The military precision with which words crackled from the deposition of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the inquiry conducted by a Republican chairman of the Senate Committee can only leave the world to infer that the whole inquiry was nothing but a great whitewash. Their regret and sorrow did not show on their poker faces.
The whole exercise was meant to save the topmost culprits in the chain of command, who were not only responsible for the illegal invasion of a UN member country, but who had also worked up unwarranted hate propaganda against Iraq. This hate and derision became the hallmark of the invasion of Iraq.
The people of Iraq bore no grudge against the US, even though the US had been the prime culprit in imposing UN sanctions against the Iraqi people for over a decade, when hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies died of malnutrition and disease.
The actual fight was almost mechanical, but the ground activities by US armed forces had been carried out while demonizing Iraqis as enemies from the Islamic world, who deserve to be wiped out or at least humiliated and debased. The arrogance and derision spewed forth by US President George W. Bush against former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and, by extension, the Iraqi people themselves, was the main motivation for the American and British soldiers to treat the civilians with contempt and disdain.
To expect that the soldiers would have behaved in any other way would be to fool the American people and the world at large. If accountability is to be followed with full respect for the demands of justice, the buck should stop with the impeachment of Bush and dismissal of Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the people who had unilaterally abused all the resources of the US as a nation without any reference to either the American people or the world at large.
This whole exercise is being staged to paint the US and Bush as the most humane and law-abiding entities in the world. The stark truth is that Bush and his country stand ruthlessly exposed as blatantly and recklessly thwarting the letter and spirit of international laws. Bush has turned the US into an outlaw country.
Ghulam Muhammed
Mumbai, India
With each passing day, the threat of a People’s Republic of China (PRC) assault on Taiwan grows. Whatever one’s view about the history, there is essentially no question that a PRC conquest of Taiwan would mark the end of the autonomy and freedom enjoyed by the island’s 23 million people. Simply put, the PRC threat to Taiwan is genuinely existential for a free, democratic and autonomous Taiwan. Yet one might not know it from looking at Taiwan. For an island facing a threat so acute, lethal and imminent, Taiwan is showing an alarming lack of urgency in dramatically strengthening its defenses.
As India’s six-week-long general election grinds past the halfway mark, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s messaging has shifted from confident to shrill. After the first couple of phases of polling showed a 3 percentage point drop in turnout, Modi and his party leaders have largely stopped promoting their accomplishments of the past 10 years — or, for that matter, the “Modi guarantees” offered in the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) manifesto for the next five. Instead, making the majority Hindu population fear and loathe Muslims seems to be the BJP’s preferred talking point. Modi went on the offensive in an April 21
The people of Taiwan recently received confirmation of the strength of American support for their security. Of four foreign aid bills that Congress passed and President Biden signed in April, the bill legislating additional support for Taiwan garnered the most votes. Three hundred eighty-five members of the House of Representatives voted to provide foreign military financing to Taiwan versus only 34 against. More members of Congress voted to support Taiwan than Ukraine, Israel, or banning TikTok. There was scant debate over whether the United States should provide greater support for Taiwan. It was understood and broadly accepted that doing so
I still remember the first time I heard about the possibility of an invasion by China. I was six years old. I thought war was coming and hid in my bed, scared. After 18 years, the invasion news tastes like a sandwich I eat every morning. As a Gen Z Taiwanese student who has witnessed China’s harassment for more than 20 years, I want to share my opinion on China. Every generation goes through different events. I have seen not only the norms of China’s constant presence, but also the Sunflower movement, wars and people fighting over peace or equality,