The Guardian is collecting obituaries of people who died in Iraq for a "Memorial" page. I suggest that anyone who has stories about Saddam's pre-war victims send those in as well so the "memorial" isn't so one-sided.
I spent two hours arguing more-or-less this topic with four Europeans today (Spanish, German, Italian and Ukrainian - there just has to be a joke in there somewhere), and they seem to be constitutionally incapable of considering in any way, shape or form any harm that isn't caused by war. In their world, "Not War" is always better than war, even if "Not War" leads to far more death and suffering or even mass graves full of children.
It's a point of view I find incomprehensible and it was a disheartening experience -- these are genuinely nice, intelligent people who I like a lot, but they have blind spots you could sail an aircraft carrier through. Including Saddam's victims in the Guardian's "memorial" is one small way to make it harder for them to ignore the suffering caused by inaction.
