AS I’VE MADE CLEAR on this ‘blog, on many occasions, I am of the persuasion that the tough talk and military buildup in Iraq is being used simply as a way to get Saddam to get rid of the weapons that we know he has (as a liberal told me, “After all, Cheney and Rumsfeld have the reciept!”, since we sold Iraq a lot of the weapons that they are now not allowed to have because of actions in Kuwait that they chose to take). I have been offering a 20$ bet that we will not go to war with Iraq since summer; there have been no takers. The high tide, at this time, is approaching the shore. The question is, as the breakers approach the dunes, will the war spill across Iraqi beaches or will a peaceful resolution lap against the beach?Here is the situation thus far: Iraq had weapons (chemical) of mass destruction in the 80’s - he used them both internally and against Iran’s fundamentalist Ayatollah regime. Iraq, throughout the 80’s and 90’s, was actively pursueing the creating of an atomic bomb. Iraq, under Mr Hussein, has fired weapons on 5 nations: Kuwait, Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. In 1998, he removed the UN weapons inspectors (who had been, on a regular basis, finding weapons that Saddam had “forgot about” and destroying them), using the presence of a US spy on an inspection team as the pretext. Saddam offered to allow those inspectors back, but with conditions that were unacceptable, such as forcing the inspectors to give warning days in advance before visiting a site and disallowing the interview of scientists outside the country. Before 1998, many of the weapons found by the UN were discovered because top scientists defected to Iraq and were brave enough to inform the UN.
This year, President Bush decided that, in a post 9-11 era, a policy of containment no longer suffices. Saddam is actively pursuing weapons at this point. The torture methods of his secret police are unrivaled. Saddam is violating the UN document which he signed as a surrender in 1991; that agreement let him stay in power after the Gulf War, primarily because a number of states did not want the destabilization that would come from removing Saddam and creating a MidEast democracy. Bush pressed for inspectors to return. The return of the inspectors was voted on, 15-0, in the UN Security Council, with even Arab Syria voting in favor. The condition of that resolution implies that, if law does not suffice in removing the weapons, force will.
The US has now built up tens of thousands of troops on the border of Iraq. Hans Blix, firmly against war in the past and the head of the UN Monitoring Program, said this week that “”What the show of force demonstrates to Iraq is that here [meaning war with the US] is the other alternative.” The Guardian, the most left-wing major paper in the Western World, and based out of London, is even, at this point, in favor of war if Saddam does not cooperate. This week, weapons containers were found that were not listed in the report, the first of what I believe will be many such finds.
So will we go to war? I still think it’s a last resort. If it is about “blood for oil”, as the hippies will tell you, we would have attacked Iraq in July. The US has waited. They have went through the UN. They have put up with Saddam’s lies and tortune, and are prepared to put with more if it means avoiding war, which, it must be mentioned, is very expensive and undesirable for the US. The optimal solutions are either a) Saddam and his regime go into exile and is replaced with a UN-monitored democracy, b) Saddam declares a full list of weapons he has and immediately dismantles them, c) Saddam faces war with not just the US, but the world.
As I’ve written before, the first two solutions, a and b, will only be attained by a military buildup. A bluff is not good unless it seems real, as any poker player will tell you. I sincerely hope that a or b is the solution, and I still believe it will be. Saddam is cruel, but not stupid - he will make the choice that lets him live. The wave that crashes in the Persian Gulf will not be red, but white.
Though if you still believe that the US is not working with the UN, that there will be war for the purpose of getting oil and that Saddam is not a danger, well, here’s one guy who agrees with you.
OK, I want to move on to discuss something else, but I have more thing say about the dumbass protestors who are in the streets yelling “Drop Bush, Not Bombs” as I speak. I’m for peace. I want peace. And freedom. Do you remember these people protesting Iran’s death sentences for thought crimes, even though hundreds of thousands of Iranians, prime minister included, find it a travesty? Did the Anti-Bush folks say anything when Muslims in Pakistan and India nearly went to Nuclear War last year, and Pakistani rebels shot 21 members of the Indian Parlaiment? Do you remember them at the door of the Indian and Pakistani embassy in Washington? For God’s sake, do you even remember anti-Iraq protests in 1991 against Iraq when they fired missiles at Tel Aviv and invaded Kuwait?
These people don’t care about peace on Earth. They care about being morally superior and acting more intelligent that the rest of us. They care about making Bush look stupid because “their guy” didn’t win.
Next time you see a protester yelling about Bush, ask where he was last year when tens of thousands died during Chad and Congo’s Civil Wars, Civil Wars which couldn’t be stopped by the military force (or even threatened military force) of the US, Europe and other developed nations, because the anti-War people didn’t want the powers to help stop these atrocities.
Ending war is a good intention. The vast majority of these protestors have more than good intentions. Pardon the language, but those hypocrites can fuck off. If I was going to drive all day to protest in DC, I’d sure as hell make sure I actually understood what the hell I was talking about when it came to world politics. God damn retards, the lot of them.
Military force doesn’t mean war. The threat of military force is also effective. What needs to happen, in this non-bipolar era, is that the world needs to get on the stick and tell the world’s most horrendous leaders to ship up and shape out. “But what about their soveriegnty?” you say, and rightly so. There are some leaders and situations that are too terrible to simply wait. In the twentienth century, more people died from internal repression than from war, and that counts the two worst wars in human history, World War I and World War II.
The world did nothing when Uganda’s Idi Amin killed 300,000, until 5 years after his killing spree started; Tanzania decided it was enough, invaded and removed him.
The world did nothing when Cambodia’s Pol Pot killed 2 million until 4 years after his killing spree started; Vietnam decided it was enough, invaded and removed him.
The world did nothing until too late in Rwanda. They did nothing until too late in Yugoslavia. They did nothing until too late in Timor.
This is not a discussion of US policy. The US has been as guilty of not stopping these regimes (and in some cases, directly supporting the regime, as in the case of Somoza in Nicaragua) as any other nation. This discussion is about what the US, and the world, should do now and in the future.
Put simply, it is morally irresponsible, soveriegnty be damned, for the world to allow dictators to kill thousands upon thousands. It can’t be allowed to continue.
That is why Saddam must change 180 degrees, leave peacefully or be replaced by force. There are no other options. This isn’t about oil. The beachhead we approach is a beach of evil. Its palm trees provide shade only from freedom and human rights. Its grains of sand and the grains of death and suffering on a magnitude that is unimaginable, and that death and suffering shows no signs of slowing.
The coming tide will wipe away that evil. The question, and in this case, the question that Saddam must answer, is how that will happen.
I can’t, for the sake of decency, continue to comment about music and parties and the everyday alongside something so grave, so the thread below is also from right now, and feel free to keep reading to find out what’s new with good ol’ Cure.
