God allows us our freedom, and yet in our failures he can always find new paths for his love. God does not fail. (Pope Benedict, 08Sept, Zenit)
In the grief following September 11th, America took vengeance. We invaded Iraq and destroyed it. We said, “better to fight them over there than over here,” upholding the old American tradition of counting some persons as only two-thirds human – this time Iraqi instead of African.
Almost all American bishops, save those beholden to the U.S. Military (via the Military Archdiocese), decried the rush to arms. The Pope labored endlessly to prevent the war, warning us that war would tear apart Iraq and plunge the region into terror.
“Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of man.” (JPtG)
Many of us listened and acted to stop the war. Many more of us, however, tuned out the successors of the Apostles. We preferred the bluster of earthly princes.
“Bring them on.” (President George Bush)
While the high priests of Democracy chant secular rhetoric, the children of Christ sing beautiful chords of truth:
God saved the world not by the sword, but by the Cross.
(Pope Benedict, 08Sep2007, Zenit)
The generals of our world disagree. They preach to us in whitewashed halls haunted by demons of power and violence. They shout out, “More swords! More wars! More death! Have faith! Our rifles, tanks, bombs, and bodies will save us!”
How many of us will remain convinced by the world’s perverse logic of power? We will remain enslaved to violence until our ears are opened to Christ’s truth:
“God comes not with external force, but he comes in the powerlessness of his love, which is where his true strength lies . . . He invites us to become small ourselves, to come down from our high thrones and to learn to be childlike before God.” (Pope Benedict, 08Sept2007, Zenit)
God waits patiently for America to embrace his grace. Iraq is a catastrophic mistake. Yet God’s mercy transforms even the most criminal of acts into an opportunity for good. God’s children of love take the following steps to turn the cross of Iraq into a resurrection-moment:
- Children of love acknowledge truth: that we made a mistake, that our soldiers are killing and dying in vain.
- Children of love embrace Iraqis as fully human, opening their borders, homes, bank-accounts, and citizenship to every broken Iraqi. An estimated 1.8 million Iraqis live outside Iraq.
- Children of love transition from nationalistic warmaking to international peacemaking, using a defensive peacekeeping force that is trained to rebuild shattered nations.
Catholics, above all men and women, should know that our country never comes before our world. We are the universal Church. We are the good Samaritan who sees a Jew beaten and tortured, and we save him. We take him into our home. We feed him. We make him our own. For he is our brother.
We destroyed Iraq? No, not hardly – and however one feels about the war that much should be clear.
Saddam’s gangster rule destroyed what little civil society was there to begin with, and now Sunni and Shia tribal groups are doing their very best to destroy one another. I think to deny this is to engage in improper moral equalivance.
Jonathan,
Wouldn’t you agree there is more death going on in the US each year because of abortion than there was for the deaths Saddam caused? Would you also not agree that US policies and its disinterest in children explains why people who — when they went to Iraq to give medicine to children — were arrested in their return to the US (during the Clinton era)? Certainly there seems to be a brutal policy against children, and the children of other nations can be used as tools by the US.
If one thinks it is satisfactory for a nation to take on another nation for such brutality, then would it not be reasonable for a nation such as Iran to point to the US for its evil and say “something must be done”? If it is reasonable for the US to do so, why not other nations? And would you not approve of a war to end such brutality in the US? Would you not welcome the liberating Irani soldiers as they come in and stop the barbaric death squads at “clinics” from killing the weakest of humanity?
I do not know what your response would be, but I can tell you, most of the pro-life supporters would fight back against the Iranians, even though they would be saving more human lives than any liberating force in Iraq.
Nate-
Could it be that the United States also took into consideration that Iraq was being ruled by a brutal dictator who had (and still was) committing genocide against his own people? And what are we to do in those cicumstances? Turn a blind eye?
Sometimes force against evildoers is necessary to protect the innocent.
