Submitted by Irfan Khawaja, Dec 17, 2007 15:00

I find it amazing how little attention has been given by the news media to Ron Paul's views on the Iraq war. In an October 8, 2002 speech in the House, he essentially went out of his way to deny Iraqi responsibility for the so-called "Anfal" campaign against the Kurds which culminated (if that's the right word) with the massacre at Halabja. Hyperlinks aren't allowed in comments here, but just Google "Ron Paul Halabja" and the speech will come up via Wikipedia. Virtually the only sustained discussion of this that I've seen is an essay by Leo Casey in Dissent magazine, Summer 2003 (I believe it's called "Denying Halabja" or something similar; easy enough to Google).

Where on earth is the mainstream media on this issue? Here we have a presidential candidate getting increasingly popular day by day, and even after the trial, de facto confession, and conviction (!) of "Chemical Ali," he refuses to admit Iraqi culpability for the massacre of the Kurds. I recently had an email exchange with the Ron Paul campaign, and they confirmed that his view had not changed in the five years that he made the speech. Surely this is at least as important as the issue of the Armenian genocide, creationism, Huckabee's view of Mormonism, and the like? Is it really OK for the moral equivalent of a Holocaust denier to get millions of dollars from unwitting or indifferent Americans, and for the whole thing to happen in relative silence while the newspapers prattle away about inconsequential matters? Meanwhile, the man himself has the audacity to criticize the misrepresentations of the Bush Administration with respect to the war. The whole thing is a travesty.

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.