[Peace-discuss] Re: "Liberal" media

[C. G. Estabrook]

Suppose we were talking to a member of the German government
sometime from mid-1940 to mid-1944, and he said the following:

“We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out of
France slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are
'pro-war' ... My reasoning is based entirely on number of
French people killed per day ... Now that the political
elements there have begun to turn to attacking each other [as
Left and Right in France did under the Occupation and
afterwards], it becomes clearer than ever that the Germans'
job as honorable compassionate people, post-invasion, is to
get out, but to clean up the mess the invasion made before we
leave.”

Would we believe him at all? Probably not.  But suppose he was
sincere.  Then his protestation that his was an anti-war
position -- that he was “talking about defusing the potential
for *more* war” -- would simply seem deluded.  “Cleaning up”
and “defusing” would be obvious euphemisms for continuing the
effects of the German invasion -- an unavoidably pro-war
position. --CGE


---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 12:53:43 -0500
>From: "Chas. 'Mark' Bee" <c-bee1 at itg.uiuc.edu>  
>Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] "Liberal" media  
>To: <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>
>
>   We hear constantly that those of us who support moving out
slowly to avoid massive civilian casualties are 'pro-war', 
>'supporting the occupation', have 'strange or corrupted
reasons', etc.
>
>   My reasoning is based entirely on number of Iraqis killed
per day.  How a desire to keep that number down is 'strange 
>or corrupted' is beyond me.  Now that the religious elements
over there have begun to turn to bombing each other, it 
>becomes clearer than ever that our new job as honorable
compassionate people, post-invasion, is to get out, but to clean 
>up Bush's mess before we leave.  Unless, of course, we want
to personally enable casualty numbers to move on up into 
>holocaust territory.
>
>  Arguments that such reasoning cannot also be anti-war, when
we are talking about defusing the potential for *more* 
>war, are simply exercises in feely-good redefinition.  And
labels of 'pro-war' - when applied to this idea - are simply 
>lies.  -cmb 
>
>_______________________________________________