The US has bears a huge moral responsibility for what happened in Iraq. What if you opened to to a prison, and than claimed no responsibility for the spate of rapes and murders afterwards — after all, you are not the murderer or the rapist…
I thought we had invaded Iraq because of the (in)famous WMDs… I think we should invade Venezuela too, then, because of Hugo Chavez… they have a lot of oil too!
Henry,
No, I would not agree that the Oil for Food program (possibly the biggest financial scandal in world history) was in the best interest of anyone – especially children. Allied air protection over Kurdistan, however, was.
I am not absolving the U.S. of its responsibilities. But to suggest that it shares nearly all of blame for the collapse of civil society (correct me if that generalization is wrong) is not just false, it suggests a willful blindness – the opposite of “my country right or wrong.”
Could it be that the United States also took into consideration that Iraq was being ruled by a brutal dictator who had (and still was) committing genocide against his own people? And what are we to do in those cicumstances?
Come now, that’s crazy talk.
I think we should invade Venezuela too, then, because of Hugo Chavez… they have a lot of oil too!
Q: So you think we did it all for the oil?
The Dubya regime invaded Iraq for two basic reasons–neither of which had a thing to do with defense of American lives or “liberties”: to support the interests of the Zionist State in militarily weakening any powerful Arab regime; and–and this is PRIMARY–to ensure the continued structuring of the market for the world’s carbon fuel reserves in DOLLARS, rather than in the “basket of currencies” (and primarily the more stable and stronger EURO) that both Iraq and, now, Iran would prefer to sell oil in. The effect on the debt-encumbered American economy of a massive sell-off of dollars by China and India and other fast-developing Asian nations, in order to purchase oil in a stabler currency would be catastrophic and well might reduce America to the ECONOMIC shape of what it has already become politically, under the “unitary executive”–a BANANA REPUBLIC.
What are we to do in those circumstances? Em, try the just war principles.
Last resort? No.
Competent authority? No
Serious prospects of success? Not really.
Due consideration for proportionate evil? Not a chance.
MM-
So then, answer my question: Do you allow the genocide to continue?
Is there genocide? There’s a nasty civil war, huge internal dislocation, but genocide? But we can no doubt agree that life for the average Iraqi (especially for the Christians) was far better under that nasty thug Saddam.
Life was better before the United States invaded Iraq?
Surely you jest:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4555000.stm
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/13/iraq.graves/index.html
I think these people would disagree with the contention that life was far better under Saddam for the average Iraqi.
http://www.9neesan.com/massgraves/
A good overview of the career of Saddam below from the Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/29/AR2006122901978.html
Mr. McClary, the Washington Post’s obituary is nothing less than a pathetic, self-serving piece of American propoganda. Look, for instance, at THIS:
But the attack he launched in 1980 against Iran, his neighbor to the east, soon bogged down, becoming a bloody and costly war of attrition. By the war’s end, estimates of the death toll on both sides ranged up to 1.5 million. Iraq put its own its dead at 500,000, while Iran said it lost 300,000.
Not a word in there about how America and her ally, Saudi Arabia, FINANCED and ENCOURAGED, with false A-wax radar information fed to Saddam throughout the beastly Iraq-Iran War, the conflagration between the two countries that has been KEY to understanding all of the ensuing history until this day. No mention of the visits of Donald Rumsfeld to Baghdad, to facilitate arms deals, to keep the genocidal war raging, no mention of the guarantees Saudi Arabia gave Saddam of allowing the price of oil to float on the world market, in order to enable him to recoup the losses for the war he was fighting as America’s, Kuwait’s and Saudi Arabia’s proxy. No mention of the underground incursions by Kuwaiti oil drillers onto Iraqi oil fields.
The simple fact is that, under Saddam Hussein, an old Shiite or Sunni grandmother could go safely down the street to buy provisions in the market, and that now, in the so-called “democracy” that has been inflicted on the Iraqi people, she can’t. Average Iraqis have told us, in poll after poll, that they want the Americans to get out of their country NOW.
