tothesource

Responses to: What's at Stake in Iraq

One of the best aspects of our articles is that they sometimes act like a Rorschach test encouraging discussion with people who have completely different takes on a particular article. It sometimes gives us pause, as we wonder if they've read the same article.

Going to war enables trillions of dollars of US Government revenue to be spent with US military manufacturing and supply companies (many of them owned by George Bush's buddies!).

The truth is this, America actually believes in capitalism more than it believes in democracy! It will willingly and repeatedly sacrifice democratic principles to further it's capitalistic agenda - and it will do so in a microsecond without any second thought or flinch of conscience. What Americans cannot see (and they cannot see it because they are so blinded by pro-American nationalism), is that President Bush is eroding the whole foundation of American democratic ideals by using military force to assert his political doctrines and agenda on the rest of the world. In doing so he may truly have America's best economic interests at heart, but it is misguided and makes him no better that other nations which have imposed imperial rule on other peoples. - A. W. (Australia)

Once again, your are right on target. The article was insightful. I appreciate your clear commentary. You are thought provoking. Keep up the good work. - D. L.

Thanks for another thoughtful essay. A couple of thoughts.

Let's face the truth once and for all: Iraq is not about high moral ideals, albeit even high secular ideals, but Iraq is about money - indeed politics is about money and the power it wields. And in this case and in all such cases throughout history it isn't the rich and powerful who pay the price of such political folly. In Iraq it is the children, women, elderly, and teens who have paid most dearly for the freedom we are imposing. No one argues the evil that was Saddam Hussein, but no one asked the dead and the maimed if they were willing to pay that price. In addition, it is the husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, daughters, and sons of everyday, common Americans who are being killed and maimed in Iraq. Not the children of the rich and powerful. I think we must tread carefully before laying a cover of morality over the war in Iraq. Truly this is one man's war for which we are all paying the price. If in the end Iraq really becomes free, and that means allowing them to choose what that will look like, the sacrifices may have been worth it...but we must remember that Iraqi freedom was not the primary reason we invaded Iraq.

Finally as a Christian I have a difficult time reconciling the aggressive nature of present American policy. Iraq was not involved in overt acts of aggression towards us. The just war theory (a flawed moral argument at best) doesn't come into play as the unprovoked invaders of Iraq. Jesus teaches us to turn away from aggression, to love those who hate us, to seek the peace of His Kingdom and not the powers and principalities of the world. There was at least a moral argument for self-defense (ref. Afghanistan and the Taliban and el-Qaeda) but not Iraq.

What's at stake in Iraq is not just their ultimate freedom, but the continuing demise of the moral fiber of America. - P. G.

Whups! Mr. D'Souza lists India as a Muslim nation. It's probably 80% Hindi.

I'm afraid that the Arab Middle East is reacting to democracy just as we in the US would react if an outside force were trying to institute an Islamic theocracy in this country. - G. B.

Excellent article.....why don't we see more of views like these in other media? - P. G.

Dinesh side-steps the problem he lays out in the introduction of his article: the rationale for invading Iraq was false. Creating a new rationale as Bush has done, does not erase this extremely troubling situation. - B. E.

"Americans would have to concede that there is not now, nor has there ever been a democratic society in that part of the world"........

Of course, not for lack of trying, before being buggered by American and Israeli geo-political interests.

The parliamentary movement in Iran goes back to the turn of the twentieth century. The parliament building still in use in Teheran is from that era. There was, actually an honest to goodness freely elected parliament, with the majority coalition party headed by Prime Minister Mossadegh following the second world war. There was unprecedented freedom of the press, with opposition newspapers and parties. It all came to a crashing halt with the CIA inspired coup and installation of the absolute monarchy of Reza Pahlavi in 1953.

Pakistan enjoyed some measure of democratic institutions, parties and processes, albeit burdened by great corruption at times. That bit the dust with the military coup of general Zia -al-Haq, and the start of a chain of military juntas friendly to the US a couple of decades ago--General Musharraf's being the latest.

Lebanon by any measure enjoyed democracy following its independence from France after WWII, though one might credit its substantial Christian population with having created the appropriate political culture. This went down to the wretched dust heap of civil war, de-facto partition and war- lordism due to Israeli, militant Palestinian and Syrian incursions of all kinds.

It would be nice to think that at some moment, somewhere a grass roots democratic movement might have developed in the Middle East which was not sabotaged by Western interests. But the politics of oil and Israeli ascendancy always took the upper hand.

Now we want to foist democracy on the country in the region with the most cruel, least receptive political culture--once again, for geo-political reasons, principally the ascendancy of Israel. And we want to do it by war and military occupation. It is no wonder that the detractors from our policy cannot believe all the idealism in which it is coated.

Even with all this, one more is better than one less democracy in the world. Just don't ask us to swallow all the inflated rhetoric. - M. A.

Your article on the rationale and stakes in the war on the Iraq was the best I have read anywhere. And yet, I remain unconvinced. The reason given for the war was national defense- that Iraq presented a clear and present danger to our national security. The Bush doctrine of "pre-emptive strike" for self-defense was our justification for going to war. I believe our experience in Iraq has shown the moral bankruptcy of the pre-emptive strike doctrine. It requires almost infallible intelligence and knowledge of the intentions, hearts, and motives of our enemies. Such knowledge is not available to human beings! And we were badly mistaken or mislead about Iraq's capacities to harm us and their intentions.

The establishment of democracy in Iraq is a noble goal. But it is not a consistent rationale for going to war, unless we are willing to do so in all the other tyrannies in our world. Iraq was no more or less ready for democracy than many of those other countries. - D. W.

I thought Dinesh D'Souza's article was very UNtimely, to say the least. Just like Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, and other left-wing liberals, it seems to be deliberately sent out to discourage our troops and the Iraqis on the approach of their election. These are not the kind of articles I signed up to read on Tothesource. I can get this kind of gobbledegook from ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and CNN without fouling up my computer with it. - M. C.