With two-thirds of Americans telling pollsters in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks that they trusted the government to do the right thing most or all of the time (a post-Vietnam War high), and White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer warning citizens that they “need to watch what they say,” the space for dissent already was narrow. Now that space seems to have almost disappeared.

But much of the relevant background to the current crisis-to wit, the United States’ last war in the Muslim world, the prelude to this war, and the history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan--furnishes little reason to uncritically support whatever our leaders do. Consider the evidence:

-- Iraq: After lavishing weapons on Saddam Hussein in the 1980s-in spite of his gassing of thousands of Iraqi Kurds-the United States turned on him because he misinterpreted Washington’s signals and invaded Kuwait. The United States deliberately destroyed Iraq’s civilian infrastructure in the ensuing Gulf War (in itself a war crime), and after the shooting war it left in place crippling sanctions. This lethal combination has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and boosted Hussein’s stature in much of the Arab world.

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright offered the clearest articulation of the utter depravity of U.S. policy toward Iraq. In a 1996 interview, CBS correspondent Leslie Stahl asked, “We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. ... Is the price worth it?”

To which the secretary of state answered: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price-we think the price is worth it.”

A more humane view was offered by Denis Halliday, who resigned his post as U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Iraq in protest of the sanctions and the “Band-Aid” humanitarian aid that the West was supplying. “We are in the process of destroying an entire society,” he said. “It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.”

-- Sudan: In August 1998, the United States launched Tomahawk cruise missiles at Sudan’s El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in retaliation for bombing attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Clinton administration claimed that the plant was producing agents for chemical weapons and that it was linked to Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. Neither charge could ever be substantiated.