February 25, 2003
I am torn. This whole debate over the war with Iraq has me conflicted.
On one hand, I think Saddam Hussein is a cretin bastard with the morality of a badger suffering from a hemmorhoid. Because of information from sources I trust, I have no doubt that he's a murder, making people suffer. And I also have no doubt that he's capable of having weapons of mass destruction -- and that should he have them, he's capable of using them.
On the other hand, I don't trust President George W. Bush, either. Despite the whole issue of how he was elected and his problems stringing together a coherent sentence, I was willing to give the guy a shot. Then, he and John Ashcroft decided the best way to react to Sept. 11 was to take a wizz on the Constitution by taking away rights with the U.S. Patriot Act, and he lost me. And as for Iraq ... well, he's admitted that he has a personal bone to pick with Saddam Hussein because of the fact that Saddam tried to kill his father, and while I understand that -- if someone tried to kill MY father, I'd be a bit peeved, too -- I don't want such feelings playing a key factor in our foreign policy.
So, you, see, I am torn.
I can stand with the folks from the Reno Anti-War Coalition, as I did one recent freezing Monday night, and relate with what they say. I agree. I know these people truly care -- and that their motivations are good, which I can't say for sure about the other side.
War is BAD. People DIE. You would think that after thousands of years of civilization, people would have gotten over this whole "I disagree with you, so I kill you" idea, but we haven't. Blah. I also agree that oil could very well play a role in this war-decision process, considering the interests that Bush and his merry band of businessmen/policy makers have in the energy industry. And I am not convinced that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with Sept. 11, which the Bush administration keeps trying to hint at without a shred of publicly released evidence.
But I can also relate with the Bush supporters, too. Hussein is bad. He needs to go. He's a killer. Given the chance, he'd like to off all of us in the United States. He's a threat -- and if he's not now, he could be.
You know what? I get a sense that I am not the only one torn here. The coverage of the nation's feelings seems to put people in two camps: The anti-war protesters and the Bush supporters. The people who say "yes" to war in polls and the people who say "no" to war in polls. But there are a great many people who feel the way I do -- who fall in between those two camps.
Another thing about the coverage of things bothers me: The fact that these two groups are starting to polarize each other. One thing in particular is driving me nuts: the groups of protesters who are protesting the anti-war protesters with their claims that they are supporting our men and women in the military. The implication here is that the anti-war folks aren't behind our military, or that they won't be should we go to war.
Well, that's just bullshit. If we do go to war, and people don't like it, that doesn't mean the anti-war folks people (at least the vast, vast majority of them) will look down on our troops or do anything less than support them 100 percent. Claims that they'll abandon or troops wrong. They're stupid. I have an uncle in the Army who is getting ready to go to, of all places, Kuwait. If I were to decide in the final analysis that war was wrong, and he was participating in the war, my feelings about the war would not effect my feelings and support for him one iota.
But I haven't finished analyzing the pros and the cons of war with Iraq yet. There's only one thing I have decided: It's sad that we even have to have these kinds of debates about killing one another.
Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan in exile in Arizona. His
column appears here Tuesdays, and a column archive may be viewed at
www.jimmyboegle.com.