Immoral war

By Naguib mahfouz

---

An overwhelmingly powerful state attacking a far from powerful country without legal or even moral justification: what a monstrosity it is.

War can be justified. Indeed every political action should express a moral position, be it the urge to defend one's home against foreign invasion,

the compulsion to liberate one's nation from occupation, the desire to protect holy sites. But the moral reasons offered by Washington for its war in Iraq, these could hardly convince a child, let alone the international community. The whole world is opposed to it.

Bush the father was luckier than his son, in that the war he waged in 1991, on the pretext of liberating Kuwait, was supported by a world opposed to Saddam Hussein's invasion of a neighbouring country whose sovereignty was thus compromised. In the present war, though, such a justification is facile. People the world over watch this monstrous unravelling and know that what they are seeing is a replay of the Iraqi invasion of its neighbour more than a decade ago. It is with this fact in mind that we protest the war in Iraq.

Based on an interview by Mohamed Salmawy.