What Would You Say? -
What Would You Say? - Dave Matthews has always bored me stiff. His music is the type of dull, formulaic, Cities 97 fodder that sends me for the preset button every time. It's as if someone created genetically-modifed music product designed to appeal to the widest, blandest possible market segment.
So natch, he's all about foreign policy, too:
I hope this letter finds you all well and that in these uncertain times you find moments to be joyful.
I want to speak my mind about this war with Iraq, or I will choke on my conscience.
What is the motivation? Regime change? Shouldn't that be up to the people of the region and the people of Iraq?
That's right, Dave. Let the people of Iraq vote for a new president.
Right?
The only real threat from Saddam Hussein is to his neighbors and none of them support a U.S. invasion.
Kuwait? Oman? Turkey?
Is it to stabilize the Middle-East? Wouldn't it only do the opposite by causing further death and suffering in a country that has had more than its share?
Is it to weaken Al Qaeda? Saddam Hussein is a genocidal maniac but he is not Al Qaeda.
No. But he's a terrorist, a terror supporter, and has the means to use weapons of mass destruction to commit terror attacks.
He is certainly more visible though. Is he our target because he is easier to identify than the illusive terrorist network? Surely it is more likely that an attack on Iraq would only strengthen Al Qaeda by feeding Anti-American sentiment. Putting out the fire with gasoline, so to speak. It is certainly not to liberate the people of Iraq who suffer under Hussein's rule, unless we call killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis liberation.
And "Hundreds of Thousands" is certainly not how many will die, unless we call "lying" "truth".
Saddam Hussein is a barbaric murderous dictator. I wish the world were free of him. But the answer is not to bomb this great culture of Iraq out of existence to stop him.
Out of existence? Your hyperbole is as overwrought as your music.
Why must the children of Iraq die by the thousands to stop a tyrant? It is not justice. And if we kill him what will we achieve? We will have taken the most unpopular leader in the Middle East and turned him into the greatest martyr radical Islam has ever had.
Just like we did with Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo.
The U.N. weapons inspectors must be allowed to do their job thoroughly and any military action should be internationally agreed upon.
Every nation that matters already does agree
I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.
So many strawmen, so little time.
And will it be any less criminal in five years, when Hussein can use Al Quaeda as the long-range delivery system for his first nuke?
Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American.
If anything Mr. Matthews said had any bearing on reality, it WOULD be a pretty dicey war.
Unfortunately, it didn't.
Peacefully submitted,
Dave Matthews
I have a list of things I could suggest Mr. Matthews could do, rather than write catalogs of strawmen about the war:
- Write a song that doesn't sound like every other song you've ever recorded
- Help the environment - share statements with Sheryl Crow and Barbra Streisand
- Take more time for your incessant live jams.
Here's the part I'm looking forward to - the part where history proves us all right, and the detractors - especially the celebrity ones - have to face their utter wrongness.
Then I remember how they've fessed up to how wrong they were in Afghanistan, and I come back to earth.
Posted by Mitch at
February 9, 2003 01:49 AM
