"Mirror, mirror, on the wall... Part 1 and 2
by Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's Blog
Many leftist intellectuals and anti-war activists must have paled when they read the latest Scott Ritter's article; surely they saw themselves into the mirror:
In this, truth be told, Bush is no different from the majority of society in both America and Great Britain. It is easy to moralise today, armed with the certainty of 20/20 hindsight, that the invasion of Iraq was wrong, the case for war a fabrication. But how many people will admit that Iraq was better off under Saddam than it is today, ruined by conflict generated by the destruction of Iraqi society prompted by the toppling of the Iraqi dictator? How many people will decry the kangaroo court and the lynch mob that convicted and executed Saddam as a travesty of both law and justice? Unless one is willing to repudiate all aspects of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, inclusive of the termination of Saddam's regime, then any indignation shown over the so-called intelligence failure represents nothing more than hypocrisy.The "anti-war" movement's politburo immediately after the invasion:
- welcomed the capture of the president of the Republic of Iraq and his trial;
- welcomed the notorious political process, the main instrument of the Occupation to dominate the country;
- welcomed the Quisling government of Iraq [quite literally: United for Peace and Justice welcomed puppet Maliki in New York in the summer 2006];
- welcomed the sectarian al-Sadr's movement, depicting it as "resistance" (even though at the time it was part of the Quisling Iraqi government), while al-Sadr's militia, the notorious Mahdi Army, was conducting ethnic cleansing in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq; [also here, Stop the War UK welcomed al-Sadr's movement quite literally: Sheikh Zagani, foreign affairs spokesperson for Moqtada al-Sadr, appeared in the anti-war rally organized by Stop the War in London, back in March 2006];
It's true; any indignation shown over the Iraq war represents nothing more than hypocrisy!
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"After receiving a few comments about my latest blog entry Mirror, mirror, on the wall... I'd like to address two points; one is about Scott Ritter and the other one is on the capture of Saddam Hussein and his trial.
One of the comments I received points out that Ritter didn't mean to attack the anti-war movement with his words. Obviously I expressed my thoughts very badly if I could give that impression. Surely Ritter didn't want to accuse the anti-war movement of hypocrisy, how could he? It was Scott Ritter after all who wrote, back in September 2007, an article titled Iraq Will Have to Wait:
The highest priority for the antiwar movement in America today must be the prevention of a war with Iran. (...) Sadly, there really is no alternative for the antiwar movement: Put opposition to the war in Iraq on the back burner and make preventing a war with Iran the No. 1 priority, at least until the national election cycle kicks in during the summer of 2008. (...)I commented back then:
(...) Of course Iraq has been "waiting for" since 1991, when the first Anglo-American war of aggression against that country violated the Geneva Conventions and other international covenants all around (that means massive war crimes and crimes against humanity against the people of Iraq). Ritter certainly knows all this very well: at the time he was a Marine Corps intelligence officer and served as a ballistic missile advisor to Stormin' Norman, General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of the so-called Coalition Forces in that war. In Iraq Will Have to Wait, Scott Ritter writes, "The war in Iraq can be contained simply by letting war be war." I don't have any qualifications to write about war containments and other war strategies, let alone the Ritter's qualifications above. But I wonder the meaning of the word "containment" for a war of aggression (the supreme international crime) that's already resulted in the deaths of 1.2 million of human beings, 4.2 million refugees and the complete annihilation of that country. Ritter's article is very long but nowhere I could find these data, I guess of some importance for any realistic analysis. (...)In his article in the Guardian I linked to in my previous blog entry, Ritter writes:
More than 4,207 US service members, 314 coalition troops (including 176 British fatalities) and tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Iraqis might be alive (...)Not bad for hypocrisy when the real human cost of the war of aggression against Iraq is surely several hundreds of thousands above one million. Back burner, I guess.
The other comment I'd like to reply here is about the capture of the legitimate president of the Republic of Iraq and his lynching.
All people who have any concern for human rights, justice and integrity should be overjoyed by the capture of Saddam Hussein, and should be awaiting a fair trial for him by an international tribunal.This is Noam Chomsky in December 2003
Do I need to remind my readers that the capture of the last president of sovereign Iraq happened because of that war of aggression which is Nuremberg's supreme international crime, the most serious breach of the UN Charter? The capture of Saddam Hussein, perpetrated by the occupation army, is the direct consequence of the illegal invasion and is part of that supreme international crime. We cannot condemn the invasion of Iraq as the supreme international crime and then welcome the capture of the president of that country, whatever our opinion on Saddam Hussein might be.
To focus on Saddam Hussein and on what happened twenty years ago while our own governments are now responsible of the supreme international crime that resulted in the genocide of the Iraqi people and the complete annihilation of the country is what the supporters of the infamous humanitarian interventions do:
"One can only rejoice at the capture of Saddam Hussein. Few people are more deserving of trial and punishment. U.S. forces deserve credit for arresting the deposed dictator so that his crimes can be presented and condemned in a court of law, rather than arranging to kill him in combat."wrote back in December 2003 Human Rights Watch's executive director Kenneth Roth. Human Rights Watch is of course one of the most shameless advocates of humanitarian interventions, one of the masks used by imperialism to wage war of aggressions today.
No wonder that after aiding and abetting in the supreme international crime against Iraq with its propaganda, now Human Rights Watch - always in service to the war party - seems to suffer of amnesia and can claim about the Iraq genocide, "no one really knows how many have died".
Mirror, mirror, on the wall...
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