Judson Cox, May 26, 2003

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with a college professor who is opposed to the war in Iraq. He is the author of several textbooks, the recipient of many awards and honors in his field of study, and an esteemed educator at a respected northern university. Because I enjoy debate and political discussion, I looked forward to challenging his position. I came to the table prepared to counter every argument that Saddam Hussein is really an all right guy, and America the true enemy of humanity (the typical blame America first shibboleths) with evidence of his cruelty to his own people and his determination to harm our nation and our allies. I was ready to discuss Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds, his stock pilling of biological and chemical weapons, his attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, and his funding of anti-American terrorist groups. To my surprise, the professor hit me with an argument against which I was totally unprepared to defend.

He said, "Saddam Hussein is a crazy, evil, brutal dictator. He has killed his own people, and wants to kill us. Everything Bush has said about him is true. But, Saddam has tons of nerve gas and biological weapons. If we leave the negotiating table, or give up on arms inspectors; if we declare war, he will have no reason not to use those weapons. He will gas our troops. Thousands will return home in body bags. He could also give biological weapons to Al Queda and other terrorist groups." "According to the CIA and the Israelis, he is already giving chemical and biological weapons to terrorist groups," I replied. "He’ll give them more, and he will gas our troops. Besides, you don’t believe everything the CIA tells you, do you? They answer to Bush, and Bush would say anything to get us into a war with Iraq. He wants to make his daddy proud. And the Israelis, they would say anything to make Muslims look bad. They want the world on their side, so no one will complain about their genocide against the Palestinians." At this point a fog of confusion began to cloud my mind. He was throwing so many illogical arguments at me at once, that I didn’t know which irrelevant point to respond to first. There is a unique headache one gets when debating a liberal; it is somewhat like an ice cream headache, but instead of being overwhelmed by cold, the sheer volume of invective, stupidity, and faulty reason confound the mind. In order not to be distracted from the issue at hand, I chose to ignore his paranoid, conspiratorial statement regarding the CIA, his elitist pop-psychology regarding the President, and the latent anti-Semitism lurking in his supposition. I asked him simply, "OK, so what should we do."

"We have to scale back on the saber rattling, be less threatening, stop the cowboy rhetoric, lift the sanctions, and get him back to the negotiating table. The key is the economic sanctions; as long as we are starving his people and threatening war, we are creating a dangerous situation by turning the Iraqi people against us." "So, even though the last time we eased the economic sanctions to help the people of Iraq, Saddam took all the money and invested it in statues of himself and a nuclear weapons program, we should lift the sanctions entirely?" "Absolutely. If we stop threatening him, he won’t need to build more weapons; the money will get to the people." I then asked him, "So you think that Saddam Hussein will do the exact opposite of what he has done over the past few decades, stops building weapons, threatening other countries, and killing his own people. Against all evidence to the contrary, you think Saddam will negotiate a lasting peace if only America will appease him. What if you are wrong? What if we call off the war, end the sanctions, and he uses the next few years and the billions of dollars in oil to build a nuclear arsenal?" "He won’t do that." "How do you know?" I asked, "The former head of his nuclear program says Iraq was only four years away from having a nuclear arsenal when he defected." "You don’t believe that, do you? He works for the CIA." And so it went

I really shouldn’t have been so surprised by this completely muddle headed argument. For decades now, liberals of his generation have used ad hominen attacks and illogical arguments to cover up for their selfishness and apathy. Gone are the days of FDR and the civil rights era, when liberals were people who cared about others, and who would sacrifice for the good of our country. Those liberals disappeared with ideals such as duty, honor, and sacrifice. These are the liberals who looked the other way while the Clintons rented out the Lincoln Bedroom, sold pardons, sold nuclear secrets to the Chinese for campaign contributions, and disgraced the Oval Office. They did not want to be bothered with such things as perjury and treason so long as the Dow was above 10,000.

By the professor’s reasoning, no war could ever be justified, because it may be dangerous. By his logic, a murderer or a mad dog could run wild through the streets of any town in America, killing with impunity. No attempt could made to stop him; arresting him, shooting him, could be dangerous. Had the generations of the past followed this logic, America would never have declared her independence. Slavery would never be abolished: "Sure, slavery is an evil institution, but I can’t be bothered by that. I am making money!" Hitler would have taken over the world: "It’s a shame about those Jews, but if we don’t threaten him, Hitler won’t invade America."

It is no wonder that we refer to the generation that fought in World War Two as the "Greatest Generation," while we call the generation who spat on their own soldiers returning from Vietnam the "Me Generation."

Copyright © 2003 Judson Cox