However, in refusing to recognise the will of both Iraqis and Americans, Mr. McClary, you and other “hawks” are most likely contributing to creation of a situation in which the occupying forces are CUT TO RIBBONS in their inevitable retreat by irate Sunnis and Shias in a dismembered Iraq. Ever heard what happened to Soviet troops as they withdrew from Afghanistan? It’s part of the reason there is no more Soviet Union. Of course, in the “night of the long knives” of American politics that will follow, you and others of your ilk will blame the “liberals” and the “Democrats” and the “hippy peace-niks”! God, what a country this is–an incorrigibly ignorant and a stupidly proud one!
The Iraqi government declared May 16 as Mass Grave Day to commemorate the day when the first such grave was uncovered near the Shiite town of Mahaweel, about 56 kilometers (35 miles) south of Baghdad.
Human rights organizations estimate that more than 300,000 people, mainly Kurds and Shiite Muslims, were killed and buried in mass graves before Saddam was overthrown by U.S. forces in 2003.
The US found the remains of 300,000 Iraqis in mass graves. That’s not simply casualties of the Iran-Iraq war, but Saddam’s persecution of his own citizens.
You could always tour a genocide museum with Michael Totten — yes, another of those damn “milbloggers” who actually toured the Middle East — converted from the remains of a Baathist prison and torture-house. 10,725 people were allegedly killed in this one building alone, including women and children.
[...] U.S. Government and Brutal Dictators In the comment box of Nate’s meditation on the U.S. response to 9/11, our own Alexham asked the following questions with regard to the [...]
Life was indeed better under Saddam. Don’t take it from me. Take it from Bishop Warduni of Baghdad:
“Under Saddam there was the dictatorship, the wars… but the people lived fairly well. Today there is total insecurity, no one can be sure in the morning of coming home in the evening, it seems absurd but that’s how it is.”
http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=10412
Tell you what MM, you go live in a country where genocide is currently being committed, like say Darfur, and then you can come back here and tell us all how swell things there are.
Unfreakinbelievable.
MM — “Life was indeed better under Saddam. ”
Iraqi Christians did indeed have something of a “cozy” relationship with Saddam. If you can square “fairly well” with the 300,000 in mass graves, the torture cells and rape-rooms, well . . . Bishop Warduni has a strange perception of reality.
Just out of curiosity, is this “Catholic perspectives on Culture, Society and Politics” or Daily Kos? — I’m confused.
Oh, and please MM, tell you dem-operative buddies to start using the line of argument in this next presidential campaign (“Life was sooo much sweeter under Saddam”), and let me know how that works out for y’all.
Pay no attention to the mass graves or torture chambers, folks!
What part of “preemptive war” do you folks don’t understand? I mean, really. I’m lost.
Therefore, engaging in a preventive war without clear proof that an attack is imminent cannot fail to raise serious moral and juridical questions. International legitimacy for the use of armed force, on the basis of rigorous assessment and with well-founded motivations, can only be given by the decision of a competent body that identifies specific situations as threats to peace and authorizes an intrusion into the sphere of autonomy usually reserved to a State. (CSDC, 501)
I think Alexham brings up a valid question. I think your question ought to be referred to the just-war theory, which gives us a good framework for deciding when to using defensive force.
I do think that America has helped to destroy Iraq – through two wars, and nearly a decade of sanctions and bombings, through tearing down a government without anything to put in its place. I think what we are seeing is ‘proportionality’ at work – that our Church warns us about the grave dangers of using force. Wars almost inevitably spin out of control. The only way to avoid that is to use nonviolent and defensive force. All other sorts of force are bound to make things worse.
Alexham, right now the world does not have a defensive peacekeeping force that could stop genocides without relying upon lethal force. To me, that means that anything we try will end up failing in the end. Killing people only makes things worse – even in self-defense. The only solution I see is to take the principle of peacekeepers, and to train them in nonviolent defensive techniques.
