligent, open-minded and well-informed folks.
But, dear God, what are (some of) you thinking down there?
There are many who are better writers and thinkers than I that have espoused on this subject, but I’m going to lay out my bit. This almost-war is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Not because I think Saddam is really just a misunderstood individual. Not because the regime doesn’t need changing. And certainly not because I think that nukes and chemical agents are really not as bad as they sound.
It’s wrong because the U.S. and its president think that they can make these decisions on their own, and act with (or is that without?) impunity. The UN has been in existence longer than Dubya has been out of diapers (and longer if you count the League of Nations), and, as inefficient as it may be at times, as slow to act as it has been before, IT’S STILL A VALID INTERNATIONAL GOVERNING BODY. I for one don’t trust some crackpot, rabid-right-wing Republican to make decisions for the rest of the world.
And I don’t want to denigrate or demean the thousands who were killed on Sept. 11, but how on God’s green earth do you think that the removal of Iraq’s regime is going to stop that from happening again? Are there so many people in the US political system that are blind to the fact that this kind of teeth-kicking “diplomatic action” is what caused these militant groups to target Americans in the first place?
I went across to the U.S. on Monday with Cory, who I work with. When we got back, he said that he’d felt “different” the whole time we were across. I agree. We Canadians have always acknowledged our differences from our southern neighbours, but there seems to be a line now carved in the sand between these two countries. It’s like our eyelids have been peeled back, and we see for the first time the vast differences in our respective self-images. I mean, they’re banning the Dixie Chicks on radio. With all due respect to my parents, who are huge country fans, is anyone surprised that the country music demographic acts this way? The demographic is the same as NASCAR, by the way.
I’ve now resigned myself to the fact that there’s going to be a “war,” if you can call it that. I do, however, take immense pride in the fact that we’re not going. Say what you want about Jean Chr