Topic: The biggest lie about Iraq
There were a lot of lies told to the American people about Iraq. But I think the biggest one wasn't WMD, any purported terrorism connections or even that Saddam was seeking a nuclear weapon.
The grandpoppy of them all:
"We liberated X million people from a brutal regime"
Yeah, you heard me. We didn't liberate anything or anyone.
1.)The Arab world hates most Americans and mostly everything it stands for. I mean if a country tried to occupy you and tell you what freedom meant, you'd probably hate them too. If they made sanctions against your nations, invaded your countries, supported your enemies (Israel) and had anti-thetical cultural, religious and economic values then you'd probably hate America too.
A Gallup poll shows that most Iraqis by a decisive majority do not view us as liberators but as occupiers:
2. We never sold this war on the idea of liberating Iraqis. This was not a war about liberation, it was a war about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism... or words of mass deception and cronyism, if you prefer. It wasn't about liberation when Saddam tortured people for all those years, when we had inspections, when we left people to die in a false revolt after Gulf War I or when a CIA funded coup landed Saddam in power. Saddam became evil after we needed a puppet to blame, when he wouldn't play ball anymore.
3. We don't apply, nor can we or should we, our foreign policy as liberating people. If we did, we'd be in Cuba, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and half the rest of the world spreading democracy on the tip of a gun. Obviously, this is impractical. So why Saddam? Beats me, go ask George Bush.
There is clear lack of historical precedent for this kind of action. More often than not, we have been outwardly friendly or even helped put most of these regimes where they are from Central America all the way back to the Middle East.
4. To use an effect to justify a cause is usually morally unacceptable, and sometimes considered a logical fallacy. For example, hitting someone in the gut and then justifying it by saying they were going to do it to you. Otherwise known as pre-emptive warfare, another Republi-logic fallacy. (More on that later)
The ends don't justify the means, they never have and they never will. Going to war based off of lies is immoral, period the end.
5. The Iraqi people are not free.
They are occupied against their collective will.
Their government is a flimsy, interim government appointed (grasp this concept, conservatives) by American officials. They are not elected, the Iraqi people are not free therefore.
Iraq is in chaos and disorder, which threatens freedom itself by ensuring rights for nobody.
When the Iraqi people are free, if ever, it will be because they've made their own stable, legitimate and powerful government and elected their own officials. Long after we are no longer occupying them and chaos has left their land.
This outcome might be impossible due to their culture, nobody can say for sure. Beyond this, the Iraqi people might not want democracy at all, they might just want a religious or somewhat more fascist form of government. That is what real democracy is: self-determination.
If we pick their government for them, they are not free. You cannot liberate people by killing them, occupying their country or telling them what to do. We didn't bring them freedom, we brought them the chance for freedom.
Unfortunately that was tarnished by the lies we used to do it, the oil we really did it for, the allies we really did it for and the blatant incompetence (lack of allies, planning, manpower) that the postwar government was ran under.
