A guy walking into my home has not necessarily committed a crime.
Very liberal of you, I must say. The courts will hold you blameless if you took defensive action.
Let's get back to Iraq.
Now here is some information on the crimes committed by Saddam. And our role in it. We aided him as he killed 600,000 Iranians.
A number of people who marched two weekends ago expressed their concerns back in the late 1980s when the Iraqi leader was at the peak of his crimes - gassing Iranian child soldiers and defenceless Kurdish villagers. Unsurprisingly, within the corridors of power at the time, their protests fell on deaf ears. It's easy, therefore, to imagine their anger at the calumny of those who, previously silent, are now lecturing them about the evils of Saddam's regime.
At the heart of the West's credibility on this issue is its response at the time these atrocities took place. What forms did outrage in Washington, London and Canberra take after Saddam killed 5000 Kurds in the town of Halabja on 17 March 1988? What steps did governments in these capitals take to bring him to account for his wicked crimes? The answers to these questions will tell us how seriously we should accept the arguments that are currently being mounted for war.
Washington was so offended by Saddam's behaviour in the 1980s that it backed him in Baghdad's war against Iran. Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr supplied the Iraqi leader with intelligence, satellite imagery, arms and billions of dollars in loans. Two decades later, Saddam's attack on Persia - about which at the time Washington was officially "neutral" - is being invoked by many of the same people as a reason for his annihilation.
More ominously, according to the report of a 1994 US Senate Banking Committee, the "United States provided the government of Iraq with 'dual-use' licensed materials which assisted in the development of Iraqi chemical, biological and missile-system programs." According to the report, this assistance included "chemical warfare-agent precursors; chemical warfare-agent production facility plans and technical drawings; chemical warfare-filling equipment; biological warfare-related materials; missile fabrication equipment and missile system guidance equipment." These technologies were sent to Iraq until December 1989, 20 months after the gassing of Halabja.
In February 1989, John Kelly, US Assistant Secretary of State, flew to Baghdad to tell Saddam Hussein that "you are a source for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq." This was eleven months after Halabja.
Now that's outrage.
zmag.org
We helped create and nurture Saddam. Now you want to take him out by military action. But this action can cause 500,000 Iraqi casualties, many of them innocent. What is the moral justification?
It seems to me that the UN should enforce a UN resolution
There are many UN resolutions that many countries have been defying for decades. Why are we not using military force against them? |
