So Dick Cheney is coming to speak at commencement...I have mixed feelings.
Like most BYU students, I identify myself as a conservative and a Republican. It's quite a prestigious honor to have the Vice President come--after all, it's one of only two commencement speeches he's going to give this spring.
But talk about a low point... The man Cheney and the institution he represents have never been more unpopular. Once again, BYU is asserting the stereotype that it is an ultraconservative institution that will slap the backs of the far right in this country regardless of the current national political tenor. The 60's saw the Y holding forums that encouraged students to support the Vietnam War. The 00's have seen the university maintain itself of a bastion of Bush. Some things never change...
Don't get me wrong--as an organization founded upon the gospel it is proper for us to avoid the whims of the world and be seen as a relatively unwavering place.
But just for once, can BYU not display the most egregious alliance in all the land with institutional hyper-conservatism?
In theory I should be ecstatic that the executive branch's #2 is coming. But instead, I'm embarrassed. Not because I consider Cheney to be evil, sinister, or corrupt--but because this visit only will embolden the critics of BYU. It will also certainly be a boon for a certain small contingent of anti-war and anti-Bush protesters who shadow the VP.
The time period of my college education has witnessed a total reversal of presidential fortune. Two weeks into my freshman year the attacks of 9/11 vaulted the Bush/Cheney team into a position of glory. Six years later, Bush is a lame duck and his ideology is synonymous amongst the global public with hubris and cronyism--and one of the most prominent figureheads of that ideology is speaking at my senior graduation. Karma, I suppose...
Granted, not many people in the future will ask me who spoke at my college graduation. But when I do tell folks, I suspect their reaction will include a cynical smirk indicative of history's often unkind hindsight.
What, was Thomas S. Monson or Donny Osmond not available?
16 comments:
On a sillier note I didn't want to include in the main body of the post, I think that Cheney's poor health could result in one of the most exciting BYU graduations ever--just think about the implications of a heart attack mid-speech!
I'm probably going to be whisked away in a black helicopter for saying that ...
Viva la revolucion!! So I thought the church didn't like to take political stances... I may join the college democrats... Apostasy, I know! Is flash mob really our only allowable display of public opinion?
The church is apolitical. Let's not think that this visit blurs that distinction. The university has visitors from the left and the right (just more from the right).
But don't join the College Democrats over this issue. It just exacerbates the partisanship that is at the root of the poison typified by the Cheney visit.
Dude that was a joke, I'm not gonna going the dems, they're too silly for me.
Talk about caving into peer pressure... why should you care what the global political spectrum is crying out?
So what if people say BYU is an ultraconservative bastion for higher education? Heaven forbid we actually refer to the black kettle as black...
The Bush administrations legacy may be tarnished in the world's (and in a large part the country's) eyes over the handling of the war in Iraq, but that comes from an incomplete understanding of the situation and the goals of the administration. Is America safer with Saddam out of power? Yes, so the administration succeeded. Would America be safer if any government who has ever harbored terrorists (think Libya, Syria, and the like) were overthrown and a democracy put in place? Yes, and the whole world (at least the Old World and an all its former colonies) would revert to their gossiping ways and bad-mouth the US, even though it is in the interest of the country to protect itself. Bush protected the interests of the country, and while he may not have done a perfect job (or even far from it), he did the best job he could given the circumstances and his information. Conversely, the critics are looking at everything in hindsight with the knowledge that a corrupt dictator is already removed from power (unless he comes back as a ghost to order about Nancy Pelosi...) and they actually care what the former world powers say in their left wing papers. The real world powers think much more highly of the Bush administration and its efforts to protect its own interests. There's a reason that the European gossips can't match the economy and production of the nationalistic Chinese and Japanese.
whether the world is safer without saddam in power is debatable. I would say it's not.
Well Alexander I'd say you're crazy. Any time the world doesn't have an evil man in power is great. Think how awesome it would be if Castro and his evilness (including his extremely evil brother) were gone!! Seriously why do evil people live forever?? I suppose they need more time to repent...
