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CounterPunch
January
20, 2003
Itching for a Fight
by RON JACOBS
I'm not really big on fighting. Even as a kid,
the only person I ever fought with was my brother who was barely
eleven months younger than me. Even then, those matches were
forgotten within a quarter-hour after they had ended. They stopped
completely when we reached puberty and realized that we might
actually injure each other permanently. Those battles always
took place within the confines of our parents home. Once we were
out in the street, we protected each other. I was the one with
the mouth and ability talk our way out of any looming quarrel
and he was the one who could kick anybodys ass if my words failed.
Still, we never went looking for a fight. Most kids in the part
of town we roamed were our friends. We left the others alone
and they did the same. I wonder why the US cant do the same.
If it wasn't apparent before, it certainly
is now. The United States government is itching for a fight.
In the past few days, Washington has expressed anger at the pace
of UN weapons inspections in Iraq, stated that it doesn't matter
whether or not the inspectors find anything because it will go
to war anyhow, and most recently, is, to quote the New York Times,
reacting "positively" to the news that inspectors seem
to have found 11 clean and empty warheads that may be capable
of delivering chemical weapons. Note, they did not find chemical
weapons or their precursors, they merely found some warheads
that could be used to deliver such materials. It is unclear if
these materials were overlooked during the series of inspections
in the 1990s, if Iraq merely forgot about them, or if they were
constructed since then. Either way, initial reactions from the
warmakers in Washington seem to indicate that this could be enough
of an excuse to attack the people and land of Iraq. This is what
the Times means by reacting "positively"--Washington
has an excuse to kill.
This type of reaction is overkill. Even
if these warheads are of new construction, the most obvious answer
to the problem they present for those intent on denying Iraq
any access to weapons of mass destruction is to destroy the warheads,
not the entire country. Of course, it's clear to most of the
world's people by now that the true intent of the war makers
is to regain unfettered access to the oil (and the profits it
would create) underneath Iraq's surface. Many of these people
are also wondering why the U.S. is so concerned about other countrys
WMD when it is the US that has the most and sells the most. It
is quite obvious that the search for Iraqi WMD is merely a pretext
that is perceived to be salable to those of us who don't like
war. By those of us, I mean most of the humans on the planet.
Protests are occurring (or may have occurred
by the time you read this) in Washington, San Francisco, and
hundreds of other places around the world this weekend. These
protests have a simple demand: No war on Iraq ad and an end to
the sanctions against the Iraqi people. I hope the protests are
incredibly large and loud. I also hope that the men and women
hiding in their palaces in London and Washington, DC (or Crawford,
Texas), heed the call of the people in their streets. It would
be nice to see a hint of sanity emanating from behind those palatial
walls. Of course, I don't expect my hopes to go anywhere. The
people in charge of this country have continually shown their
distaste for democracy. This has been even clearer ever since
the current bunch in DC usurped the electoral process in November
2000. As time moves forward, their distaste for the remnants
of the democratic process that do remain in our fair country
has turned to blatant disrespect and an outright attack on that
process.
I don't want a war in Iraq or anywhere
else, not to destroy their ability to make weapons, not for oil,
not for global hegemony, not to cure Dubyas psychological problems
regarding his daddys approval, not to contain an evil axis, and
certainly not to make the masters of war wealthier than they
already are.
Ron Jacobs
lives in Burlington, VT. He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Yesterday's Features
William Hughes
Rockin'
DC
100,000 Plus for Peace
Wayne Madsen
Deceptions & Illusions
How the Press Downplayed the Protests
Alexander Cockburn
American
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Kevin Gray
Born Again
Can MLK's Legacy Be Reclaimed from Its Abusers?
Edward Said
An Unacceptable
Helplessness
Saul Landau
Mt. Whitney Towers Above Death
Valley
Eric Ruder
Death
Row Shut Down
How Victory Was Won
Anthony Gancarski
Is the Vatican Part of the Axis
of Evil?
Ray Hanania
Likud and Hamas: the Ties that Bind
Walt Brasch
Bush Dances with the Supremes
Carol Norris
Rumsfeld's Paradigm Shift
No Evidence is Evidence
Adam Engel
The Armageddon Jamboree
Anis Shivani
Is It Time to Move to Canada?
Krieger, Smith Carson
Poets' Basement
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January 11
/ 12, 2003
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Read
Whiteout and Find Out
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