Zamiatin’s "We": the Future of the Soviet Regime

"We" is a science fiction novel that was written by Yevgeny Zamiatin in the 1920’s. The book depicts a futuristic society where individual freedom has been abolished by the all encompassing OneState. Zamiatin wrote We to describe the kind of world that would exist with the time, technology and resources available to establish a powerful totalitarian state. In many ways he was prophetic about the things to come following the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.

The significance of the title ‘We’ is meant to represent the collectivist mindset the OneState society and D-503 at the beginning of the story. “[F]orget that you’re a gram ‘I’ and feel yourself a millionth part of a ton ‘We’,” D-503 explains (Zamiatin ). This is how he accepts the loss of his individual rights to OneState by seeing himself as ‘We’ instead of ‘I’. This mentality is the result of the OneState process of socializing its numbers through regulation, propaganda, and any other methods necessary.

George Orwell was wrong in his review of We that the Soviet regime was not the target of Zamiatin’s satire. The methods of indoctrination used by OneState and that of the Bolshevik regime are similar. Although the Bolsheviks never had the technology to do a ‘Great Operation,’ had they the means, they would use it or any other tactic for achieving their goals. The Benefactor is a clear reference to Lenin, from his bald head to his cult of personality. Taylorism too, and its ‘Table’ that regulates everyone’s entire day and prevents individual initiative, is a reference to Lenin and his insistence on introducing Taylorism into Soviet factories: “We must raise the question of piece-work and apply and test it in practice; we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system; we must make wages correspond to the total amount of goods turned out (The Immediate Task).” Also, Zamiatin anticipates the notion of the “compulsory organization of freedom” (elaborated much later by Czeslaw Milosz) and was prophetic about the direction the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 would take. With a one party state where the party retains all power and doesn’t allow opposition, elections are just a show with no meaning. Also, like the odes written by poets like R-13 to OneState, later in the Soviet Union because of censorship artistic expression would serve the state.

Zamiatin’s novel was written in experimental prose. Not written in chapters, but in records by our hero D-503 the builder of the INTEGRAL. The INTEGRAL is a spaceship OneState is building. D-503 keeps his records for us to receive when the INTEGRAL reaches our far away world. The purpose is to educate us should we be in what D-503 calls “the primitive state known as freedom (Zamiatin 1).” If we don’t submit to OneState’s “mathematically infallible happiness,” then the passengers of the INTEGRAL will be “obliged to force them [us] to be happy (Zamiatin 1).”

Everything in OneState is based in mathematics and science and is infallible; from the mathematical formula of happiness to the mechanical rhythm of the numbers chewing in unison the optimum number of chews of their petroleum nourishment. This illustrates the kind of scientific fetishism held by the intelligentsi. They believed Communism would inevitably come about because of the linear path of history that was scientifically mapped out by Marx. The intelligentsia so revered the scientific and cultural contributions of the West that they would adopt the new ideas because they saw them as the latest in educated opinion.

Not everyone in OneState is indoctrinated and a true believer like D-503 in the beginning of We. A secret group of revolutionaries called ‘Mephi’, named after a demonic creature from an old tale, seek to overthrow OneState and use D-503 and the INTEGRAL to do it. I-330 is one of these people that are free in their own mind and it was her duty to manipulate D-503. She seduces him and exposes him to free thoughts and new feelings. I-330 explains to him about the 200 Years War and those beyond the Green Wall. The ‘Mephi’ and those in the world beyond the Green Wall are free.

D-503 explains in terms we can understand that there are two forces in the world: energy and entropy. “One of them [energy] leads to blissful tranquility, to happy equilibrium. The other [entropy] leads to the disruption of equilibrium, to the torment of perpetual movement (Zamiatin 159).” D-503 tries to show what the opposition group ‘Mephi’ means, and that is entropy. A disruption of OneState like on the Day of Unanimity with the vote being split. I-330, later in an impassioned speech with an explicit political and philosophical statement coming straight from Zamiatin, tells D-503 the need for disruption, “You’ve got to smash them into each other—so there’ll be fire, explosion, inferno. And we—we’re going to smash them(Zamiatin 169).” She explains the need for new revolutions to shake things up; that there can be no final revolution as there can be no final number.

