PANIC AWAY

First of all, Nike shoes are made in Indonesia; you can’t find American made clothing in America… let alone over seas; and everyone knows the best televisions are made in Asia.

Second, you’re naive if you don’t think EVERY war in U.S. history owed itself HEAVILY to public opinion. It didn’t start with Korea or Indochina. Remember “no taxation without representation” or “give me liberty or give me death” or Thomas Paine (Common Sense and The American Crisis)? The American Revolution practically invented American P.R. Then there was the drummed up evidence of the sinking of the Maine which got us into the Spanish American War. A few years later it took nothing short of a propaganda machine (with the help of Teddy Roosevelt), German U-boats sinking American shipping, AND an intercepted telegram reporting German designs for the western hemisphere before we got involved with WWI. And lets not forget we almost let England fall to the Blitz (owing to the all to fresh memories of the horrors of WWI)… and might have yet, if the Japanese hadn’t made the serious miscalculation of attacking Pearl Harbor. The U.S. was stubbornly isolationist for years before Japan gave Roosevelt the justification he needed (ie a pissed off public) to get us into the war.

In fact, you could argue that the “public opinion” wars you mention above (Korea and Vietnam) were the only wars that DIDN’T involve a P.R. buildup before hand. Maybe if the government had a good reason in the first place they would have tried to convince us beforehand. I submit that part of the reason the public is rebelling over the Iraq war isn’t the dead bodies… it’s that we were given the wrong reasons for going beforehand… that and it’s been a text book FUBAR. For heaven’s sake, some of the actions we’ve taken up to this point (indiscriminate harassment of the Iraqi public, et al.) have been in direct contradiction to the primary points in General Petraeus’ counter-insurgency manual. It’s like we were trying to CREATE an insurgency when we went in.

Finally, no matter what Fox News says… no one thinks Saddam was a good guy. A valid point can be made regarding his refusal to cooperate with the international community in the years following the first Gulf War. However, a valid point can also be made that the sanctions, never the less, were working. Another valid point could be made regarding state sponsored terrorism… and the fact that Iraq may have been the smallest fry in the middle east in that regard (before the second Gulf War). Just off the top of my head… there’s Libya, Syria, Iran, southern Lebanon (re: Syria)… all of those places were known to harbor more terrorists. A valid point can also be made regarding WMD’s… and how we KNEW Iran and North Korea were further along in building a bomb.

After 9/11 there was simply little reason for going after Iraq, relative to the other problems in the world I’ve mentioned… other than it was an opponent of convenience. There were lots of bad guys in the world… dare I say, many of which were and are worse than Saddam. Yet we picked him.

Finally, I find it offensive that the previous commentator has promulgated the throughly debunked notion that Iraq had ANY ties to the terrible events on 9/11. This does not mean that Iraq was a great place, that Sadaam was our best friend, or that he never did anything wrong in his life… but it is clear that neither he nor the resources of his country had anything to do with 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, therefore 9/11 is not a reason for invading Iraq.

America should, and does, have a role to play in combating terrorism. I will even stipulate that Iraq may be a front in that fight… but it is now only because we made it so.

My fear is that some problems don’t have solutions. Take crime. Everyone agrees we should fight crime, and we’ve been trying to figure out how best to do it since before the birth of our nation. By all accounts, we throw more resources at the problem than any other country… yet our murder rates tend higher than any other “western” country. Take the middle east. They haven’t figured out how to get along for thousands of years. Given our track record on domestic crime (which we understand MUCH better), isn’t it a little arrogant for us to presume we can fix the middle east?

Granted, the middle east has a big influence over global politics, given it’s natural resources. I submit that the best thing we could do is to figure out a way for the rest of the world to not have to rely on them. Alternative energy should be a matter of national security… not just high minded, liberal environmentalism.

Here endeth the rant.

Contrary to what physicians may say, I would argue that under a government run program, health care would be MORE responsive to complaints… not less. At least elected officials have to answer to the electorate. Who does a health insurance company answer to? What free market forces compel them to provide better (and more expensive care)? If you have a health problem, your carrier essentially has a monopoly over your care. With pre-existing condition exclusions for coverage, it’s not like you can just switch.

In one sense, I hope we don’t reach that 60-70 percent you speak of… that would mean we’ve got a really big crisis on our hands… with a lot of folks suffering. I just wish it didn’t have to come to that, but it seems that’s the way things work.

By the way, I assume this entry was a comment you made on someone else’s blog… if so, you might consider linking back to the original post… to provide the context for your comment.