Originally Posted by
Mr JP Fugley
Do you feel that to have done nothing would have been a better option?
Probably, and certainly not in the way it was undertaken.
No doubt some will suggest that to be an endorsement of Saddam Hussein, but it is nothing of the sort. Look at the facts in a little more detail.
Firstly, Saddam Hussein was more or less "under control". A lot of what went on since the first Gulf War was posturing and verbal rhetoric intended for internal consumption. The west knew that.
The West knew what, exactly?
Precious little, as it turns out; the "question" of WMD was not a question, beforehand-EVERYONE believed Saddam possessed them, and EVERYONE had intelligence that indicated this was so; we had even seen him use them in the past.
Subsequent stories to the effect they were hidden/buried, moved to Syria, dumped in the Euphrates, what-have-you, lead to no conclusive disposition.
In any case, the fact no WMD was found has now become a panacea for all those who claim to have "known it all along".
For them, hindsight is a boon, indeed.
To suggest they knew what every intelligence service (not to mention the U.N. and it's inspectors) did not know is gratuitous opportunism.
Secondly, there was never any suggestion that his removal was because of human rights violations (for want of a better all encompassing phrase).
Indeed, there were much more deserving targets for such action. For example Somalia, where earlier actions had damaged the non-west-friendly warlord sufficiently that a west-friendly one held more power. No reduction in the human rights abuses though, even though they exceeded those in Iraq many times over.
Then are we to conclude that to imperil the lives of extant Somalians would weigh less heavily on the consciences of those who would prefer Iraq be left alone?
Ask yourself why the western governments did not pursue his removal on humanitarian grounds. It would have got much more support at the UN, even though it would still not have got a resolution. But such a motive would not have raised the ire of the "local" population in the same way that an impossible search for non-existent WMD would, and would therefore be less likely to achieve the true objective.
Humanitarian grounds were a sidelight of what was thought the greater issue-WMD and the potential terrorist connections.
In either case, as has been mentioned throughout this section, many times, and in many places, you put your chips on the square with the greatest potential yield, and that was Iraq (remember the accusations self-interest?)
BTW-
What does "...much more support at the UN, even though it would still not have got a resolution." count for?
UN resolutions over Iraq were totally meaningless, if you'll remember; it follows that "support" would have meant commensurately less.
However, once the failure to find any WMD became apparent, and thousands of Iraqis had died in bombing raids, the suggestion that it was all good because it stopped the human rights abuses was brought up. That this was simply a ruse was obvious, and almost certainly added to the rising tension in the area.
This is true, though artfully worded; it gives the impression that the claims to have stopped human-rights abuses were issued in direct response to innocents being bombed.
Without discounting the terrible toll this has taken on the Iraqi citizens, I have seen instances of polls purporting to question them as to a continued coalition presence there, and the result is generally in the negative.
If they were polled as to whether, when all is said and done, they'd prefer a democracy (after their own fashion) or a fundamentalist existence under, say, a Muqtada al Sadr?
Now, there's a better question.
We need to stop staring at where our governments are directing out gaze, and look at what's going on in the background. That's where we'll find the real truth about what's going on.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks