News Mar 13, 2003 at 4:00 am

The West made a mess of the Middle East, and one day the West will have to clean it up. But not today.

Comments

1
i dunno, mr dan., if you're correct, but I think, I THINK, there might be a better way. is the violence of one state against another the best course of action? call me a pinko faggot but everyday I teach my children that conversation rather than confrontation is the best method of settling any dispute. why don't you write about china (where civil liberties are next to nothing). are you just helping this stupid nation based earth (verses this human being based earth) along in the same shitty direction it's been heading for too long? I wish you could come to my house and explain to my children why you would support the killing of innocent human beings.
2
The very first assumption in the article was beyond laughable and incredibly childish.

The very basis for the humanitarian war was the assumption that George Bush's main motive for declaring war was freedom, democracy, humanity, secularism, butterflies, unicorns and chocolate covered rainbows.

The US army doesn't fire love and flowers. It fires bombs and bullet which kill and maim. Before the war, Saddam was killing about 2000 Iraqis per year (and that included criminals sentenced with the death penalty). Today, Iraq still executes hundreds of its citizens.

The war and the anarchy it produced is estimated to have lead to an excess death of 1.5 million people. All and all, the humanitarian war killed as many Iraqis as Saddam's rule would have killed in 500 years.

This is what Savage and the rest of the wartards were never able to understand before the war, and have not been able to figure out even since.
3
This article is embarrassingly naïve about the history of Western powers remaking other countries in their image. Of course, it is now 2012 and in hindsight, we can all see what a disaster the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been. However, how long has Afghanistan been called the "imperialist's graveyard?" The fact still remains that large numbers of innocent citizens in both countries are suffering due to the actions of a few extremists. Dan Savage is so good on queer issues, women's issues, sex issues. How did he manage to fuck this one up so badly? Don't let us down again, please.
4
God. This article is even a larger embarrassment that his Say Yes To War rant.

He honestly compares D-Day in Normandy to invading Iraq. What a fucking idiot.

Dan. The Germans were occupying Normandy. It's in France. Iraq is... occupying Iraq. WE'RE the invaders and occupiers in Iraq. Exactly like the Nazi invaders and occupiers of France. Your analogy would be better if it was Iran that invaded Iraq to expel us.

Not only that is his main argument is that Bush doesn't want to invade and kill enough people. that's why he "kind of" against the war (for now) all-of-a-sudden. Because we aren't going to kill enough Ay-rabs in Syria and Saudi Arabia. Not because they don't pose a threat or that there isn't any WMD's but because he just can get enough brown people blood.

I had completely forgot about this piece of sickening history. Here it is faithfully preserved by the Stranger. For now.

5
http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/03… media matters posted a rouges gallery of media boosters of the time, but by far the most insidious is the war apologist like Savage and Frizelle who hate protesters so much that they will set aside little things like a generation of wrecked vets, our nation bankrupted and Iraq a crushed hulk waiting to sink to Haiti like depths.
I have never forgotten the madness this nation sunk into during that time, I sunk into a mini depression as I watched the war profiteers go into overtime. I hope to fuck the Stranger staff will look through these archives the next time we head into an orgy of retribution and war madness, and ask themselves if they want to be remembered this way.
6
Fuck you Dan Savage! Cheers.
7
One of Savage's big themes in this column is accountability -- the West screwed up the Middle East, so the West has to fix the Middle East. The logic, in context, is infantile, but the basic moral sentiment has some value. What I want to know is, where is Dan Savage on accountability now? He was wrong. He helped to provide cover from the left for a war that's left hundreds of thousands dead, maimed, or ruined; he boldly trumpeted assertions about military strategy and geopolitics that he had no more business making than the average five year-old. Why? Because of his weariness with the oppressive predictability of the tiresome left-wingers he has to suffer in Seattle? Wait, let me brush back a first-world tear. Where's the plaintive apology? Where's the sincere remorse? Where's the promise to retreat to a remote cave and never, ever impose another written word on the public again, because he blew any moral right he ever had to take money for sharing what pass for his ideas? Come on, Dan, you sickening, worthless, blood-drenched coward. Where's the accountability?
8
Dan Savage is scum and most likely hasn't met anyone from Arab countries to make such gross generalizations about. Worthless ass.
9
I honestly thought I could never agree with DS on anything but perhaps LGBT rights and reproductive rights, but this article proved me wrong. Dan might be very left on virtually everything, but his most prominent feature is his intellect.
The decision to not allow Saddam Hussein to remain the sole owner of Iraq and the slave holder of its 24 million people was lauded as both ethical and necessary for our own defense by virtually every member of the intelligent left from Christopher Hitchens to Bill Clinton (whose 1997 speech making the case for replacing Hussein with a parliamentary democracy served as the basis for the invasion and subsequent state building.) With this article, DS proves that he deserves to be considered part of the highest echelons of the intelligent left. Bravo Dan!
And as for the commentators here who say things like, "this is an even bigger mistake than his Say Yes To War piece," I will remind you of that article's first paragraph; "I look at the poster every day when I sit down to work, and every day I wonder how and when the American left lost its moral compass."
Well congrats, with comments like that you prove him right.
-One more crazy war-hawk who loves DS
10
So now Dan's against the war on Iraq. What a change form when he wrote: "In the meantime, invading and rebuilding Iraq will not only free the Iraqi people, it will also make the Saudis aware of the consequences they face if they continue to oppress their own people while exporting terrorism and terrorists. The War on Iraq will make it clear to our friends and enemies in the Middle East (and elsewhere) that we mean business: Free your people, reform your societies, liberalize, and democratize... or we're going to come over there, remove you from power, free your people, and reform your societies for ourselves." in his infamous article "say yes to war on Iraq."

So now that Dan has graciously admitted his mistake> wonderful! And the Sun shows down and the war dead rise from their graves; the maimed are made whole; the millions driven from their homes return to peace and prosperity; the war widows now reduced to prostitution in other countries to feed their kids reclaim their dignity.

To me Dan Savage you will always be a bloodstained cowardly piece of shit no better morally than Bush and Cheney. The only people i have more contempt for are your fans.
11
Dan, why don't you stick to subjects you know about, such as butt-fucking? When it comes to foreign policy, you are full of Santorum.
12
@11. You do realize this is from 10 years ago, right?

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