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Date Posted: 09:39:30 02/14/03 Fri
Author: Weizi Nan
Subject: That Blood On The Hands Of Those Anti-War Activists

That Blood On The Hands Of Those Anti-War Activists

By: Weizi Nan (nanweizi@iamit.com; homepage: http://bxgnanweizi.blogspot.com/)

In contrast to the Korean War and the Vietnam War, the Gulf War demonstrated that the U.S. could easily take down those medium or small-sized dictatorships, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, thanks to U.S. advances in military technology and economic power. It was thus not very difficult in the last Gulf War for the U.S. to drive Saddam Hussein out by force, liberate the Iraqi people from his brutal oppression and inhuman abuses, and make a democratic Iraq possible. Unfortunately, affected by the then appeasement mentality here and abroad, the U.S. made a mistake to leave Saddam in power, who has since continued to commit severe human rights abuses to Iraqi people and act as a major support for international terrorism. Today's U.S. deployment in the Middle East is really the sequel to the Gulf War. International coalition against terrorism will no doubt win this round, and the outcome is probably not even doubted by Saddam himself. Therefore, few are attempting to scare the American people with the potential of a defeat.

Since President Bush announced that he would consider a preemptive strike against the Iraqi dictator, the appeasement mentality has grown internationally as well as within the U.S. I happened to have watched an anti-war demonstration the other day, and heard the main arguments of these anti-war activists who sounded, quite like the Chinese "Communists" I know, as if they could represent the whole nation or even mankind.

Similar to some of their slogans after 9.11, these anti-war activists first oppose "any bloodshed and killing," accusing that there's blood on the hands of our soldiers, who risk their lives in enemy fire in order to secure the anti-war activists' basic human rights to hold their demonstrations. Secondly, they demand that the U.S. show to Saddam its proof of Saddam's continuing effort to possess weapons of mass destruction, and seek approval of any military action from UN (where a human rights abuser nation such as Libya was once Chairman of the Human Rights Committee?). Thirdly, they claim to believe in the controversial doctrine of "sovereignty above human rights." They equate driving Saddam out of power so that the Iraqi people are free to choose their own leaders to "arrogantly forcing democracy down their throat." They even think today, Iraqi still has the right to possess weapons of mass destruction as a sovereign.

Their first argument above may sound very noble, but their good feeling of righteousness apparently disappeared when I asked the anti-war activists why they never went to Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia to protest against bloodshed after 9.11, why they never went to former Yugoslavia to protest against bloodshed after President Milosevic practiced ethnic cleansing, why they never went to Beijing to protest against bloodshed after the Tiananmen massacre, and why they never went to Berlin to protest against bloodshed after Hitler killed so many innocent Jews. To be fair, these anti-war activists are not against catching terrorists, but they never gave me a satisfactory answer why they are much more concerned with unavoidable civilian casualty during war on terrorism than the brutal killing of the very group of civilians (usually in a far greater number) by the dictators and terrorists. Further, my question below simply turned them away:

"Before World War II, peace movements' protests against bloodshed helped award Hitler the chance to kill several million Europeans; during the Cold War, peace movements' protests against bloodshed left tens of millions of Soviet and Chinese civilians die abnormally in their own 'communist' authoritarian regimes, respectively; during the Vietnam War, peace movements' protests against bloodshed forced the U.S. troops out, enabling the 'communist' dictators of Vietnam and Cambodia to kill tens of millions of Southeast Asia civilians; President Clinton's inaction against Bin Laden and the growing threat of terrorist attacks on the U.S., presumably in line with his own anti-war mentality, led to the avoidable death of thousands of civilians on 9.11. In view of all these deaths, didn't you ever give it a thought that there might be some blood on the hands of every anti-war activist?"

Their second argument appears rather naive. After the Gulf War, UN Security Council resolution prohibited Iraq from possessing weapons of mass destruction. Saddam claimed he didn't have any, but UN said his words couldn't be trusted, so UN weapons inspectors went into Iraq, found and destroyed some chemical and biological weapons. In a hurry, Saddam ordered to drive UN weapons inspectors out. Bizarrely, however, anti-war activists would rather trust words from dictators such as Saddam, who denies freedom of speech to his people, much more than they trust the words from a democratic government like the Bush administration, which is under constant supervision of the free press. Just think about it, if the U.S. shows to Saddam every piece of its proof of where Saddam keeps his weapons of mass destruction, wouldn't he rush to move them to another unknown place? If any military action needs an approval from UN, wouldn't that give Saddam an intelligence advantage on the battlefield, a terrible risk of bloodshed for our sons and daughters over there? This kind of naivety acts no more than putting up an obstacle to the U.S. military, and operates merely to disrupt the international coalition against terrorism, and keep Saddam's barbaric dictatorship in Iraq.

Their third argument is almost absurd, since it only appeases dictators and encourages them to infringe upon the basic human rights of those poor civilians under their ruling as much as they want or are capable of. Why would one consider giving the Iraqi people a chance of free election an arrogant interference with their way of life? Since when is giving people back their freedom to choose their government the same as forcing them to accept democracy? If the Iraqi people truly enjoy Saddam's brutality, a free election can't stop them from voting for Saddam again!

Does Iraq, albeit a sovereign, still have the right to possess weapons of mass destruction after the Gulf War? The answer is an undisputed "NO." This is because it was one of the conditions Saddam agreed in exchange for saving his regime after his complete defeat brought upon him by his own aggression into Kuwait. This is also because Saddam has used these weapons of mass destruction before, not only against foreign troops, but also against Iraqi civilians. Most of all, this is because as a dictator unchecked by the will of the Iraqi people, Saddam is free, thus much more likely, to use these horrible weapons whenever he feels like to use, which is no doubt a grave threat to mankind.

Hence, a successful preemptive strike on Saddam actually means much more than a victory for the U.S. people. It is also a victory for the Iraqi people, as well as a victory for the international coalition against terrorism. It will definitely lead our world into a new era, in which peace, democracy, and human rights defeat oppression, autocracy, and terrorism, decisively.


*****************
this is a translation of a Chinese article, by Mr. Weizi Nan, published Oct.2, 2002 at http://secretchina.com/news/articles/2/10/2/25774.html

and published Feb. 7, 2003 at

http://www.bignews.org/20030207.txt
(VIP Reference(Dacankao) Defends Human Rights in PRC Since 1997)


R. Chin.

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