March 28, 2004

A Discussion with a Reader in Bolzano, Italy, About the War in Iraq.

This comment came in this morning:

I don`t speak English very well, so i ask you to apolgize my bad grammar and spelling. I don`t agree with your position towards the Iraq war. It was a good thing for the iraqi people, but in context of the war on terror and the crisis in the middle east, this war was one of the most stupid things politicans did in the last few years. The argument to find wepons of massdestruction was proved wrong, there werent anyone. And if there would have been one, we could have found them with the UN inspectors. To implent an functioning western style democracy is also a nonsense. Because all these people in the islamic world, who search for freedom, are inspired by polical religion of Islam. For the people in the middle east a democracy, a state must be based on the Islam. (of course this is not true for non-arab cultural diffrent nations= albanians, bosnians, kurds , turkish maybe also caucaisan muslims). But fighting the terror with invading Iraq is the biggest nonsens. Sadam was a saecular anti-islamistic dictator ( he killed all lot of "muslim brothers" ) he was ideological an enemy of Al Qaida. He kept Iraq Al Qaida free(they were a danger for his reign), now terrorists are free to come to the Iraq. If you search a country, which helped al quaida, you will fing Saudia Arabia. All this terrorists are wahabbi muslims. Wahabbism is the teaching of the Saudi Arabin State (which got the most islamistic and radical rules after Taliban Afghanistan), it spread it all over the islamic world in building coran schools an mosques in which the terrorist teaching are broad to the muslims. Who do you think financed the coran schools the Taliban (=coran students) came from? Not the Iraq

Hi Giacomo,

Thanks for your excellent comment. It's great to hear the opinions of someone in Bolzano, Italy (the city you noted in one of the personal info fields). To be able to exchange opinions with you is remarkable. The Internet is changing the world. I'm not sure you're right that democracy and freedom can't be established in Iraq. The same argument was made about the Japanese after World War II. That was a nation in which the Emperor was considered to be God. Yet that nation was able to embrace freedom and democracy. You note that the Iraq war was good for the Iraqi people. Yet you consider the war stupid. How can it be considered stupid when it's already had so many good results for the United States?

• Libya has revealed and renounced its WMD program. This in and of itself partially fulfills the goal of keeping WMD out of mideast terrorists.
• Pakistan and India are resuming relations after a period in which war threatened between them.
• Demonstrations for democracy are taking place in Iran -- indicating that Muslims may be willing to accept Democracy.
• Syria has stopped threatening the U.S.
• Hussein is no longer paying money to the families of terrorists who commit suicide bombings.
• Hussein is no longer providing safe harbor to Al-Qaeda, as you state he was doing.

And regarding Saudi Arabia, even the funds to the madrassas, which you mention, have been reduced due to our efforts in Iraq:

While there have been bombings [in Saudi Arabia], what is new is that many members of the royal family realize that the world is changing, and that they may well be dragged by al Qaedists into an 11th-century abyss. Surely the scheduled withdrawal of American troops from the kingdom, the curtailment in Saudi funds sent abroad to fuel the madrassas, the reexamination of Saudi-sponsored charities, and the beginning of some democratic awakening among vocal elites, all suggest that the tough approach of the United States toward the sponsors of terror and the victory in Iraq made things far better.

The war's achieved many great successes, not only for the Iraqi people, not only for the United States, but for the whole world. Giacomo, thanks again for the chance to discuss this with you. I appreciate your thoughts and hope to hear from you again. -Vik

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