Re: Just war (NJC) (PC)

[sl . m]

Lori, people are not allowed to leave Iraq without exit visas, and these are not normally given. All Iraqis who leave the country are regarded with great suspicion, even if they are friends of Saddam. One case mentioned recently was an Iraqi businessmen who was given an exit visa to go to Jordan on business. In his absence, something came up in someone's mind in Iraq that he was politcally involved. He was sent a message to go and pick up a gift from the post office in Jordan. The gift was a videotape of his wife being raped. It was a message saying: we're watching you and we'll get your family if you don't come back. So he went back. End of business trip.

That is Saddam's Iraq.

I'll send you a couple of links to British government reports - one on the weapons and one on torture. Maybe you'd find them interesting.

I agree with you about the Taliban.

Sarah



At 2:14 PM -0800 01/17/2003, Lori Fye wrote:

Sarah wondered:

 The interesting question is:  do we view that with hindsight as a
 just war, and if so, why?   And then, why not this one?   What do we
 see as the morally significant differences?

I'm not sure that ANY war is "just."  That aside, while you've
mentioned several times that the Iraqi citizens are in "shackles," I
have yet to personally see much evidence that the Iraqis are so
miserable that they are leaving their country in droves, or anything
even resembling that.  I know we're just getting the media spin on
things, but please, point me to something that can help me understand
the "real" Iraq better.  Then maybe I can discuss morally significant
differences.  (And please forgive me if I've missed links that you've
already provided.)

Further, we knew for YEARS about the Taliban's horrible oppression of
women, yet we did nothing until after 9/11.  Then, suddenly,
we "needed" to wage war on Afghanistan because that country was
supposedly harboring Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda.  Well, we didn't
capture bin Laden or many of Al Qaeda's key people ... so why not wage
war against every country who might be harboring them?  Why not just
blow up the entire Middle East, and make SURE we got them?!

I'm very pleased that the Taliban is now longer in power, but as far as
I'm concerned, going to war against Afghanistan was a knee-jerk
reaction meant to make the American people feel like we had SOME sort
of control (which is a joke - we don't, we never will again), and to
appease the "jingoists" (thanks for that one, Kate) who were pissed off
and wanted to strike back at someone, anyone, just so we could have
our "eye for an eye."

One more question, since Desert Storm has been brought up:  does anyone
honestly believe that the United States would've given one shit about
Kuwait if there hadn't been precious OIL involved??

Lori