If we are so right, why does it feel so wrong? 10 comments

13 Mar 2003 @ 00:51, by Quidnovi "Justice is about Truth, and truth has many sides. Justice and Truth have shapes that change among nations and throughout the seasons of history. Mercy is Love, and that has the same strength and beauty for all people, for all time. I serve Mercy, not Justice." ---A. A. Attanasio, The Wolf and the Crown Operation Desert Storm was about the "good guys" liberating one Arab state, Kuwait, from occupation by another Arab state, Iraq. But the roles are not so clearly defined in the current conflict and while I'd love to have the same kind of self assurance as G. W. Bush has been displaying that we are doing the right thing and that God is on our side, this new situation with Iraq looks to me (and to others) uncomfortably too much like an effort to install a client regime in Baghdad. Worse, while some have been denouncing oil as the motivating factors of our current administration for its military presence in the Gulf region, there have been some troubling and alarming signs from the administration that Iraq is only the tip of the iceberg: "Iraq is only a piece in the broader U.S. plan to reconfigure the Middle East political map and make it conform to democratic changes that have swept much of the rest of the world over the past 15 years," U.S. official says. --- Robin Wright, LA Times, 02.25.03, "Bush Set to Be Pivot in Diplomacy" Such a vision does echo PNAC's own ambitions of a "New American Century". I quote: "We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership. As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?" In his impassioned article on that very subject, "Of Gods and Mortals and Empire", William Rivers Pitt denounces PNAC's Rebuilding America's Defenses report as "the institutionalization of plans and ideologies that have been formulated for decades by the men currently running our government": " The PNAC Statement of Principles is signed by Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, as well as by Eliot Abrams, Jeb Bush, Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad, and many others(…) On September 11th, the fellows from PNAC saw a door of opportunity open wide before them, and stormed right through it." And while there are those who fear that such aggressive ambitions will put the stability of the whole Middle East at risk and could lead to a "war of civilizations," there are those who are calling for such a war with all their might. They are calling for it because they believe that such a war is winnable and that the window of opportunity is now. Much of the administration's talk of good versus evil has a familiar ring to most Star Wars' fan and while I am not sure what Yoda would think of G. W. Bush, one thing is clear, to the eye of many abroad (our allies included) methinks we are starting to look a lot like we are turning into the evil "Empire." I sense a disturbance in the force.

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