2001
Excerpt from a string of e-mails between members of our family concerning the current war in Iraq after a comment by Dennis Miller:
"It was just kind of funny, I thought. Comedians
use one liners. How many simplistic shots are taken at Bush? Why is the left
so strident, so humorless? They all take themselves so seriously. That's great
fodder. For example, the left actually seems to believe, really believe, that
the president of the United States is a horrible person who wants to do away
with the constitution. They sound like the right in their exact same analysis
of FDR--court packing, allowing the attack on Pearl Harbor, ad nauseum. That
kind of overreaction is funny, and easy to poke fun at. Islamic states are theocracies.
Do you actually believe that Bush wants a Christian equivalent? How about abortion
rights in Wahhabist land? Comparing and contrasting that absurdity is easy fodder
for comics. And like it or not, Bush is the legal, legitimate president. So
you don't like that it went to the Supreme Court? So you don't like the way
the Supreme Court voted? That's the way it goes. Lots of segregationists didn't
like the way it voted on behalf of civil rights. I think Clinton should have
been convicted and kicked out of office for lying to a federal judge about his
involvement in a women's rights issue--ironically. A president committing perjury.
But they didn't convict him after impeaching him, and most people accepted that.
Finally, if only Gore could have won his home state, or Clinton's--both populated
by all of those stupid fundamentalist rubes--he would be president today."
Jeff Merrik
Jeff,
Dennis Miller's piece is only funny in a smug, arrogant
sort of way, only funny if you agree with his underlying position, but not funny
if you don't. It was really a position piece--it took a clear stance on the
war but, to someone on the left, it had an arrogant wrapper of humor. People
who disagree have a right to be quite serious about this. It bugs me when you
attack people for their lack of humor in such a discussion.
Jesus, Jeff, we're killing people in a war that we deeply feel is unjustified.
The US has even been unwilling to rule out the first use of nuclear weapons
in this conflict with a non-nuclear nation. It doesn't get any more serious
than that. To me, this war is a serious matter. That does not make me a humorless
person. Have a heart and discuss the issues straight up.
As for the Supreme Court decision (concerning the 2000 presidential election
debacle in Florida), most legal scholars have concluded that the decision had
no real basis in law, because the legal arguments given were shockingly flawed.
(Basically, even the legal minds most sympathetic to the decision have admitted
it was legally flawed and have tried to apologize for it or justify it on the
basis that it was a "pragmatic" solution to a difficult situation.)
When it comes to impeachment, which is done in the House and Senate, it is a
POLITICAL matter, and the elected representatives can vote to impeach, convict,
and remove the president for "high crimes and misdemeanors" or not,
based on their opinion as to whether he is fit for office. People can disagree
with the outcome of the Clinton impeachment, but in the end people have a recourse
at the ballot box, voting out the politicians whose impeachment votes they disagree
with. Like the outcome of an election, one can say that they didn't like the
outcome of an impeachment, but they can't really say it was bogus unless laws
were broken in the impeachment process itself. But a Supreme Court decision
is a JUDICIAL matter, and it must be backed by plausible legal principles and
precedents, because those justices are in there for life and there is no recourse.
The decision in Bush v Gore has been widely condemned as bogus because it relied
on clearly faulty logic and obvious misapplication of legal principles in pursuit
of a political outcome. So, unlike the outcome of the Clinton impeachment, one
can ethically condemn this decision--it violated the trust we place in the justices
and in doing so it threatened our constitutional form of government.
To answer your question, when I say international law, I am referring to the
UN charter, which we had a major role in creating and which we signed. According
to the US Constitution, treaties we sign, like the UN charter, have the force
of law for our government.
As for the idea that the war in Iraq is a clash of cultures and religions, the
idea that the Islamic faith and Christian faith are irreconcilable and must
fight it out in war, now we're getting down to the subtext that is used to manipulate
Americans with fear and get them on board with the profit motives of the powerful.
To the contrary, I think American foreign policy in the middle east has not
played fair and it is more plausible that we are hated for our actions than
for our freedoms. You like to focus on the things Hussein might do in the future
without taking responsibility for the things the US has already done in the
past and is doing now. Take for example the CIA-orchestrated coup in Iran in
1953 that assassinated their elected *secular* president and installed the Shah
of Iran to do the West's bidding (cheap oil) with military force for 26 years.