“The number of revolutions is infinite. The last one—that’s for children. Infinity frightens children,” I-330 tells D-503 (Zamiatin 168). Infantilization of society is one of Zamiatin’s concerns. In We OneState took away the freedom of its citizen’s leaving them like helpless children. They, the numbers, have always lived in a glass cage always doing their duties without question. They are not free and independent, but like children not free and dependent on OneState like a parent. This security and dependency created by OneState has made its citizens actually love their chains, “[e]verything is very simple, childishly simple-Paradise! The Benefactor, the Machine, the Cube, the Gas Bell, the Guardians: All those things represent good… [b]ecause that is what protects our nonfreedom, which is to say our happiness (Zamiatin ).” D-503 wouldn’t know what to do if he were free because he has so long, his whole life, been under the yoke of OneState.

Although D-503 is in a state of nonfreedom he is free, in a sense, from making decisions. OneState has made all his choices for D-503 and sheltered him from the adult responsibility for oneself. The exposure of freedom by I-330 shatters D-503’s childlike understanding of the world. A conflict in him is created between his public self and his private self. D-503 has been tainted with free thoughts and begins to make choices. He has feelings that make him believe he is sick, sick because he doesn’t understand them. D-503 went to I-330’s doctor friend and listed his symptoms: “insomnia, dreams, a shadow, a yellow world (Zamiatin 86).” The scissor-lipped doctor tells D-503 he has a soul, and that the condition is incurable. D-503 soul is a result of his new sense of individuality. No longer is he in the lock step OneState collectivist mentality, instead his mind is infected with freedom.

These ailments Zamiatin’s hero is suffering from are new and difficult for him to comprehend. Just as the irrational number the square root of negative one confused and frustrated D-503 in his childhood, these feelings, dreams and his soul have no tangible corresponding part in the real world. This number, the square root of negative one, is represented in mathematics as i, the very idea of individuality that is bothering him. D-503 asks the doctor, “what is going on (Zamiatin 69)?” The doctor explains that a soul is like a reflection in a mirror, the image of the two of them and for an instant an aero when it goes by are in it. They exist but are intangible. The image and soul are real, but are not empirically. They cannot be weighed, measured, nor calculated.

The end of the novel is tragic with D-503 being cured of his ‘soul’ and his free will. The ‘Great Operation’ is forced upon him and he takes his place at the side of the Benefactor. The plan of the Mephi to use the INTEGRAL against OneState is thwarted by the Guardians. And I-330 is brought before the Benefactor for interrogation and torture before she is executed while D-503 watches happily. This is the tragedy of the future that could be released by the revolution of 1917 as predicted by Zamiatin.

Works Cited

Zamiatin, Yevgeny. We. New York: Penguin, 1993.

Lenin, V.I. The Immediate Task of the Soviet Government (March 1918). Encyclopedia of Marxism. 6 Dec. 2007 http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/t/a.htm

The Economics of Illegal Immigration

I believe in the free market and that competition lowers prices. Illegal immigrants that drive down labor wages are great for those industries that use them. In turn those industries can offer lower prices to their customers. But as a believer of Capitalism I still oppose illegal immigration because of the subsidies generated.

Normaly, a subsidy is a direct government bail out. Like after 9-11 the money given to the airlines to keep them in business, or the billions of dollars given to the American agriculture industry. With Illegal immigration the subsidies are given in the form of government services that outweigh the economic benefit of cheap labor.

It costs the United States $10 billion a year to host illegal immigrants. In 2002 households headed by illegal immigrants used $26.3 billion in government services and paid only $16 billion in taxes.

The amnesty to be given will not eleviate this problem. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) in 2004 gave a report, based on U.S. census data, that if amnesty was given to the current illegal immigrant population the annual cost would skyrocket another $20 billion because of the additional government services they would be eligble for.

