If You Are Against The War, Take This Quiz

[Demeter]

OpEdNews.com

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_danny_sc_061031_if_you_are_against_t.htm


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October 31, 2006

If You Are Against The War, Take This Quiz

By Danny Schecter

New York, New York: Ok, class. No talking. Pencils up. All eyes on the exam. Here's the first multiple-choice question:


The Iraq War is Bad Because:

a. It is illegal, immoral, and criminal
b. It has ended up killing and maiming millions of
Iraqis we promised to free
c. It has devastated a country and ignited world opinion against the United States and caused thousands of US casualties
d. It has debased our media and turned much of it into a propaganda organ
e. It was badly managed and poorly executed


If you survey world opinion, there would be a consensus on selecting A-D as a response. If you polled most Democratic politicians and mainstream journalists, you would find overwhelming support only for E-- "the we screwed it up" thesis as the correct answer. What was once hailed as a heroic mission is now being dismissed as a fiasco, error and "mistake," and to some former war boosters, even a "noble mistake." In fact, that's the view that seems to be framing what debate there has been on the war. It is still-- AAU-- All About Us. In this view, all that matters is our policy objectives but rarely our economic or geo-political agenda. Iraq as a nation, as a culture and a people barely exists.

The Democratic Party line mirrors this America First philosophy.. Never ready to challenge the deeper assumptions and interests guiding the war, most of the Democrats instead harp on the stupidity and failures of the war's instigators and managers who are considered incompetent. According to the NY Times, The Democrats are "running to the right," self-consciously becoming conservative and moderate candidates who posture at being tougher on national security that the Repugs. (Oddly the International Herald Tribune ran almost identical stories ten days
earlier.")

So in the same way that Fox News pushed all other news outlets to the right, the GOP has imposed its worldview on the whole political spectrum. As a result, many Dems are not challenging this distorted ideology, only the personalities identified with it... Where were-- where are the reports about all the war crimes that have (been) catalogued by scores of credible experts and observers? The use of proscribed weapons, the brutality of which Abu Ghraib is not the worst example, the failed "Shock and Awe," the neglect and indifference of the needs of ordinary people "living" without water, electricity and sometimes food. Where is the concern for them?

"This logic of extermination of a society and culture was inbuilt in the process since March 2003. In fact, the systematic annihilation of 2-3% of the entire Iraqi population, according to a study by The Lancet, not to mention the 1 million people displaced since March 2003, follow the more than 500,000 children who died during the 1990s as victims of United Nations sanctions. Iraq has been systematically destroyed for more than 15 years, non-stop." ...And what about the contribution of the Clintonistas who imposed sanctions that killed off an estimated one million Iraqi children while posturing about how bad Saddam is and was. I still remember Madeleine Albright telling 60 Minutes that that death count was "acceptable" because the goal was so noble. No wonder they have been so timid in criticizing the war. It represents their policy by other means!

Let's stop pandering on national security to out-Republican the hard right. That approach failed in 2004 and it will fail again? The whole issue is convoluted anyway. Even as President Bush insists that "America loses" if The Dems win because that will somehow strengthen the terrorists, Al Qaeda strategists say openly that they prefer the Republicans in power and the US military stuck in Iraq to keep their Jihad alive. Odd as it seems, they like Bush, and believe that his Global War on Terror (GWOT) strengthens their war of terror. And like him, they just want us to "bring it on."
Let us articulate what we stand for-- not just what are we against. May we oppose the war for the right reasons and absorb its lessons less we repeat them in Iran or other wars that are certain to come if we don't. How's that for an "inconvenient truth?"



Authors Website: http://www.Mediachannel.Org

Authors Bio: New Dissector Danny Schechter is ?blogger in chief? at Mediachannel.Org and author of "The Death of the Media and the Fight to Save Democracy" News. His new film is about numbers -- In Debt We Trust See Newsdisssector.org/store.htm. Comments to [e-mail]

[azurnoir]

1. No chioce F?

For "all of the above" or G for "all of the above and a couple of others besides"

[SmokingJacket]

2. Well.... it also allows Americans who supported the war an out.

It was **always** immoral, so you're hardly going to change any war-supporters minds by calling it that.

However, saying the war was "badly managed" allows people who were maybe on Bush's side in the beginning (and many, many people were) to switch sides without feeling like idiots.

Personally, I believed it was a royal fuckup from the start, but I'm not going to convince too many of my Republican family members to vote Dem by saying "I told you so, I told you so!" as desperately as I am longing to say just that.

There'll be plenty of time for moral purity once we win the election. Until then, I'm willing to get votes however we can (short of fraud!)

[some guy]

3. I pick A B C & E

the media was already debased, and a propaganda organ, so D isn't anything new, nor is it exclusive to the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq.