I have, here and in comments to Jim Putnam's blog, been pretty dogmatic in insisting that individuals who see the shortcomings of their home societies are in a minority. I stand by that, but it's important to recognise and honour the importance of that minority - this morning, when Alberto Fernandez has recanted, in particular.
On Saturday Fernandez, a US State Department official, acknowledged US "stupidity and arrogance" in Iraq. That was a courageous thing to do, especially in an Arabic language interview with al Jazeera; it's hard to see how it could be done by mistake. This morning's news that he retracts, that he "misspoke", and that what he says does not represent his own views or those of the State Department, smells strongly of heavy handed and incompetent gagging pressure from above.
As the pressure to withdraw from Iraq grows, it was also heartening to hear a US soldier say, a few days ago, "When we came in here, we smashed a load of stuff up. We have to fix it again, and we haven't done that." I am no more in favour of US/British/Alliance military presence in Iraq than anyone else, but I have to agree with him: we cannot undo the past or evade responsibility for it. As Salman Rushdie said a few months before the invasion: "A war of liberation might just be one worth fighting. The war that America is currently trying to justify is not."[1] It may well be that withdrawal is the only possibility, but it should not be dressed up in moral rags: our reasons for leaving, if we do so, are as ignoble as our reasons for the original action. That soldier is a credit to his country - not something I say very often.
That's just two voices, at opposite ends of the power spectrum, but they represent many in between - in the US and everywhere else. I salute all of them; they may be in a minority, but they are all the more precious for that.
- Rushdie, S., A Liberal Argument For Regime Change, in Washington Post. 2002 Washington DC. p. A35.
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