American Views Abroad

 
In the week before 40 million dollars is spent on a lavish celebration in Washington, the search for WMD in Iraq ended, not with a bang but with a whisper. In the build up to the war and afterwards, one person stood out, alone, adamant there were no WMD to warrant the havoc wrecked on Iraq, Scott Ritter. An editorial writer in Kansas suggests he be nominated for the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as someone who really deserves it. www.commondreams.org/views05/0114-40.htm.

Ritter gave a riveting speech at the American Voices Abroad conference in Prague in November 2003 which I attended. He spoke for about two and a half hours on his experiences in Iraq and elsewhere and why he was convinced there could be no WMD there anymore. I recall that he also very often referred to the Constitution reminding us that we should look there for guidance rather than any one individual.

He also wrote a passionate essay for The Guardian in November 2004 which can be read in
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110304F.shtml. Here a few sentences from the last paragraph:

'But we all are moral cowards when it comes to Iraq. Our collective inability to summon the requisite shame and rage when confronted by an estimate of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians in the prosecution of an illegal and unjust war not only condemns us, but adds credibility to those who oppose us. ....Our continued indifference to a war that has slaughtered so many Iraqi civilians, and will continue to kill more, is in many ways an even greater tragedy: not only in terms of scale, but also because these deaths were inflicted by our own hand in the course of an action that has no defense.'

- posted by Gloria @ 5:58 PM