What the War is Really About...

[Alex]

Imagine a Corporate Board Meeting.

Among the board members is one individual who doesn't seem to fit in with everyone else.
This particular board member doesn't show the proper etiquette, decorum, or behavior befitting a board member.

Why are they even on the board of this company at all?

Because they were the victim of wealth they did not create. [img]confused.gif[/img]

The Corporation needs this particular board member's access to vast & unique resources.
This particular board member would rather be off doing other things. They have absolutely no interest in the company other than the fact that this member was given an offer that couldn't be refused.

The bored board member can't figure out how to spend all of their own salary. They can only own so many mansions, yachts, cars...etc.

Since the board member's vested position in the company has absolutely nothing to do with talent, desire, motivation, or vision...
the bored board member begins to act out in ways that will annoy others, not necessarily for any reason other than they just feel like acting a way that is different from the other board members.

The bored board member acts differently because they can, and because they know no one will bother them because the bored board member is well connected via the vast, unique resources at their disposal.

The fracture between everyone else in the company and this individual continues to grow as the bored board member increases activity that the others find distasteful.

----------------------------------------------

That is why this particular war is being fought. Saddam Hussein is the Bored Board member who has no desire to belong to the very process that insures his wealth.

What is being done now in Iraq will in no way solve the long-term problem. The war is a short-term step that does not acknowledge that even if we are right to prevent the bored board member from acting out; we were the ones that first contacted this person/region/culture and expected that they share both the abundant resources they own AND civility of the kind found in our own culture.

Should one culture ever force another culture to accept their ways? Probably not.

But that is what we did when we rationalized that "their not using their oil, so we'll develop it for them and share the profits".

Big mistake.

And it may be one that the planet never recovers from.

[cameraguy]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 30, 2003 05:28 AM: Message edited by: cameraguy ]</font>

[Alex]

[img]eek.gif[/img]

Sometimes what happens when one side or the other uses a fixed point in time to make a claim there is a previous point in time that favors the other side.

[Alex]

Well, I just watched the Iraqi's topple a Saddam statue. The funny thing was it still held on by it's ankle. It kind of reminded me of when we pull down field goal posts in this country after a football game.

I for one am ashamed at the self-congratulatory reportig that is being beamed back to the U.S.

If a foreign power "liberated" the U.S. you could easily find 50-100 million American Citizens who would celebrate the toppling of the George Bush administration.

The point is ANY regime always has disgruntled citizens who would celebrate their own government's ouster.

[cameraguy]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ August 30, 2003 05:29 AM: Message edited by: cameraguy ]</font>

[Alex]

The Defiling of the Saddam Statues as if they were goalposts being torn down after a football game was a lost opportunity to show the Iraqi's how one can be graceful in a time of victory.

Instead, we have fueled future aggression against Americans in that region. The mob mentality
surrounding the downing of the statues simply reinforces the idea that when you are angry, you take to the streets and support violence. What a lovely example to give to a region that has been led to believe that suicide bombing is a divine right. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The Saddam statue should have been handled with more respect. Not out of respect to the statue, but to show that respect is critical in times of emotional conflict.

The Saddam Statue should have been lowered to eye-level by removing the base that elevates it to faux God-like status, and the statue should then have been put off to the side so Iraq's could look at it eye to eye, one on on, and see it as something that in fact is not larger than life, but merely a human being who had way too much power.

Instead, by toppling the Iraqi statue during a moblike circus arena, we have et up future aggression that may involve dead American soldiers and civilians being dragged through the streets of middle eastern countries.

Ti-t for tat.

Just as we have been horrified whenever an American Prisoner has been killed and paraded through the streets of Iran and Iraq, they too must be horrified to see their leader's image toppled and dragged through the streets of Baghdad. Even if half the population hated Saddam, probably half loved him.

Too bad we didn't think the Saddam statue policy through before we began toppling them. That was a lost opportunity that shows me that our government isn't thinking ahead.