Also as a Capitalist I must oppose illegal immigration because the rule of law is being undermined. The amnesty program being put forward will only encourage more illegal immigration in hopes of yet another future amnesty.

When our laws are flagrently disobeyed by employers that hire illegals the rule of law is undermined. The central authority that keeps our economic activities fair and open is ignored, hurting our economy.

What We Fight

Pan-Islamism is the political entity our enemy has adopted; a theocratic state, political Islam. His dream is to re-create a Caliphate in the Muslim world and march it across the globe. Nostalgic for medieval times when Islam was the better civilization and the West was weak.

Political Islam is fascistic; taking away the rights of women, subjugating minorities under dhimmi laws (think Jim Crow), and making war in the name of religious superiority.

Why did they attack us? Islamo-fascism is threatened by freedom more than anything else, and the United States is the brightest beacon of freedom in the world. Freedom's threat to political Islam is that their women can no longer be subjugated, minorities can no longer be harassed, and their religon can no longer be imposed.

The Islamo-fascists are not capable of a traditional war with great forces, instead they rely on asymmetrical warfare; terrorism, hijackings, suicide attacks (martyrdom), bombings, kidnappings, assassinations, beheadings, a PR campaign, drawing on the welfare state of the west, not wearing uniforms, a divided command structure, utility of the internet, etc..

Al-Qeada and their ilk depend on western resources because they do not possess the capability to carry out their attacks independently. On 9/11 the terrorists didn't use planes made or flown from a Muslim state; they had to use American planes as their weapons. The internet was not invented by a Muslim; it's a product of western creativity.

Just as democracy cleansed the Christian world of theocracy under monarchs appointed by divine right, so too shall democracy and the ideals of the enlightenment free Islam.

Europeans Draw Muhammad

Who would have thought in Europe they still had some balls? A Danish newspaper printed cartoons of Muhammad, which is heretical to Islam, and made fun of him. This was in reaction to the death of Danish director Theo Van Gogh in 2004 who was murderd by an Islamo-fascist for making Submission, a film about the oppression of women in Islam. In a sign of Solidarity other European newspapers have printed the cartoons.

Local Muslim leaders want the Danish authorities to ban the cartoons. In the Middle East to combat the illustrations that Muslims are violent and intolerant; throngs of protestors rioted attacking European embassies, gunmen siezed an EU office in Gaza, and death threats were made against the cartoonists. It's at the height of hipocracy for these same Muslims protesting religous intolerance while across the Middle East Muslims have cartoons of Jews as greedy and controling the world, prime time specials of rabbis using the blood of a Christian child for a traditional Jewish meal, and protest of Christians and Jews for just stepping foot in Saudi Arabia.

This is ridiculous. Why do Muslims protest a dozen cartoons printed in a newspaper in a far off country that they'd never read? Why don't the terrorist bomings in Jordan of Muslims cause a simliar reaction?

It's about time that our allies in Europe stood up to Islamo-fascists. It would have been more predictable if they capitulated, removed the cartoons and apologized. Throughout Europe there is a Muslim invasion going on; immigrating into Europe in greater numbers than any other group, growing in population faster than their European hosts, collecting in ghettos, not assimilating into the European culture, and are drawing on the European welfare system.

In France and Germany we've gotten a taste of the hostility breeding in Europe with the riots that seemed to never end and the continual images of burning cars.

Hamas defeats Fatah in Palestinian election

The recent ascension of Hamas to the Palestinian government doesn't mean the elections weren't a sign of progress, just a sign of how much further the Palestinians need to go. In time the Hamas government will be voted out for it's inability to make good on its campaign promises. Their main objective being the destruction of Israel, an impossibilty at this time with the construction of the Isreali wall, will make Hamas appear ineffective. Foriegn aid, vital for the Palestinian Authority, will be reduced due to the bellicose nature of the regime that rejects the road map to peace. And without a Fatah government to reflexively blame for Palestinian defeats Hamas will have no legs to stand on.

