Say "YES" to War on Iraq - Dan Savage, the Stranger, Oct 17, 2002

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=12237

excerpt:

But wait! Taking out Saddam means dropping bombs, and dropping bombs only creates more terrorists!

That's the lefty argument du jour, and a lot of squish-brains are falling for it, but it's not an argument that the historical record supports. The United States dropped a hell of a lot of bombs on Serbia, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, and Italy. If dropping bombs creates terrorists, where are all the German terrorists? Or the Italian terrorists? Or the Vietnamese terrorists?

But wait! Iraq isn't in cahoots with al Qaeda, so why attack Iraq in the war on terrorism?

Because we're not just at war with al Qaeda, stupid. We're at war with a large and growing Islamo-fascist movement that draws its troops and funds from all over the Islamic world. Islamo-fascism is a regional problem, not just an al Qaeda problem or an Afghanistan problem. To stop Islamo-fascism, we're going to have to roll back all of the tyrannous and dictatorial regimes in the Middle East while simultaneously waging war against a militant, deadly religious ideology. To be completely honest, I would actually prefer that the United States go to war against the ridiculous royal family in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have been using American money to export their intolerant and deadly strain of Islam all over the world (the kind of Islam that inspires people to blow up discos in Bali), and getting rid of the Saudi royal family and their fascist clerics makes more sense than getting rid of Saddam. But the Saudis are our "allies," so perhaps we can pressure them to reform, as Josh Feit suggests.

In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves.

Post-9/11, post-Bali, what other choice do we have?

seriously though, is it that hard to see how the insurgency has grown thanks to us?

Puget Sound will be entirely caffeine by the year 2057.

In fact, we should refuse all Repub or other RW converts and anyone who has ever supported anything we're against. Once we get done with that there should be about three people left around here, and that sure would save DU a lot of bandwidth!

how does that follow the article at all?

Don't worry.

still taking a Friedmanesque line that if only Iraq had been somehow done "right" he would have been vindicated:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=22626

I was for this thing. I went out on a limb and backed it openly, saying in print what some hawkish liberals would only whisper. I wasn't the only well-known lefty and/or liberal to openly back the war—and I was far from the highest profile or most influential. It's fair to say that the opinion of one dope-smoking, knob-licking, sex-advice columnist didn't have too much of an impact in the Situation Room at the White House.

First things first: I wanted this thing to succeed. I still do. But it's time to declare victory and get the fuck out of Iraq.

. . .

I enjoy his sex advice column, but he has been nothing but a shithead on the Iraq war from the start of it until now.

Dan Savage has always been a long-time left-wing columnist for Seattle's alternative weekly the stranger. Ideologically and temperamentally, he'd probably be to the left of most people on DU. Which is what makes his sudden parroting of the neo-con line so surprising (not to mention disgusting).

Usually that puts him in a lefty position.

But he sometimes just can't resist a totally nutso position just to maintain his "edge".

...as someone who needs to be the center of attention at all times, and will do anything to keep it.

:puke:



Strangely (pun intended), Islamo-fascism may have been a "regional problem," but it sure wasn't an Iraqi problem...at least not back then...



...since, of course, once you eliminate dictatorships, and establish democratically-elected governments in the Middle East, Islamic fundamentalism completely loses its appeal. :eyes:

(Do you think the elephant in the room here, for Dan, is the unspoken equation "Islamic = anti-gay?")

"Hey, stupid! Let's go to war!"

Like he never even CONSIDERED the possibility that our invading could actually MAKE THINGS WORSE. In his mind, war was like a magic wand we'd wave over country after country, miraculously changing Islamic tyrannies into... liberals, I guess? Wishing something was so doesn't make it so. In reality, war kills, destroys, maims, murders, and rarely ever turns out the way those who initiate it wanted.

You know that Protest Warrior sign? "Except for ending slavery, Communism, Fascism, and Nazism, War has Never Solved Anything?" It's bullshit. The reason we called the Cold War cold is because *we never actually went to war*. If we had, the planet would still be radioactive smouldering rubble. And both WWII and the Civil War were LOST by those who initiated them. If anything, they prove that embracing war leads to defeat. And now you can add Iraq to that column, as well.

Dear Dan Savage, who's the stupid one now?

Not Michael Savage, but "Hey Faggot!" Santorum, ITMFA Dan Savage.

views in nationally syndicated columns. Though many do.

is great.

He should stay away from geopolitics, methinks.

he has been consistently fucking geopolitics up, that's for sure.

As I said, I really enjoy his column.

I pretty much stopped reading his column many years ago.

One of the last straws was his statement that oral sex was safe (with regard to HIV). When the actual risks were pointed out, his response was something like "Well eating a sandwich COULD be dangerous too", as if the risk of accidentally choking on a sandwich was the same as transmission of HIV.

