Posted on 03/21/2003 6:57:41 AM PST by doug from upland
Humanitarian causes point to war
Deconstructing Terror
by Jonathan Snow
March 07, 2003
Last week, Hopkins PROTECT (Pursuit of Realistic Options To Effectively Combat Terrorism) and Amnesty International cosponsored a speech by Qubad Talabany, the Deputy Representative of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) to Washington. Talabany came to Hopkins to speak about human rights abuses in Iraq, Saddam's ties to terrorists and the future of democracy in the region.
The picture painted by the speech was enlightening. Too often the views of the Iraqi people are lost amidst the rhetoric from both sides of the war issue. Presentations like those of Talabany remind us that this confrontation will have real consequences for the people of Iraq -- a people whose best interests have never been represented by the regime in Baghdad.
Anti-war protesters are right to question the dangers of a war on Iraq. Estimates of casualties from this war are staggering and, critics contend, cannot be justified given the risk posed by Saddam Hussein.
What made Talabany's speech so memorable and impacting was the way he managed to refocus the debate from what will happen if we go to war in Iraq, to what will happen if the United States and the world community fail to act.
Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator whose Ba'athist regime is responsible for the deaths of millions of people, in addition to countless human rights abuses. Rape, torture and the dislocation of members of ethnic groups are a daily reality for the people of Iraq.
During the Gulf War, experts estimate that 60,000 to 120,000 Iraqis were killed (numbers available in various sources actually run the gamut from as little as 1600 to as many as 200,000 Iraqis killed, but respected historians generally place the number within the former range.) These numbers are staggering and a just reason to carefully consider alternatives to war.
These numbers pale in comparison, however, to the numbers of Kurds killed by Saddam's regime in 1988 alone, which experts estimate to be over 180,000. Even more incomprehensible is the total number of Iraqis killed by Baghdad since the founding of the Iraqi state, which is estimated to be approximately 2 million.
The value of human lives however cannot by measured based merely on numbers. There is no mathematical calculation that we can perform and be told for certain how many Iraqis, Y, could justifiably be killed in order to save the lives of X numbers of Iraqis. For this reason, we must look at the big picture of life under the Iraqi regime, and also seek to establish every safeguard possible to minimize civilian casualties in the case of war with Iraq.
The vital question that must be asked in this case is should the judgment about war in Iraq be based merely on the number of casualties that will result from action versus inaction, or must we also consider other values, such as the guarantee of basic human rights and dignities?
As Americans, we have often fought "Just Wars" for the sake of liberty. The War of Independence and the Civil War both resulted in massive casualties, but risks were taken and lives were lost in order to ensure a better future for all Americans.
Do not the Iraqis deserve a similar future? Should the Iraqi people be forced to continue to live under a brutally oppressive regime because our calculations show that innocent people will die as a result of this war? Is the sanctity of human life so great that we should not risk losing a single innocent civilian to safeguard the types of freedoms that we in America take for granted on a daily basis?
The case for war with Iraq is based on essential assurances of human rights that the international community has agreed to safeguard. These rights have been denied to the Iraqi people for the entire history of their state and are too seldom considered by either proponents of war or the anti-war demonstrators. It is terribly disappointing to see hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against war in Iraq without simultaneously demonstrating for the rights of the Iraqi people. It is also disheartening that no one in the Bush administration has been able to make as clear a case for war on Iraq as Mr. Talabany made at Hopkins the other night. The Iraqi people deserve emancipation, and without international support, they will remain victims of Saddam's regime.
The arrest this week of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed proves that America can successfully fight a war on terrorism while also standing up to the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. As the only superpower in the world, we have a responsibility to stand up for people that cannot free themselves. While we fight a war against al-Qaeda to ensure the safety of innocent civilians around the world, we must not forget that millions of people are being denied their basic human rights by Saddam Hussein. The people of Iraq will not be free until Saddam and the Ba'ath party are removed from power in Iraq.
While we can debate the danger that Saddam poses to the United States or Europe, there is no doubt that his despotic regime is a threat to all Iraqis on a daily basis. Innocent people will undoubtedly die as a result of our actions in Iraq, but without them, the future of Iraq will be filled with even more death and destruction at the hands of Saddam Hussein.
Jonathan Snow can be reached at JSnow@jhunewsletter.com.
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