I kept trying, last month, to explain what I was thinking about the war; it started out difficult and didn't get any easier because I'm uneasy no matter which way I look at it. Many words and few to the point, I fear. But, here are some bits from an email that seemed to help the bro understand me better:

[he asked:]

> what is this right thing that you keep saying you think we're doing?

"i want to fuck saddam up! i'm still pissed we didn't finish him off the first time! grr!"

ok, seriously now. ... i'm going to give up trying to fit it all together and just spew out some statements.

we have a lot of power. we could kick smallish dictator butt if we wanted.

to the degree that that is anyone's job, i want it to be the UN's job. unfortunately there are a lot of smallish dictators in the general assembly. and plenty of other countries happy to sell them their dictator supplies. including us.

(i do not think the usa should help anybody buy their dictator supplies. the great thing about elections is that the new people can (in theory) say "ok, that was then, this is now," with some degree of credibility. if they really wanted to. ... but i digress.)

i want the UN to have pointy shark teeth for anyone who attacks their neighbor(s) or attempts genocide within their country. i want a government that does that to automatically lose its legitimacy and require replacement under UN auspices. but see above "general assembly and friends" problem.

saddam hussein in my view became persona non governmenta when he invaded iran, even. that a&e biography of him was really interesting, btw. he just decided "iran has some yummy oil. let's go get some." or something. he thought it would be easy cause they'd just had their revolution and were still kind of convulsing. but amazing how an external invader can focus people.

of course, we gave him helicopters and chemicals and stuff then because we didn't like iran. i think this was bad and stupid. we seem to have done that sort of thing a lot, this last century. i don't understand how people continued to think that it could work out well.

then, kuwait. i understand that bush the first only got the coalition together by promising not to take SH out. i respect that he wanted to keep his word, and i think once he did promise that, we need to do what we say. i just don't think everyone should have been such weenies in the first place. that was really the moment when the UN could have said, ok, FOULED OUT. but they didn't. see above general-assembly-and-friends problem. i don't remember what the discussions were like back then and i haven't looked them up.

so i guess the right thing is really the right thing of taking him out that should have been done then. he started it. we didn't finish it. now we are. that's all.

This may not be the real reason we're doing it, but it's the reason why I think it's OK, even though we managed to do it in nearly the clumsiest way possible, and even though we do not apply "my" ideal at all consistently. So I guess my general feeling is similar to the saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I think I'll leave it at that for a while. Unless something else comes up.

copyright 2003 carrie lynn king.