February 23, 2005
The truth is...
Despite the folly of it, Iraq was the right war. Hey, that's news to some.
But nothing moves in a straight line in Baghdad, not the traffic, nor emotion, nor conviction. Everything teeters because everything here is being born. The dawn may be dull but the day that follows may carry moments of illumination.One such moment comes in a midmorning conversation with Iraq's human rights minister, Bakhtiar Amin, a Kurd in whom all the injury inflicted by Saddam on the Kurdish people seems concentrated. "Iraq," he says, "is a museum of crimes."
. . .
"We owe our freedom to Americans," the minister says.
"The real occupation is not theirs, but the one we suffered for 35 years by the group of thugs who brutalized my nation."
It is hard to argue with Amin. He wields the weapon of truth with directness.. . .
How many such stories are there? Too many for the Germans and the French to be so comfortable in their conviction that the war was wrong. This war was falsely portrayed, poorly planned, and hurt by hubris. But it was the right war.
Read the whole thing.
(Thanks to Hervé for the link)
Posted by Carine at February 23, 2005 10:54 AMI find it hard to believe that a war concluded in some 100 days, that reduces the 4th or so largest army on earth to a handful of terrorists, and that achieves every single one of its military objects as being poorly planned.
That it was falsely portrayed is baloney. The cause of the war was advanced on the best information available. On this even the French were in agreement before Jack and crew took a nuanced B&W view of the multipolar world.
As for hubris, whose exactly? The candidates for overweening pride all opposed the war.
So please spare me the left's grudging half loaf of Iraq's undeniable successes.
Here's a flare for Mr. Cohen: War's are not applications for fishing permits. They are not tidy, which is not the same as being poorly planned. The causes of war are more complicated than can fit on an A.N.S.W.E.R. placard. And the gift of liberation and free elections are hardly the marks of hubris. For hubris look to Hungry 1956, Algiers 1960, DPRK since its inception, or Côte d’Ivoire today, to name but a handful of appropriate candidates.
DGB
Posted by: Damian at February 23, 2005 11:30 AMWell, you can't expect that these people will come and bluntly say "we were completely wrong".
It must already hurt every single cell of their bodies to read or hear testimonies such as Bakhtiar Amin's or Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedi's.
Besides, the French media will probably never go beyond the "we told you so" chorus.
Posted by: Carine at February 23, 2005 11:54 AMAs a compaonion article to this article, you might like to read Mark Steyn's latest.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/02/22/do2202.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2005/02/22/ixop.html
Posted by: brb at February 23, 2005 01:28 PMBRB,
Mark Steyn is the perfect tonic to the oblique-huh-what-happened-uh-OK-yeah of lefties struggling to grasp why their every initiative grabs the headlines and shouts from op-ed pages but never amounts to a material achievement. Or immaterial for that matter. Why can't they spin their noise into something solid? This is the nagging perplexity of the Left's agenda.
As I remark elsewhere, Europa can fascinate itself with navel-gazing, but it's not leading. And much of Europe is not following, it is drifting. Drifting to a Euro Never-never-land where it dreams of never growing up.
As you see, I've rather lost patience with Europa and its various delegations and committees and designated "wise men".
DGB
Posted by: Damian at February 23, 2005 03:22 PM
