“None of this is to defend Putin’s brutality. When 55 Ukrainian children are made refugees every minute and pregnant women in hospital are shelled mid-labour, there is nothing to defend. But to frame our condemnations as a binary clash of rival value systems is to absolve ourselves of our own alleged war crimes, committed as recently as this century in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is to pretend ‘our’ wars are just and only theirs are evil, to make out that Afghan boys seeking asylum from the Taliban are inevitably liars and cheats while Ukrainian kids fleeing Russian bombs are genuine refugees. It is a giant and morally repugnant lie and yet elements of it already taint our front pages and rolling-news coverage.” Aditya Chakrabortty explains why, in the search for solutions, Western values should be regarded as a problem.
Tag: iraq
Echoes of war
David Swanson joined the Marines of Echo Company in April 2004 as an embedded photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer. He was widely recognised for the image of Private Eric Ayon. Echoes of war is Swanson’s account of his time spent with Echo Company in Ramadi, one of the most dangerous places in Iraq at the time. Swanson published this video some years after it had disappeared from the pages of The Philadelphia Inquirer.
We had the very best of intentions
“We did not go into Iraq to impose representative government on the Iraqis. We went there to manage a threat to our own safety.” Richard Perle explains why, in his view, the United States of America had to invade Iraq and topple Sadam Hussein.
Nein zum Krieg
Millions around the world were united in protest against going to war in Iraq.
Hamburg, February 2003