THE WEEKEND

As I have a life, this is going to be a quiet blog on weekends.

Today, we saw Shrek 2 and went to the Lord of the Rings exhibit. I spent yesterday drinking and dragonboating.

It was my second outing on the team. It's the Irish team and is sponsored by a local pub here, where I retired for (complementary) drinks afterward. I joined after receiving a proposition while I was out drinking a few weekends earlier.

Lisa notes that my reasons for taking up dragonboating are essentially the same reasons I have for doing many other inane things:

Q: “Why did you start dragonboating?”
A: “I was drunk and this woman asked me if I was interested in joining the team. Also, she said we get free beer.”

Q: “Why did you eat that live octopus?”
A: “I was drunk and this guy offered me a withering tentacle. He also offered some soju to wash it down with.”

After the pub I joined I retired to another going-away party for a friend. Going-away parties are pretty frequent for expats – I usually attend at least one every month. Always with some regret that another friend is leaving.

Anyway, I spent the latter part of the party speaking with a Floridian who was interested in my time in the Middle East – and how it shaped my views on the war.

I recounted a time in Kuwait when I was with a group of friends having a poolside barbeque. It was in an expat housing estate and my companions were a mix of Westerners and more liberal Arabs. It was late 1998, shortly after Saddam had expelled weapons inspectors and the Desert Fox bombing campaign had started, naturally the topic of how Iraq should be dealt with came up.

At that time, my view was that the only way to deal with Iraq would be through a full-scale invasion, followed by some sort of occupation and a Marshall Plan-style remodeling of the place. But this was not only my view: it was essentially the consensus of everyone at the table – that included liberal Arabs, an Iranian, Europeans and Americans.

Sanctions were obviously not going to bring Saddam down and they were slowly starving the Iraqi people. Operations like Desert Fox would not result in a regime change. The only way to get rid of sanctions, remove Saddam, resolve WMD and prisoner of war issues would be a full-scale invasion.

Those at the table also believed that the US public would, unfortunately, never support such a move. At that time, it wouldn't have. Clinton was being impeached and many people, including some of those who are now hawkish, were opposing the Desert Fox operation as a wag-the-dog type of distraction.

When the invasion started last year, I welcomed it as a way to end the sanctions, get rid of Saddam, and possibly kick start a wave of democratization in the Arab world. It has been successful on the first two counts – I am concerned that it may fail on the third, but still think success is a possibility.

The Floridian from last night did offer me some cheer. While he said he was opposed to the war before it started, he noted the 'Pottery Barn rule,' saying now that the US was in the country retreat should not be an option. What raised my spirits about this was that he wasn't a Bush supporter. It was nice to meet a Democrat who isn't defeatist.