Interview with Bill Moyers. By the way, I have had the pleasure of checking in Mr. Moyers to my hotel, and he is a very gracious and lovely gentleman. This is a fantastic interview, and there are some splendid questions asked.
Stewart: "It's hard to feel the difficulties our military families face – sometimes you have to put yourself in somebody's shoes to get a sense of that. One of the things I think government counts on is that people are busy. It's very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it's over a really crucial, foundational issue that forces a kind of tipping point.
Moyers: "Like the war?"
Stewart: "It really hasn't affected us here in the way that you would imagine a five year war. Here's the disconnect, and I've always had a problem with the rationality of it. The President says we're in the fight for our way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation and the generations to come. Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and children's children all suffer. So what I'm going to do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad. So there's the disconnect between saying this is the fight of our generation, and increasing troop strength by ten percent. I'm sure what he (the President) would like to do is send 400 thousand more troops, but that would mean instating the draft, and the minute you do that, suddenly the country is not so damn busy anymore. And then the public really fights back and the whole thing falls apart. So the government has a very delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we're doing and really examine the way they've been waging this."
My comment on the above: We're not at war. The only real war being waged here is a class war, and what is left of the middle class is getting the shaft. We are an occupational force, period. The occupation of Iraq must indeed go on as long as our economic interests lie therein. We have no plan on "winning" the "war", because once we do the Iraqis may start to question what we are doing there – at least after they stop fighting amongst themselves. And then we'll have a real war as long as we insist upon running their country and controlling their biggest national resource, petroleum. Indeed, the President is right when he states that our way of life depends upon the invasion and occupation of another sovereign nation. What the current American regime (most Democrats included) does not offer is anything visionary or creative in regards to building an even more equitable, and democratic future for the world. And that is their biggest sin; thinking only for momentary profit and gain at the expense of human life, which they hold little regard for unless it is their own. Eventually we are going to be forced to 'fess up, and deal with the problems we've created – the only question is how long we're going to put it off.
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