Temporal Convection

Those Weapons of Mass Destruction

We all know the story of the weapons of mass destruction. In 2002, President Bush used them to sell the idea of war with Iraq to Congress with great success. After all, if Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, it was our responsibility as world citizens to reclaim them from such a barbaric man. Despite several years of UN inspections turning up empty, there were still signs that Saddam was withholding some weapons from detection. Inspectors, for instance, were asked to give 24 hours notice to the Iraqi government before inspecting a location, certainly long enough to hide certain weapons.

We went to war. We found no weapons. It shortly became apparent that there were indeed no weapons - our only good justification for war. Critics of the war blasted the President, saying that we'd known all along that there were no weapons and touting the minority of government representatives who had been saying that all along. "Bush lied, people died" became a popular slogan among the anti-war crowd, appearing in graffiti, on the Internet, and on car bumpers across the country. The slogan later mutated into weapons of mass distraction, a slur on the administration's alleged attempts to establish a theocracy or fascist dictatorship under our noses.

The government went into the spin cycle. Oh, it wasn't the weapons, they said, it was the link between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Bush has subtly linked 9/11 and Iraq dozens of times in speeches. A recent Zogby poll indicates that of US soldiers who want to leave Iraq, 85% believe that Americans are there to retaliate against Saddam for his role in the 9/11 attacks. No conclusive evidence has provided links between Iraq and al-Qaeda. It's even been said that Osama and Saddam only tolerated one another due to their common enemy, and that each disliked the other's viewpoints. Osama was too radical for Saddam and Saddam was too secular for Osama.

Military historians have been busy interviewing Saddam's former underlings about the events that took place inside the Iraqi government before and during the war. They'll be publishing their findings in a book-length report next April. However, they've presented a preview on the website of a prominent topical magazine and The Economist has done some brief analysis of the material. A short excerpt:

As for those weapons of mass destruction (WMD), it seems that some senior members of the ruling circle never stopped believing, even after the war, that Iraq had these, even though Saddam himself knew otherwise. When he revealed the truth to members of his Revolutionary Command Council not long before the war, their morale slumped. But he refused a suggestion to make the truth clear to the wider world on the ground that his presumed possession of WMD was a form of deterrence, and that coming clean might encourage an attack by Israel.
- "Inside the Box", The Economist, Mar 16 2006 [Link] (emphasis mine)

In other words, the existence of WMDs was unclear to even the powerful military leaders and government officials who ran Iraq! Most of them believed wholeheartedly that he had those weapons and would use them against any future invaders. Saddam, on the other hand, knew that the weapons no longer existed but deliberately chose to obscure as an invasion deterrent. Naturally, the plan didn't work, as the supposed weapons were the biggest selling point for the war that eventually toppled his government. However, that does not change the decisions of past in any way. Hindsight is 20/20 but foresight is blind. We thought Saddam had weapons of mass destruction because Saddam wanted us to think he had weapons of mass destruction. He thought we wouldn't dare invade if our troops might be anthrax'd, but we called his bluff and invaded anyway. And the rest is history.

That Puppet Government in Afghanistan

The Bush administration has been critiqued for conveniently setting up shop in Afghanistan and installing a puppet government for the sake of the country's oil. (A recently discovered oil field vastly increases the amount of petroleum available in that country, supposedly a boon for the President's oil baron friends.)

So what's that government up to? The democracy, virtually scripted by US officials, must be doing a great job at doing whatever Washington officials tell it to do. The media was bored with Afghanistan shortly after the more controversial war in Iraq began, so we haven't heard much about it. Surely they're doing a great job being a little America and teaching their kids nice American values of tolerance and acceptance.

Or maybe not:

An Afghan man who allegedly converted from Islam to Christianity is being prosecuted in a Kabul court and could be sentenced to death, a judge said Sunday. The defendant, Abdul Rahman, was arrested last month after his family went to the police and accused him of becoming a Christian, Judge Ansarullah Mawlavezada told the Associated Press in an interview. Such a conversion would violate the country's Islamic laws.
- Associated Press, March 19 2006 [Link]

Essentially, not only are the Islamic rulers and courts alive and well in Afghanistan, but they're still threatening to execute people for converting to different religions. Apparently, while the government tolerates members of other religious groups, Muslim citizens are still subject to Muslim laws. Under that law, the punishment for apostacy is death.

The part I find most interesting and revealing about this incident is that the man's family turned him in. If there were laws in that country that simply did not accord with modern feelings - like the clauses in many American state constitutions refusing offices to atheists - the people could simply ignore them. The prosecuters could simply not press charges. After a time, the laws would be seen as archaic remnants of an intolerant past. In other words, this incident shows that the people and leaders of Afghanistan look so favorably upon conservative Islamic rule that they'll turn in their own fathers to continue its rule.

This war is not going to end soon.