ZGram - 9/20/2002 - "War: A very, very bad idea"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGRAM - Whee Truth is Destiny

September 20, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

This is to introduce you to an interesting web page, workingforchange.com:

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A very, very bad idea - By Geov Parrish

One or two (or eight) reasons why we must not start war in Iraq
Sometimes the worst ideas are the ones that are so widely accepted as 
sensible -- or inevitable -- that almost nobody actually examines 
them. So it is among our country's political elites with the notion 
of invading Iraq and displacing Saddam Hussein as President of Iraq. 
The idea is so entrenched that when, earlier this week, Hussein gave 
the Americans exactly what they'd demanded -- unconditional access 
for U.N. weapons inspectors -- not only did George Bush, predictably, 
dismiss the offer out of hand as a "ploy" and a "lie," but so did Tom 
Daschle, Richard Gephardt, and the rest of the Congressional 
Democratic leadership.

None of them, so far, have been willing to even consider the 
possibility of taking yes for an answer, because they're all wedded 
to a paradigm that makes invading Iraq sound awfully sensible. It 
goes like this: The United States can do anything it wants 
militarily. Saddam is bad. Saddam's oil is good. So why not get rid 
of him and take the oil? An invasion has other, lesser advantages as 
well -- particularly the intimidating example it provides for other 
governments that might one day consider serving their own, rather 
than American, interests -- but that's what it boils down to.

The problem is that there's a long list of very real answers to the 
rhetorical question of "why not?" Happily, a few of them are 
beginning to be raised on the fringes of American policy-making -- in 
particular, former U.S. Marine and Iraq weapons inspector Scott 
Ritter, who considers Iraq "qualitatively disarmed" and bitterly 
opposes an invasion, has been popping up all over the networks 
lately. But that's not the same as influencing the people -- mostly 
in the White House and Pentagon, peripherally in Congress -- who will 
make a final determination. Or, potentially, unmake a determination 
that's already been made.

Since, as we've seen this week, nothing either the U.N. or Iraq or 
any other foreign country might do can derail this impending 
catastrophe, the only folks who can stop it are the American public. 
You, me, our friends, their friends, and their friends' friends are 
the only people who can frighten our elected officials into 
reconsidering invasion. But to do so, we'll all have to set aside 
talking so much about the bogus reasons for this prospective invasion 
and the process that has led to it, and start focusing on what it 
will look like, what it will mean, and what will happen as a result. 
Here's a quick list of why invading Iraq is a bad idea:

1) It's illegal. Forget George W. Bush's disingenuous "preemptive 
attack" rationale, and forget whatever U.N. Security Council 
resolutions the United States may be able to bribe other members into 
approving. Without being attacked by another country, the U.S. has no 
right to invade that country under either international law or the 
Geneva convention, the only two relevant legal guideposts. Ditto for 
unilaterally replacing the government of a sovereign foreign country. 
(Oh, and by the way: With who? Or what?) Contrary to conservatives 
who like to invoke Neville Chamberlain, Iraq has not invaded any 
other country since 1990, is not threatening to do so (nor could it), 
and the United Nations (which is to say, the U.S. with a fig leaf) 
decided upon a response in 1990 for the Kuwait transgression. Nobody 
at this point is claiming a new invasion of Iraq would be due to 
either the Kuwait invasion or any Iraqi links to 9/11.

2) It won't be easy. Obviously, the U.S. has lopsided military 
superiority -- that's the only kind of "war" our leaders seem to 
like, so truly treacherous countries, like, say, Pakistan, are our 
allies instead. But this won't be turkey shoots on barren, exposed 
roads in the desert. Baghdad will be urban warfare, and contrary to 
the smug assertions of Albright, Rumsfeld, et al., most Iraqi people, 
along with most of the rest of the world's people, blame the United 
States, not Saddam Hussein, for Iraqis' massive suffering and death 
over the last decade. They won't be cheering and waving flags as 
soldiers from Kansas march into town. What sort of acts of outrage 
might people in this country be moved to, if a twentieth of our 
people had died by the callous hand of an arrogant foreign 
government? Forget 3,000 people in Manhattan, that would be more than 
the entire populations of New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago 
combined.

And how, then, would we respond if that foreign government then 
decided, after this campaign and all previous efforts to assassinate 
him had failed, to invade America to remove George Bush? Would we 
welcome them? Even if we hadn't voted Bush into office in the first 
place? (Oops. Scratch that.) Remember Black Hawk Down? Most people 
don't like foreign soldiers in their city. Which brings us to ...

3) A lot of people will die. Not many U.S. soldiers, of course -- the 
Pentagon has learned its PR lessons, and the technological advantage 
is too overwhelming. But contrary again to the PR spin, if given a 
choice between killing a lot of civilians and losing a few soldiers, 
Iraq's civilians are dead meat. And that means...

