Let us be unequivocal about this: the millions of people who marched against the war in Iraq were right. There probably never were any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after Gulf War II, Iraq did not threaten the US or any other nation, and Saddam Hussein had no real connections with El Quaida.
The invasion of Iraq was at best a distraction from the fight against international terrorism and has in fact created a new cause and operational location for terrorists. Just as ‘terrorists’, including Osama Bin Laden, flocked to Afghanistan to kill Russians, now they go to Iraq to kill Americans. And young American men and women – too many of them poor, black and Chicano – pay the price, along with Iraqi men, women and children.
Of course the world is better off without Saddam in power, but the US and Britain should not have helped put him there in the first place and then materially supported his bellicosity – conveniently directed at Iran for a while. Furthermore, there should be in place a global governance system to deal with dangers like WMD proliferation under rules that are consistent and fair.
Oh, and a question for John Howard, who says Australians have ‘moved on’ from the war. Will we have a moving memorial for all those killed and wounded in the Iraqi war, just like we did for the victims of the Bali bombing from which we did not hurriedly ‘move on’?
This is not just a matter of left or right, or even right or wrong, it is a simple matter of truth and lies. No modern society can continue to function if the level of deceit by authorities gets too high. If Howard, Bush and Blair continue in office after the lies they have told, it says volumes about where the nations they lead are headed.