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12 Reasons To Oppose A War With Iraq |
Current rating: 0 |
by (CommonDreams) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
(No verified email address) |
24 Feb 2003
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Millions of people around the world last weekend demonstrated against a war on Iraq.
There was no mistaking the message: No war.
But, particularly with the airwaves and op-ed pages dominated by war-mongers who mock and mischaracterize the burgeoning peace movement, there remains a need to continually reiterate the common-sense reasons to oppose a war. Here are a dozen: |
Published on Monday, February 24, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
12 Reasons to Oppose a War with Iraq
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Millions of people around the world last weekend demonstrated against a war on Iraq.
There was no mistaking the message: No war.
But, particularly with the airwaves and op-ed pages dominated by war-mongers who mock and mischaracterize the burgeoning peace movement, there remains a need to continually reiterate the common-sense reasons to oppose a war. Here are a dozen:
1. Iraq is no threat to the United States.
With one of the weakest militaries in the region, Iraq is surely no threat to the world's lone superpower. There is no evidence it has or is close to having a nuclear capacity. There is no evidence that it has the means to launch a chemical and biological attack against the United States, if in fact it has such weaponry. There is no evidence of any Iraqi connection to al-Qaeda.
2. Iraq is deterrable.
Even if it had the means to threaten the United States, Iraq would be deterred by the certainty of an overwhelming military response in event of any attack on the United States. That Iraq is deterrable is shown by its decision not to use chemical or biological weapons (CBW) against the United States or Israel in the Gulf War.
3. Iraq's only conceivable threat to the United States is in event of war.
"Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States," wrote CIA Director George Tenet in an October 2002 letter to Congress. "Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions."
4. Other terrorist risks rise in event of war.
A U.S. attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq will provide new inspiration -- and new recruitment fodder -- for al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups, and will stimulate a long-term increased risk of terrorism, either on U.S. soil or against U.S. citizens overseas.
5. U.S. soldiers are vulnerable to chemical or biological attack in a war.
Although there is little reason to doubt the U.S. military will triumph relatively quickly in event of a war, U.S. soldiers face non-negligible risk of casualty. House-to-house fighting in Baghdad would be perilous.
If Bush administration accusations that Saddam maintains a CBW capacity are true, and if its claims of intelligence showing Iraqi plans to use CBW in event of war are both non-fabricated and accurate, then U.S. soldiers are at major risk. Last Sunday, 60 Minutes reported that army investigations show between 60 and 90 percent of its CBW protective gear malfunction. A Pentagon spokesperson actually suggested that holes in gas masks could easily be covered by duct tape.
6. Inspections can work.
To whatever extent Iraq maintains weapons of mass destruction, it is clear that the previous inspections process succeeded in destroying the overwhelming proportion. Iraqi intransigence notwithstanding, inspectors are now making progress. Despite the histrionics of the administration, past experience suggests the inspection process can work and finish the job.
7. Common sense says: Err on the side of non-violence.
Since Iraq poses no imminent threat to the United States nor any of its neighbors, it makes sense to continue to give inspections a chance. War can always be resorted to later. But once a war is commenced, the opportunity to achieve legitimate objectives without violence are lost. In addition to the obvious costs, the use of violence tends to beget more violence, spurring a highly unpredictable cycle.
8. The doctrine of preventative war is a threat to international law and humanity.
Conceding there is no imminent threat to the United States, the administration has sought to justify the war under a doctrine of preemptive, or preventative, action. But if it were legitimate to start a war because of what another country might do sometime in the future, then there would be very little legal or moral constraint on war-making. This proposition is dangerous and immoral.
9. Reject empire.
Many of the leading proponents of a war are motivated by desire to demonstrate U.S. military might, and commence an era when U.S. military power is exercised more routinely to satisfy the whims of elite U.S. factions. Many proponents now overtly defend the idea of U.S. imperialism, justified on the grounds that the United States -- apparently unique among all previous aspirants to imperial authority -- is motivated by promotion of democracy and human rights. But all empires have proffered such self-serving rationalizations to legitimize narrow self-interest. The present case is no different. Imperialism is fundamentally incompatible with democracy.
10. Revenge is not a legitimate motive for war.
There seems little doubt that part of the Bush administration motivation for war is the desire to "get" Saddam, since he refused to go away after the Gulf War and allegedly targeted the president's father. Saddam is an awful and brutal dictator, and an assassination attempt, if there was one, is a heinous act. But revenge should be no basis for war.
11. There are better solutions to our energy problems.
It overstates the case to say a war with Iraq would be a war for oil. There are too many other contributing factors to the rush to war. At the same time, it is not credible to claim designs on Iraqi oil are not part of calculus. And it is hard to see the United States caring much about Iraq if the country did not sit on the world's second largest oil reserves. But it is past time for the United States (and the rest of the world) to move beyond oil and carbon-based sources of energy. Existing efficiency technologies and renewable energy sources, if deployed, could dramatically reduce reliance on conventional energy sources; and modest investments in renewables could soon move us away from an oil-based economy.
12. Iraqi lives are at stake.
Unless a war brings immediate abdication by Saddam, military action is sure to cause massive casualties among Iraqi conscripts and especially among Iraqi civilians. Solidarity with the Iraqi people -- not their brutal government, but the people -- requires opposition to a war almost certain to cause them enormous suffering.
Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).
(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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US Arms Control Hypocrisy Is The Real Threat To Security |
by Ira Chernus
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
24 Feb 2003
|
John Bolton was in Israel last week doing his job, fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Bolton is the U.S. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control. But the way he was doing his job is enough to make you laugh -- and cry.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told Bolton that after the U.S. demolishes Iraq, it had better to move on to Iran. Not to worry, Bolton replied. Iran is high on the Bush administration's to-do list. So is Syria. When it comes to the danger of WMD in the Middle East, the U.S. and Israeli governments are on the same page.
The joke, of course, is that only one nation in the Middle East has a massive arsenal of WMD: Israel itself. Secretary Bolton was polite enough not to mention that embarrassing fact. It would have been so rude to his hosts.
Bolton also stopped off to see Israel’s Foreign Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Perhaps Bolton took along his special advisor, David Wurmser. It would have been a nice reunion, since Wurmser was once an advisor to Netanyahu. In 1996, Wurmser co-authored a report for Netanyahu: “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The chief author, Richard Perle, and another co-author, Douglas Feith, are now high-ranking Pentagon officials.
In that report, Perle, Wurmser and company laid out a truly messianic vision. Israel can gain political control of the entire Middle East, they said. The key is to contain “and perhaps roll back” Syria, by surrounding it with an Israeli-led alliance including Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq. How to get Iraq into the alliance? Simple. Use “the principle of preemption,” get rid of Saddam Hussein, and put a Hashemite king (from the family that rules Jordan) on the throne in Baghdad. Meanwhile, Israel would also use Iraq’s Shiites to weaken the power of Iran.
But how to get the U.S. public to support such a plan? We are now seeing the answer. Scare the public with claims that Iraq’s WMD pose a vital threat to our national security. Then follow Sharon’s advice and link Iraq with Iran in the “axis of evil.” Bolton’s comments revealed the next and crucial step: “discover” that Syria also has a WMD program aimed at the U.S. heartland. That will put Syria in the “axis” too. Once again, it will be pre-emptive “regime change” time.
Once Israel has friendly governments in place throughout the Middle East, it won’t have anyone to threaten with its WMD. Then Bolton can claim a great achievement in non-proliferation. This is not to say that Washington is taking orders from Jerusalem. It’s largely the other way around. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and Washington pays Jerusalem plenty.
But Bolton’s remarks in Israel have a much wider implication than U.S. - Israel relations. With Bolton and Wurmser running our anti-proliferation program, it is perfectly clear that the Bush administration sees nothing intrinsically wrong with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. They are not out to stop the spread of these weapons. They just want to make sure that only the “good guys,” like the U.S. and Israel (and Britain, France, India, etc.), have WMD. There are good WMD and bad WMD, good arms and bad arms. Bolton is Undersecretary of State for Bad Arms Control.
How do you tell the difference between good arms and bad arms? Tom Friedman, the liberal-pundit-in-chief at the New York Times, spelled it out recently in his usual reader-friendly way. The globe is now “divided between the World of Order and the World of Disorder,” Friedman wrote. The World of Order includes the U.S., the E.U., Russia, India and China, along with all the smaller powers around them. The World of Disorder comprises “failed states,” “rogue states” (the “axis of evil”), and “messy states,” like Pakistan, Colombia, Indonesia, and “many Arab and African states,” along with free-lance terrorists and criminals.
How times have changed. Now Russia and China are orderly “good guys.” That means their WMD arsenals are good arms too. They got that way by linking their economic fortunes to the multinational corporate capitalist system. They take their economic marching orders from the G-7. As long as there is no imminent likelihood that they’ll slip out of that system into Disorder, they get to remain “good guys” with good arms.
John Bolton and Richard Perle apparently see it the same way. Bolton told the Israelis that Syria would get a chance to prove it was behaving “in a way worthy of the international community.” Perle told an interviewer: "I hope Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will consider reforms. Otherwise he may say to himself, "'I could be the second target.'"
Now the Syrians have a choice to make. They can sign up, line up, play the U.S. imperial game, and magically transform their bad WMD into good WMD. Or they can refuse, keep their WMD bad, and await pre-emptive “regime change.” All those other failed, rogue, and messy states in the World of Disorder face the same choice.
Dividing the world into orderly “good guys” and disorderly “bad guys” is an age-old habit. The first immigrants on these shores brought that habit with them from England in the 17th century, and white Americans have been doing it ever since.
Now, though, WMD technology makes it just too dangerous. The hypocrisy of non-proliferation and arms control, Bush-style, is as clear as the Texas sky, everywhere in the world except here in the U.S. Killing thousands of Iraqis to “disarm Saddam” will only make the hypocrisy more obvious and stir more anti-American indignation around the world. That will drive even more people into what our political elites, liberal and conservative alike, call the World of Disorder.
Some of those “disordered” people will have weapons of mass destruction. As long as hypocrisy rules U.S. policy, they will see no good reason to give them up. Why should they? If this is our chosen path to homeland security, the World of Order will soon be the World of Plastic Sheeting and Duct Tape.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
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