Rosenberg and Replies

Scott Rosenberg is the managing editor of Salon.com, a best-of-breed online magazine/newspaper. On the 17th, he wrote an essay titled Eve of Destruction. As an example of the kinds of responses he received, we can read a response from Rich Santalesa, who has worked in and around the software journalism industry. No doubt inspired by like responses, we have Scott’s follow-up to his own article.

I’m amazed by how daft Rich’s points are.

• Comparing the “liberation” of Iraq to the War of Independence. Hm. There is an amazing similarity between these two wars; France had a massive financial interest in the North American continent. Consider the equation:

  North America – Great Britain = More pie for France!

  So, actually, I change my mind. Rich is right-on; we have large financial interests in the region, as did France. However, Rich made the altruistic argument—that we’re doing it for the good of the Iraqi people. I don’t buy that. If that’s true, could we move on to Israel, Palestine, Ethiopia… pick an oppressive regime, I don’t care. If we’re out to prove a point and police the world, could we at least be consistent in our application of force?

• The U.N. needs to be completely restructured. What? Because we can’t do what we want on the global stage without someone objecting? Claiming that we need “one group composed of democratic countries, and another group for everyone else” is like saying we should have a government for all the white people in America, and then one for everyone else; it stinks of prejudice and a lack of world-view. Besides, Great Britain wouldn’t even make it in the group of Good Guys, as they’re still a monarchy!

But, why split hairs here… we’re all just pissing in the wind as long as America is led by a strong, military dictator, right?

Read the articles for yourself, form your own opinions. As a point of interest, I also found this opinion piece from The Star, a South African paper, to be interesting as well.