The bill to set withdrawal timetables from Iraq has passed, on its way now to the President's desk--where it will be vetoed. Democrats will work on this issue from now on, presumably with an eye toward using it as a campaign issue to gain more seats and hopefully hand the White…
According to this article by Newsweek, 3,301 U.S. active-duty soldiers deserted the Army in 2006. Jeffry House is a defense lawyer representing many of these soldiers. Newsweek asked House why so many soldiers were deserting. According to House, The common idea is that the war in Iraq is going nowhere,…
Many of us remember a scientific paper released back in October 2006. It claimed that more than a half-million Iraqi people had died as a result of the US invasion. The paper, published in Lancet, has been attacked ferociously by the Bush administration. The March 1, 2007 issue of Nature…
As a nation, we seem to be making one boneheaded decision after another.
Iraq has to be the top of that list. We attacked Iraq because we couldn’t let “them” get away with what “they” did on September 11. I have heard numerous seemingly intelligent people utter this other nonsense. The only way this justification works, however, is if all people living in the Middle East are the same. There’s no basis for believing that everyone in the Middle East is “the same,” yet this truly seems to be the foundation of the thought process of many people. Someone from the Middle East attacked us, therefore we must attack someone in the Middle East. And by someone they mean anyone.
By this same logic, when someone in my neighborhood steals my car, I am justified asking the police to throw anyone from my neighborhood in prison. Anyone at all! The important thing is that I am mad or frustrated or embarrassed and I want to cast judgment some more quickly and see something done.
It’s truly amazing that intelligent people can fall for this kind of thinking, but many of us do.
Perhaps it’s because we have trouble categorizing. Take, for instance, the category “the poor.” I know many right-leaning people who claim that all poor people are deservedly poor. And they are lazy, as well as immoral and stupid. This allows many social conservatives to justify social Darwinism at the highest levels of government.
On the other hand, I …
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France The point is that even theoretically just laws can lead to de facto injustice. But how much more injustice can result from laws…