:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Friday 1 July 2005 ::

I like it when Tim Blair is mean

Atchally, in a weirdo bit of wog-skip-Oz-bloggy synchronicity, I was trawling through the Clive James site that Tim also linked to today or yesterday, and found this perfect big diamond of an essay written by James just over a year ago.

The man can think and he can write.

I particularly liked this opening bit:

The mad idea that the Jews have no right to exist is a potent intensifier of the almost equally mad idea that the State of Israel can somehow be eliminated. I say "almost" because a friend of mine in Australia recently presented me with a plausible case that the Middle East would probably be a more peaceful area if the State of Israel had never been founded. Like her argument that the Aborigines would have been a lot happier if the Europeans had never shown up, this contention was hard to rebut, except by rudely pointing out that we were both sitting in an Italian restaurant in Melbourne, history having happened.

History having happened.

Ya got that right, man.

The approach that I most loathe of the anti-Iraq types - yeah, yeah, the one's against the war, but frankly, if you ever thought Saddam was leaving without war you are just mental - is the anger and bile over history that has happened.

You know the drill - we were lied to about WMD, Saddam is not the only appalling despot on earth, containment was working [not our problem, do nothing, Bush is an idiot, soverign nations, I like refugees I just do not want to help them out at home bla-blah].

All about history.

I mean, you could not hire one of these folks, could you? How could you ever work with them? What possible value is there in a person who is wrong about something, but who cannot let go and get right about it?

Like, wogs are rather known for their ability to hold grudges (think Serbs + Croats, think me and Sister Nicoline, who gave me the strap in front of the whole school in Grade 4 because I chased Michael somebody-or-other into the toilets cos he pushed me over and took one of my shoes....the freak.....ahem). But to be fair, the grudges are all pretty well based - big fat disputes over death and land and atrocity.

But all these anglo-wankers who hate Bush, in Oz, in England, in Canadia and the US, well, whooo, they sure are giving the wogs a run for their money in the grudge-holding stakes. Cos their grudge is all about philosophy. Theirs is a philosophy that says war is bad and that is all, and mine is a philosophy that says some people are cunts and don't deserve any protections and Saddam is one.

Bottom line for my support of the war - I could not think of a good reason not to support it.

I mean, you got your jackass despot Saddam refusing to improve, on the one hand, and n the other you got Iraqi communities around the world who got their by fleeing Saddam cos he is a jackass despot, ho call him a jackass despot and want him to be removed.

Bit of a 'nuff said', really. Get rid of Saddam, get rid of a big fat refugee problem too.

But this is all too complicated for some people.

As Blair notes again, still with the plastic turkey bullshit as a slur against Bush.

Still. It was wrong day 1 and remains so in 2005.

History has happened. Everything we in the West are left with, if we indulge in fanstasies of the wrongness of the Iraq war, is a 'what if'.

There is a series of 'what if' books and i recently dipped into the 'What If America' one.

Crapola is my verdict, as you can probably guess. I got no time for what if.

Plenty of time to learn from history and do things better next time round, fer sure.

But what ifs? Nah.

Oh plus, just so's I don't miss it, Sept 11 changed everything and if it did not for you, you are an idiot. Saddam was a jackass from day 1 and everyone knew it cos the Iraqis all over the world, in Melbourne and London and Toronto etc, had been telling us all about it. But Sept 12 he became an intolerable jackass.

There was simply no good reason to tolerate him any more.

UPDATE: I also like it when Goldstein is mean.
:: WB 4:53 pm [link+] ::