Some of you already know this very well, of course. It was kind of what I was infamous for at dKos (you could always count on Bob Johnson to show up in my diary entries, regardless of their subject, to bring up Iraq). But I picked up a vibe, from responses my post about DSM today, that a lot of people here at BT didn’t know that was where I was coming from–so I figure rather than explaining that individually over and over, I’d use a diary to officially state my position.
And of course, those who have known me for a while probably know what’s coming next: my “brush with greatness” you might call it. I, along with a few other people, was profiled in the Washington Post right around the time the war began. If you go to the library and look at the actual issue, you can even see a full colour picture of what I look like (or looked like two years ago, anyway); but that’s sadly not available online. Anyway, I think the reporter did a good job of conveying my position in a nutshell, and I still stand by everything I said (including decrying human rights violations, which I have certainly had to do in spades). Still, I think Iraq is on the whole better off than they were before the war, and I’m glad Saddam is in a jail cell rather than in one of his many former palaces.
Below the fold, you’ll find my WaPo profile conveniently excerpted:
An avowed leftist, Alan Thomas, 33, doesn’t like Bush, but he believes in the war. “I don’t support the president. I’m skeptical about his sincerity in wanting democracy in Iraq. But I feel he’s committed to it,” Thomas says.
Thomas works the night shift in a group home for mainstreamed developmentally disabled adults in Kirksville, Mo. He’s the son of college professors. He and his wife, Kate, 27, live in an apartment and drive a 1989 Chevrolet van. They have two mutts rescued from the humane society. They also run a small shop that sells things they think are cool, such as bumper stickers that read “Bush/Cheney: America’s Second Choice.”
“I’m sympathetic with the plight of the Kurds and the Iraqi people,” Thomas says. “And I’m disappointed in, and embarrassed by, the left.”
Asked if he voted for Bush, he laughs. “No, no way. Never.”
Though Thomas enthusiastically supports the war, he says he’ll reevaluate his position after the regime change. “If Bush tries to install a puppet dictator or if there are human rights violations, I’ll be decrying it as loudly as anyone else on the left,” he says.
“I feel that the original Gulf War was conducted in an immoral way. . . . They rained down so many bombs on troops who were conscripted.” He supports a war that minimizes civilian casualties.
The United States, Thomas says, “should clean up the world. We have the power. I’m kind of a weirdo. It’s wrong for us to sit on our hands and not do anything.”
He adds, “It’s very simplistic to treat this as a black-and-white issue.”