Has it occured to you, at least on a philosophical level, that you do not and cannot know what the best system is, and you are partial to your own system, and that every nation on this planet has the right to be governed by whatever system they choose? And if their system is dictatorial, that they will have to change it themselves without the US butting in? And that the very notion of any one country to think it has the right to change all the regimes on earth is the epitome of bullying by force?
And how can you possibly justify, morally or legally, one country invading another because they do not like its system and feel their own system is better?
Short answer: Because we must.
The war which has been going on since well before 9/11/01 is between modernity and antiquity. It can be summarized paradigmatically as between those who believe in the rightness of rulers and faith, and those who believe in the rightness of democracy and science.
Saddam Hussein, like most of the political heads in the Middle East, is a ruler and part of the reacting archaic forces.
Modernity has no place for stalinist regimes and their prisons, torture and genocide. The Iraq regime is a vicious reproach to us. That the West has let it go on so long is seen in the ME as evidence of our hypocrisy and has led to quite a lot of bad feeling - democracy and prosperity are OK for us, but tyranny and poverty are good enough for them.
It's time for a clear message.
The WMDs are a proximate reason for invasion, but what the Iraqi regime is and does is a sufficiently good reason in itself. A sincere effort by US and its allies to promote democracy in Iraq even if it fails, will bring respect to the US and great comfort to modern people living in the area.
I think Bush understands the large situation intuitively and that's why he's been trying to get the modern countries to stand up for what they are. That's why he said he had a mission to bring democracy to the Middle East.
Similarly with his address to the UN in September: as the leader of the leading exemplar of modernity he told the UN it had to commit to it's modern structure or be irrelevant. The Soviets are gone. There is no need anymore to acquiesce to the existence of totalitarian regimes with their gulags and genocide, all contrary to the many resolutions both the Security Counsel and General Assembly has made.
There is too much complacency on the part of many folk living in modern countries that because modernity has been ascendant the last couple of centuries that it will remain ascendant. The muslim civilization of about a thousand years ago was the leading modern power of its time with some freedom and science and it was destroyed by archaic forces from within and from outside. |