Elections don't equal democracy, but it's a start. And if Hamas breaks the current cease fire Israel can take solice that any collateral damage caused in retaliatory attacks is the fault of Hamas because its a popular regime that represents the Palestinian people.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palesinian Authority, supported by the Fatah movement, still retains authority over the 'security forces'. The defeat of his party in the recent elections shows that the Palestianians aren't pleased with the former government because it too couldn't deliver on it's promises. Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazin, appeared as a partner for peace in the west while preaching the destruction of Isreal to the east, an untenable position. Although under his leadership the PA gained the Gaza and parts of the West Bank, the Israelis were able to construct a wall to deter the most valued Palestinian weapon, the suicide bomber.

NSA Wiretapping: Security vs. Liberty

There are two reasons that the Bush administration didn’t go to Congress to change the law to make the NSA wiretapping more politically feasible. First, Congress had no authority to restrict the war powers of the executive. The Constitution gives the President the duty to protect Americans from enemies both foreign and domestic. Every president since the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978’s passage has asserted that he retained inherent authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence purposes. The Bush administration was breaking a law that was unconstitutional. Second, more importantly, secrecy was part of the program. Only few in the Congress were informed of the program, with good reason. The NSA leak hurts American national security revealing to our enemies a tool we use to gather intelligence on them.

Has the shit hit the fan over this NSA wiretapping? No. The Democrats aren’t going to be able to win elections in 2006 with this issue. Most Americans understand the need for this program. In the face of the terrorist threat we must temporarily sacrifice some civil liberties.

Some say that we’re losing this war because we’re sacrificing our civil liberties which our Constitution was made to protect. They’re wrong because actually losing the war is worse. We can cease the NSA wiretapping program and even the Patriot act once the terrorist threat is gone. We can’t bring people back to life that were killed in a terrorist attack.

We have to sacrifice some of our liberties to protect the rest of them. During the Civil War President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus abandoning due process and ordered confederate sympathizers printing presses destroyed violating their First amendment rights. In World War II President Roosevelt ordered the internment of Japanese Americans for the duration of the war. What good is the Constitution if America is destroyed?

Camilo vs. Instead of War

http://www.insteadofwar.org/site/comments

Legally the name of those who died in Iraq is public record. Morally, you should not have used any names unless you had permission from the families. You know that there are families who do not want their loved ones name used in any association with an anti-war protesting group. Do you want to cause these families more pain? You are. How do I know this? I have spoken to three of the families and they said it hurts them knowing their sons' names are being used. It is your moral responsibility to use only the ones who want their loved ones name used.

Posted by: Shay on Oct 27, 05 12:40 pm

Shay, Which do you think will bring more pain to more families - the publication of the names of the fallen, or the loss of another 2,000 young men and women? Please don't confuse the actual tragedy with the telling of it. If you care about the pain of the families, then please take responsibility to see that no more families have to feel that pain.Human beings are not lemmings. The argument that more soldiers must die so that the first 2,000 will not have died in vain is nonsensical at best, cruel at worst. The question is whether the war is worth the huge cost in lives and national self-respect and dollars. At this point, a strong majority of Americans have decided that it is not. Now it's up to the politicians to hear our voices.You may think that it's scare-mongering to talk about the loss of 2,000 more soldiers. That's what Vietnam war supporters said after the first 1,000, first 2,000, first 10,000, first 20,000, first 29,000 American soldiers who died there, yet in each case the number did double (not even counting the millions of Vietnamese). The U.S. gets further from "victory" in Iraq each day, and the only question is how many more will die before our chickenhawk commander in chief and his chickenhawk VP and his chickenhawk defense secretary call an end to this abominable war, leaving Iraq in ruins and how many more thousands of American families desolate?P.S. Don't try to tell me that Rumseld is no chickenhawk. He coasted out the Korean War in Princeton ROTC and joined the Navy after the war was all over. In contrast, you may recall that thousands (millions?) of men left college to serve in WW2. But I'll admit that compared to Bush and Cheney, even chickenhawk Rumsfeld looks like a full-fledged war hero.