Any ways and to you Bukran, why don't ya cry about it ya big baby?!?!?! (Ask Lindsey about that statement it's really not as mean as it sounds.) I think you are really reading way too much into Mr. Cheney speaking at graduation. It's really just an honor and probably the Y has had him booked for maybe more than a year. Would you really want Donny Osmond to speak at graduation? All those blinding white teeth you would go blind really!;) In short people who want to be mean and criticize BYU will always find something wrong with it no matter how wonderfully wonderful it is! Really you should know that, you are in college! So chill out dude just relax because you are graduating and that is most excellent. And if you are realy embarrased by it you don't even have to bring it up because in all honesty no one will really care who spoke at your graduation.
Having evil men in power is a bad thing. I agree. But you can't just oust them because they're EVIL. Having a knife stuck in your stomach is also a bad thing, but pulling it right out will do more harm than good. I hate to bring scripture into this political debate, but Jacob 5:65-66 illustrates this principle.
I'm not even going to fight with you because 1) I don't even know you and 2) I'm in highschool and graduating and am so over fighting and drama;)
Alexander, don't argue with my sister, I'll have to beat you up. David the Steak, you make some great points. I have decided I'm okay with Cheney coming. Maybe part of that is because I'm not graduating... but hey, he isn't evil, and its just a graduation speech. Lets just make everything less political. :)
PS: My sister is right.
RE: davidthesteak said...
No one has ever accused me of caving into peer pressure before...and I don't think this is an exception. I don't picket Army recruitment centers nor do I slap bumper stickers featuring the president's face and profanity on my car in the name of the anti-war/anti-Bush agenda--all of which is pretty popular these days. Perhaps not in Utah, but go almost anywhere else (i.e. Albuquerque) and you'll see that the current administration is hated/despised/loathed by most folks.
I voice my concern because of just that--concern. Not because public opinion polls are spurring me to bandwagon and scorn the President.
Almost seven years have passed since Bush was elected. Four of these years have been mired in war. Even the backlash of hardcore Republicans like myself at this juncture should be demonstrative of the turn this country has taken for the worse.
I, of course, am not infantile enough to suggest that George W. Bush is responsible for all of the grievances of the masses. But I will go far enough to suggest that the positive direction our country enjoyed during the Reagan Revolution and the post-Cold War era has halted.
NO. America is NOT safer with a Saddam-less Iraq in the Middle East. I will only mention two of the greatest reasons why. Granted, I have the benefit of hindsight along with the fact I wasn't in the country when the war drums really began to play...
-The once relatively Islamo-fascist free Iraq has been transformed into the newest and most prolific field of jihad. The great sucking sound resulting from the invasion-induced power vacuum has been the siren song for foreign and domestic jihadists. Unless the Iraqi experiment in nation-building experiences exponential success, Iraq will be a base of terrorist operations against the United States for years to come.
-The balance of power in the Middle East between the Sunni-backed Hussein regime in Iraq and Shia Iran has been upset, giving Iran the preminent position in the region it's always desired. Just look to the bellicose positions Iran has taken since the invasion (their nuclear program, their support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the current standoff over the British sailors). Iran knows that they are no longer kept in check by a neighbor/enemy, and thus are flexing their muscles. Iran is not a friend of the United States!
Terrorist-backer Moammar Qaddafi in Libya was pacified through air strikes and diplomacy. We even convinced him to give the nuclear weapons he already posessed! Invasion was not required! Granted, this process took the better part of two decades but Libya is no longer a state sponsor of anti-U.S. terrorism. We will never know, but my optimistic side feels that with a healthy dose of time Hussein could have been "put in its place" without an all-out invasion and occupation.
We see that this debate is no longer about the man Dick Cheney but our current controversial president. I believe this moment to be crucial for our nation. While not identical to Vietnam, the Iraq War is similarly unpopular and unlikely to crown the U.S.A. the victor in conflict.
Perhaps Vietnam wasn't enough to learn the lessons about warfare and hegemony America needed.
That my children won't live under the guise of a Vietnam/Iraq war in their youth is my hope.
