WHY I DIDNT MARCH THIS TIME

Village Voice ^ | Nat Hentoff

[samkatz]

Why I Didn't March This Time Their Tongues Were Cut Out for Slandering Hussein March 28th, 2003 3:30 PM

Often, the executions have been carried out by the Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary group headed by Mr. Hussein's oldest son, 38-year-old Uday. These men, masked and clad in black, make the women kneel in busy city squares, along crowded sidewalks, or in neighborhood plots, then behead them with swords. The families of some victims have claimed they were innocent of any crime save that of criticizing Mr. Hussein. —John F. Burns, "How Many People Has Hussein Killed?" The New York Times, January 26, 2003

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I participated in many demonstrations against the Vietnam War, including some civil disobedience—though I was careful not to catch the eyes of the cops, sometimes a way of not getting arrested. But I could not participate in the demonstrations against the war on Iraq. As I told The New York Sun in its March 14-16 roundup of New Yorkers for and against the war:

"There was the disclosure . . . when the prisons were briefly opened of the gouging of eyes of prisoners and the raping of women in front of their husbands, from whom the torturers wanted to extract information. . . . So if people want to talk about containing [Saddam Hussein] and don't want to go in forcefully and remove him, how do they propose doing something about the horrors he is inflicting on his people who live in such fear of him?"

I did not cite "weapons of mass destruction." Nor do I believe Saddam Hussein is a direct threat to this country, any more than the creators of the mass graves in the Balkans were, or the Taliban. And as has been evident for a long time, I am no admirer of George W. Bush.

[samkatz]

G-d help me, I never thought I'd be posting and agreeing with something by Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice, an aging 60's lefty.

Here it is. Refreshing to see someone doing some independent thinking instead of parrotting the time-worn anti-war, anti-usa cliches.