Again, what the Pope did not know, and could not have known (Aziz wouldn’t have told him) was that the UN officials had been corrupted by Saddam. He couldn’t have known because nobody knew that for sure until after the war started and documents were found evidencing it. You might remember that even the son of the UN president was involved in the corruption.
I did not say the Pope was under the influence of the Iraqi government. All I know is that Aziz visited with the Pope shortly before. But if, indeed, Aziz represented to the Pope that a peaceful solution was possible, I would not have considered it worthy of belief because I knew Aziz’ life and that of his family was on the line in presenting whatever Saddam wanted him to present.
I also know the Pope did not condemn the war after it started and never said Catholics could not morally participate in it or support it. Did something change his mind? I don’t know, and I’m reasonably confident you don’t either.
I do defend the decision to take down Saddam, and on a number of bases. But let’s look at the easiest for a moment. Would you, if you could, put Saddam Hussein back in power, knowing he killed about a million people, gassed his own, bombed his own, put people in acid baths, had rape rooms, killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children and started two aggressive wars, in at least one of which he used WMD? Would you put him back in power? Tell us.
If your answer to that is “no”, then you may look at what the situation is now. Saddam was actually worse, during his reign, than ISIS has been so far. Would you favor resisting ISIS, or would you be content to see them behead some more, murder some more, starve people some more, commit genocide some more, kill children wantonly some more? Are you content with that?
If you are not content with that, with what would you be content? How about an Iraq in which the factions still didn’t much like each other but lived in peace with each other; an Iraq in which the Sunni were not fighting the Kurds, the Kurds were fighting nobody, and the Shia were fighting nobody? Would that be worth armed struggle to you, or is nothing worth it to you if put in the balance?
Well, that peace is exactly what Iraq War Phase II accomplished. Exactly. The Sunni leaders, the Kurds and the Shia all begged us to stay, and why? It wasn’t because they suddenly liked each other, but because we guaranteed the peace, that’s why. Because we fought off the fighters from all over the Islamic world, that’s why; people like ISIS and including ISIS’ current leader.
If you don’t think that state of peace was worth killing largely foreign Islamists; ISIS types, to keep them from doing what they’re doing now and which was evident even back then, then tell us that would be your choice.
Even the generals who conducted the war and the peace after it agreed that we should not have cut and run from Iraq. That was Obama’s decision, and everything that has happened with ISIS, the war between Iran and the Sunni, is due to that decision, not to the decision to topple Saddam. And that decision to leave Iraqis in the lurch will have a lot more bad repercussions than we have seen so far.
Hmm. Looking back, it seems we have gone far afield from the topic.
