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Posted on 10/02/2002 2:56:16 PM PDT by knighthawk
'The way to deal with Saddam Hussein is not by killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, any more than the way to deal with American foreign policy was by killing thousands of American civilians on September 11th," said Michael Mandel, an Osgoode Hall law professor. -- National Post, Sept. 26.
One thing you can say about Saddam Hussein: He sure does not lack friends in Canada. Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis will defend Saddam in the premier issue of Patrick Buchanan's new magazine, The American Conservative. And last week, 120 prominent Canadians signed a manifesto condemning any war against Saddam Hussein as "immoral" and any use of force against his weapon sites as "unthinkable."
It was, however, left to Professor Mandel, a signatory who spoke at the conference launching the anti-war manifesto, to take the final step off the moral cliff -- equating a war to topple Saddam with Osama bin Laden's mass murder.
What motivates Saddam's Canadian supporters? Some of them are pacifists. Others hate America. Still others figure that anybody who wants to wipe Israel off the map cannot be all bad.
But in most cases, the explanation is much more basic: They simply have no concept of what Saddam is and what he is doing.
Before they speak next, I urge the 120 to read just a single book: Cruelty and Silence by Kanan Makiya. Makiya is one of the millions of Iraqis -- one-sixth of the country's entire population -- driven into exile by Saddam's misrule. In his youth he was an Arab nationalist, an anti-Zionist, and a communist. Now he teaches in the United States, where he has spent almost two decades trying to educate the world about the man who rules the strongest state in the Arab world.
For those who doubt that Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction, Makiya has this eye-witness account of the gassing of just one of the Kurdish villages Saddam attacked in 1988:
"[W]hen I went to the small stream near our house, I found my mother. She had fallen by the river; her mouth was biting into the mudbank. All the members of my family had been running toward this stream because I had told them that water is good against chemical weapons. By the time they had reached the stream, a lot of them had fainted and fallen into the water. Most of them had drowned. I turned my mother over; she was dead. I wanted to kiss her but I knew that if I did, the chemicals would be passed on. ... I continued along the river. I found the body of my nine-year-old daughter hugging her cousin, who had also choked to death in the water. Then I found the dead body of another niece, with her father. I continued along the stream. I found a woman who wasn't from our family and heard a child groan under her. Turning the woman over, I found the child; the water had almost reached him.
Then I went around our house. In the space of 200-300 square metres I saw the bodies of dozens of people from our family. Among them were my children, my brothers, my father, and my nieces and nephews. ... My brothers and my wife had blood and vomit running from their noses and mouths. ... [T]wenty-five members of my family are dead. ... No more tears are left. We were so very sad and we have spilled so many tears. We are not capable of feeling anything more."
And for those who suggest that perhaps Saddam might yet be overthrown by his own people, Makiya has this description of the crushing of the Shi'a uprising of 1991.
"Children who would not give their parents' names to soldiers were doused with gasoline and set on fire. Some were tied to moving tanks to discourage sniper fire from the rebels. Security forces also burned entire families in their houses when they would not give or did not know the location of the head of the household. One hundred and fifty people in Amara were tossed into the river with concrete blocks tied to their legs; 30 people suffered the same fate in Basra. ...
"In one incident, three children belonging to the Turfi family, the oldest of whom was nine, had tires soaked in gasoline placed around their necks and set alight. Some rebels, it has been alleged, were forced to drink gasoline before they were shot. It appears that instead of crumpling into an undramatic lifeless heap, the victim explodes and burns like a torch for a short while. Executions of this sort had more impact on onlookers than lining people up against walls and mowing them down."
At last weekend's anti-war march in London, I saw a small, sorry band of leftists carrying a placard that read, "Against Saddam, against war." Perhaps some of the 120 signatories of last week's manifesto will say that they too are against Saddam and against war. But what does that mean? How can you say you oppose somebody when you are using whatever prestige and influence you have to sustain him against his enemies?
Makiya refers scornfully to those " 'pro'-Arab intellectuals who ... reside in the West ... Such people, by virtue of the freedoms they enjoy, are in a position to do something positive for Arabs trapped inside the oppressive countries of the Middle East. Yet in their vast majority, they choose, directly and indirectly, either to excuse or to actively go along with the Iraqi dictator's political project."
Why do they do it? Makiya once more: The silence of these privileged apologists for Iraq "is born not out of fear; but out of poverty of thought."
Hmmmm. Interesting how these are so easily combined.
I'm not so sure I agree with this. Many, if not most, of the apologists are simply hate- America-first'ers - they think plenty; just with their heads in an unnatural place.
Some people chortle that David Frum was fired by the President. Frum denies it and I believe him. Mr. Frum is the author of two books and can certainly make money independent of the President.
David Frum also thinks President Bush is a great man.
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