4) A lot of people outside Iraq will die, too. For most Muslims, the 
catastrophe that has already befallen their Iraqi sisters and 
brothers dwarfs anything the U.S. has done in Afghanistan. And, in 
extreme cases, inflames their will toward terrorism. Both would 
likely be far, far worse with a new invasion. The "moderate" Arab and 
Islamic dictatorships that gladly accept U.S. money, weapons, and 
secret police training in exchange for a cut of the spoils are also 
all likely to become targets for populations already very, very tired 
of American backing of Israel and of the regime's most brutal thugs 
and thieves.

Moreover, the third complaint of Al-Qaeda (and many other less 
fanatical Muslims) along with Iraq and Palestine -- presence of the 
U.S. military in the holy land of Saudi Arabia -- is also likely to 
be escalated during an American invasion of Iraq. What it all adds up 
to is the serious risk of rebellions and spreading war throughout the 
region -- and use of the crisis by Israel to justify further 
atrocities against its occupied Palestinian population. The whole 
region could get very ugly in a hurry. Nor does the bloodshed stop 
there...

5) Invading Iraq creates anti-Western, especially anti-American, 
terrorism everywhere. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and 
displacement of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban was a recruiting boon for 
radical Islamic fundamentalists, leading countless scores of 
thousands to pledge themselves to the same sort of anti-American 
jihad 19 people managed last September. That's nothing compared to 
the onslaught of new recruits that an attack on Iraq would produce. 
Saddam is just as hated by these folks -- he's the wrong branch of 
Islam and persecutes his fundamentalists, which is one of the reasons 
why the notion of his cooperation with groups like Al-Qaeda is so 
far- fetched. But the vision of still more Muslim blood being spilled 
in the Middle East at the hands of the American invaders will, as 
nothing else, make every person living in this country a target. And 
that, in turn, will doubtless make the lives of immigrants and 
"Muslim-looking" people throughout the U.S. more difficult, too. But 
illegality and the triggering of widespread violence aren't the only 
difficulties...

6) Iraq's oilfields are a catastrophe waiting to happen. So, for that 
matter, are the ones in Saudi Arabia -- Iraq because an advancing 
American or retreating Iraqi government, or both, could create an 
environmental catastrophe far worse than the mess created in 1991 in 
Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia because terrorists or rebels could do the 
same thing to its hundreds of miles of pipelines and refineries and 
ports. And that's the good possibility. The bad one is that Saddam 
Hussein really does have chemical or biological weapons, in which 
case, he'd be insane (which he's not) to use them in any case except 
one -- as a last ditch effort to maintain power. Or, they could be 
released accidentally through military attack. Either way, bad, bad 
news that wouldn't happen without an invasion. But the damage 
wouldn't just be over there...

7) Any damage to Iraqi or Saudi oil supplies would not only drive up 
the cost of oil here, but prove a crippling blow to an economy that's 
already in far more precarious shape than the relentlessly cheery 
"recovery" forecasts of economists and politicians would have you 
believe. And concessions to the EU to gain support for an invasion 
would almost certainly involve trade concessions -- meaning a loss of 
price supports for farmers and other industries seemingly having 
nothing to do with Saddam Hussein, exactly at a time when they can 
least afford it.

8) Finally, Muslims are not the only people likely to be caught up in 
a renewed anti-Americanism. Resentment of U.S. unilateralism, 
arrogance, exceptionalism, and hypocrisy is already high in much of 
the world, and regardless of whatever resolutions or staged crises 
are used as the immediate pretext for an invasion, much of the world 
won't buy it. The D.C. notion is to use Iraq as an example to keep 
other governments in line, but the example cuts both ways -- it also 
ratchets up resentment of American empire throughout the world. And 
as America's military wades into conflicts on five continents -- over 
60 countries, at last count -- that sort of resentment can play out 
in unpredictable ways. As can the example of one country unilaterally 
invading another to "prevent" a perceived threat; just as India, 
Israel, and Russia all promptly used the Bush invention of a doctrine 
of "harboring terrorists" to their own benefit, a green light for 
invading weaker countries could lead to a bloody escalation of any of 
the dozens of wars already simmering or raging throughout the world.

The bottom line: a U.S. invasion of Iraq will kill a lot of people, 
create an environmental catastrophe, set horrific international 
precedents, inflame an already-volatile region, inflame 
anti-Americanism around the world, and put civilians in our own 
country at far greater risk of terrorist attack -- exactly what the 
Bush Administration allegedly set out to prevent in the original, 
long-forgotten premise of the War On Terror.

Arguments against an invasion are compelling on these grounds alone 
-- let alone the procedural grounds, or through an examination of the 
breathtaking flimsiness of the Bush crew's professed rationale. (Has 
anyone, anywhere actually seen any evidence that Saddam Hussein's 
government poses a threat to the United States?) But they need to be 
popularized, and given the upcoming debate on Capitol Hill, they need 
to be made, by a lot of people, to Senators and Representatives 
across the country. Phone, fax, write, e-mail, visit. And when you're 
done, get some friends to do it, too. The above laundry list isn't 
comprehensive, but even what's on it is the stuff of nightmares. And 
we're the only ones who can stop it.

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Zundelsite recommendation:

Go to www.whatreallyhappened.com for links to your Senators and 
Congressmen.  Give them a piece of your mind.

DO IT NOW!!!