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 27, 05 5:35 pm

Shay is right. It's one thing to have the names of the soldiers that died in the war on terror being part of public record, but it is another to use their names to protest what they literally fought and died for. Sick and cruel in fact.Besides, it is a joke to think that the real reason you so-called anti-war protesters oppose this war is the costs. You don't believe in the mission. And where were you anti-war protestors when Clinton attacked Iraq? What about Bosnia, wasn't that war worth protesting? And if you want to look at war records better avoid the Swift Boat Vets for Truth.Iraq was not an imminent threat with WMD and was not part of the 9-11 attacks, but that wasn't why we went to war in Iraq. Our soldiers are fighting in Iraq because after the attacks of 9-11 we cannot allow tyrants defy weapons sanctions in the Middle East. That was the official administration foriegn policy in Iraq. The real for war was to create a battlefield of our choosing to take on the terrorists on their ground. Jihadists have been pouring into Iraq from neighboring countries to martyr themselves, let's give them what they want. Forget sealing the borders let those terrorists take their best shot. In the words of a great man, Bring it on!

Posted by: Camilo on Oct 27, 05 11:13 pm

Actually many of us did protest, repeatedly, when Clinton attacked Iraq, and Serbia as well. Not because we liked Saddam or Milosevic (many of us were protesting Saddam when Rumsfeld was cutting oil deals with him in the 80's, and when the U.S. was providing intelligence to him for his bloody war against Iran) but because these wars inflict great damage without solving the underlying conflicts.Cost: Would I support this war if it were free? Of course not; what good is free mayhem? But does the incredible financial burden of this war, with U.S. health and educational levels approaching second world levels, national infrastructure crumbling with neglect, and all of us paying for grotesque tax cuts for the wealthiest 1%, add to the war's obscene violence? You bet it does.Since even you don't seem to take seriously the official reason for the war I won't waste words on it. As for your stated reason: Do you seriously imagine that there is a fixed pool of jihadists and that this war is drawing them all in to die? Hypothetically: how would you feel if you came to believe that this war is creating jihadists at an ever-increasing rate? Would you then need to find anothe reason to support it, or would you then, finally, agree that it was wrong? Are there actually any circumstances which could lead you to reconsider your support for this war?

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 28, 05 12:09 am

Jonathan, did the anti-war movement really protest President Clinton’s use of military force? Well let’s say that they did; is there any use of military force that is acceptable? What is the anti-war movements answer to the War on Terror? Should we protest in the streets when we’re attacked? Or hold candle light vigils to convince the Islamo-Fascists like Osama Bin-Laden to put down their ideology of death and their tools of terror? What are and how would you solve the 'underlying conflicts' as you put them?Cost: What would it cost if terrorists attacked the U.S. again? How much are our American brothers and sisters lives of worth? What if you died in a terrorist attack? The last attack on the U.S. killed over 3,000 and the devastation to the city was an incredible financial burden. But after an attack like that can we afford a tyrant in the Middle East to defy weapons sanctions, with U.S. employment at 94.6%, and increased tax revenues thanks to tax cuts, to go kill terrorists in the Middle East? You bet we can.Is this war inciting more to join the enemy? The war in Iraq didn’t create the enemy; Al-Qaeda attacked the U.S. before the war began. We don’t know the number of the enemy, the only way to gauge their strength is by evaluating their attacks. Since the war in Iraq began the U.S. hasn’t suffered an attack, the enemy focus their attacks in Iraq against civilians, they cannot accomplish attacks like they previously could, rely on suicide bombing and IEDs, and is opposed by the majority of the population as seen in the Iraqi election.Hypothetically: If you found out that this war is destroying jihadists at an ever-increasing rate? Would you then need to find another reason to oppose it, or would you then, finally, agree that it is right? Are there actually any circumstances which could lead you to reconsider your opposition to this war? How do you like intellectual condescension?