He's fine with the funny, but ought to avoid more serious topics.

Who cares what Dan Savage thought about the Iraq War back in 2002?

OMG! I'm going to stop reading his sex column and I'm not going to support his Impeach Bush website because he was wrong about the Iraq war four years ago!

was more neo-con apologetics, a la William Kristol and Tom Friedman.

Do what you will with the thread. It's your site.

I think it is important that we know the history of the people we align ourselves with. If for no other reason than to keep from being blind-sided by "shocking revelations" later.

How many times have we heard the Senator Byrd was in the KKK thing?
Well, if you did not know that previously, a Freeper could throw it at you and it could really unbalance your opinion of him. But by knowing of it in advance, and knowing what steps and statements he's made since then is a great help.

Now, personally, I can never find it in myself to condone ANYONE who actively promoted the war. I just cannot do it. But if other people choose to support those who promoted and now have changed their position, that is a matter of their conscience and what they feel brings the greater good. I can understand that. But I think it still behooves them to know the histories of these people, what they said, and what they wrote and thought.

Just my .02

It's important to remember stuff; engaging in thoughtcrime like remembering things is one of the ultimate subversions. At a time when voices were lining up one way or the other on the prospect of an unprecedented invasion by the United States, every voice added to the pro-war chorus was another voice used to beat us over the head: "See, even Dan Savage is in favor of invading Iraq! Get with the program." Unspoken (though not always) was the epithet "coward" or "traitor."

I've read portions of Savage's book "The Kid." I wonder if Savage will volunteer his precious and well-loved son for Iraq? If not, I don't understand why he would be so gung-ho to volunteer other people's precious and well-loved children for Iraq.

Whatever a person decides about reading Savage's column or supporting his ITMFA drive, I submit it's also important to ask for how long impeaching Bush will be Savage's deepest, most heart-felt conviction. After all, he seems to have soured on his past support for invading Iraq rather quickly just because the going got a little rough. What if Bush doesn't meekly submit to being impeached and removed from office? Will Savage close down his ITMFA drive six months or a year from now and say, "Just kidding! I didn't think Bush would actually defend himself!"

Not because Dan Savage's opinion was especially important, but because it's such a powerful look back at the kind of facile reasoning (if you can call it reasoning) that got us into this mess in the first place, especially from traditional liberals suddenly caught up in the thrall of war fever. I mean, just read the thing!

He accuses the left of "losing its moral compass." My moral compass has been pointing the same direction the whole time, while his has apparently been spinning like a helicopter blade.

He makes the claim that the left is "content to see an Iraqi dictator terrorizing the Iraqi people" -- what a joke! It's as if your friend was pinned under a rock and an onlooker offered to detonate 20 tons of TNT under it to "save" your friend. You tell him no, and suddenly he tells everyone in earshot that you're just "content" to watch your friend die.

He mocks the people who actually demonstrated against Bush. Anyone paying attention going into this war knew that Bush and his den of jackals couldn't be trusted to do this right, if, indeed, it needed to be done at all.

And "squish-brains"? "We're not just at war with al Qaeda, stupid?" The Republican culture of replacing arguments with insults is on crystal display here. Against the war in Iraq? Must be because you're a pacifist leftie squish-brain, too wimpy to fight for freedom, according to Dan. There are a million non-pacifist reasons liberals opposed this war, but apparently Dan just plugged his ears.

This is the sort of thing they ought to print in textbooks someday to show what war-fever actually looks like. I don't hate Dan Savage for being wrong, but I'm not willing to roll over and pretend this sort of thing never happened, either.

So now to answer the question a different way, I'd say, yes, if Dan Savage gets two big threads on the home page, he can have one little one in GD discussing unresolved problems with his support of the Iraq war and his loathsome justifications for that support.

But again, I'm just a user, not a mod or an admin. The ultimate decision is somebody else's.

And I still enjoy his column as entertainment. He is an entertainer and ITMFA is of of the stunts in his show.

This was way back in 2002...weren't we still pretending to be looking for WMD back then? Gosh, Dan...none of the reasons your president (not mine) told us all was his reason for starting an unprovoked war was that Saddam had WMD, not to free the Iraqi poeple or fight Islamo-fascism!

Yet today, so many of them still squawk this bullshit like broken parrots.

He should stick to giggling, juvenile sex columns.

big ol' reservation, send 'em to a mission school, and beat them into fascist pseudo christian 'muricanism.

Wow. Was that ever an imperialistic, racist diatribe or what? are you sure that wasn't an excerpt from a Paul Wolfowitz speaking engagement?

Is Dan Savage a closeted Log Cabin Republican?

Talk about losing all your cred. Sheesh.