Luke Melia

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March 22, 2003

3/22/03, 8:49 am – The View from New York

Spring has sprung here. It’s a gorgeous 54 degrees out this morning and I woke up with a lot of energy today.

My cell phone offered up a voicemail from Art this morning. He’s a very good friend from when I lived in Charlottesville, and he’s getting married in a few weeks. I haven’t seen him in way too long, and am very excited to help him celebrate!

Our indoor volleyball season is complete. We ended with a winning record, and in third place. Not bad. It was a good season, marred a bit by tension over a focus on fun versus a competitive focus. That’s a tough balance. Still, it was fun, overall. Now that the warm weather is coming, I’m going to take a season off and focus on my sand game.

The rest of this post is talk of war. So if you’re overloaded, move on…

Rumsfeld was on TV yesterday saying, “We did not choose this war.” That’s silly. This war has been weighed in Washington think tanks for several years, and was decided on well before Bush’s bungled diplomacy failed.

During the newscast, a commentator noted that the cruise missiles cost half a million dollars each. This site seems to beat that out. As part of the “shock and awe” campaign, the BBC reports that over 1,000 cruise missiles were fired at Baghdad in 24 hours. In case you’re not quick with math, that spells out half a billion dollars spent on that aspect of war alone in one day. The waste is spectacularly sickening. And if you live and pay taxes here in America, as I do, you’re paying for it.

I attended last week’s rally and march in Washington DC, just days before the war began. The speakers frustrated me a bit, because they were all over the map. Lots of rhetoric about Palestine and even some about affirmative action. It was clearly alienating to some of the crowd around me, not necessarily because they disagreed with those issues, but they had come that day to take a stand against this war, not against every injustice in the world.

A big protest is planned for today here in New York. It will be a march from midtown down to Washington Square park. Should be a good day for it.

I struggled a bit this week with what my position and activities should be now that war has begun. I find myself looking forward to the prospect of freedom and self-rule for the Iraqi people. But regardless of the worthy ends, death and destruction carried out against the will of the vast majority of the world should not be justified. This Machiavellian bargain is damaging to the interwoven relationships which bind this global village.

Geekman (in an uncharacteristically serious post) suggested that protest should stop now that war is here. Many others understandably feel the same way. Respectfully, I disagree. To endorse an illegitimate war is wrong. To acquiesce now sends the message that it’s acceptable to begin planning the next war, to continue the remaking of American foreign policy, and to continue a unilateral destruction of multilateralism.

I won’t endorse it with my silence.

4 Responses to “3/22/03, 8:49 am – The View from New York”

  1. Mike chimed in:

    Well, we were sitting around watching CNN and the NCAA Championships and it was disturbing to notice similarities. In the midst of that my colleagues and I have come up with some possible Next Moves for the Bush Administration.
    1) Since Turkey has not been cooperative we could gobble them up and Keep Right on Trucking thru the Baltic States (offer them status as territories of the USA – statehood pending – Give them better prices on Blue Jeans)
    2) Then we could march right up thru Germany and Across into France. By next Thursday we could liberate the Vinyards in the South and Liberate Paris so that it is safe once again for American tourists.
    3) The Brits could come across the Channel to give us whatever back-up we might need. What do you think? I don’t even think we’d need Congressional Approval for such minor military madness.

  2. Monica chimed in:

    When Donald Rumsfeld said, “We did not choose this war”, I think he was completely right. Anti-war protests have been held around the nation. The people of America did not choose this war. They didn’t want it – they said it, screamed it, and held signs saying it.

  3. TPB, Esq. chimed in:

    The trick to being a Cassandra is that you have to have something useful to say, not merely something said in a shrill voice.

  4. Luke chimed in:

    Who wants to be a Cassandra? Cassandra was not believed until her prophesied suffering had come to pass. I hope that the fears of some of my fellow shriekers prove to be unfounded, and that this war ends swiftly and and peace follows.

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