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[casi] Moral Responsiblity for Iraqi Graves



http://www.fff.org/comment/com0305l.asp

Moral Responsiblity for Iraqi Graves

by Jacob G. Hornberger, May 23, 2003
[Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation.]

Given the failure of U.S. forces to find Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass
destruction, the newest justification for the president’s invasion of Iraq
has become the mass graves of Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussein’s forces after
the Persian Gulf War in 1991. “If we hadn’t invaded,” the reasoning goes,
“Saddam Hussein would still be filling mass graves with innocent people and,
therefore, the president’s invasion of Iraq was justified after all.”

Those Iraqi mass graves are actually just one more reminder of the moral
bankruptcy of U.S. foreign policy and specifically U.S. policy toward Iraq
for the past 20 years.

Let’s first keep in mind that U.S. foreign policy called for the active and
enthusiastic support of Saddam Hussein during the 1980s, knowing that he was
one of the world’s cruelest and most brutal dictators. That support was best
evidenced by the U.S. delivery of weapons of mass destruction to Saddam,
knowing that he would use such weapons against the Iranian people.

The reason that U.S. officials had no reservations about Saddam’s use of
such weapons against the Iranians was that the Iranian people, contrary to
the wishes of U.S. officials, had ousted the U.S. government’s hand-picked
puppet, the shah of Iran, as ruler of Iran. And as the people of Iran knew
only too well, the shah was also one of the cruelest and most brutal
dictators in the world.

After the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. government embarked on its campaign to
replace Saddam Hussein with a new U.S.-approved puppet leader in Iraq. But
rather than do so militarily, which might have cost the lives of U.S.
servicemen, federal officials decided instead to use the Iraqi people as
tools and instruments to accomplish that goal.

One method was the imposition of the now-infamous economic sanctions, which
were intended to squeeze the Iraqi people into poverty to such an extent
that they would finally turn on Saddam and oust him from power and replace
him with a new U.S. puppet leader. The idea was: “Rid yourselves of Saddam
and install a ruler satisfactory to us, and we’ll terminate the sanctions
and enable you to prosper economically once again.”

The sanctions, as we all know, ended up costing the lives of an estimated
half million children and had no discernible effect on Saddam Hussein’s
palatial lifestyle. Despite the fact that the sanctions didn’t produce the
desired result (the ouster and replacement of Saddam Hussein), those deaths,
in the words of U.S. official Madeleine Albright, were nonetheless
considered “worth it.” By that, she obviously meant that the deaths were
worth the attempt to oust Saddam and replace him with a new U.S. puppet
ruler.

The other method that was used to oust Saddam was equally horrific from a
moral standpoint: encouraging the Iraqi people to rise up and overthrow
their government by force on the basis of an assurance given by President
George H.W. Bush that U.S. forces would come to their assistance. That
assurance, of course, turned out to be a horrible and deadly lie. When
thousands of Iraqis rose up against their government, U.S. officials
knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately stood by and watched Saddam’s
forces slaughter the Iraqi rebels. Those dead rebels fill the mass graves
that are now being used as the ex post facto justification for President
George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

The entire sordid and tragic affair brings to mind the Bay of Pigs
experience in 1961, when U.S. officials promised air cover to anti-Castro
rebels invading Cuba; but once the invasion was underway, they knowingly,
intentionally, and deliberately double-crossed them by refusing to provide
the air support.

So, first they give weapons of mass destruction to Saddam, knowing that he
will employ them against his enemies, including the Iranian people.

Then they enforce their cruel and brutal sanctions against Iraq with the
goal of squeezing the Iraqi people into violently ousting Saddam Hussein
from power.

Then they encourage the Iraqi people to rise up by force of arms against
their own government under a false and deceptive promise of help from the
president of the United States, knowing full well what Saddam will do to the
rebels if their rebellion fails.

Then they stand aside and watch in shock and awe as Saddam’s forces massacre
the rebels and place their bodies in mass graves.

And years later, when the primary justification for invading Iraq
(“disarming Saddam”) fizzles out, U.S. officials use those mass graves as an
ex post facto justification for their invasion — an invasion that resulted
in the deaths and injuries of thousands of more Iraqis.

If that’s not a morally bankrupt foreign policy, I don’t know what is.

Postscript: After this article was posted, readers wrote to me and pointed
out that I had failed to mention the graves of the unknown number of Iraqi
soldiers killed in the 1991 Gulf War
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/DailyNews/iraq_2_000515.html  (as well
as the Iraqi civilians killed in that war, of course) and the untold number
of Iraqis who died from the effects of depleted uranium
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1220/p01s04-wome.html  after the war was over
(not to mention those who will die from the depleted uranium
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030524/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ir
aq_depleted_uranium_4 that was used in the recent invasion of Iraq).




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