Posted by: Camilo on Oct 31, 05 1:11 am

Camilo, the anti-war movement is not monolithic. Of the people who now oppose the Iraq war, many of us strongly opposed the military attacks on Serbia; some supported it; some didn't really think about it because it didn't seem to have much of an impact on their lives. Some are ethical or religious pacifists, some abhor all war but think that in some cases war is the lesser evil, some just oppose pointless incompetent wars.You seem to be concerned about our national security. Your assumption is that the war on Iraq is somehow helping to make the U.S. safer from terrorism, and your argument is that it is worth the cost in lives and dollars. But I don't accept your assumption. Bush/Cheney and their war in Iraq are putting us all in greater and greater risk every day that this war proceeds. As dozens of retired high-ranking military officers have stated publicly, Bush/Cheney dropped the ball on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan, instead attacking Iraq, a country which while ruled by a tyrant (partly of U.S. making), had at the time virtually no connection to Al Qaeda (certainly much less connection to Al Qaeda than did Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Germany, or the U.S. itself). Do you really think it's fine that the war in Iraq is drawing in jihadists, suicide bombers?!? Please remember that who is actually dying in this war, far more than the jihadists or the U.S. troops, are Iraqi civilians, by the tens of thousands, and Sunni Iraqi nationalist fighters, in numbers unknown. I find it morally unacceptable to send another country into bloody chaos because you have a theory that some small fraction of the people being killed might, some day in the future, have threatened our safety here at home. Yes, of course the jihadists are opposed by a majority of Iraqis. People want peace. The U.S. occupation is also opposed by a majority of Iraqis. As for the Sunni nationalists - they certainly don't pose a threat to the borders of the U.S. as you fear; they see themselves fighting for their own borders. They may well pose a threat to their Kurdish and Shiite neighbors, but the U.S. military occupation seems to be deepening that conflict. Back to your main concern, U.S. national security:Bush/Cheney quickly transformed a world which was overwhelmingly sympathetic to the U.S. after 9-11 to a world which by unprecedented majorities viewed the U.S. government as a dangerous bully.Bush/Cheney gutted our national public safety infrastructure, sending the National Guard, made up of cops, firefighters, paramedics, teachers, helicopters, jeeps, to Iraq to fight and die in this insane war, instead of being home to rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina. (Yes, there were also other factors in that debacle, including the sheer incompetence of Bush's crony head of FEMA and the Homeland Security bureaucracy.)Bush/Cheney opposed vehicle fuel standards, mocked energy conservation, and blocked serious research on alternative energy sources - not surprising given that they are both oil industry stalwarts, but certainly increasing the U.S. dependence on foreign oil.Bush/Cheney took the step, unprecedented during wartime, of slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans (their real base), then borrowing the money to make up the shortfall. And who will be called on to pay off the extra trillions of dollars of debt for generations to come? - middle-class Americans in their taxes, and poor Americans in slashed public services. Bush/Cheney, instead of addressing the health care coverage crisis which constitutes the biggest security worry of most Americans, came up with a prescription drug "benefit" package for seniors whose main function is to transfer taxpayer money to the pharmaceutical industry.Instead of discarding our capital and young lives and national reputation in this desperate war in Iraq, let's invest them in these real national security issues.

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 31, 05 9:19 am

See The Next Attack : The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting it Right , by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon From Publishers Weekly Review: The chilling first words, "We are losing," capture the tone of this scathing evaluation of the Bush administration's responses to the September 11 attacks. Benjamin, a Center for Strategic and International Studies senior fellow, and Simon, an instructor at Georgetown University, authors of the award-winning Age of Sacred Terror: Radical Islam's War Against America, do not mince words; America's foreign policy vis-a-vis the Muslim world is bankrupt and has "cleared the way for the next attack-and those that will come after." By invading Iraq, the authors argue, the U.S. demonstrated a profound misunderstanding of the scope of the threat posed by al Qaeda and other jihadist groups, and has turned Iraq into a "country-sized training ground" for terrorists. The authors also explore terror's philosophical roots, analyzing how salafism, a strain of Islamic fundamentalism, dominates jihadist beliefs, as well as how the Internet helps facilitate global dissemination of its tenets, strategies and tactics. The authors' remedies for this baleful state of affairs include fostering an understanding that independent cell-based terrorist units, not state sponsors, are the backbone of the movement; dispensing with reflexive use of military solutions; improving links with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies; and recognizing the limitations of democracy in solving developing nations' problems. Not a book that'll appeal to readers whose politics are right of center, it's nevertheless a sobering analysis of compromised American security.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.http://tinyurl.com/d9lu8

