February 15: Happy Valentine's?

3pm

I spent my Valentines evening with some friends at a ice hockey game. Man that is violent stuff. Even the fans are rough. During the opening line-up announcement, the home crowd was already yelling "You Suck!" as each opposing team player's name was announced. When we scored in the first minute of play, the crowd chanted at the opposing goalie, "It's all your fault!" I don't know if the crowd has so much angst because of the players, or if the players feed off the crowd. At any rate, it didn't take long before the first fight, then the second, and third, and forth. Nothing like a little violence to take one's mind off of Valentine's Day.

I have been reading a little about the sixties student movements in hopes of writing a report this week. I was supposed to already be typing the report during this time, but I am behind. I guess I will have to make a pilgrimage to the lab again later this week. Anyway, I am enjoying learning more about the Vietnam War, Civil Rights Movement, Hippies, et al. all at once. It is amazing how little I know about it. Only thirty years behind us, yet it seems like another time and place (okay, it is).

I have also been giving a little thought to the Iraq problem. I am sure that I am influenced by the fact that I am taking this youth protest class, but I am nearly convinced that the US is all wrong. The problem is pretty complex, though.

It seems to me that it goes back to post WWII. I think that is when the great powers (ie, the winners) drew up lines for many of the Middle Eastern countries. Obviously, they didn't do this blindly, but it was pretty arbitrary. Who's to say that Kuwait couldn't have been part of Iraq from the beginning. Why didn't they make a separate country for the Kurds who live between Iraq, Iran and Turkey? We take these lines for granted now, but perhaps the original premise was all wrong.

Anyway, so let's say that Kuwait is a distinct country from Iraq. Was Iraq so crazy to go in and take over. Is that not what the Western powers did for a good couple hundred years? Sure, we have realized the error of our ways. We have also moved along in environmental protection, but does this mean that we can impose our "superior" ideas of right and wrong on to developing countries? To what extent do we need to police them?

Okay, so let's agree that maybe Iraq was also wrong to colonize Kuwait and drain its resources. It's great that we went in and stopped them. Then what? Well, we have to help them rebuild and get some assurance that they won't do anything wacky again. We have done this semi-successfully in Germany and Japan and other places in the past. BUT, it seems like the Iraqi inspection mission is a mess. Should it really take seven years to look for weapons? Is it not more efficient to make good defense systems for Israel and surrounding "allies" who are "endangered"? Last time I checked, it was impossible to scour a whole country looking for any trace of chemical and nuclear weapons.

So Iraq is now tired of waiting for this inspection (which is biased by an overly American team) to end. They have watched the country's economy go down the drain. How long should they have to wait?

I just don't see any reason why we can't be a little more cooperative here. I am not big on killing people, so perhaps we could look at the make-up of this inspection team. We all know that the UN is a little US biased anyway.

So, that's my Valentine's Day revelation. Have been enjoying a little of the Olympics. The CBS coverage is not the best (though better than TNT). Hoping that the US won't bomb Iraq when the closing ceremony ends.

Next time: Should we murder Saddam Hussain?


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