From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Dec 20 2004 - 18:07:19 GMT
Hi All,
It's disappointing to me to say the least that those who enjoy the rights
of free speech, a free press, trial by jury, etc. can so easily deny those
same rights to the people of Iraq.
That America and its allies have liberated Iraq from a brutal dictator who
killed one million of his own people in the past 30 years and tortured
uncounted others in the most barbarous ways imaginable seems to count for
nothing against phony charges of American imperialism.
Ridding the world of Saddam was an act of humanity. The world without him
is a vastly safer, profoundly better world. To know that we don't have to
rely on the MOQ for moral guidance, although the MOQ certainly wouldn't
deny it.
Those who hold the UN as a moral guide have to answer why that body did
nothing to stop the genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda or the Sudan, not to
mention the failure to confront China for human rights abuses.
Those who hold France, Germany, and Russia as arbiter of international
morals have to explain why those countries played key roles in corrupting
the UN's oil for food program.
Those who argue that the U.S. and its allies to be morally consistent
ought to free the peoples of Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and North Korea
from their despotic governments have to justify on what basis it would be
immoral to do so.
The only reason you and I are free to express ourselves on such matters
without fear of government reprisals is due 1) to the victory of
individualism and intellectual values over socialism and social values,
and 2) the blood of millions spent in the past 200 years to preserve and
defend those intellectually-won rights.
To deny the Iraqis' hopes and dreams to have those same rights because of
some romantic idea that the rest of world has to agree that they deserve
such rights is to me a colossal case of depraved thinking.
Best,
Platt
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