That may sound pie-in-the-sky, but love is idealistic and hard. God calls us to carry our crosses. If we are to defeat evil, we will have to die for our enemies – precisely because we refuse to kill them.
We should never sit back and let genocide occur. However, we must realize that our military is incapable of stopping a genocide without ultimately making things worse.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! :)
Just out of curiosity, is this “Catholic perspectives on Culture, Society and Politics” or Daily Kos? — I’m confused.
Is there something un-Catholic here? Seems to me that most of the folks at Vox Nova agree with the Pope and U.S. bishops. Hmmmm…
MM is providing us with a first-hand analysis from the Bishop of Baghdad. Christopher is challenging that analysis with second-hand information from news bytes. I’ll trust the first-hand stuff from a bishop who has lived before during and after the reign of Saddam. And by the way, Christopher, the good bishop is speaking of the experience of most Iraqi’s and not simply that of Christians who were “cozy” (nice try with that rubbish).
MM is providing us with a first-hand analysis from the Bishop of Baghdad. Christopher is challenging that analysis with second-hand information from news bytes. I’ll trust the first-hand stuff from a bishop who has lived before during and after the reign of Saddam.
Here’s another Iraqi Christian about life under Saddam, echoing the Bishop’s sentiments, from the publishing organ of the USCCB:
“Saddam (controlled) everything. Nobody could say anything bad especially (about) us Christians,” he said. “Christians in the Middle East are very good people. We are peace-loving people.”
Another refugee said that after years of living in fear and daily bombings many Iraqi Christians felt they were actually safer with Saddam.
“We are getting tired. When Saddam was in power there was no fighting. Saddam loved the Christians. We were safer with Saddam; now we just leave the country,” he said.
Also, In November 27, 2002, Sandro Magister reported on a dossier on the Chaldean Church compiled by Fides, a news agency of the Vatica´s De Propaganda Fide office:
The dossier gives a positive image of Christians in [Iraq]. Yes, there is the threat of war, the lack of food and medicine, the plague of emigration. In addition, “from time to time, incidents take place, especially since the gradual spread of a fundamentalist current in the Arab world.”
But on the other hand, Catholics in Iraq “don´t undergo discrimination” and enjoy “religious freedom,” even if it´s “within the limits set by the state.”
And what about Saddam Hussein? Says Msgr. Antonios Mina, representative of the Chaldean church to the Vatican´s Congregation for Eastern Churches:
“Relations with the government are good. In the government, there is vice premier Tareq Aziz, who is a Chaldean Catholic; his wife is a strong believer. Patriarch Raphael Bidawid is highly esteemed, respected by the civil authorities.”
Nothing new to this point. On the contrary. On repeated occasions, Patriarch Bidawid has praised Saddam Hussein in an even stronger manner. Most recently, in an October interview with “Panorama,” he said:
“Christians here are privileged. Saddam gives us what we want, listens to us and protects us.” Regarding Islamic extremists: “They have infiltrated the veins of religious power and are trying to steer it in their direction. But the government keeps them in check. Saddam is capable; he fools them into being more open in order to uncover them. He will get them.”
So, yes: safety and relative security (for Christians) — but at what cost?
300,000 in mass graves. Rape rooms and torture cells. Secret police. Don’t take my word for it, research yourself. Here’s the U.S. Dept. of State’s report on human rights abuses in Saddam’s Iraq; Background on Human Rights Conditions, 1984-1992 Human Rights Watch. Amnesty International on Systematic torture of political prisoners in Saddam’s Iraq.
“Second-hand information and newsbytes.” And you take the testimony of a Christian Bishop as gospel truth over this? — Give me a freakin’ break.
“Second-hand information and newsbytes.” And you take the testimony of a Christian Bishop as gospel truth over this? — Give me a freakin’ break.
Yes, I take his word over your analysis of news stories. The graves are a perpetual reminder of the horrors committed by Saddam. But like a good capitalist, you seem to care only for the abstract: quantifiable exchange and numbers. You give little to no attention to the details of quality of life. The people of Iraq never had to face death each and every day with complete uncertainty over when their life may suddenly end. The terror of getting into one’s car, making a trip to the market for needed food, worshipping, sleeping…not only the Kurds or Shi’ites, but everyone–children, women and men. So all of Novak’s talk of periodicals, sewage systems and assemblies give no indication of the horror of daily life in Iraq. My very close friend who is stationed in Baghdad right now relays the same story to me as the bishop. So while you analyze at a distance using numbers and stats are your only information, the actual people living in Iraq’s worst zones live a worse life now qualitatively now then ever under Saddam. This is not to say that “better” under Saddam means life was “good.” It means that the quality of life now is worse. So, no, I won’t “give you a break” when you clearly sit back and analyze in the abstract. Typical.
The people of Iraq never had to face death each and every day with complete uncertainty over when their life may suddenly end.
By all appearances, the “quality of life” for Iraqis under Saddam was limited to a select few and those who went along with the Baathists. Certainly not for the Kurds and Shiites and those now residing in mass graves. You’re quite content to poo-poo the reports I mentioned; I suggest you actually read them — the eyewitness details are anything but “abstract statistics.”
I never mentioned Novak, so dispense with the straw men. I’m not saying things are cozy in Iraq today. They’re bloody horrific. But the greatest threat to quality of life comes from Al Qaeda, which is likely why local sheiks and former insurgents are banding together with the U.S. military to drive them out. And in some cases, as in the Anbar province and Fallujah, they apparently did so with a measure of success:
Ramadi’s transformation is breathtaking. Shortly before I arrived last November masked al-Qaeda fighters had brazenly marched through the city centre, pronouncing it the capital of a new Islamic caliphate. The US military was still having to fight its way into the city through a gauntlet of snipers, rocket-propelled grenades, suicide car bombs and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Fifty US soldiers had been killed in the previous five months alone. I spent 24 hours huddled inside Eagles Nest, a tiny COP overlooking the derelict football stadium, listening to gunfire, explosions and the thump of mortars. The city was a ruin, with no water, electricity or functioning government. Those of its 400,000 terrified inhabitants who had not fled cowered indoors as fighting raged around them.
Today Ramadi is scarcely recognisable. Scores of shattered buildings testify to the fury of past battles, but those who fled the violence are now returning. Pedestrians, cars and motorbike rickshaws throng the streets. More than 700 shops and businesses have reopened. Restaurants stay open late into the evening. People sit outside smoking hookahs, listening to music, wearing shorts – practices that al-Qaeda banned. Women walk around with uncovered faces. Children wave at US Humvees. Eagles’ Nest, a heavily fortified warren of commandeered houses, is abandoned and the stadium hosts football matches.
“Al-Qaeda is gone. Everybody is happy,” said Mohammed Ramadan, 38, a stallholder in the souk who witnessed four executions. “It was fear, pure fear. Nobody wanted to help them but you had to do what they told you.”
Apparently this is not an isolated incident — let’s hope the joint efforts of the U.S. and Iraqi people can reproduce this.
So all of Novak’s talk of periodicals, sewage systems and assemblies give no indication of the horror of daily life in Iraq.
Did I ever mention Novak?
This I love. You people are so committed to the blinkered US-centric view of the world, that when the Church in Iraq says something that goes against your story, you start attacking the bishop. Very sad.
And let’s get clear on this genocide issue. You keep quoting 300,000. I have done no research, but I will accept this on face value. I also note that the report ends in 1992. In that case, has there been genocide since 1992? And if not, how in the name of God do the just war principles apply? No, you guys are not interested in the here-and-now, you are interested in retribution for past crimes. As I’m tired of saying, the US is NOT charged with exacting divine justice.
