Why is it that we insist upon being insecure and making other more powerful countries out to be these beacons of evil? The U.S. has made many mistakes, but the fact remains that it has done more to bring freedom and prosperity to more people than any other country in history. For every Vietnam or Chile, there is a Czech Republic or Hungary where people no longer have to live under communism, largely due to American action. Regardless of how one feels on Iraq, and I am personally a reluctant hawk on the issue, suggestions like those in the article attached below (since the Guardian doesn’t date their URLs) from today’s papers strike me as the rantings of those who lack the courage to confront threats and so choose to ignore them.
The Article (my comments italicized):
The Emancipation Support Committee is standing firmly behind the position adopted by the Trinidad and Tobago Government that, the United States should not go to war with Iraq.
In a release issued earlier this week, the committee said a US assault on Iraq is nothing less than genocide.
GENOCIDE? You know, I’m really irritated by the way people have cheapened what the word “genocide” actually means by using it to describe any military action ever. As an organization that allegedly seeks justice for a REAL genocide, i.e. African slavery, the ESC should know better. Then again, when you lack actual argumentation, hyperbole becomes a bit necessary.
“The country which the US boldly plans to attack is a country devastated by war… crippled by the most severe and conscienceless regime of sanctions ever imposed on a country in all of history,” the release stated.
Not that I need to go this far for an example, but Mr. Kambon is apparently unaware of the universal sanctions placed on Haiti after the Haitian Revolution that destroyed the new republic within years. Haiti is still recovering. Again, this seems like an example that the ESC should be aware of and NOT TRY TO BELITTLE, but.. well, see above.
Prime Minister Patrick Manning last week told Otto Reich, the special envoy of US President George W Bush, that T&T will not support any unilateral action against Iraq.
The release also said that the T&T Government, by adopting the position of the majority of states in the United Nations which are against the rush to attack Iraq, has put itself “in line with the conscience of the world”.
Millions of people around the world have staged protests against an impending war between Iraq and the US and its ally, Great Britain.
France, Russia and Germany have also voiced their disapproval of possible war with the oil-rich country.
Chairman of the committee, Khafra Kambon, said the US and British Governments have failed to convince most of their people that Iraq, under Saddam Hussein’s reign, poses a danger.
“It has become downright silly and dishonest to argue that the regime is a threat to the US and the rest of the world,” Kambon said.
We know that Saddam is a threat to his own people, he’s gassed them in the past. We know that he’s a threat to his neighbours, as he’s attacked no fewer than 4 of them. We know that he has chemical and biological weapons and is trying to get nukes. How is Saddam not a threat? Perhaps he is not a threat to the US, but would the ESC prefer that Iraq neighbours be offered no support? Does he think that World War 2 was unjustified, simply because Hitler had no designs on the United States?
He added that if there was proof that Iraq was a threat, because of chemical and biological weapons, it had been “destroyed by the lies of the US”.
