Maravi

A tragedy for human dignity

A tragedy for human dignity
By Editor
Friday March 28, 2008 [03:00]

HANS Blix’s description of the Iraqi war as a tragedy is very correct. Hans, the Swedish national who headed the United Nations team of inspectors to search for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, opposed the launch of this war five years ago. And time has proved him right. Before the invasion of Iraq, we posed the question: why start endless wars given the world’s current problems?

Truly, the Iraqi war has become endless and extremely costly to the United States, Iraq and indeed the entire humanity.

And Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro is right in saying the United States’ invasion of Iraq was stupid because it was indeed a very stupid decision. The invasion of Iraq has indeed proved to be a tragedy for Iraq, for the United States, for the United Nations, for truth and human dignity.

This war has proved to be brutal and genocidal when one looks at the number of those souls being exterminated in it, the majority of them being small children, teenagers and young people, women and the elderly – all those who should never be held responsible for this war and its causes.

We hope the American people and indeed the entire humanity are learning or have learnt something from this tragic war.

We are saying all this not as those who have always professed to believe that the state which society has reached permits us to make a vow of universal peace, and of renouncing, in all cases, the alternative of war.

But what we are trying to say is that a long experience of humanity’s history leads us, not towards any abstract doctrine upon the subject, but to a deeper and deeper conviction of the enormous mischiefs of war even under the best and most favourable circumstances, and of the mischiefs indescribable and the guilt unredeemed of causeless and unnecessary wars.

Let’s look back over the pages of history; let’s consider the feelings, with which we now regard wars that our forefathers in their time supported with the same pernicious fanaticism, of which the United States has had some developments within the last five years.

Let’s consider, for example, that the American war, which was later condemned by 999 out of every 1,000 persons in that country, was a war which for years was enthusiastically supported by the mass of the population.

And then we see how powerful and deadly the fascinations of passion and of pride are; and, if it be true that the errors of the former times are recorded for our instruction, in order that we may avoid their repetition, then we beg and entreat you the American people, be on your guard against these deadly fascinations; do not suffer appeals to national pride to blind you to the dictates of justice.

Let’s remember the rights of the savage, as you may call him. Let’s remember that the happiness of his humble home, let’s remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own.

Let’s remember that He who has united you together as human beings in the same flesh and blood, has bound you by the law of mutual love; that that mutual love is not limited by the boundaries of Christian civilisation; that it passes over the whole surface of the earth, and embraces the meanest along with the greatest in its unmeasured scope.

And, therefore, we think that in appealing to our American brothers and sisters and their friends to open their own feelings, and bear their own part in a political crisis like this, we are making no inappropriate demand, but are beseeching them to fulfil a duty which belongs to them, which, so far from involving any departure from their character is associated with the fulfilment of that character, and the performance of its duties; the neglect of which would in future times be to them a source of pain and just mortification, but the fulfilment of which will serve to gild their own future years with sweet remembrances, and to warrant them in hoping that, each in their place and sphere, they have raised their voice for justice, and have striven to mitigate the sorrows and misfortunes of mankind.

We salute all those Americans who are able to bear home with them, at least, this consolation, that they have spared no efforts to mark the point at which the roads divide – the one path which plunges into suffering, discredit, and dishonour, the other which slowly, perhaps, but surely, leads a free and a high-minded people towards the blessed ends of prosperity and justice, of liberty and peace.

It’s time the American people and their leaders realised that the social furniture of modern society is so complicated and fragile that it cannot support the jackboot.

They cannot run the processes of modern society by attempting to impose their will upon nations by armed force. If they have not learnt that, they have learnt nothing. Whatever may have been the morality of the United States’ actions in Iraq – and about that there is no doubt – there is no doubt about its imbecility.

There is not the slightest shadow of doubt that they have attempted to use methods which were bound to destroy the objectives they had, and, of course, this is what they have discovered or are discovering – at least some of them.

We beg the honest political and military leaders of the United States to turn their backs on this most ugly chapter and realise that if they are to live in the world and are to be regarded as a decent nation, decent citizens in the world, they have to act up to different standards than the one they have been following in the last five years or so.

We resent most bitterly their unconcern for the lives of innocent small children, teenagers and young people, women and the elderly, all those who should never be held to blame for their war in Iraq and its causes.

Labels: FIDEL CASTRO, HANS BLIX, IRAQ, NEOCONSERVATISM

posted by MrK @ 8:01 PM