Posted by Dan Ewert : 9/10/2002 11:34:00 PM (Archive Link)
I read a letter to the editor in Sunday’s paper in which somebody complained about the sanctions on Iraq and how they were hurting people and killing children and how a war with Iraq would exacerbate both. This is ridiculous nonsense. For one thing, I take issue with the degree of the suffering. You must keep in mind that the information is coming from a totalitarian dictatorship and a state controlled media… that means it’s propaganda with the purpose of advancing Iraq’s PR cause. Some of the true leftists would say that the U.S. is putting out propaganda against Iraq. What amazes me is that these people are more inclined to agree and sympathize with a ruthless dictator than with a free, democratically elected government. They don’t seem to understand that a bad man only tells you what he wants you to think and that it’s for an appropriately bad purpose.

Secondly, any suffering comes directly from Saddam Hussein himself. He somehow found the money to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, military, and his own personal palaces, which some say number about a hundred. When he built out a Chinese fiber optic network connecting radar stations and missile batteries, I don’t think he did so with change he found in his couch. Iraq has plenty of money to go around, both from legal oil sales and plenty of illegal oil smuggling. The problem isn’t the flow, it’s the spigot. There is only one man who controls where the cash goes and he has decided to put it towards his own megalomaniacal purposes while punishing his citizens. This gives him the added bonus of crying about the people’s suffering and blaming it on others. Of course, a man who puts anti-aircraft guns on the roofs of elementary schools is hardly above using his people as pawns.