And another thing that keeps pissing me off: what do you people keep bringing up daily kos? I have no axe to grind for kos, and I never even read that blog. However, to treat it like a bogeyman, a left-wing version of Coulter or Limbaugh, is preposterous. Let’s get this straight: Kos is about a movement. Their sole aim is the election of Democrats. For that reason, they are actually MORE inclined to back anti-abortion and social conservative Democrats in areas where they can win. Kos was born out of frustration, dismayed by the cowardice of the electorate in not standing up to Bush and his war. The best comparison on the right is the kind of early 1990s Gingrich-Norquist-Reed grassroots movement, pre-internet.
Christopher,
I couldn’t help but notice that you backed off once more from qualitative assessment. Not surprising. Do you or do you not submit that life in Iraq is qualitatively better now than under Saddam, and how do you know? Plenty of Iraqi’s, an Iraqi bishop and many U.S. soldiers who are living the horror have already answered the question. Are you deaf to their voices?
NB: I thought you would remember Novak’s reaction to Pope Benedict’s XVI statement that nothing good is coming from Iraq. I thought with a little insight you’d find that I was comparing your abstractionism with his. I am surprised you didn’t catch that. So, no, Christopher, there’s no straw man there; a comparison is not a re-presentation. I will distill things a little more next time.
Do you or do you not submit that life in Iraq is qualitatively better now than under Saddam, and how do you know?
I’d say it all depends — in either case. Under Saddam, life in Iraq was qualitatively better for those who were on Saddam’s good side, who kept their mouths shut and went along with the status quo while others went off to torture, rape and death. I’m sure life was “qualitatively better” for scores of people and Christians living in Nazi Germany as well. Life is “qualitatively better” for most Americans in the United States, while we have a holocaust going on in our abortion mills. Get my point? — Pardon, but this is why I treat with skepticism those Christians who boast in the newspapers about how ‘privileged’ and ‘safe’ they were under Saddam. I think you’d ask the same question: yes, but at what cost?
Post-Saddam, again, it all depends on who you talk to and the specific moment in time. Anbar province two years ago? — a walking nightmare. This year? Considerably different, with Al Qaeda run out of town.
I agree with you, reparations to the sewar system or freedom of the press doesn’t mean much if you’re living in constant fear. But it sounds like through the mutual cooperation of Iraqis and our own troops that this is no longer the case in certain areas of Iraq, including Anbar province.
You boast of knowing a soldier in Iraq; this is news? — I do too. And I also base my judgements on eyewitness accounts, military blogs by those presently on the ground beyond the Green Zone. Try reading Michael Yon’s weeklyl reports from his travels; Bill Roggio’s; or Michael Totten, and couple that with the latest car-bombing on CNN to get a balanced view.
“This is not what I expected in Baghdad,” I said.
“Most of what we’re doing doesn’t get reported in the media,” he said. “We’re not fighting a war here anymore, not in this area. We’ve moved way beyond that stage. We built a soccer field for the kids, bought all kinds of equipment, bought them school books and even chalk. Soon we’re installing 1,500 solar street lamps so they have light at night and can take some of the load off the power grid. The media only covers the gruesome stuff. We go to the sheiks and say hey man, what kind of projects do you want in this area? They give us a list and we submit the paperwork. When the projects get approved, we give them the money and help them buy stuff.”
Not everything they do is humanitarian work, unless you consider counter-terrorism humanitarian work. In my view, you should. Few Westerners think of personal security as a human right, but if you show up in Baghdad I’ll bet you will. Personal security may, in fact, be the most important human right. Without it the others mean little. People aren’t free if they have to hide in their homes from death squads and car bombs.
So I compare the eyewitness report of Bishop Warduni with the reports of hundreds of others that I receive via multiple resources: news, blogs, emails, letters. Do I privilege the Bishop’s report against another just because he’s a Catholic? Please.
