Everybody's Wrong But Me

My first text written in English!

Victorious doesn’t make it right

“History is written by the winners” (old proverb)

It looks like the US-UK coalition is going to win the war in Iraq. This victory even seems easier then thought. Though we have to bear in mind that, as of today, the war is far from over. Is an easy conclusion makes a start of a war legitimate?

Polls show that support for war in Iraq by Canadians has extensively increased in the last few weeks. Then, 35% of Canadians backed U.S. President George W. Bush’s military move (Toronto Star; March 22nd) and now 56%, agreed with the U.S. decision to launch an invasion to bring down Saddam Hussein (National Post, April 8th). What makes such a slip in opinion possible?

Alter all, if you were for the war, its easy outcome should be view as a legitimating that this intervention was necessary and you were right to believe that few would support a dictator. On the other hand, if you were against, its easy outcome should be feared as the International System established in place since 1945 is now under threat by unilateralism, not only from an allied, but also from your enemies.

The recent slip in Canadian opinion can only be interpreted, I think, as people following the strongest without questioning its actions. Sure, the strongest is a democracy, but is it defending democracy in this war?

It worries me that so many people can change their opinions on such an important issue so easily. This frivolity makes me think that those people probably don’t view their own opinion as important. And this just makes me sad.

Frédéric Van Caenegem

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2003 at 00:00 and is filed under International, Issues & politics.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.