For weeks, the Emerald commentary page has served as a soapbox for anti-war propagandists. And for weeks, I’ve waited for someone to write in with a rebuttal. But none has arrived, and I feel it necessary to share the more rhetorically persuasive and intellectually honest position — that war in Iraq can’t be avoided.
It should be obvious to most observers that charges leveled against the Saddam regime are — as concerns arsenals of genocidal weaponry — true. If Saddam Hussein was a murdering tyrant in 1991, it stands to reason he is still a murdering tyrant today. Certainly the Iraqi people have not benefited from his extended reign.
From a humanitarian standpoint, war with Iraq would be an opportunity to the turn the tide against despotism in the Middle East. Relativists often argue that other Mideast countries are just as guilty as Iraq of promoting terrorism, which, true or not, doesn’t justify Iraq’s actions. Two wrongs don’t make a moral neutrality.
If the United States is to be a global citizen in good standing, we cannot look the other way while people suffer under a megalomaniac who’s shown a propensity toward aggression. We cannot fiddle while Rome burns, arguing over timetables while Iraq subsidizes suicide bombers in Israel.
Once Iraq is a free democracy, we can decide whether the theater of war should be taken to other countries. From an international security standpoint, war with Iraq is also justified. One of the conditions of ending the Gulf War was that Iraq agreed to disarmament and compliance with weapons inspection.
In failing numerous times to honor this agreement, Iraq has violated a series of U.N. resolutions. These resolutions are international law. In this light, war with Iraq is hardly a discarding of international law. It would show the United States’ dedication to sustaining it.
How do we know Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction? We don’t. But it’s hardly a roll of the dice to assume nefarious intent. And even if the evidence were set before us in a court of law, it wouldn’t deter the same voices of “dissent” who argued against military action in Afghanistan.
The left in America is currently engaged in a campaign of anti-anti-terrorism, a position of cowardice hidden behind sophistication. It should come as no surprise that this illogical crusade has found safe harbor in college campuses, where students are often taught not merely passivity in the face of evil, but admiration of it.
The Islamic Fascists who wage their jihad with human bombs represent everything a good liberal should oppose. They are religious fanatics, brutal, anti-Semitic, misogynist and homophobic. They oppose free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom of conscience.
And yet the campus left continues to spin them as sympathetic third-world revolutionaries fighting against globalization and other Western-promoted evils. “Blood for oil,” they say, ignoring the fact that the oil resources of the region are permanently vanguarded by a sadist who wouldn’t hesitate to spill his own people’s blood to protect it.
Nobody can guarantee a successful war in Iraq — but that is not reason enough to avoid conflict. If war in Iraq will bring more terrorism to the United States, will acquiescence bring less? Ask the people of Bali.