Schoolyard politics

2003-02-09 - 3:51 a.m.

I'm listening to the CBC radio overnight, a story about how a bunch of reporters were invited into Iraq to look at one of the sites that Powell mentioned as being a biological/chemical weapons plant.

The reporters found nothing, except for some small arms (machine guns, etc. Exactly what you'd find in a Western Armed Forces base) and nervous personel afraid that their base was about to be bombed by invading forces.

Anything that might have been useable for making banned weapons was old and clearly had been unused for years.

One of the guidelines to being a responsible sceptic when you only have hearsay and conflicting stories to go by is to ask yourself which story seems more outlandish. It's not a reliable way to tell what's truth and what's not, but in cases where you only have other peoples' words to go by it's often the only way.

In a world where photoshop is available to anyone with a computer, I'd really rather we had more than pictures to go by before bombing tens of thousands of people.

One more thing: some official has been saying that since America has already threatened violence, it would be cowardly for them to change their minds. I'd like to answer that with a story from my youth.

When I was in grade three, I had a bully. He beat me up a lot. He stole things from my yard, he wrecked my bike and a gumball machine that I had received for my birthday, we shared a bus stop, and I was afraid to take the bus because he would attack me.

Now, he didn't attack me -all- the time. Sometimes he just threatened. And let me tell you, threats are pretty much enough in a lot of cases. I folded like a bad poker player if he even looked at me. He just needed to be in the same room to keep me in line.

Things might have gone on like that for a while...a long while, actually. I was fairly meek, and really, once you get punched in the face a few times you learn your place pretty fast.

Thing is, he liked beating me up. So, even if I was already terrified, was already trembling in fear and giving him whatever he wanted, he'd still beat me up. Here was my dilemma:

If I do not do what he wants, he will beat me up.

If I do everything he wants, he will still beat me up.

I do not like being beat up and my mom can't drive me to school every day.

One day, I had to wait at the bus stop. He approached me, and I knew that he wanted violence. Armed only with my school bag in one hand and my plastic lunch box in the other, I went at him like a rabid guinea pig. He did not beat me up that day.

His mistake? He followed through with violence even though I was already cowed.

Now, I'm not Saddam Hussein. Saddam, in grade three, probably would have been packin' and might have plotted and schemed to bring down the bully in a firey blaze of glory. Who can say.

The thing is, the UN is getting more freedom for their inspectors than they have had in five years or more. Saddam is giving the UN just about everything they want, with a few sticking points. To a lot of nations standing by and watching what happens (and I bet a lot of potential rogue-style nations, whatever they are, are watching this pissing contest pretty closely - I know I would be) it looks like Saddam is giving up quite a bit.

But, according to the US, what are Iraq's choices?

Get caught violating the rules - War.

Don't give in any more - War.

Don't get caught, be the best dang Evil Nation ever - War.

If -any- nation is put into a situation where they're going to be bombed no matter what they do, they're going to go down fighting.

The -only- thing keeping Iraq in line while the US is holding a gun on them is the hope that if they cave in just enough, they'll avoid war. If there's no hope for peace, they'll take the only option left: war with guns blazing.

The only thing that kept me from fighting back against my bully was the hope that if I did everything just right, I would not get hurt.

The problem with cowboy politics is that, after the shoot out, there are a heck of a lot of bodies from both sides lying around.

Cheers,

The Magus

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