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ONE OF THE MOST common and successful ways of coun- tering those who oppose your position is to belittle them, portray them as being uninformed and pampered, or as being part of the social fringe and out of step with reality.
Such is the case with Shaun Kenney's Nov. 19 op-ed ["Pacifist thought safe for the campus, dangerous in the real world"] criticizing the students of Mary Washington College, and by extension, anyone who opposes President Bush's drive to war against Iraq.
Mr. Kenney contends that "this shortsighted (as demonstrated by student actions) notion against war is completely indefensible." This criticism of the students and his attempt to sell this criticism to the rest of us is based more on pushing emotional hot buttons than rational, coherent argument. Just as President Bush has done, Mr. Kenney uses an appeal to our goodness, sense of fair play, and fear as justification for war.
In his statement "war for just reasons is perfectly moral because it presupposes violence for just goals," I would certainly be interested in knowing who determines the just reasons.
Also, are those reasons because Saddam Hussein killed Iraqi Kurds who rebelled against his government? If that is the case, we should immediately go to war against Turkey, a nation that is systematically hunting down and killing (does it matter by chemicals or bullets) Turkish Kurds in open rebellion against the Turkish government.
Could the just reasons be because Saddam has shown no qualms "about bringing war to his neighbors"? If so, perhaps we should also wage war against other Arab states (Egypt, Syria, Jordan) that have waged four wars against our ally, Israel.
One of those states, Syria, is also on the State Department's list of nations that sponsor terrorism and provides support to those Islamic fundamentalists currently attacking Israel. Aren't we in a war against terrorism? Aren't we going to treat those who support terrorists the same way we treat the terrorists?
Our ally, Pakistan, in the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida has, and is, providing support and refuge to terrorists who carry out attacks in Kashmir and India. So, we need to be very careful before buying in to the idea of waging war for just reasons. The argument for that holds water only if it is applied across the board.
As one man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist, just reasons seem to be a matter of convenience rather than a steadfast position.
As previously mentioned, an appeal to our fears is used to turn us against opposing views. The "clock is ticking overseas," "that it is Saddam who is pursuing the option of death rather than removing his weapons of mass destruction," and "the price of not carrying out our mission is too costly to allow" play to our deepest emotion--the fear of death and suffering.
However, those assertions are no more based on fact than any assertion that Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction. As shown by the president's inability to present Congress or our allies intelligence on the existence of WMDs, we are dealing with conjecture versus fact.
What we do know is that, over the past decade, we have contained Iraq. We know we have the ability to continue that containment. We know Saddam, along with many other nations' oppressive leaders, is a bad character.
We know Saddam rules an economically crippled nation, and his military forces are a mere shadow of the forces we readily defeated in 1991. We know that time is not against us. We have the most powerful armed forces the world has ever seen. We have an intelligence capability (economic, diplomatic, military) surpassed by no other.
This intelligence capability far exceeds that which was used to keep tabs on the Soviet Union and its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons program. The Soviet Union was a world power. Are President Bush and Mr. Kenney telling us this same intelligence community is not capable of monitoring a Third World nation?
The bottom line is that I thank God for students such as those at Mary Washington College. I hope to never see our society move to a position in which it unquestionably accepts "the facts" as presented by our current president or any other. Why? Because, at least in this instance, the facts are based on appeals to emotions rather than a coherent discussion of the situation.
President Bush has his finger on the trigger and is about to send our military personnel against Iraq. Public support for this action is based upon the emotional aftermath of 9/11, though that terrible attack was executed by Islamic fundamentalists armed with box cutters who had no connection to Iraq and who certainly didn't employ weapons of mass destruction in their attack.
We will prevail in this war. There is no doubt about that. And America's military men and women will be killed and maimed for a war that has had to be "sold" to the country's citizenry. That alone should make thinking men and women take pause in their support for this upcoming war.
Going to war, especially a supposed pre-emptive war, is serious business. It is the very last card a president and a nation should throw on the table. That card should be thrown only when all other measures have been completely exhausted, and the nation is under threat of imminent danger if pre-emptive action is not taken.
We have disrupted the al-Qaida organization, driven the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, and continue operations to attack and eliminate all others who supported the attacks of Sept. 11. On this, the president was and is on firm ground. Neither our citizens nor the international community had to be sold on the need for the United States to attack al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Such is not the case as Bush moves toward war with Iraq.
BOB STRAIGHT of Stafford County is a retired Marine Corps major and a veteran of the conflicts in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Somalia.