The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Arab League and other international Muslim organizations have condemned the U.S.-led war on Iraq. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and other American Muslim groups have also opposed the war. On a much smaller scale, Al-Nur at Dartmouth is also against the war.
A Muslim myself, I am shocked by the hypocrisy of these so-called Muslim leaders.
These same Muslim leaders did not criticize Saddam when he was gassing his own people. I do not remember any sanctions against the Iraqi regime when Hussein was mercilessly killing the Kurds in Northern Iraq, the Shia in the south and his own Sunni Muslims all over the country. In fact, Iraq was considered to be a good member of the Arab League when the Iraqi ruler was testing his chemical and biological weapons on his own people. The Iraq-Iran war raged on for close to eight years but none of these Muslim leaders made any effort to prevent the Iraqis from continuing hostilities against the Iranians.
Chechnya is another example that comes to my mind. Russia is mercilessly killing the Chechens, who are considered to be very pious Muslims in general, but the Organization of Islamic Conference has not made any protests about it. Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and other Islamic countries were busy making deals with Putin and with his predecessor Yeltsin without giving a second thought to the plight of the Chechens. For those who are not familiar with the Chechen conflict, the Chechens have been fighting for independence from Russia for over 100 years. For the past 10 years, war has been waged against the Chechens by the Russians using all kinds of weapons except nuclear devices, but these same Muslim leaders, who are most eager to condemn the American war on Iraq, do not even care about Chechnya. Interestingly, Westerners have at least made some effort to end the conflict: the European Union has sent missions to Chechnya and the United States continues to censure the human rights violation there.
And what about the Taliban? No one condemned the ruthless killing of perceived enemies. No one decried the destruction of world-renowned monuments, including the Bamian Buddha statue. Thankfully, most Muslim countries joined the United States when it decided to remove the Taliban from power.
I could offer more examples of this hypocrisy, but the above should be more than enough to suffice.
Coming back to the case at hand, all of us will agree that Saddam is a tyrant. He rejoices in killing his own, innocent people, people who do not wish to harm him. Hussein kills his own relatives without batting an eye. He pays Palestinian suicide-bombers 25 thousand dollars to blow up innocent Israeli citizens. He probably possesses weapons of mass destruction and intends to use them, mostly, I would say, on his own people. Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1991 claiming it to be a part of Iraq and then put fire to the oil-wells while retreating after losing the war. His Ba'ath Party is socialist and completely anti-Islamic. Saddam cannot be considered to be a Muslim by any standards. Then why this show of love for him?
The one reason for this opposition for the war that I hear resonating from these "Islamic" countries is that a campaign against Iraq would turn all Muslims against the west. But, my dear Muslim leaders, how can any Muslim, or for that matter any human being, tolerate a satanic tyrant like Saddam to remain in power? How can they accept the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of human beings by Saddam and sleep peacefully?
Mahathir Mohammed, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, has been screaming his head off in opposition to the war on humanitarian grounds. Syria has declared that it would oppose any second resolution in the Security Council authorizing use of force against Saddam (although now that the war has started, this opposition doesn't matter). Musharraf of Pakistan is also opposed to the war. Turkey has not as yet allowed the United States to use its bases. Omar Amir, the President of Al-Nur, mentioned to me in an email that "Al-Nur supports a peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis on humanitarian grounds." A peaceful resolution to the Iraq crisis? Does this peaceful resolution include leaving Saddam in power?
I say that we remove Saddam Hussein from power on humanitarian grounds. We (as in all Muslims, liberals and other war opponents) should support this war on Iraq with the sole purpose of eliminating Saddam, his Ba'ath Party and his National Guard, and help the United States in making it as short as possible. We should support the United States for the sake of democracy in the Middle East. The Iraqis will thank us for freeing them.
