Seymour Hersh: Man On Fire
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By Lakshmi Chaudhry
AlterNet
Printed on October 28, 2004
alternet.org
Select comments by Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh:
<<...I'm one of those people who believes that Bush really did go to war to free the Middle East and turn these nations into democracies. I don't think he went to war for oil primarily or Israel. He went because he has this idee fixe that it was his mission, his crusade to change the Middle East – to turn it into a democratic stronghold of good, well-meaning people who would buy American and support Israel against the Palestinians and keep the oil flowing.
It's idealistic. It's utopian. Is there anything more dangerous than an ideologue who doesn't know he's wrong?
Now, one of the things I've heard from people who found themselves supporting the war is that whether the UN went in or not, the fact is that there was a moral imperative. That Saddam was doing terrible things to his people and suppressing the Shi'ites, violating human rights and so on.
The only problem with that thinking is that it's been more than a year and a half since we went in. And right now, the abuses in the prisons, the bombings, and the attacks, the violence in the country are now being caused by us. Is that a moral position we want to be in? Of course, it is an unintended consequence, but it is still very much a consequence.
If Bush wins re-election, he will bomb and bomb and bomb. He's been doing that steadily ever since the Allawi government was put in place by us. Since June 28, the bombing has gone up exponentially. Bombing, bombing, bombing. Civilian targets, civilian neighborhoods.
But I don't see anyone in the press worrying about it. I don't see them demanding to know how many sorties we're flying – have they grown? Are more bombs being dropped? What's the tonnage? We don't know any of that, do we?...>> |