(Like the assassination we did in Chile in '73...the old USA isn't lily white,
folks.) How do you justify such a thing? Didn't this create justifiable hatred
toward the US? Instead of a secular Iran, modernizing nicely, we installed a
hated military dictatorship that gave rise to Islamic fundamentalism (the Ayatollah
Khomeini) as a way to eject the Shah in 1979. Since '79, Iran has been slowly
swinging back toward more tolerance of secular life, not more fundamentalist,
but they have a long way to go--so there we have a huge nation whose very history
was altered by our greed, and millions of lives were affected very negatively
for the last five decades. Look at how today we back nondemocratic corrupt monarchies
in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait etc. etc. The US has used the middle east as a chessboard,
infusing it with weaponry and backing murderous dictators, including Saddam,
who we knew full well was evil at the time, for our own economic and geostrategic
ends (which are all about oil). So it is more plausible to me that US foreign
policy has been fanning the flames of fundamentalism than the idea that fundamentalism
is the natural organizing principle in the Middle East. Our backing of Israel's
illegal occupation of and violent land grab in Palestine (violating many UN
resolutions), after decades of Palestinians living in camps, rather than granting
Palestinian statehood and a reasonable restitution for the land that was taken
from them in 1948, seems to me a much more likely explanation than that "Islam
is a medieval religion intent on destroying Israel and destroying our way of
life." We are not going to be able to test your thesis that Muslims are
intent on the destruction of Israel until the wrongs against the Palestinians
are righted, which they never have been since Israel was created in 1948, and
we give peace a chance, with security and justice for all guaranteed. To insist
as Israel does that all violence stop before doing so is not wise--remember
that the current Intifadah and the suicide bombing didn't start until decades
of illegal occupation of Palestine had already gone down, and until years of
expanding illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, in betrayal of the
rules of Oslo, eroded all trust. Sure, we can point to illegalities by the Palestinians
and get nowhere, or we can require Israel (who possesses clear military and
economic superiority) to put something in place on the ground now that addresses
Palestinian grievances (returning their land to pre-1967 borders, because it
is illegal to take land in a war, and granting Palestinian statehood) as well
as Israeli security concerns. I believe that the Middle East is (or at least
was, before all these wars) modernizing and secularizing, and could have evolved
(and still can evolve) peacefully to a higher standard of living and international
cooperation, if we play fair all around instead of jockeying for oil. Rather
than preventive war, we must strive for peace through justice and security for
all. As we have seen in Northern Ireland, the way to end terrorism is to understand
and address the injustices that underlie the conflicts.
Tim Boyle
Jeff,
Call me humorless if you like. I simply find nothing at all funny about George
Bush and John Ashcroft keeping American citizens imprisoned indefinitely without
charges and without benefit of counsel. Do you? I find nothing funny at all
about Iraqis being slaughtered in contravention of international law. Do you?
I find nothing humorous about warrantless searches and wiretaps without court
supervision. Do you? I find nothing humorous about government seizure of property
without due process of law. Do you? Apparently George and company get off on
it.
Do I think GW wants a Christian theocracy? No, I think GW is an opportunist
who would use any convenient group of loonies to further his power-grabbing
agenda. I believe that Christian Evangelicals like Falwell and Roberts and their
followers are easy to recruit to the cause. I believe that GW, like Saddam Hussein,
will invoke the name of Allah, JC, or any god to rally the support of the not-too-bright
zealots that keep him in power.
Yes, Islamic States are theocracies. So is the Vatican. And your point is? Gosh,
maybe we should drop a "smart bomb" on the Sistine Chapel to soften
up the Papal theocracy that has oppressed so many of its own people....or maybe,
just maybe, it's none of our sanctimonious business. I think I'd like us (as
did our founders) not to have a theocracy here.
Do I think that others in the Bush Administration would impose a Christian theocracy
if they could get away with it? Yes, I do. I believe that the Pentecostal Reverend
John Ashcroft would jump at the chance to save my queer soul by means that would
rival the Spanish Inquisition---as soon as he finishes putting clothes on all
the sinful naked statues in the nation's capitol.
As far as the "election," no, I don't mind that it went to the U.S.
Supreme Court. I mind that the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote count, set
an arbitrary deadline, and then sent the case back to be decided by the Florida
Supreme Court with the disingenuous comment, "Oops, you mean we don't have
enough time to count the votes? Oh, too bad! I guess Georgie is president, then."
I mind that the Supreme Court announced, prior to its decision, that they were
stopping the vote count because the result might prejudice the Bush presidency.
I mind that the Supreme Court used the Equal Protection Clause (without Bush
even having raised the argument) to justify the rip off of the electorate. I
won't spend the time here to point out the hypocrisy of that argument. I mind
that Antonin Scalia did not recuse himself even though both his wife and his
son were involved with either the Bush campaign or the Bush suit pending before
that very same Supreme Court. I mind, Jeff, the intellectual dishonesty of that
process, not the result of the vote. I am used to courts voting in ways I don't
like. It's the dishonesty and corruption I don't like. And, you are right: I
do not find it funny.
Bush abrogates treaties with abandon and orders Iraqis killed in contravention
of International Law. He tramples individual liberties .. and you want to convince
me it's not as bad as lying about a blow job? Now, that is funny. Pathetically
funny, I guess. It does offer additional evidence, though, of how many Christians
seem to be more concerned with with what consenting adults do with their pee
pees than with domestic and international policy.
Anyway, the discussion you started was not about Bill Clinton. It was about
the war, and how all of us should, "without reservation" support our
troops. That sort of mindlessness is scary. I am sorry you thought it was "just
sort of funny." If that is funny, then I can only imagine the hilarity
that will result from the thousands of dead from this war will bring.
John Clarkson