John Kerry! Face the Facts

[sleipnir]

By Abid Ullah Jan

For the outside world, change in guard at Capital Hill matters very little. Bush I went into Gulf War and put genocidal sanctions in place. Clinton had to maintain them for all his life as a president, irrespective of any Friedman’s sermon to keep them in place.

Now that the war-promoters see Bush on the way out, their spokesmen, such as Friedman (February 15 column), are desperately trying to convince the newcomer that he has to sustain and consolidate the inhuman occupations in the name of democracy and freedom.

Instead of listening to the preachers of war, who cannot think of anything but war — whether that is for ideas, promotion of values or removal of un-acceptable-to-them leaders — Senator Kerry would do well to understand the fact that there are no Islamo-fascists or die-hard Baathists in operation in Iraq. If it were Islamo-fascists, why didn’t they risk their lives when a weaker than America Saddam was in power? Similarly, Baathists can do anything but not sacrifice their lives in a situation like this in which they do not see any worldly gain.

“Mr. Kerry, you need to defeat the ideas of war from these advocates of persistent war. Let you don’t have any such illusions in which they pushed Bush I and II. The undue fears that they generated for pushing Bush into invading Iraq suddenly turned it into a war for democracy and supremacy of Western ideas. For that purpose, why did they choose Iraq? Is Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, or Pakistan less authoritarian than what we witnessed in Iraq? These advocates of war may force you to commit yourself to pay any price and bear any burden to try to build a ‘decent Iraqi regime in the heart of the Arab world.’ However, that was not the reason for 12 years long sanctions and subsequent occupation. Furthermore, let Friedman go for regimes, but regimes can never be decent except to their masters in Washington. The reason for going to war is the filth of outright lies that cannot be covered with anything less than the fine slogans of freedom and democracy. Usage of the word 'regime' speakes volumes of the mentality of your self-appointed advisers.

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/4936/


Quite an interesting article from a different view point. I found it to be agressive, yet convencing in the author's rehtoric. I fear Kerry will be hit left and right, and nothing will stop until he addreses certain issues about Iraq and the future of American interventionist policy.