A Household Debate

I just got done watching the President's press conference. I thought he did ok. Didn't sound like anything new and exciting was disclosed. But afterwards, my girlfriend and I had an interesting discussion about our position on Iraq.

I believe that the forced removal of Saddam is the right course of action. My girlfriend does not. You've already seen a lot of my arguments for the war, so I'll examine and discuss her arguments (and attempt to provide answers since she wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise).

Her main argument against the war is that Iraq has not done anything to us,so we shouldn't attack them. Iraq has invaded and attacked out allies. They have threatened our friends. They pay bounty for the murder of our friends. They harbored and aided many of the men who attacked us on 9/11. True, they weren't Iraqi citizens, but Saddam did aid them. Iraq has a large stockpile of biological and chemical weapons, which he will not hesitate to use or to pass out to the terrorist of the week. Saddam has already expressed his desire to destroy the US, just to this point he hasn't perfected an effective delivery system. Iraq has not attacked us directly - yet, but they will. I want to cut their opportunity short - before it happens, before 20,000 Americans die in their homes. She thinks we can wait and nothing bad will happen. In my opinion the risk is too great to take.

She also argues that if we attack Iraq, terrorists will attack us here at home. She's probably right. She also agrees with me that terrorists will eventually attack us here again anyway. If we have to take another terror attack, I would rather do it now rather than later. Right now, the likelyhood of a terrorist having WMDs is small. The longer it takes before the next attack, the more likely it is that it will be with a WMD. Everyday it becomes more likely. A terrorist attack will galvanize the country (her included) again against the terrorists. If people have to die, I want as few as possible to perish. That's why I'd rather see an attack now rather than later, the damage will be less; the reaction more intense.

She is also concerned that we are attempting to dominate the world by forcing democracy on everyone. I don't believe that we are trying to dominate the world and I don't think that we're trying to force democracy on everyone. We are trying to liberate a repressed people. We are trying to help the Iraqis to create a more stable government in the Middle East. Unlike the Romans or the Europeans of the Middle Ages, we are not trying to dominate and annex a new province. We intend to go in, do our job and get out.

She also believes that we spend too much time helping foreigners at the expense of Americans. She asked the rhetorical question about feeding Somalis while allowing Americans to starve. I believe (and she doesn't disagree) that help is there for any American willing to get off their ass and to make an intelligent choice (food instead of crack, etc). She just believes that we don't do enough to help our own and that we need to stop helping others until we help our own. I don't disagree that we could do more, but all the homeless people I have seen running around are fairly large (also have noticed one who owns more new sneakers than I do!). I think that we are doing a fairly good job of helping our own. Not perfect, but pretty good. It is certainly good enough that we can justify trying to help our fellow humans outside our borders. It's not at the expense of helping Americans; it's in addition to helping Americans.

From there our discussion degenerated into an argument about other things (welfare, education, state policy, neighbors - just all kinds of stuff) that really aren't of much interest to anyone but us.

I think it's kind of ironic that she would have these opinions. During the last Presidential election, her and one of our neighbors had some pretty strong debates about the candidates and concepts such as personal responsibility. Normally, we aren't this far apart on any issue (we just get caught up in fighting about minor, minor details). I'll still continue to love her anyway, but I think she's wrong in this case. Anyone want to come to her defense?