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Comment by gravis7777 | Hacker News Reader

Wonder if this guy will also apologize for the horrible things Iraq did to both Iran in the early 80s and Kuwait in the 90s.

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I didn't read any apology in this essay.

Going to jump out on a limb and assume you're an American like me, if I'm wrong change the metaphors. What if another country killed a million of our countrymen. 20 years from now, would you have to apologize for the actions of the CIA, or the worst actions of all our leaders in the prior 40 years? Would you have to apologize for that before, during or after any reminiscences about the destruction of your country?

Who needs to apologize more for that: the man who opposed Saddam or the U.S. government that encouraged his atrocities against Iran?

It's a little odd to hold a civilian citizen of a despotic regime accountable for his government's actions.

And similarly it's a little odd to hold an entire country of 350 million people responsible for the self serving decisions made by a small cabal of powerful oil people(Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld et al.)

Similarly was the entire country of Iraq responsible for horrific transgressions against the Kurds, Iran and Kuwait or just a small cabal of corrupt people with real power?

I guess "Fifteen years ago, American armed forces and American mercenaries destroyed my country at the bidding of the democratically elected leaders, but with only partial consent of the citizens" was too wordy.

To be serious, blaming an "entire country" is a little more understandable if that country is a functioning democracy. Of course, if it's actually an oligarchy where the government is above the law and many voters are disenfranchised and easily manipulated by unchecked propaganda, then... well, that's frustrating.

>"To be serious, blaming an "entire country" is a little more understandable if that country is a functioning democracy."

No it would be "more understandable" if that country was a direct democracy and the people actually voted on the resolution. The US is a representative democracy and often resembles a plutocracy at that.

Yes, compañero, this is pretty much what I was getting at. I said it was a little more understandable, but I didn't mean to imply it was correct.

Maybe not for the decision, but for much of the consequences.

Especially if you consider that the invasion was authorized by congress, with some of the yes votes still serving.

So continuing with your simplistic analysis - if someone was from a democratic leaning state and none of their elected officials voted for the resolution does that mean those people are free from blame? What if someone's elected official voted in favor of the resolution to invade Iraq but that individual was themself against it. So that individual is held to blame?

The US may have a system of democratically electing representatives but many(most?) of those elected representatives look out for themselves first, their party second and the will of the people that put them in office a distant third.

Good thing you didn't start off with a snide remark about the simplicity of my analysis.

Anyway, I would separate "blame" and "responsibility". There's a difference between the blame for the war and whatever responsibility the United States has to Iraq going forward. The blame lies in the past. The responsibility to improve upon our mistakes is pretty obvious if we want to pretend we have some sort of national morality.

>"Good thing you didn't start off with a snide remark about the simplicity of my analysis"

There was no intention on my part of being the least bit derogatory. Your entire argument for why and entire country is to blame amounted to two pithy sentences.

I'm not sure why you would fail to see that how that might considered overly simplistic. Instead you have chosen to interpret it as a personal attack of which it was not.

Whataboutism.

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