P.S. "There's a reason that the European gossips can't match the economy and production of the nationalistic Chinese and Japanese" is one of the most ridiculous non-sequiturs of all time.
Renny's Sister,
Not as a matter of rebuttal, but food for thought I respond to thee...
Evil is pretty difficult to quantify. Which is more evil, Saddam's savagery or the secatarian killings that occur in his abscence?
The wells of evil are a thousandfold and often spring up even when one has thought to have dried up.
Let us not forget that wicked men are used for purposes known only to deity.
For those that don't believe the world is better off:
Saddam Hussein was the leader of Iraq from July 16, 1979 to April 9, 2003. During his tenure, an estimated 200,000 Iraqis "disappeared", 500,000 of his own people died during his war with Iran and 300,000 Iranians died, 50-100,000 Kurds were killed with mustard gas and nerve agents, there were the execution of over 10,000 political prisoners (some of them simply to show the world their prisons weren't overcrowded), and the deaths of an estimated 400-500,000 Iraqi children under age 5 thanks to his refusal to actually distribute supplies he obtained in his oil for fuel program. On top of this, countless other "smaller" atrocities were committed, but these numbers were less than 1,000 people a pop, so I won't use them in my math. In addition to this, 900,000 Iraqis were forced evacuate their homes and move to the Southern No-Fly Zone or else become political refugees in neighboring nations. (See http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/04/20030404-1.html and http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5773)
Thus, by low counts, Saddam was responsible for at least one million deaths (most estimate it around 1.5 to 2 million). So, for his 24 years in power, with a low guess of 1 million dead, Saddam averaged taking care of about 42,000 people a year. Since the US invaded Iraq, high estimates say that 66,373 Iraqis (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/) , 3,257 Americans (only 2,656 in combat), and 260 coalition troops (http://www.antiwar.com/casualties/) have died. This high count totals 69,890 casualties (as of 4/4/2007) over the course of four years, or about 17,500 people a year-slightly less than what Mr. Hussein was pulling off. Additionally, since the US imposed sanctions of Iraq after the Gulf War in 1991, there's been the deaths of the 400,000+ children, which averages into about 33,000+ deaths a year. Since the US invasion, all sanctions have been revoked, and food and medicine is actually getting to the people who have been needing it all along. By my rough figures (I'd be happy for someone to show me where I messed up), I figure that since the invasion, we've saved about twice as many lives as we've lost. Even if food and medicine are only getting to half of the kids who need it (which I'm quite confident is not the case), we're still breaking even.
Near as I can remember, we haven't had any major terrorist attacks on the US or its allies since we invaded Iraq. Even if we had a September 11th every year, the world is still a better place (judging by number of people who are actually still alive). By my calculations, we would have to uncover an average of 14 9/11's a year to equal the death toll that one dictator managed by himself.
Steakman, your math is airtight... I don't think world suffering has been so accurately calculated since Jeremy Bentham.
There are some questions I would ask. How many were killed by Saddam before and after the no-fly zones were established? If so, what else could have been done to protect Iraq' minorities. What if oil-for-food had been less corrupt (and the oil was actually exchanged for food)? Would reforming the sanctions regime done more for Iraq's populace? I think the most important question we should ask isn't "did the invasion make the world a better place," but "what would have been the best thing to do?" Were there steps other than invasion that could have altered our calculations?
Here are some more questions for our calculations. Aren't Middle East dictators more afraid of Islamic terrorism than we are? Should we continue with the farce that Iraq had ties to terrorism? Isn't a divided, chaotic, impoverished war zone a healthy "breeding ground" for terrorism? Is the situation getting better or worse, day by day? As Iraq gets worse, will there be more or less risk of terrorism? Are there more terrorists now than before the invasion? How many of Iraq's fully-vaccinated and fully-nourished children will survive to the age of 25? How many will become healthy soldiers in a militia or death squad?
I look forward to your new calculations - I'm afraid your previous method was too simple. Perhaps we could use regression analysis techniques to develop a correlation modeling world suffering. We'll also have to find a way to account for the profits of American companies and shareholders.
