Arguments for ground war -- HUH?

Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org
Thu Nov 1 08:55:15 PST 2001


----- Original Message ----- From: "Lou Paulsen" <wwchi at enteract.com>
>I'm confused. Are some people on this list pretending that they are
>working in the Pentagon and exchanging inter-office memos?

-It all comes of that idea, favored by Nathan, that it is very bad just to -have "negative" demands like "no to war", "stop the bombing", "no to -genocide", "end the death penalty", etc. You have to have "positive" -demands, which means telling the Bush administration how to proceed -"positively".

If the Left thinks it has the power to stop the war, why shouldn't it think it has the power to push an alternative policy? There is a logical gap to think we can magically beat something (Bush's war policy) with nothing (ie. ignore the anger driving the policy in favor of doing nothing).

The later is the least likely thing on earth. On the other hand, it is quite reasonable to point out that the present Bush policy is and will be a complete failure in achieving the goals that many Americans have-- capturing those who committed mass murder or S11 and stopping future terrorism. If there is a better alternative to achieve these goals that are driving support for the Bush policy, then the most likely way to stop the war is to highlight those alternatives.

As even the top media like the Wall Street Journal note the completely false assumptions on which this policy was built- namely the laughable idea that bombing the Afgani people would push large numbers of Pushtans to support us - it will be far easier to argue for alternatives.

But you are living in your own bizarre corner of reality if you think "just say no" is going to decrease support for the Bush policy without that alternative. Friends and family who have normally opposed every war you could think of, including some I supported such as Kosovo, are suddenly in the war hawk camp on this campaign. And "just say no" isn't going to change their views, although demonstrating the failure of this campaign ON ITS OWN TERMS very well might.

-- Nathan Newman



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