Better Late Than Never

So I haven't written for a while. My bad, but I haven't had much to contribute to the ether of late, so it hasn't been a real loss. (This is where someone might insert an emoticon, if they so desired.) Generally, I don't post when someone I read has already said what I was thinking: I have plenty of ego, but I don't feel the need to be an echo chamber. I am making an exception now because I am finding only a few bloggers have made the following point.

It appears that the U.S. of A. (you know, us) is planning to attack Iran. There's plenty of chatter about it, and the administration has made a series of maneuvers that look as if they are designed to provide a rationale for an attack. I don't want to argue about those points. The greater problem, at least for me, is that the U.S. seems to have adopted the Bush Administration's argument in favor of wars of aggression without any serious discussion. In other words, while there are discussions about the validity of evidence regarding Iran's intentions, and the consequences of an attack on Iran, almost no one is making the point that the U.S. has no business attacking nations that have not attacked it. I find it astounding that there's no discussion on this point in the mainstream press; so far as I can tell, the discussions center on procedural details and policy questions about the effects of an attack. No one seems to question the notion that the U.S. can bomb another country that has not attacked it; the only issue is whether it's a good idea to do so. Have we all been so brainwashed that we don't even stop to think about what we are doing? Can we really have arrived at the point where our only concern about waging war is whether it's good for us?

So what to do? Well, if you think the U.S. should not be engaged in these kinds of actions then I encourage you to write to your representatives and let them know that you are opposed to making offensive war. Period. Don't give the game away by demanding that the U.S. require more evidence before engaging in more war. The question is whether the U.S. should wage offensive war. I would have thought the answer was no. It may well be no. We might be misguided enough to say yes (it's not as if we haven't done it before). But at least we ought to try to have a discussion about it, no?