Decent And Intelligent

June 4 2004

Recently several letters have appeared in the Prairie Post commenting on the US election and on American foreign policy in general.  These letters reminded me of something George Bernard Shaw had written.  He used three concepts to describe the positions of individuals in Nazi Germany: intelligence, decency and Naziism. He argued that if a person was intelligent and a Nazi, he was not decent. If he was decent and a Nazi, he was not intelligent. And if he was both decent and intelligent, he was not a Nazi.

Is it possible for a decent intelligent person to support US foreign policy?  Perhaps, but in my opinion it would be impossible for a decent informed person to do so.

I could give a few dozen examples but let’s stick to Iraq. Knowing what we now know, how could any decent informed person support this US invasion which has killed up to 100,000 innocent Iraqis and over 1300 American military personal?  Now we know there were no weapons of mass destruction or Iraqi connection to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York.  We also know that the US supported Saddam Hussein by supplying him with money and arms (even poison gas) while he was carrying out his worst atrocities in both Iraq and Iran.

We know as well that the US has coveted Iraq’s oil and had plans to invade Iraq long before the 9/11 attack.

Knowing all this, how can any decent informed person support it?  Lets hope that your readers are decent and informed enough to not even try.