Zak3056's Journal: Something that bugged me enough to write about it.

I was metamoderating today, and had this comment, end up as one of my items.

The comment suggests an exit strategy for the US in Iraq, which involves allowing Allawi to be killed, and letting his successor (who would ideally be nominally anti-US) be seen to be kicked out of the nation. The author states that, If we do that, and do it soon, we win. Iraq will be no more anti-western than when we stared (that would be impossible). They will have no more or less love for Israel (that too would be impossible). The problems in the region will not have been solved. However, someone with the political clout to re-build Iraq without being attacked by guerilla bombings every day will be able to establish order. It will be slow and painful. There will be abuses, but it will work because he will appear to have "kicked out the Americans". In the end we will have removed the largest source of instability in the region (which we created) and accomplished our goal of removing S.H.

I disagree completely with this idea, and believe such a policy would have some pretty disastrous consequences down the road. But what truly annoyed me is that the comment was marked "flamebait."

That was an unfair moderation, and I metamoderated as such--while I disagree with it, the comment itself is quite interesting. The moderation was undoubtedly the result of someone who simply disagreed with the author of that comment, and to that, folks, I say letting your politics moderate for you is bad policy--it's sticking your fingers in your ears and screaming, "la la la, I can't hear you!"

I don't care what political ideals someone champions, I'm still willing to hear out what they have to say--the alternative to talking about our politics is shooting each other over them. We tried that one already, and I can't say I'd like to see a repeat performance.