Do we really need to apologise?

Jaithirth Rao8217;s criticism of the anti-Cassandras 8216;A simple sorry will do8217;, IE, February 9 could well be on the ball, but wh...

Jaithirth Rao8217;s criticism of the anti-Cassandras 8216;A simple sorry will do8217;, IE, February 9 could well be on the ball, but where oh where are these anti-Cassandras and do their voices at all count in the cacophony of loyal supporters of the invasion of Iraq by the 8220;coalition of the willing8221;? What with embedded journalists lapping up what they were told and passing it off as independent reporting and channels like Fox News showing themselves to be more royalist than the king, the great bulk of the Western press was so supportive of the war that one was hard put to find a dissenting voice.

But the point is not merely whether the Western press was objective about the conduct of the war. The more troubling aspect of the arguments advanced by most apologists for American action is the quaint notion that the mere absence of weapons of mass destruction the ostensible reason for going to war in the first place makes no difference at all and that in the name of preemptive action it is quite alright to conjure up some wrong that your enemy may have committed and then go after him.

If this is so, why take the trouble to dream up WMD in the first place? The Americans could simply make a list of those rulers and countries they consider to be in need of preemptive action and go right ahead. After all it is irrelevant if they turn out to be absolutely innocent. It is enough if they qualify for preemptive action on the basis of a pre-determined formula.

The sadder aspect is the short shrift given to the horrific abuses that surfaced in Abu Ghuraib and the attempts made to explain away the excesses of Guantanamo Bay. Rao wonders how many custodial crimes are investigated, tried and punished in other countries. One could point to the case of Major Rehman who was recently dismissed from the Indian army on charges of molesting a young woman in Kashmir. The point is not that. Apologists for the Western coalition do their cause a great disservice when they justify what has happened on the grounds that other societies do worse. Why did the West invade Iraq in the first place? Was it not to overthrow a ruthless dictator? The same thing applies to Guantanamo Bay. It may well be that many countries do not give rights to their own citizens but how does that justify the complete suppression of human rights by the very power that has invaded another country ostensibly because it was governed by a ruthless order?

On one point, however, Rao is entirely correct. The redeeming feature of all this has been the role played by right-thinking Americans in exposing the rot and trying to do something about it. The US media did break the story of Abu Gharaib and it forced many to do a re-think on the war. But that is why we admire the foot-soldiers of a free press. Why spoil it all by condemning them as anti-Cassandras and urging them, like Galileo, to recant?