Incidentally, the Bishop also said (and conveniently omitted by Morning’s Minion):
No, not everything in Iraq is bad. We have our schools, we teach the catechism, there are many gatherings of young people, even if it’s not like before… But the feasts we’ve celebrated have always been splendid, and let’s hope they will be in future. We manage to distribute food aid, and with our three Chaldean infirmaries provide medicine and treatment to patients, of any faith, Moslems for the most part. With the Moslem leaders, with our Moslem neighbors, there’s nothing but friendship, which is the best way of telling them again that our action is guided only by charity, humility, solidarity and desire to rebuild our country.
Then, I said, some people are beginning to have a fixed and dignified income, and in the newspapers, that are more numerous than earlier, there is greater freedom of expression – maybe too much, since it’s enough to harm this or that political rival…
Hunting al Qaeda, by Michael Yon; Anbar Awakens Part I: The Battle of Ramadi, by Michael Totten. Much as they’re denigrated by Morning’s Minion, I find such ‘milbloggers’ help get a sense of what’s going on.
I’m sure you do, Christopher, but I am suspicious of their neutrality. For God’s sake, the US military has created a Potemkin village to display to visting dignitaries. I suggest you read Al Jazeera for the other view, and then assess.
Then sinc e you have now begun to really consider the variables of human living at my prodding instead of relying on abstractionist (cf. Barrett) analysis, I suspect you are ready now to apologise to MM for scoffing at his use of the Bishop of Baghdad’s quote. You so feverishly dismissed the good bishop with your blanket judgment that life could not have possibly been better under Saddam, and this judgment came without qualification, and yet now you admit that quantitative analysis is not capable of giving us an accurate glimpse into daily life in Iraq. Next time, I caution you to consider human life in its qualitative mode rather than using quantitifiable data as your only crutch.
Policraticus,
In defense of Christopher, well maybe not so much him, as the reasoning by that I took to be behind his statement, it is important evaluate people’s views when trying to determine the truth of something. I am quite sure that things are worse for the good bishop and his flock, but that’s not to say that things are worse for everyone in Iraq. Chaldeans didn’t have the greatest existence under Saddam, they at least knew where they stood and could live with some security. Now, violence from Islamic terrorists is so rampant and unpredictable as to when you might become a victim that the quality of life is surely degraded – though hopefully this is temporary.
However, that does not mean that life is worse now for everyone. While the Christians were living with more security under Saddam, Kurds and many Shiites weren’t. Those ‘statistics’ are not mere statistics. For each number is a human being and a family that was terrorized and destroyed. It shouldn’t take much effort to understand that – put yourself in the place of a Kurd under Saddam and then now. I’m quite sure many Sunnis and certainly Baath party members would say that things were better under Saddam, for they had privilege, but the Shiite’s might sing a different tune, even while being subjected to random violence as well. I don’t think Christopher should be faulted for giving consideration to countless victims of Saddam even those people don’t share our faith. I admit to being a little biased towards my brother Catholics and expressing more concern for their well-being, but I’m not so sure that’s necessarily the view I should always have, for even though Muslims may not share our faith, and their faith may have some truly evil elements to it, they are still created in the image and likeness of God and their lives matter – especially the innocent.
Those ’statistics’ are not mere statistics. For each number is a human being and a family that was terrorized and destroyed. It shouldn’t take much effort to understand that – put yourself in the place of a Kurd under Saddam and then now. I’m quite sure many Sunnis and certainly Baath party members would say that things were better under Saddam, for they had privilege, but the Shiite’s might sing a different tune, even while being subjected to random violence as well. I don’t think Christopher should be faulted for giving consideration to countless victims of Saddam even those people don’t share our faith.
