Response to Sultan

Submitted by John (United States), Jul 27, 2005 at 19:56

Dear Sultan,

You asked, "why are they (the US) attacking so many different places. I can't understand."

I would respectfully ask that you at least attempt to understand that which you don't, before condemning it. At the very least, I hope that you would like me to explain how an American views this subject.

The US bombed the Taliban government and helped the Northern Alliance depose them because of the September 11th attacks. The 9/11 attacks were planned under the protection (and possibly with the participation) of the Taliban. They refused to give up the planners of the 9/11 attacks and the US took action.

The US went to war with Saddam Hussein's government because we believed that they had weapons of Mass Destruction. Our intelligence was wrong, but even French President Chirac (the leader of the opposition to the liberation of Iraq) and most of the world believed that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. In any case, I can accept your criticism for being wrong on this issue. I am sorry for our mistake and I can only hope that you can see why we made that mistake in light of Saddam Hussein's hostility and his lack of cooperation with weapons inspectors, which was very misleading.

I must point out that the liberation of Iraq was justified a million times over for many reasons. Why? First of all, because the US had been in a state of war with Hussein's government for over a decade. Almost forgotten is the reason why the US was there in the first place, the illegal invasion of Kuwait by Saddam Hussein. Since then, there was fighting almost every week over the UN authorized No Fly zone. This No Fly zone was set up to protect the Kurds and Shiites from Baathist military aggression. There was also a blockade enforced on Baathist Iraq by the US military during this time as well. The blockade was also authorized by the UN and it created a state of tension between the US and the government of Saddam Hussein equal to a state of war.

Most of all, former President Hussein and the senior Baathist leadership needed to be brought to justice for all the crimes they are responsible for. They have committed the mass murder of up to a million people. Remnants of their government, in alliance with terrorists that they recruited like Zarqawi, are continuing to commit more crimes today.

This makes it important for the world to condemn these terrorist activities and support the effort to bring them to justice. Otherwise, they will continue to commit atrocities and the US will continue to be blamed for them. Giving terrorists further incentives to continue killing innocent people.

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