Conspiracy
[posted by Callimachus]
One of the many things to be regretted about the precipitous and pell-mell execution of Saddam Hussein was that it forces us to endure a lifetime of columns like this one by veteran moral equivalence maven and America-basher Gwynne Dyer.
He's wrong, typically, in stating "Washington's pretext for war then was Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, with barely a word about bringing democracy to the downtrodden Iraqi people." Democracy always was at the core of this mission, if not always front and center in the public debate about it. I expect to spend the rest of my public life trying to correct the record on that one.
But when he claims Saddam was executed "for the judicial murder of 144 villagers in the town of Dujail" because, of all his long catalogue of crimes, "the United States was not involved in that one," how can you gainsay him? You might be able to find paperwork and quotes to beat back his assertion that "It was not the Iraqi government but its American masters" who rushed Saddam to the gallows. But the impression of something rotten lingers.
Mind you, these same America-bashing voices staked their reputations in 2003 on predictions Saddam never would be allowed to surrender, that the Americans would find a way to kill him before he ever got to court, to prevent his talking about America's role in bolstering his rule. They were wrong then, but, having no honor and no reputation to lose, they gave up nothing and lived to taunt the United States another day.
One of the many things to be regretted about the precipitous and pell-mell execution of Saddam Hussein was that it forces us to endure a lifetime of columns like this one by veteran moral equivalence maven and America-basher Gwynne Dyer.
He's wrong, typically, in stating "Washington's pretext for war then was Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, with barely a word about bringing democracy to the downtrodden Iraqi people." Democracy always was at the core of this mission, if not always front and center in the public debate about it. I expect to spend the rest of my public life trying to correct the record on that one.
But when he claims Saddam was executed "for the judicial murder of 144 villagers in the town of Dujail" because, of all his long catalogue of crimes, "the United States was not involved in that one," how can you gainsay him? You might be able to find paperwork and quotes to beat back his assertion that "It was not the Iraqi government but its American masters" who rushed Saddam to the gallows. But the impression of something rotten lingers.
Mind you, these same America-bashing voices staked their reputations in 2003 on predictions Saddam never would be allowed to surrender, that the Americans would find a way to kill him before he ever got to court, to prevent his talking about America's role in bolstering his rule. They were wrong then, but, having no honor and no reputation to lose, they gave up nothing and lived to taunt the United States another day.
