The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
After reading Kenny Thomas' opening statement "Almost everything the antiwar crowd said about the military action in Iraq has been colossally wrong," ("Antiwar crowd got it wrong," Sunday, June 15), I felt more strongly than ever that it is pro-American war-defenders who have got things colossally wrong.
Those who opposed the war in Iraq did so primarily because of the moral wrongness and the intellectual fallacy of the U.S.launching an unprovoked war of aggression against a sovereign nation for reasons that were, frankly, obviously half-baked and downright fallacious before it began. Civilian casualties, war-for-oil, fear of a long quagmire are none of them the primary reasons for opposing the war. I think that objections to the immorality of it, the stupidity of it, and the obvious lying that went into it were the primary reasons.
Weapons of mass destruction? There aren't any to be found. They have not been found and they will not be. If they are found, I will admit that I was wrong, but in the meantime I would not put it past the Pentagon war monkeys to plant evidence to cover themselves. Saddam Hussein had them and even used them? Of course he had, and did. The American government knows it because it kept the receipts for them. But so what? The United States is the greatest possessor of weapons of mass destruction in the world. Therefore, I feel motivated to suggest that a coalition of world partners invade the U.S. - using Canada and Mexico as pre-positioning staging areas - in a virtuous, pre-emptive effort to pacify the globe. Failing that, then I suggest an international coalition to oust the Anglo-American invaders from Iraq much as the international coalition forged by President George H. Bush ousted the Iraqi invaders from Kuwait in 1991.
Iraq was a threat to America? No, it wasn't. It had neither the weapons, nor the delivery systems to deliver the weapons to American targets outside Iraq. This is a fact and is not disputed by the knowledgeable.
Saddam Hussein was a brutal, unelected monster, who created a case for enforced regime change just by his manner of governance and the pathologies of his personality? George W. Bush is currently an unelected President with disagreeable qualities of his own. Perhaps Washington, D.C.is in need of some regime change of its own.
TheUnited Stateshas no moral authority. It has power only - too much power than is good for it, actually - and power if usually confused with authority. The U.S.is not the 'leader of the free world.' It never was. The peoples of the world do not aspire to be Americans, and they are not Americans-in-waiting. The White House and the Pentagon should leave alone things they do not understand. And for goodness sake, stop lying to us about their motives.
Nevertheless, I like Americaand its people. But, like many people in the world, I wish it would do more to honestly and sincerely
live up to the nobility of its creed.