This is very good and charitable reasoning, and I wish all of us could see more of this. I did not detect the same reasoning behind Christopher’s comments, for rather than presenting his statistics as indicating a quality of life, he used them as a means for debunking the claims of the Bishop of Baghdad. It’s as if I had to bully him into admitting that qualitative analysis is not so simplicistic as he had initially portrayed. This abstractionist thought lurks behind many of Christopher’s statements, and while I wish I could grant him the benefit of the doubt as you have, I have seen him consistently depend on strictly quantifiable data in support of his economic, political and military views. Would that he were to present this quantifiable data in a manner that is attentive not just to “facts,” but also to “values.” Head and heart, not just head. He frequently mentions Barrett’s brilliant work on existentialism; if only Christopher took to heart Barrett’s critique of abstractionist thinking in chapter 2. Then I would find myself far more sympathetic to his positions and his rationale would have far greater impact on those who do not already dogmatically agree with his line of reasoning.
MJ
Perhaps Rick Lugari put it better, but.I was not throwing statistics at you for the sake of throwing statistics. As I stated time and thereafter, a bishop’s statement that “things were better under Saddam” rings hollow in the face of the presence of mass graves, torture cells, rape rooms, etc. I don’t know how many times I can reiterate this.
Re-reading my response:
. . . You could always tour a genocide museum with Michael Totten — yes, another of those damn “milbloggers” who actually toured the Middle East — converted from the remains of a Baathist prison and torture-house. 10,725 people were allegedly killed in this one building alone, including women and children. . . .
I fail to see how you get this:
Yes, I take his word over your analysis of news stories. The graves are a perpetual reminder of the horrors committed by Saddam. But like a good capitalist, you seem to care only for the abstract: quantifiable exchange and numbers.
What I had expected and hoped you would do is read Michael Totten’s post to which I linked, — and see his photographs, and read his interviews — and square the fact that 10,725 women and children alone died in a single torture-cell in Baghdad, and read the last words of a child to his parents:
“Dear Mom and Dad. I am going to be executed by the Baath. I will not see you again.”
and square that with the words of a Bishop or a priest or a mullah or a public relations spokesman like Tarek Aziz: “things were better under Saddam” — and understand, Christian or no, how ridiculous that sounds in the face of it all.
That was my point and only my point.
But I plead guilty of writing badly if the only thing you got from me was that I was a damned cold-blooded capitalist thinking in abstract statistics, and you had to congratulate yourself into “bullying me” into recognizing humanity.
Congratulations.
MJ
Perhaps Rick Lugari put it better, but.I was not throwing statistics at you for the sake of throwing statistics. As I stated time and thereafter, a bishop’s statement that “things were better under Saddam” rings hollow in the face of the presence of mass graves, torture cells, rape rooms, etc. I don’t know how many times I can reiterate this.
Re-reading my response:
. . . You could always tour a genocide museum with Michael Totten — yes, another of those damn “milbloggers” who actually toured the Middle East — converted from the remains of a Baathist prison and torture-house. 10,725 people were allegedly killed in this one building alone, including women and children. . . .
I fail to see how you get this:
Yes, I take his word over your analysis of news stories. The graves are a perpetual reminder of the horrors committed by Saddam. But like a good capitalist, you seem to care only for the abstract: quantifiable exchange and numbers.
What I had expected and hoped you would do is read Michael Totten’s post to which I linked, — and see his photographs, and read his interviews — and square the fact that 10,725 women and children alone died in a single torture-cell in Baghdad, and read the last words of a child to his parents:
“Dear Mom and Dad. I am going to be executed by the Baath. I will not see you again.”
and square that with the words of a Bishop or a priest or a mullah or a public relations spokesman like Tarek Aziz: “things were better under Saddam” — and understand, Christian or no, how ridiculous that sounds in the face of it all.
That was my point and only my point.
But I plead guilty of writing badly if the only thing you got from me was that I was a damned cold-blooded capitalist thinking in abstract statistics, and you had to congratulate yourself into “bullying me” into recognizing humanity.
Congratulations.