>…anyone who is 100% sure of the morality of their position with regard to the war in Iraq probably hasn’t understood the issues involved. Be prepared to have your mind changed. Remain open to new ideas. Protest / Advocate only what you really believe to be true…
Smart words here from Tom Coates. (Although personally I’d replace ‘believe’ with _’know’_.)
I mentioned a few days ago that ??I still don’t know the whole story, and as every day passes I learn a little more??. At this point, the only thing one can truly affirm is the confusion of the situation. There is no clean and neat binary opposition. There is nothing clear cut. There is no _black and white_. Even the moral position is clouded by uncertainty.
One one hand, it cannot be denied that the Iraqi people–particularly those on the periphery, as evident from the beginning of the Allied incursion–are more than happy to be free from Hussein’s opression. On the other, is this undoubtedly favourable end truly worth the sometimes excessively forceful means used to achieve it? Can these two valid yet opposing standpoints be reconciled? And is the question even as simple as that?
Maybe this is a question that can never have an answer, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t continue searching for one.