Re: Missing the point, Reader feedback, April 7 - April 13, Vol 9, No 13
Ms Belzar,
What I said was that you can't trust al Jazeera when it reports casualty figures. If you want to trust them, you can. But the casualty figures for the war in Afghanistan were grossly exaggerated. So I don't think I'm naive, and I don't believe I'm propagandising.
And yes, it does matter who inflicts civilian casualties. When the coalition does it, it's always unintentional. When Saddam's thugs do it, it's cold-bloodedly deliberate.
I always disagreed with the former American policy of supporting "tyrannical regimes" while we played off one side against the other. I agree that we bitterly and unjustly disappointed the Iraqi people by promising to support uprisings against Saddam in 1991, but then sitting back and doing nothing while Saddam crushed them. That was disgusting and stupid on America's part. But it doesn't mean we shouldn't do something now.
In my opinion, since we propped Saddam up, this makes it even more of a moral imperative for us to knock him down.
14. Apr 2003 at 0:00
