"When you imply that being an Arab woman is analogous to perpetual degradation, you remind Americans that being 'insensitive' to certain cultures is not necessarily a bad thing." So wrote Mark Steyn in this newspaper last Monday.
Being something of an admirer of his vigorous disrespect for the drearily sanctimonious pieties of the bien-pensant, I was sorry to read those words. Because whereas one is entitled to feel as much disrespect for a system or a culture from afar, when you are in someone else's country by force of arms, as the US is in Iraq, then you are obliged both by common sense and common decency to show respect for indigenous values, whether you like them or not. Otherwise, your presence is simply political and cultural imperialism.
He was writing of - and also condemning - the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. I did so myself, a week ago. Even now the events in question defy belief, for if there was one certain expectation that united those who supported the invasion, it was that the US troops would be prepared for both the war and the post-war consequences, and the days of torture and murder in Iraq would be over. And not even the shrillest anti-American hysteric at the time predicted that US women soldiers would be sexually abusing bundles of naked Iraqi men, and be imbecilic enough to be photographed doing so.
A couple of months ago we were treated to a series of fatuous homilies during Amnesty International's brainless "It's In Our Hands" conference in Dublin - i.e., "Only women bleed" - which, among other things, alleged that women had suffered disproportionately since 9/11. I said then that it was rubbish - but I hardly expected the US army to prove my case - not that I welcome such grisly assistance. But at least we know now what was in one woman's hands: a long leash, and on the other end, a grovelling naked Arab man. (Still waiting for the sisters' opinions on this: no doubt, poor Private England was a victim too.)
What's the difference between the torture and killing in Iraq under Saddam and under the US and the UK? Well, this. We know something about the identifiable criminal acts that occurred on the Coalition watch. We know almost nothing about the unquantifiable atrocities that occurred while Saddam ruled, because his victims are gone, dead, vanished - thousands of them, killed in unspeakable ways by an unspeakable barbarian. The world is a vastly better place without this Mesopotamian Hitler, and his overthrow was brought about by one free country, which is so free that it reveals its own war crimes, and another, whose freedom allows a tabloid newspaper to publish fabricated photographs "proving" torture occurred.
The US and the British didn't go to Iraq to restore a brutal Anglophone empire. They went into Iraq to enforce the rule of international law, which Saddam had flouted murderously for decades. Without the invasion, the Ba'athist machine would still be about its industrialised murders and tortures, unseen by the world, with the certainty that sooner or later the machine would be inherited by those two loveable sons who managed, rather remarkably, to be even more degraded savages than dear old Daddy. Moreover, we must be clear: the Coalition has to succeed, otherwise Iraq will fall to the sort of deranged Islamo-fascists who video themselves beheading hostages.
Just because you criticise a country's policy doesn't make you an enemy of that country. I was critical recently of Sharon's proposed policy towards the West Bank and Gaza, and even more critical of President Bush's utterly unproductive endorsement of it. At the same time, I condemned Israel general security policies towards the Palestinian population, as indeed do many Israelis. We know now that Sharon's proposals didn't even get over the first hurdle, the Likud Party, which leaves Bush publicly supporting a policy which didn't even get the backing of the party whose leader proposed it. (That weak, disingenuous charlatan Kerry backs it also; so there's nothing to choose between them on this count).
I said the Israelis would not accept the closure of the Gaza settlements, and I was right. They are Jews, bearing the memory of Jews, and they might in time, with a lasting peace in prospect, be persuaded that the Gaza settlements are militarily, economically and politically unsustainable. But they will not - and nor could anyone - surrender to a genocidal evil of the kind which took the lives of a pregnant young mother and her four daughters in Gaza the other day, a deed which was proudly claimed by Arafat's Fatah organisation.
Under the ceaseless pressure of its pathological enemies, Israel will always make mistakes, and its friends are there to criticise it when it does: that is the only criticism which counts, for to heed the criticism of one's enemies is merely to hasten the path to ruin. And there is this undeniable truth: Israel reached a deal with the Palestinians, which Palestinian terrorist groups unilaterally revoked. Meanwhile, largely unnoticed, Israel last week confirmed the permanent appointment of an Arab, Judge Salim Jubran, to its Supreme Court.
For Israel runs by the rule of law, even if imperfectly observed, and one day the rule of law will return to Iraq: and it must be Iraqi law, administered and supervised by Iraqis. That's why the invasion was justified. Moreover, a Coalition failure now would despatch Iraq into an even darker and more terrible nightmare than the one from it was recently rescued.