This page written circa 31 March, 2003.
On an NPR vox pop a woman in LA summarised: "I worry that this war is being
fought for Bush's interests, instead of my interests".
There are global arguments for invading Iraq---the opression of
ordinary Iraqi citizens, military buildup contrary to 1441, for
instance---and the UN ought eventually have had to approve action. One
notes also that the US may come out ahead in oily dollars and military
experience, private, selfish motivations. Nevertheless, much of the
world does not accept or approve of "Bush's War" on Iraq, and
Americans cannot understand why.
The interesting thing for me is the patent stupidity of the avowed
motive of the Bush Administration, namely to make Americans safer by
pre-emptive attack on Terrorism. I am not surprised that the populace believes this,
they will believe anything. I am a little surprised congress believes it.
I wrote in my previous soapbox that:
The other striking news of this month is that a close friend is amicably
separating from his spouse after 13 years. Again love and war are juxtaposed.
He wrote a long email recently, I think it is the sole example of non-reactive
traffic that I have recieved from him in at least a year. The claim is that he
needed to do something with an article that was rejected from the
newspaper because someone bastard academic had done a better job sooner,
much as Chomsky might have been summarising my views on the credibility
of Bush's motives. I imagine it is more a case of getting the mind back
on the rails after the demise of a relationship that had become
something of a struggle, and had got in the way of communication with
friends. I've seen that before, I've been there myself, too.
So what can we learn from this Bushwar?
Noam Chomsky recently wrote:
In Iraq, the Bush Administration is pursuing an "imperial ambition" that
is, rightly, frightening the world and turning the United States into an
international pariah.
The avowed intent of current US policy is to assert a military power
that is supreme in the world and beyond challenge. US preventative wars
may be fought at will; preventative, not pre-emptive. Whatever the
justifications for pre-emptive war might sometimes be, they do not hold
for the very different category of preventative war; the use of force to
eliminate a contrived threat.
That policy opens the way to protracted struggle between the United
States and its enemies, some of them created by violence and aggression
and not just in the Middle East. In that regard, the US attack on Iraq
is an answer to Osama bin Laden's prayers.
Yet the outlook for more benign outcomes isn't hopeless, starting with
the world's support for the victims of war and murderous sanctions in
Iraq.
For perspective on our current situation, it may be useful to attend to
very recent history. Last October the nature of threats to peace was
dramatically underscored at the summit meeting in Havana on the 40th
anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis, attended by key participants
from Cuba, Russia and the US.
The new discoveries demonstrate with brilliant clarity the terrible and
unanticipated risks of attacks on a "much weaker enemy" aimed at "regime
change", risks that could doom us all.
"These Khanists actually believe that security for Americans would be best
achieved by taking control of the world rather than through assuming a
more balanced, less offensive stance."
It is nice to hear this same line from a far more learned man than I:
Noam Chomsky. I reproduce the text of his NY Times article at the bottom
of this page.
Some of it is left of accurate.
I see it reflecting instinct borne of the Prime Directive.
If my friend Dan wants to mount an argument against the proposition that
"There is no reason to doubt the near-universal judgement the war in
Iraq will only increase the threat of terrorism" I will be happy to give
him a Soapbox all to himself. (An idea not without precedent.)
(Editorial PS: This comment was
1. People will believe anything. You yourself may believe something ridiculous.
2. Patriot II missiles actually seem to work, but then they ought to for US$3b.
3. Patriotism works better than religion or opium, but is more dangerous (compare Marx & Bush).
4. People who do think mostly do so at the end of a struggle, rather than in the middle.
If anything is obvious from the history of warfare, it's that very
little can be predicted.
In Iraq, the most awesome military force in human history has attacked a
much weaker country, an enormous disparity of force.
It will be some time before even preliminary assessments of the
consequences can be made. Every effort must be dedicated to minimising
the harm, and to providing the Iraqi people with the huge resources
required for them to rebuild their society, post- Saddam - in their own
way - not as dictated by foreign rulers.
There is no reason to doubt the near-universal judgement the war in Iraq
will only increase the threat of terrorism and the development and use
of weapons of mass destruction, for revenge or deterrence.
For the world the stakes of the war and its aftermath almost couldn't be
higher. To select just one of many possibilities, destabilisation in
Pakistan could lead to a turnover of "loose nukes" to the global network
of terrorist groups, which may well be invigorated by the invasion and
military occupation of Iraq. Other possibilities, no less grim, are
easy to conjure up.
A promising sign is that opposition to the invasion has been entirely
without precedent.
By contrast, 41 years ago this month, when the Kennedy administration
announced that US pilots were bombing and strafing in Vietnam, protest
was almost nonexistent. It did not reach any meaningful level for
several years.
Today there is large-scale, anti-war protest all over the world. The
peace movement acted forcefully even before the new Iraq war started.
That reflects a steady increase over these years in unwillingness to
tolerate aggression and atrocities, one of many such changes worldwide.
The activist movements of the past 40 years have had a civilising
effect.
By now, the only way for the United States to attack a much weaker enemy
is to construct a huge propaganda offensive depicting it as the ultimate
evil, or even as a threat to our very survival. That was Washington's
scenario for Iraq.
Nevertheless, peace activists are in a far better position now to stop
the next turn to violence, and that is a matter of extraordinary
significance.
A large part of the opposition to Bush's war is based on recognition
that Iraq is only a special case of the "imperial ambition" declared
forcefully in last September's National Security Strategy.
The fact we survived the crisis was a miracle. We learned that the
world was saved from nuclear devastation by one Russian submarine
captain, Vasily Arkhipov, who countermanded an order to fire nuclear
missiles when Russian submarines were attacked by US destroyers near
Kennedy's "quarantine" line. Had Arkhipov agreed, the nuclear launch
would have almost certainly set off an interchange that could "destroy
the Northern hemisphere", as Eisenhower had warned.
The dreadful revelation is particularly timely because of the
circumstances. The roots of the missile crisis lay in international
terrorism aimed at "regime change", two top-of-mind concepts today.
US terrorist attacks against Cuba began shortly after Castro took power,
and were sharply escalated by Kennedy, right up to the missile crisis
and beyond.
The US is forging new and dangerous paths over near-unanimous world
opposition.
There are two ways for Washington to respond to the threats that are, in
part, engendered by its actions and startling proclamations.
One way is to try to alleviate the threats by paying some attention to
legitimate grievances, and by agreeing to become a civilised member of a
world community, with some respect for world order and its institutions.
The other way is to construct even more awesome engines of destruction
and domination, so any perceived challenge, however remote, can be
crushed, provoking new and greater challenges.