Quo Vadis, Uncle Sam?

Submitted by A.M. Berlin (Canada), Sep 9, 2002 at 02:07

So the face of the enemy is militant Islam, global militant Islam. In the face of recent history, it would be impossible to refute this conclusion. Is this the reason we are going to unseat Saddam Hussein from his "throne"?

Hussein's regime is secular. No mullah can stand in his mosque and preach what he wants. No mullah can teach in school what he wants. Hussein rules his ethnically diverse domain with an iron hand and there is no strife in the land. There are no jittery Mubaraks here nor Saudi so called "royals" that must bribe their mullahs with countless millions of dollars. In Hussein's domain offending heads roll in the sand, a very undemocratic practice but very, very persuasive. And effective.

So why is Hussein an enemy and not an ally? His enmity seems to be a different brand, have different roots from militant Islam. It is a pesonal enmity.

For a power like the US, to unseat and to destroy such a Hussein is no big trick. And then what? A democracy? In Iraq? There is no separation of church and state in Islam, a prerequisite for democracy, therefore there are no Islamic democracies. Whatever regime will replace Hussein will bring back the mullah, the Enemy Incarnate.

Is that what the US is trying to accomplish?

It may not be possible to turn Hussein into a friend, but even an ally would be good enough. How hard have we tried? Have we tried at all? There is little doubt that Hussein is bad news, in any book. But to replace him with a mullah will be much, much worse.

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