Jack Chua has a problem keeping a handle on reality (Letters, May 16, page 8).
Arrogating himself the position of spokesman for the majority of Americans who
he says think US Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should not resign, he bizarrely claims that people know the actions of a few soldiers were probably wrong. With the graphic details plastered across the world's front pages and
expressions of outrage from governments far and wide (including the US administration), he thinks the soldiers were probably wrong?
However, there is more to suggest that Chua inhabits another planet. He must do, since he does not seem to be aware that the US was part
of that very same world that remained reluctant to condemn former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's brutal regime.
Removal from the US administration's list of terrorist states in 1982 was just the beginning. Saddam was further rewarded by a couple of visits from Rumsfeld in 1983, and by the resumption of diplomatic ties the following year.
A few months after his murderous attack on the Kurds in 1988, the US Department of Commerce cleared the way for shipments of chemicals used in the manufacture of mustard gas. Then, following the conflict in Kuwait, which left his regime weak and battered, support for the Iraqi resistance was withheld by the victors, and Saddam was allowed to remain in power. Can you explain the US administration's inaction, Jack?
And please, no patronizing rubbish about, "Well, yes we were wrong then, but now we're putting things right." It is all about realpolitik: Saddam in power was useful for the US then, but now is the propitious time for his demise.
I can see that you are utterly convinced about the coalition's compassionate reasons for being in Iraq. You would also,
I assume, accept that coalition forces entered Iraq holding
the moral high-ground. It is
precisely because of this that the pictures coming out of
Abu Ghraib prison are so much more damaging than the reports of slaughter perpetrated by the other side.
Meanwhile, since much of the Muslim world views the coalition as an invader, it is not surprising if they are reluctant to join the "reconstruction" of Iraq.
The Red Cross also reported incidents of prisoner abuse
last year, and Major General Taguba's report was finished in March, so it is stretching credulity to suggest that no one in the administration knew the severity of the situation at Abu Ghraib.
Just one more thing: How is it that the animated outrage in which you said Americans put little credence is actually being voiced increasingly in the US? Read the editorials in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe, and for a perspective from the other side of the Atlantic, in the Economist.
Make a note of the increasing numbers of senators and representatives calling for Rumsfeld's resignation.
And watch the animation ratchet up a few notches if the reports about filming beatings in Guantanamo prove to be true.
You said, "The government will punish those responsible." No, it won't. Not really, because it will make sure the shit rolls downhill.
John Coomber
Richmond, Canada
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