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Politics : Foreign Policy Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (5463)	4/11/2003 9:41:42 AM
From: lorne	Respond to of 15987

Freedom's jubilant victory William Safire NYT Friday, April 11, 2003 A new beginning WASHINGTON Like newly freed Parisians tossing flowers at Allied tanks; like newly freed Germans tearing down the Berlin Wall; like newly freed Russians pulling down the statue of the hated secret police chief in Dzerzhinsky Square, the newly freed Iraqis toppled the figure of their tyrant and ground their shoes into the face of Saddam Hussein. . All these pictures flow together in the farrago of freedom's victories over despotism in the past two generations. Just as video of human suffering understandably triggers demonstrations against any war, unforgettable images of enslaved people tasting liberty drive home the wisdom of just wars. . Even in the flush of triumph, doubts will be raised. Where are the supplies of germs and poison gas and plans for nukes to justify preemption? (Freed scientists will lead Americans to caches no inspectors could find.) What about remaining danger from Ba'athist torturers and war criminals forming pockets of resistance and plotting vengeance? (Their death wish is our command.) . The most insulting question is this: Considering their Islamist religious schisms and tribal hatreds, their tradition of monarchy and obedience to dictatorial regimes, their turbulent streets easily inflamed by demagogues, how can any population of Arabs be entrusted with democracy? . The answer to that is the experiment on which Iraq is now embarked. Iraqis start with the advantages of being literate and extravagantly oil-rich, and most aren't fundamentalists. If Iraqis are able to adopt a system of free enterprise and representative government, they will become the center of an arc of freedom from Turkey in the north to Israel in the south (with Lebanon freed from Syrian occupation, if France will liberate the state it created). Egypt, the largest Arab nation, could not long resist such a tidal wave of liberty. Full article >>> iht.com