Submitted by Alan Vanneman, Feb 28, 2007 10:41

Back in 1969 I spent a year in Vietnam in an artillery unit. I think it's immoral, not amoral, to send soldiers out to kill and be killed when there is no vital interest at stake. Saddam was no threat to the United States. He had zero interest in killing Americans. He certainly qualified as a brutal dictator, but so did Pol Pot, and I have never heard anyone argue that the U.S. should have invaded Cambodia. The Bush Administration invaded Iraq, not because they feared Saddam, nor because they were appalled by his cruelty, but because they believed that it would be easy to turn Iraq into a stable, prosperous, unified, pro-American, and even pro-Israeli nation. They somehow convinced themselves that merely getting rid of Saddam would do the trick.

As Robert E. Lee said, "It is well that war is so horrible. Otherwise we should grow fond of it." War is not only horrible, it is corrupting. For a nation to unnecessarily subject itself to corruption is a very dangerous thing. We now have a President who brags about his willingness to torture other human beings. If this isn't amorality, what is?

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