Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2003 12:49:06 +1200
From: Margaret Trawick <trawick-AT-clear.net.nz>
Subject: Re: "We had a great day. We killed a lot of people."


Tommy -

You can oppose both warring sides equally and still condemn their war upon
each other.  It is not a question here of hoping that one side or the other
will win.  It is a question of seeing that the war itself is destructive to
many people who are not parties to the war at all, that it will benefit
nobody except possibly some of the warmongers whom we despise, and therefore
the war must be stopped.  It seems to me that this is the one and only
morally justifiable position to take.

Margaret


----- Original Message -----
From: "TS Kim" <kimx0184-AT-tc.umn.edu>
To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 7:34 AM
Subject: Re: "We had a great day. We killed a lot of people."


> Mary,
>
> I agree with you that the US is not in any way free from criticism. Again,
> my point was not to defend the actions of the US in any way. I should make
> clear I am in no way a supporter of Bush or his policies (to be blunt, I
> take Bush and everything his administration has done has been a terrible
> embarassment both domestically and internationally and if he stays on
> course, Bush will probably go down as one of the worst presidents in US
> history). My concern was very specific to the NY Times article that began
> this thread and the fact that amongst all the criticism of the soldiers'
> attitudes and statements (a condemnation I wholeheartedly agree with), the
> use of civilians as human shields (again, which was directly mentioned in
> the article) seemed to go unnoticed. Even if, as one other poster pointed
> out, the US's propaganda campaign against Saddam Hussein has made Iraq's
> human rights violations well known, it seems to me that when condemning
> the US there needs to be at least some token recognition that terrible
> things are occurring on both sides of the battle field.
>
> For me personally, I find myself completely unable either to support or
> condemn the US attack on Iraq simply because there is no "good" side.
> International politics are of course never so black and white that there
> are clear good and bad sides but it seems that in this case there is no
> morally justifiable position to take (or perhaps that's just me being a
> typical fence-sitting American democrat). Again, I too am greatly bothered
> by  Bush's policies and actions but I am equally disturbed by the Hussein
> Administration -- to be honest, I'd like to see them both obliterated.
>
> Tommy S Kim
> University of Minnesota
> Department of English
>




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