In this war debate, no side can claim moral clarity

As the war endures, we all try to determine where we stand. Many people around the world have chosen the road of protest and opposition. These protests that claim to support "peace" usually fail to make adequate condemnation and reference to the brutality and repression imposed by Saddam Hussein and his morally bankrupt Ba'athist regime. Many antiwar activists adopt instead the simplicity of the "no blood for oil" slogan of opposition and speak of the fact that George W. Bush was not really elected as President. The truth, however, is that those opposed to the war are morally bankrupt themselves if they do not call for a regime change in Baghdad. It is a simple distinction between right and wrong, and the easiest way to put it is that the Saddam Hussein regime is wrong. It was wrong twenty years ago when the United States was supplying it with economic aid, weapons capability and diplomatic protection for its war crimes against its own people and Iran; it is wrong today as the United States and the United Kingdom seek to conquer it. Saddam's regime is not Nazi Germany, but it is a brutal regime. When did the Iraqis, especially the Shiites in south and the Kurds in the North, choose this brutal repression?

From the outset, a person who discuses the war without reference to the above cannot enter the argument legitimately. However, I can take you to Assad's Syria, Jong-Il's North Korea, Taylor's Liberia, Karimov's Uzbekistan, Niyazov's Turkmenistan and countless other brutal regimes which we must all oppose. Are we proposing to invade them all? Can America really go about the world inducing regime change? Where will this logic stop? Would it be legitimate if they targeted Iran, or Palestine? There seems to be a perilous consequence of an Iraqi invasion that permits unilateral/bilateral determinations of which regime changes should happen, and when. However, this logic is not good enough to oppose war. Perhaps we cannot liberate all people, but at least we can liberate the Iraqis. Why permit a wrong to persist simply because we cannot fight all the wrongs in this world, right? One problem is that the 'liberators' are the very people who in the past have supported the repression from which they seek to liberate the Iraqis. The same liberators, in particular the United States, are motivated by a hawkish agenda that does not end with the Tigris and Euphrates but extends beyond the hallowed home of ancient Mesopotamia. Despite the American intentions, can't we accept the good of liberation as a worthy byproduct?

We must ask, however, if this needed to come to war. The USSR one of the most totalitarian of regimes fell in the dawn of the last decade, as did a host of Eastern European dictatorships without war. Is invasion, conquest and bloodletting the only way to do the right thing? A credible alternative could have worked to further isolate the Iraqi regime, and build up domestic opposition in the country. The South African apartheid regime was not brought down by the invasion and war, but by subversive action from within, and total opposition from without. South Africa in fact developed nuclear weapons. Would we have all supported an invasion led by the United States, or USSR for that matter? It is true, in a sense, that the war could bring about liberation of the Iraqis sooner, rather than having to wait for the regime to collapse. Unfortunately, this is liberation not through the snapping of our fingers, but through the clasping of our hands around guns. It is liberation through death and destruction, through human tragedy and by the worst of means. Right now, we see the brutal images from Najaf to Baghdad to Basra of Iraqi mothers weeping for the impossible return of their young children. We witness the deterioration of the conditions of millions into a potential humanitarian disaster of rarely seen proportions. Many Iraqis do indeed resist, and swiftly meet their death in the hundreds at a time. War is not simply 'not preferable' but is abhorrent and barbaric, and the last of all options.

So what do we say? Who do we support? The international implications are clear. Permitting such a war in the face of international opposition will only foster further terrorism, set a precedent for the future violation of international law by other countries (i.e. Russia, China, Uzbekistan) and perhaps establish a new American and destructive hegemony along with a myriad of other dangerous consequences. Yet, many Iraqis welcome the United States, and dance at their arrival. But many do not, and shoot instead. This is a time when no side has the moral clarity it claims. Perhaps, it comes down to a Las Vegas roll of the dice, where we play the odds as we see them. So place your bets, but be prepared to deal with the ramifications of your actions and words. Most importantly, always ensure that everything was and is done to prevent war.