Kelley wrote:
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> >
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> what i don't understand, however, is this:
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> if one _assumes_ that a mil defeat is unlikely, then achieving that defeat
> requires thousands, perhaps 10-20 thousand, iraqis to die and many more to
> be wounded.
>
Let me try this again: there is no point in pursuing these _inner_ thoughts, this worry about the correctness of one's motives. You are coming very close to the thrust of T. S. Eliot's _Murder in the Cathedral_, which revolves around the (gasp) horror at doing the right thing for the wrong motives. You don't _have_ to try to understand whatever it is here that you are trying to understand.
But neither you nor I is going to be asked on Judgment Day: Did you or did you not in the secret crannies of your heart wish that lots of Iraqis would die?
Besides this (hidden) religious concern here, there is also an element of seeing war as a football game in which the cheers/jeers from the crowd make a difference.
Our task is to make it as difficult as we can for the U.S. to engage in war. We need not conduct an examination of conscience to determine whether or not we are secretly or openly wishing for Iranians to die.
Troops home! End the Occupation! Get out of Iraq!
Whatever the Iraqi people decide to do is their decision. Their deaths, if they die, is on the head of the imperialists and warmongers in Washington.
Carrol