http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110003775
But the shock for a first time visitor to Iraq is that the destruction
committed by Saddam's tyranny is so much worse than advertised.
As Stalin did with the Kulaks, the Sunni Saddam then sought to erase the
entire Arab Shiite marsh culture. He drained or silted up most of the
historic marshes, with their centuries-old ecosystem of reeds, countless
species and water buffalo that supplied 70% of Iraq's milk. Rich with oil
money, even under U.N. sanctions, Saddam could always buy other milk or
have his people do without it. But his pathology is that he felt he had to
murder systematically anyone who challenged him, and so ruining a chunk of
Iraq's economy and natural beauty is just one more cost of megalomania.
Many on the political left have been reluctant to concede the special
brutality of Saddam, as if admitting that truth would justify a war they
opposed. Some genocides are apparently more equal than others. It's true
that America can't right every wrong, or depose every dictator. But the
U.S. does take on some greater obligation when an American president
encourages an uprising against a madman and then walks away from those who
do as we hope. The liberation of the Marsh Arabs may well have come just in
time to save their culture, and to remove a stain on the American conscience.
_______________________________________________________
John D. Giorgis - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
"The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world,
it is God's gift to humanity." - George W. Bush 1/29/03
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