An email exchange on Iraq

in the "for what it's worth department..."

i posted a comment on the nashif report in response to comments by the blog proprietor about the wisdom of invading iraq on the occasion of remembering those who have lost their lives this past memorial day...

(more)

my post...

bush has sent thousands of young men and women off to a war that is being waged on lies and deceit... if i had a son or daughter that returned from iraq mentally or physically damaged or, worse yet, dead, i'm not sure if i could cope... it would be bad enough to lose a child for a just war but to lose a child for iraq would be a tragedy beyond my comprehension...

the response...

Thank you for your views and opinions. It is a common argument that most Liberals seem to cling too. However I have just have a one question for you, How do you think the families of the thousands of Iraqi Men, Women and Children felt who were tortured by by the hands of Sadam and his sons? This is a question that only you can answer for yourself, your answer will be based on two things: humanity and a desire for Justice.

Amidst all the suffering they endured at the hands of this insane modern day Hitler, iraqi's found a way to cope, and to move on and live their lives. The admiration I have for what the Iraqi's have endured, is special. Because I know that I may not be able to be as brave as these human beings were and still are today.

The one fact we as human beings cannot escape, no matter how much we hate our government or president, is that had Sadam remained in power, children would still be dying, their fathers would be slaughtered, and their mothers raped. Liberals claim to be humanitarians, but think that is okay to turn their backs on these innocent people who were led like lambs to the slaughter. And at the same time say that Terrorists who murdered these same iraqi citizens, should have lawyers and stand trial.

Where does your humanity, and your desire for justice lie? That is for you to decide, because you have to live with yourself.

Thanks again for your input.

and my rebuttal...

i don't condone repression, oppression, brutality, torture, or murder in any form... and yes, saddam was guilty of all of those and, yes, i am glad he's gone... what troubles me is this...

-the reasons we were given for attacking iraq were baseless... wmd did not exist and whether our intelligence was either seriously flawed or was shaped to fit a preconceived plan are both equally disturbing... (the weight of evidence for the fact that attacking iraq had been decided upon as early as spring 2002 continues to pile up...) even more disturbing is the fact that, as mohamed al baradei and hans blix had both repeatedly stated, saddam had complied and was continuing to comply with u.n. inspections... whether he would have continued to do so is, of course, open to speculation...

-the stated objective following 9/11 was to pursue al qaeda as the nucleus of the war on terror and osama bin laden as the principal head of that group... with no demonstrable link between iraq and al qaeda, despite false claims to the contrary, vast resources that could have been otherwise directed toward al qaeda were diverted, giving al qaeda breathing space to re-group and re-organize - which they used to their advantage...

-the reasons given now for attacking iraq have significantly shifted from the reasons originally given... deposing a brutal ruler and seeding a middle east country for the growth of democracy, no matter how noble, are, in the contexts in which they are usually presented, extremely disingenuous, since they are virtually never accompanied by any acknowledgement that they are indeed rationales after the fact...

-president bush signed a memorandum in 2002 waiving geneva for detainees... subsequent directives authorized interrogation techniques based on that memo, the most notable of which were outlined in the memorandum from general ricardo sanchez (see full details here) pertaining to abu ghraib, authorship of which was later denied by general sanchez in sworn testimony before the senate armed services committee... as information continues to emerge, it is clear that abu ghraib is far from an isolated instance and that, in fact, guantanamo was the model which later was imported to abu ghraib, bagram and elsewhere... if the u.s. is to have any hope of "seeding democracy" in the rest of the world, we cannot compromise our own stated principles and values in doing so... saying that it is a "different type of war" and a "different type of enemy" is no justification for the abandonment of moral principles, the principles upon which the u.s. was founded...

my humanity and desire for justice is all-encompassing and cannot exclude my own country... i feel as strongly about tyrants like saddam as i do about the vile leader in uzbekistan, musharraf in pakistan, mubarak in egypt, and anyone who either directly or indirectly condones and/or promotes human suffering... for president bush to call allegations of detainee torture "absurd" (as he did just the other day) is itself absurd... i intensely dislike being lied to and manipulated... anyone who can step forward and tell the truth, no matter how difficult it might be, has my respect... clinton lost it and bush lost it long ago... our country is better than this (or at least i thought it was)...

one last word on humanity and life... i value ALL life... let me repeat - ALL life... i regard life in every form sacred whether it be animal, vegetable or mineral... i believe that discriminating about which forms of life are sacred and which are not is the basest form of hypocrisy... while that view is often portrayed as soft and weak, it is neither... true love and respect for all life requires a degree of spiritual strength that seems to be sadly lacking in these times...

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