In this months issue of The Atlantic there is an article by William Langewiesche, who back in the summer of 2002 had a series on 9/11 that was absolutely incredible. Anyway, this months piece, "The Accuser" (sorry, access is by subscription only) deals with Hania Mufti, the Jordanian human rights activist who since the early 1980s tracked the atrocities carried out by Saddam Husseins regime in Iraq. It is not for the faint of heart, and I imagine makes particularly uncomfortable reading for those who argued that the Iraq War was unjust.
When I asked her [i.e., Mufti] what she had felt in Kurdistan during the lead-up to the invasion, she did not answer for herself but described the concern of the people around her. They were worried that international opposition to the war might cause Britain and the United States to hesitate, or back down. She said, "The question about whether there were weapons of mass destruction or not, I think for many Iraqis that was just a red herring. It didnt matter whether they were found. And there were all these antiwar demonstrations being shown on television, in Europe and the States, and elsewhere in the Middle East. And I remember sitting with various groups of Kurds watching the news, and theyd look at the TV screen and gesture in this way"—she waved her hand dismissively—"and theyd say, These people dont know what theyre talking about. They should come here and try Saddam for a while, and see whether or not they like it for themselves."
Very interesting - but disturbing - stuff. Makes me wonder if/when Bush will add Uzbekistan
to the Axis of Evil list, and consider liberating that country. Lets keep our fingers crossed!
I have always believed that the WMD argument was a convenient reason, and not THE reason we took action there. It seemed an easy excuse, that in the end turned out not so easy to prove. Still, its not out of a sense of supporting Bush at all costs that I beieve there is more to the story. It just seems to me that an entire military organization, the Pentagon and all its advisors, the administrations second and third level assistants, were all (mostly) willing to go along with this plan, and one would have to believe that thousands of people are not only keeping a secret (a dumb idea to be sure) but all those poeple are also quite evil...starting a war for political reasons. No, theres more to this, and I believe the iraqi peoples perspective before Ill believe the Micheal Moores of America.