LAST FALL, a naval officer involved in the campaign in Afghanistan was asked on CNN about the causes of terrorism and why anyone would want to harm Americans. He said that it was beyond his comprehension. All he knew was that anyone who tries to attack us, whether successful or not, is going to pay.
A few weeks ago, a response to a similar question on another cable news channel was that they hate the American way of life. They hate freedom.
Unfortunately, statements of this sort are all too common. They echo much of what we've heard from various government officials over the last 18 months, and are akin to President Bush's grouping last year of three countries as an "Axis of Evil." A lot of the talk of capital-letter "Evil" seems to have disappeared since then, but the thinking that gave rise to it has not, and the concepts we use to discuss the world situation need to be reevaluated.
When a person or a thing is evil, it becomes inexplicable. It can't be understood, and so it certainly can't be reasoned with. That leaves only one solution: It has to be fought and eliminated. Grouping three countries together as an Axis of Evil does a gross injustice to the real world and its complexity.
In addition to being evil, Saddam Hussein is frequently called insane, an equally unproductive term. He's a madman bent on regional conquest, as proved by his invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Iraq also invaded Iran in September 1980, but this is mentioned less frequently now because the United States government was originally uninterested. Not until it looked like Iranian victories might threaten our oil supply did we become involved.
The United States often claims the moral high ground, but this territory has been taken by force. Iran was being ruled at this time by Islamic fundamentalists led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 1979, they had overthrown the Shah, a dictator installed by the United States in 1953 and kept in power since then by a brutal secret police that had been trained by the CIA.
Late last December, The Washington Post ran an article describing the role that the United States played in the Iran-Iraq war, and specifically the support and authorization given by the Reagan and Bush administrations to Iraq's chemical weapons development. Our government turned a blind eye to the sale of anthrax and bubonic plague, as well as pesticides and other civilian items that could clearly have military uses ("U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup; Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians, Kurds," The Washington Post, Dec. 30, 2002).
Hussein used these chemical weapons on Kurdish rebels -- "his own people" -- and Iranians, acts frequently cited as evidence of his evil. Yet our country didn't seem to mind at the time, and it wasn't until the invasion of Kuwait that American relations with Iraq turned suddenly sour.
These facts, though certainly not a complete story, can hardly be called irrelevant to the current debate over invading Iraq. Regarding our country's support of Hussein during the 1980s, former CIA military analyst Kenneth Pollack told the Washington Post, "It was a horrible mistake then, but we have got it right now." Before we kill thousands or even millions, spend hundreds of billions of dollars, turn world-wide opinion against us and drive more people to hate America, we better be damn sure we do have it right.
The administration's portrayal of Hussein as an evil madman ignores the history of our own involvement in the region.This is not necessarily an argument against invading Iraq, though it could be used that way. It could also be an argument against supporting Israel or even the general war on terror.
But this is not a critique of policy decisions. It is a critique of the framework within which those decisions are made and justified. The world is complicated, and the current situation defies the conceptual simplicity forced on it by labels like "evil" and "madman."
Our busy lives allow us enough time for sound bites and online polls, but not always enough time to look at the history of the issues. When it's demanded that we have an opinion, sound bites like Bush's "The game is over" as well as the anti-war movement's "No blood for oil" become easy to accept.
Here are two new sound bites: "Try walking a mile in the other man's shoes" and "You reap what you sow." If we want to avoid future horrible mistakes, we have to realize that people have reasons for disliking America, and it's not that they are jealous of our prosperity. That prosperity has, to a large degree, been taken by force at everyone else's expense. If Hussein does pose a threat, it's not simply because of insanity. No one stays in power as long as he has without having reasons for the things he does.
But mostly, if he wants to hurt us, it won't be because he's evil. "Evil" is not an explanation. It only serves to prevent us from actually understanding what's going on.
(Dave Algoso is a Cavalier Daily viewpoint writer.)
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