Howard Zinn: Check the Facts Before Rushing to War

[reprehensor]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0414-03.htm

by Howard Zinn


After a year of fighting in Iraq and an occupation fraught with violence, surely it is not rash to suggest, given the debacle over missing "weapons of mass destruction," that it is a good general rule to treat any official rationale for war with skepticism.

This conduct would be a healthy departure from the tendency of both Congress and the major media to assume, as was clearly done on the eve of this war in Iraq, that the government is telling the truth. And such skepticism would certainly be a prudent approach to any supposed candor coming from presidential press conferences, such as last night's, during an election campaign.

If one human being on trial can only be given a death sentence on the basis of certainty beyond "a reasonable doubt," then surely this criterion should be applied where the lives of thousands are at stake. The decision to go to war in Iraq should have been challenged on two grounds.

First, that the fearsome weapons claimed to be in Iraq's possession had not been found despite months of inspection by a United Nations team given unrestricted access throughout that country. Second, common sense suggested that a nation with 25 million people, devastated by two wars and 10 years of economic sanctions, without a single nuclear weapon, surrounded by enemies far better armed, could not be an imminent threat to the most powerful military machine in history.

more@link

[Noon_Blue_Apples]

1. Zinn is the common voice that none can refute

his sincerity and passion for america makes this canadian skeptic in the american dream take pause

there is hope

[kera]

2. what everyone seems to

ignore or pretend so , if iraq have had nuCUlar wapon, the shity country of Sharon would have them bombarded like they did years ago .