To the Veteran-
While I appreciate your allusion to Jeremy Bentham, the simple calculations I’m following are more directly based on the work John Stuart Mill. I agree that death is not the best way to quantify the actual suffering in any place, but it’s the easiest number to get a hold of.
For starters, I must disagree with your assertion that the most important question to ask is whether or not an invasion was the best thing to do. Looking back and second guessing leaders is not going to help our situation now. When Bush decided to invade Iraq, his goal (and thus the goal of the United States) was to remove a corrupt dictator. In this, the US has been very successful. What I dislike is historical revisionism where modern thinkers (or more accurately, modern media outlets) claim that the war has been lost, the war was a mistake, and Bush acted without the direction of the general population. When the United States invaded Iraq, Bush had an approval rating of 70% (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113216347138199155-5Z1Ri_om8ITUbV_jD2bx6maguMY_20061116.html) which means that he had the backing of the general populace. With that backing, he commanded the military that was then able to oust a corrupt dictator (who, by the way, was later executed by his own people). Is there a possibility that a different course of action could have led to the same results? Yes. Does that matter now? No. The "what if?" game leads to no solutions for current problems, and the clouded lens of hindsight yields a distorted picture of what we knew and what we could only surmise. The fact is that the US had the goal of removing a corrupt government and instituting a democracy, and that is exactly what happened - thus, the Iraqi conflict was a success.
Second guessing won’t lead to a change in our success, it only facilitates those with ulterior motives (think of those that are trying to discredit the current administration and thereby increase their own power). If, for example, William Howe had aggressively pursued George Washington after the continental army’s defeat at White Plains, the American Revolution would have been ended prematurely, our founding fathers would be portrayed in history books as traitors, and the slaves would have been freed by order of Parliament August 1, 1834. Would it have been better for this to have happened? It would have been helpful for the slaves, but I personally am pretty partial to the current state of America. This same finagling would hamper the effects of our policy in Iraq – we don’t know what would have happened for sure if we had simply changed our diplomatic stance or changed sanctions, or even financed a coup of the government (think Bay of Pigs Baghdad-Style), and it doesn’t matter. By bickering about what might have happened we might be able to satiate our own desire to not accept blame for how things turned out (if, by chance, you really think the state of things in Iraq now is worse than it was five years ago), but the fact of the matter is that 70% of Americans would have started the same war (not to mention 69% of the House and 77% of the Senate - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Resolution_to_Authorize_the_Use_of_United_States_Armed_Forces_Against_Iraq). We went to war, and we won. Since then, other disputes have arisen, but we were successful with our goal to “remove from power the current Iraqi regime and promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime” (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ243.107).
Now, I don't claim that the best course of action is to remain in Iraq indefinitely (in fact, I favor the withdrawal of troops – just not as quickly as Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid), but I do think that the general populace needs to recognize that the war was a success. I stand by my initial assertion that Iraq is better off now than without Saddam in power, and the United States is better off than that. The blanket statements made by the media claiming that Iraq is now a hotbed for terrorism strikes me as inaccurate as their were more terrorist attacks on America in the four years before the beginning of the war compared to the four years since the start of the war. Additionally, despite the current violence that is engulfing Iraq, the country is not engulfed in civil war. Only one Iraqi is killed from war-related violence each year for every 1622 people, while one in person in 186 dies of all causes (in comparison, one in 121 die each year in the United States) (see https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/iz.html, http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/, http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/usinterimproj/, ). In comparison, one in 283 people were killed per year in the United States during its civil war. Iraq is not in civil war (they are in civil unrest, but so were the 1960’s), despite what the media tells us. I reaffirm that the negative reactions to the current situation in Iraq comes not from the actual situation, but from a one-sided negative portrayal of the situation by the media (if you really want to see some problems, look to Darfur). America, Iraq, and the world (despite what anyone might think) are better off without a dictator, and the United States won the war they were instigated to start.
I'm sorry, Milhouse, but your argument that the war was a good idea THEN and still is simply because fewer people are dying is pigeonholed utilitarianism of the worst kind.
There are a lot of other intangibles that must be evaluated before, during, and after war in order to justify its use.
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