Posted by: Jonathan March on Oct 31, 05 2:18 pm


Jonathan, All that and you didn’t answer my questions. Is there any use of military force that is acceptable? What is the anti-war movements answer to the War on Terror? What are and how would you solve the 'underlying conflicts' as you put them? Please don’t refer me to another book, in your own words.

It’s reckless and irresponsible to advocate immediate pull out in Iraq, especially because the reasoning is we’re losing and need to get out before we suffer more casualties. We’re winning the war in Iraq; Saddam Hussein is out of power, the Iraqi people voted for a new Constitution, and the Iraqi people elected a new government. The majority of Iraqis don’t want the U.S. to pull out. On December 15 the Iraqis will vote again, signs point to more Arab Sunni participation and an end to violence.
The only way we can lose is if we pull out our troops as you advocate, before Iraq’s security forces are ready. Then we would have a real scene of tragedy in Iraq with carnage and mayhem like you’ve never seen. And that would be the real disgrace to all the soldiers who worked and sacrificed for this mission and to the Iraqi people who will have let down once again.

Fighting the War on Terrorism has made us safer. The enemy has declared war on us and we must respond. In Iraq we couldn’t allow a tyrant to defy weapons sanctions with this new terrorist threat. What if Saddam’s WMD got in the hands of al-Qaeda and were used on the United States? Saddam Hussein is an enemy of the U.S., you may not recognize this fact, but Saddam does and we’re safer to have him behind bars. And the war in Iraq has created a central front where we can fight the Islamo-fascists on their ground.

Oh yes, “dozens of retired high-ranking military officers have stated publicly, Bush/Cheney dropped the ball on Al Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan,” instead attacking Iraq. please name just 12 then if dozens have come forward publicly. We all know how wise they must be since they are no longer in the service doing their job. Of course they are criticizing the war because they think they could have done it better, but I doubt they advocate immediate pull out of the troops. Many retired officers would probably advocate higher troop levels and different tactics, but I doubt they would advocate an anti-war position like IOW. What is that position again? …instead of war, what?

Boo hoo poor Sunni Nationalist Iraqi fighters; those are the terrorists killing Iraqi civilians you fool. This minority was the favored class under Saddam’s regime that oppressed the Kurds and Shiites and stole their oil revenues. Of course the occupation bothers them and the Sunnis have conflicts with their neighbors. The Sunni nationalists a.k.a. Baathists, Saddam Hussein’s party, coincidently live in the areas of high terrorist activity like Fellujah. They can either start voting or be left behind for all I care.

As for your advised reading, your authors’ ‘remedies’ are complaints not solution. We’re supposed to ignore state sponsors of terrorism, focus only on cell-based terrorism, avoid military solutions, improve relations with foreign intelligence and law enforcement agencies and recognize the limitations of democracy. So in Iraq and Afghanistan we should not have invaded, instead we should have improved our relations with Saddam’s and the Taliban’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to apprehend the terrorist cells and all the time recognizing the limitations of democracy, our own style of government. That is precisely the post-Cold War slumber kind of foreign policy our enemy thought we would use, they saw us as a vulnerable ‘paper tiger’ that would not fight back. They were wrong.

P.S. Lamp, how can you say Iraq was sovereign, because of benevolent President Hussein’s 99% electoral approval rating (1% margin of error)? And, what is that about the Chinese being after our/Iraqi oil? Are you dumb, or just stupid? Those soldiers are heroes that risk their lives and sacrifice a great deal for scum like you to be able to slander them. Well, at least you’re more honest then your companions like Jonathan and IOW that pretend to mourn our soldiers lives purely for political motives.