You clearly have a double standard when it comes to the innocent people we are killing in Iraq.

I was waiting for one of you libs to pull that one. First of all, you don't address the problem. What do you think about this case??...not the war in Iraq. We've established your opinion there.

Secondly, I absolutely do not have a double standard. I'll address your liberal bumber sticker, nonetheless. Innocent people die in war, and that's a tragedy, but more innocent people died under Saddam Hussein than under the US invasion...by far. No one complained about that.

Clearly, Terry Schiavo and someone killed in war are completely different scenarios. It's awful that innocents are killed, but again, I think the result of this war (and most others we've fought) far outweigh the cost. Imagine moaning about the innocents killed in WWII. Sad, but you'd be laughed at if that were your case against it. Look at the result of that war. Only Germans speak German.

Terry Schiavo is just fighting for her life. And upon close examination of the events, any compassionate, life loving person would be horrified and outraged at what is going on.

what about the innocent children killed by abortion? You Libs will never let go of you "every woman's 'right' to choose," but what about a baby's right to LIVE!

Actually plenty of liberals did complain about the Reagan Doctrine, under which the U.S. gave military aid to Saddam despite the fact that he gassed the Kurds.

Show me the complaints. I don't believe you.

Ziggy, what about all the innocent children who are aborted (many late-term) that want to live. Have the liberals complained on their behalf?

The New York Times

September 28, 1988, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition

HEADLINE: House Approves Sanctions Against Iraq

BYLINE: By ROBERT PEAR, Special to the New York Times

BODY:
The imposition of economic sanctions against Iraq became virtually certain today as the House of Representatives followed the Senate in voting to punish Iraq for use of chemical weapons against Kurdish guerrillas and civilians.

The Senate on Sept. 9 passed a bill that would impose even more sweeping sanctions than those contained in the House bill.

The vote today in the House was 388 to 16. A huge bipartisan majority, 233 Democrats and 155 Republicans, voted for the bill, which declares that ''Iraq's use of chemical weapons is a gross violation of international law.'' Only eight Democrats and eight Republicans voted against the bill.

The Administration opposed both the House and Senate bills, even though President Reagan said on Monday at the United Nations that it was ''incumbent upon all civilized nations to ban, once and for all,'' the use of chemical and gas warfare.

The New York Times

April 10, 1989, Monday, Late City Final Edition

SECTION: Section A; Page 16, Column 1; Editorial Desk

BODY:
''Here they remain,'' wrote Clyde Haberman of The Times from a refugee camp in Turkey, ''yesterday's headline and tomorrow's uncertainty.'' That poignantly renders the unchanging plight of the all-but-forgotten Kurdish people, who probably total 20 million.

When their villages in Iraq were gassed last summer, some 50,000 Kurds fled into Turkey, a country that denies basic rights to its own Kurds. Of these refugees, 14,000 were encouraged by the Turks to move on to Iran, another country that slaughters its Kurds.

Iraq's murderous poison gas attack on Kurdish villages aroused protest last year, though not enough to move the U.N. to vote a human rights investigation of Iraq. Third world solidarity runs thicker than blood. And Iran's crimes against Kurds get even less outside attention. An exception comes in a devastating account in the British magazine New Statesman & Society by Hazhir Teimourian of The Times of London, with grisly photographs showing summary executions of Iranian Kurds.

The New York Times

September 14, 1988, Wednesday, Late City Final Edition

HEADLINE: FOREIGN AFFAIRS;
Move to Stop Iraq

BYLINE: By Flora Lewis

BODY:
The deafening silence of governments on Iraq's use of chemical weapons has provoked serious concern among defense experts....

So far it has been legislators, the press and the public who have spoken out against Iraq's actions. Governments seem to have reached a new level of cynicism. It is clear Iraq felt it could get away with turning poison gas on its Kurds after the cease-fire because so little was said when it used chemical warfare against Iran....

Certainly the superpowers and the Western nations that accept some responsibility for world order must react clearly. The U.S. Congress has been more lucid than the Administration, and America has made more sense than its mealy-mouthed allies. But where are the nonaligned, those ready purveyors of moral judgment to the superpowers? Especially, where are the Arab states with their protestations of peaceful intent?...

Apparently the U.S. and even more the European governments are too embarrassed by their past aid to Iraq to admit that they must now impose restraint....

But the Iraqi regime has always been so brutally repressive, so thuggishly arrogant, that there is little hope for internal renewal without outside pressure...

There's no use expecting gratitude for the immense help given to Iraq. That was in the self-interest of the Arabs, the U.S. and the West. Now, in that same interest, Iraq must be made to see that it wasn't saved from defeat to permit it to conduct genocide or to become the regional superpower. Too much is at risk.

You just made a perfect case for Desert Storm and Operation Shock & Awe.

Now back to the topic. The left in our country clearly are passionate about pulling Terri's feeding tube; a sentence they wouldn't pronounce on a dog.

You never did answer the abortion issue. Those babies don't have a chance to say they want to live before they're murdered. But when will you fight for their rights?

I'm not sure how abortion is relevant to Emily's posting. If the implication is that I am supporting a double-standard, even if I were, that wouldn't remove the double-standard in Emily's case, if there were one.

Emily is opposed to abortion in general--I assume--and to euthanasia in Terri Schiavo's case, so there's no contradiction there. There is a contradiction however between advocating the war in Iraq, with its associated innocent civilian casualties, and opposing Schiavo's euthanasia. Even if it's true that civilian casualties are inevitable in war (I don't think it is), the war itself wasn't inevitable, but volitional. So advocating the war was making a decision to kill innocent civilians.

