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Aaaaaah fuck it, we're all going to die!

Brigade du jour

20:50 / 13.04.03

Bearing in mind that I only have computer access for about an hour a day while I'm at work, I've just been reading a fair old chunk of the various threads about Iraq (ooh, what do ya want? a medal?).

Add all this to the terminal kaleidoscope of possibilities pumped regularly into my brain by the newspaper articles I read every night in my job, I'm finding it harder and harder to maintain a personal moral/social/political stance in what's happening in Iraq, at least beyond my basic belief that killing and violence is wrong, just fuckin' wrong okay?

So, I thought it might be worth a thread to mention the alternative of giving up all emotional commitment to opposing the invasion and saying something akin to the title above. After all, crude as it is, it's still true. It doesn't entail not caring exactly, so much as it entails just accepting that war, violence and death and destruction and frenzy and hatred are facts of life.

What do you guys reckon? Is it a stance worth considering or have I just been working too damn hard and thinking too damn much about the whole thing that I can't see the camels for the desert?

Tryphena Absent

21:25 / 13.04.03

I think a lot of people are quite prepared to take that position but I'm not one of them. If anything our motivation to protest should get bigger and fantabulously shocking because our unnecessary force has hurt a country, its inhabitants and abused the Kurds in the process. Why should we disassociate ourselves from a government that should be representing us? The newspapers are a terrible source of information with regards to this event though not quite as bad as the TV- they read like fiction and there's so little serious reporting. The sensationalism makes me sick and I'd much rather have some accurate information on what could happen next rather then read what some soldier has said.

If we die then so be it but I'd rather die having screamed about how wrong the world is then have kind of thought it and shrugged it off.

01:24 / 14.04.03

I find that I'm doing a little bit of all of the above to maintain sanity...

I've attended some of the peace rallies here in San Francisco, have been avoiding the televised coverage (can't call it news, but it's not ALL propaganda), and am trying to get most of my news from non-USUK sources. It helps, but I'm kind of at a loss as well.

There's a concept called "bearing witness" that I'm trying to wrap my head around. I don't quite get it, but it still seems to be one appropriate response to the madness. Another response is to look at things as they are, accept that (sort of, anyway), and look at the next thing.

Case in point. "We" - the US - should not have invaded Iraq. Yes, Saddam has done evil things, probably had all sorts of evil plots for the future; but I think the UN inspectors should have been allowed to finish their job...

OK, "we" invaded Iraq. What is the "best" outcome? Saddam's regime crumbles with minimal loss of life on all sides... then what? Should the US be allowed to profit from the occupation fo Iraq? No, but I don't know how to protest this either....

I guess that my point is that, "Well, yeah, we are all going to die sooner or later. It's what we do in the interim that counts." But I'm at a loss to explain why it counts and who's keeping score...

Our Lady of The Two Towers

12:48 / 14.04.03

I have, to a certain extent, zoned out on conversations about the war and stopped watching the news (though mainly due to BBC News giving up news reporting to concentrate solely on the bombing of Iraq) but although I am ill-informed about how evil it is for the Iraqis to do something that it's correct and heroic for the UK/US to do, it's different to the tension I felt months ago in the endless build-up to things.

I think it's decreased my desire to talk about it, but not my desire to do something.