A thought on "Iraqi Freedom"

A lot of the rhetoric in favor of this war has boiled down to "if you oppose this you must not want freedom for them". Now, although I do feel that there's a good chance of positive effects from the effort in the long run (though nowhere near as glowing as some of these people would put it; Iraq is not going to become the middle east equivalent to Japan after WW2, mkay?), I'm increasingly finding the arguement morally reprehensible.



Throughout history there have been numerous battles allegedly for "liberation", but these were fought by the actual people being liberated for the longest. Now all of a sudden we can come along and declare ourselves spreading freedom by way of the gun, regardless of the fact that we know very little about the people we are supposedly freeing? The suggestion is basically that these people are too stupid to fight for their own freedom, and need someone else to do it for them.



I don't profess to know what the iraqi people are thinking. Yet still, if I were in their shoes I would wonder what this situation says about my people and the culture I am a part of. What message does it send about their resolve that were it not for an outside force acting in their own self-interest rather than any humanitarian impulse they wouldn't (or are assumed to not be able to) even get this close to tossing off the reigns? How is this not a suggestion of inferiority?



Either way, whether they take advantage of this coincidental convergance and pursue democracy, or they slide into civil war, or we install an unrepresentative puppet, I get the feeling that while the smoke clears there will be some serious soul searching going on. Let's hope we don't get in the way.