If the argument is that there was a utilitarian basis for the war--saving aggregate Iraqi lives or greater safety for U.S. citizens--then the argument is not that it is wrong to kill innocents, but that the reason for killing innocents is better in the case of Iraq than in the case of Terri Schiavo.

But that is not how Emily put it. What she said was this was a conflict between those who valued life and those who valued death. If the above paragraph is true, then the conflict is really between those who advocate death for different persons and for different reasons.

Abortion is not relevant to Emily's post, but neither is the war in Iraq.

It is relevant to her drawing of the lines in this dispute, i.e. between those who advocate life and those who advocate death. My argument is that she also advocates death of the innocent.

If the left cannot take the argument for Terri by its own merits but must bring the entire world into the debate, then those on your side must abide by the same rules.

Unfortunately when you do this you have no discourse, just wild finger-pointing resulting in a stalemate.

E.g., if you are so concerned about "innocent" lives, then where were you and those on your side when innocent Iraqi's were being slaughtered by Sadaam? Nary a peep. Where are you now while innocent children are being brutally tortured and killed in front of their parents in the Congo? How about the Sudan? Let's bring the starving children of Africa into this. What is the left doing about this?

Useless exercise.

P.S. you mentioned euthanasia--Terri is NOT being euthanized, she is being slowly, painfully, dehydrated and starved to death.

Where is this "compassion" the left so often boasts having? As I've said before, you wouldn't treat a dog that way (if you did you would be jailed).

Iraq isn't relevant to the Schiavo case per se, but it is relevant to Emily's post about it, for the reasons I have given above.

The New York Times articles I posted above give examples of liberals denouncing Iraq for the murder of the Kurds--and calling for sanctions against the wishes of the Reagan administration. Nicholas Kristof in the Times has been covering Sudan extensively, and in fact made the first mention of the genocide there that I saw. Congo I'm not familiar with, so I can't say. Starvation in Africa, Peter Singer has advocated that all persons donate all income over $30,000 to Oxfam or Unicef.

Writing about something and doing something about a problem are two different things. What did the left actually DO about the millions Sadaam killed/shredded/raped/buried? Jon brought up abortion, which the left totally supports.

I disagree with you that this is relevant to Emily's post--it is much easier for you to start finger-pointing about Iraq than actually address or have a position on Terri. Easy way out.

What they did was pass sanctions against Iraq when they were in control of the House, over the objections of the Reagan administration.

It is relevant to this statement:

"We are truly in a cultural war. There are clearly two sides. One who loves and embraces death, and one who chooses to embrace and spread life."

It is not possible to reconcile supporting the invasion of Iraq with this statement.

Passing sanctions did nothing to save the millions of lives Sadaam took, but I suppose the left felt good about themselves by passing them.

If this is your assertion, then you must surely be pro-life when it comes to abortion. Remember, according to your own argument, you must be consistent; therefore the left is hypocritcal because they support the death of innocent,unborn babies (including the horrific procedure known as partial birth abortion).

Again, you are taking the easy way out.

Difference being that I am not claiming to be part of a "culture of life" versus another group that embraces a "culture of death." If Emily's position is in fact contradictory, she cannot claim to be part of a "culture of life." If you endorse her positions, then neither can you.

Being part of the culture of life does not preclude war.

I should amend that: You can both say you are part of a "culture of life," but the content of that culture does not consist of a defense of innocent life in greater degree than those who are not part of that culture. Rather what distinguishes it is defense of different innocent lives: the unborn and the invalid versus foreign citizens killed in aggressive war. I am not claiming membership in any such culture on behalf of myself that being pro-choice would contradict, although I am opposed to aggressive war.

If you want to claim that the Iraq war saved lives, I think you would have to establish that. I'm not sure what massacres you are referring to, but the massacres of the Kurds occurred in 1987, while the Reagan administration was supporting Iraq militarily. Further massacres occurred after the first Persian Gulf War, when the Bush administration encouraged an uprising against Saddam but did not support it. I am unaware of an ongoing massacre that the second Gulf War interrupted. If there was one, it certainly was not one of the justifications given for the war by the administration. Also the numbers involved were in the thousands, not the millions. Perhaps you are including the casualties in the Iran-Iraq war, in which the Reagan administration, with Rumsfeld as special envoy, aided Iraq, despite its use of poison gas, with the goal being to prevent either side from winning--that is, to prevent the war from ending.

P.S. regardless of which culture you are a part of, for you to constantly bring up the deaths of innocent Iragi's (in relation to Terri) yet NOT oppose the death of Terri or of innocent babies being aborted is entirely hypocritical.

So does it depend solely upon which group of innocents you deem more valuable?

I wouldn't say which you deem more valuable. You should do what is right in each case, which is not a statement about the value of different lives. It's subject to different moral considerations.

In Terri Schiavo's case, under Florida law a patient who is no longer conscious and has no chance of recovery can be denied treatment if that was her wish according to the next of kin. The courts have determined that was her wish. They may be wrong about that, and if they are, the treatment should not be denied, but that is an empirical question, not a moral one.

In Iraq the case is also very clear. The two justications for war are self-defense and to stop genocide. Neither applied in the case of Iraq. The killing that has occurred has therefore been immoral.