And they call us "fascists"?
Regards, Ivan
Posted on 02/15/2003 4:08:49 PM PST by MadIvan
Ignorance, fear and lack of respect for Arabs - these were the most obvious traits on display in yesterday's demonstration against a war in Iraq. Could so many people really think that it is better to leave Iraqis under Saddam Hussein's vicious tyranny than to liberate them from it?
Their protests suggest that it is not worth risking anything at all to free Arabs. To risk spilling a single drop of blood to liberate Iraq would be futile - not merely because it would be "destabilising" or "kill children", but because the Arabs have no capacity for "Western" freedom anyway. Behind the demonstrators' slogans lies the assumption that Arabs should be left alone: they don't mind being brutalised, tortured and murdered by a fascist thug like Saddam. Where they come from, it is the natural order of things.
That line of thought is nonsense. More than that - it is racist nonsense. No one knows better than the Arabs the horror of being oppressed. No one knows better than they that tyrannical oppression is all that they will get so long as Saddam and his family are in power. Saddam's despotism is not a denial of "Western" freedom: it's a denial of the freedom that every person needs to be able to live a worthwhile life. To imagine that the Iraqis don't want to be freed, or are not entitled to it, is simply to suppose that they are less human than us.
It is shocking to discover how deep lies the prejudice against Arabs being able to enjoy freedom. It is to be found in some surprising places other than the demonstration in Hyde Park: the CIA, for example, and the US State Department have long taken the view that Iraq is so tribal and retrograde a country that only a brutal dictator like Saddam could control it.
For them, the problem with Saddam is not that he is a murderous, tyrannical son of a bitch. It is that he isn't any longer our murderous, tyrannical son of a bitch. They had to be persuaded by the supposedly militaristic Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, and the Pentagon, to give democracy in Iraq its chance. Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress and other exiles are now preparing to take over. Kanan Makiya, one of the most brilliant among them, has been drafting a new constitution for sharing power among Iraq's disparate elements. Since they cannot liberate themselves, others have to do it for them. That is the point of our invasion.
What is more depressing than the ignorance and fear of yesterday's demonstrators, or even than the prejudice of the State Department, is the opposition to the liberation of Iraq voiced by some of Britain's most distinguished public servants. Sir John Killick, a former ambassador to the USSR, Sir Andrew Green, recently retired as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir Timothy Garden, a former air marshal, and General Sir Michael Rose, have all come out against an invasion. These men must know that the effect of not going to war will be to prolong the rule of Saddam. They nevertheless oppose any attempt to topple him because, they say, the consequences will be dire. There will be untold numbers of casualties, and there will be "explosive instability" in the Arab world.
Their claims simply do not stand up. Before the last Gulf war, there were many similar predictions of doom and disaster. In the event, the number of casualties on the allied side was less than 200. Half of those were victims of friendly fire. The number of deaths on the Iraqi side was certainly much greater, but even so, the numbers have been greatly exaggerated. This time, Iraq is much weaker after 10 years of sanctions than it was in 1991. American technology is much better: laser-guided bombs are now more accurate and will form a higher percentage of the ordnance. Saddam has no air force of any significance. It means that the moment his troops come out of their bunkers, they will be destroyed by the coalition. As a result, we can be pretty confident that they will not come out.
It is unlikely that the war in Iraq will consist only of a land invasion. Rather, teams of special forces will be used to seize and secure strategic positions, such as the oilfields and the dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, so that they can be protected from any attempt to blow them up. If this can be done quickly, there may well be no civilian casualties at all: the regime may simply implode, leaving Saddam to the fate of Ceaucescu - a dictator barking orders that no one obeys. Saddam is known to be highly conscious of that possibility. According to defectors he keeps a tape of the toppling and execution of Ceaucescu and watches it regularly.
Far from leading to an "explosion" in the Arab world, the removal of Saddam would do much to encourage stability in the Middle East. Baghdad would cease to be a haven for terrorists, particularly the Palestinian suicide bombers whom Saddam has subsidised. The majority of Arabs long to see Saddam removed. A number of Arab governments are tyrannies only marginally less brutal than that of Saddam Hussein. They view his removal with anxiety, for they know the precedent it will set: if a democratic Iraq flourishes, it will be an inspiration to - among others - the peoples of Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt. It will encourage all of them to get rid of the corrupt dictators who have oppressed, stultified and impoverished their countries - just as the fall of the Berlin Wall encouraged the whole of eastern Europe to replace tyranny with democracy and socialism with private enterprise.
When he was in Rome recently, Barham Salih, the Prime Minister of Kurdish Iraq, said that he saw around him a parliamentary democracy in a country liberated by America from the fascist Mussolini. So it would be with Saddam. Salih's implication that a democratic, prosperous Iraq is the most likely outcome of an American invasion is absolutely right. It is a testament to the power of ignorance and prejudice that so many people in Britain cannot see it. Anyone looking for evidence of the decline of this country's moral and intellectual authority will find it in the thoughtless stampede with which the peace party has assembled.
David Pryce-Jones is the author of The Closed Circle: an interpretation of the Arabs and is senior editor with National Review.
And they call us "fascists"?
Regards, Ivan
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You got it! Racist - and condescending (which is the actual face of racism in the modern world).
One of the most recent anti-war letters to my local paper accused the US of trying to impose democracy on the Arabs of the Middle East, who have chosen autocratic leaders for thousands of years. These people are not only racist, they are stupid enough (or pretned to be stupid enough) to believe that the Arabs chose the tyrants they suffer under and could change their minds tomorrow if they wanted to. Stupid is as stupid does.
...the anti-war left is inherently racist....It is much worse than that. The Left, having abandoned Christianity and the God of Truth, would now also throw over Freedom that they might be slaves to the delusions of their man-made ideology.
Just remember we all have friends and families overseas fighting for our security.
Keep the faith and vote for freedom. Let the socialists yell; The louder they get they more they expose themselves.
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