|
CounterPunch
February
8, 2003
On the Brink of War
Mandela: "Stop
the Holocaust"
By DAVID KRIEGER
We are on the brink of a war that will undoubtedly
be disastrous for the people of Iraq, and likely even more so
for the people of the United States. Listening to President Bush's
rhetoric, one has the feeling that it is Hate Week in Orwell's
1984.
Surely, Saddam Hussein is a dictator
who has committed atrocities in the past. Surely, the American
people can be aroused to hate Saddam. These are the buttons that
are being pushed by Bush and his militant advisors who are eager
for war.
As Bush raises shrill charges against
Hussein, US troops take up their positions on his orders surrounding
Iraq. According to Bush, "Saddam has the motive and the
means and the recklessness and the hatred to threaten the American
people."
But exactly what motive could he have?
Self-destruction? The desire to see himself and his country destroyed?
On the contrary, his motivation seems to be to hold off a war
by allowing free access in his country to the United Nations
weapons inspectors.
But still Saddam is easy to hate, and
the Bush administration is pressing for a war. "The United
States," says Bush, "along with a growing coalition
of nations, is resolved to take whatever action is necessary
to defend ourselves and disarm the Iraqi regime."
But how exactly is Saddam threatening
us? What exactly are we defending against? These are among the
questions that go unanswered by the administration and the media
as Bush pushes for war.
In fact, the Iraqi regime has been largely
disarmed. It will be a fairly easy target for the US military
with its crushing might, a far easier target of attack than North
Korea.
Sometimes in the flurry of administration
invective, it is difficult to remember that it is the United
States that has an arsenal of 10,000 nuclear weapons and Iraq
that has none, or that it is the US military that is surrounding
Iraq and that Iraq has not actually made any threat against the
US.
Neither the Bush administration nor the
American media has paid much attention to the consequences of
a US attack to "disarm" Saddam. They do so at their
peril and at the peril of the American people because the consequences
will be grave.
The consequences will include the deaths
of many innocent Iraqi civilians and young American troops. They
will include increased hatred of the US throughout the Arab world,
and a corresponding rise in terrorism. They will include the
undermining of the international law of war and of the United
Nations. The global economy could be sent into a tailspin, and
there will potentially be serious adverse effects on the environment.
This war will cause major rifts in the
Western alliance. It will provide a precedent to other leaders
who want to solve international conflicts by means of preemptive
unilateral wars. It will encourage the proliferation of nuclear
and other weapons of mass destruction in countries likely to
be threatened by the US in the future.
In the end, it will be the American people
who will pay the heaviest price for Bush's ill-considered war.
We will be the victims of future acts of terrorism and our civil
liberties will continue to be diminished as power is concentrated
in a dictatorial president.
We should not lose track of the fact
that George Bush was not elected. He was selected by a small
group of conservative justices on the US Supreme Court. This
makes it even more tragic that he is leading our country into
a disastrous war.
Nelson Mandela, one of the great moral
leaders of our time, recently expressed his sense of the Bush
administration's policies: "It is a tragedy what is happening,
what Bush is doing in Iraq. What I am condemning is that one
power, with a president who has no foresight, who cannot think
properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust."
Only the American people can stop this
war, and only if they act now in overwhelming numbers.
David Krieger
is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He can be contacted
at dkrieger@napf.org.
Today's Features
Linda Heard
Powell
at the UN: Spiel, Stunts and Special Effects
Anthony Gancarski
Peggy
Noonan, Space Case
The Columbia and the Manufacture of Tragedy
Robert Fisk
You Wanted
to Believe Him: Powell Does Beckett
Robert Jensen
Powell
at the UN:
Smoking Guns and Big Guns
William Hughes
Colin
Powell's Big Flop
Ali Abunimah
Dissecting Powell's Speech:
Hearsay and Old Allegations
Phyllis Bennis
Powell vs. Blix
The Case for War Remains Unmade
Rahul Mahajan
Responding
to Colin Powell
Is This All You've Got?
Paul de Rooij
Where Are the Incubators, Gen. Powell?
Website of the Day
Iraq:
the War Game
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
Yesterday's
Features
James Davis
Watching
the Fragments Fall:
Shuttle Crash as Entertainment
John Stanton
Hubris
and Shady Contractors:
Why NASA's O'Keefe Should Resign
Saul Landau
Bush
and Mexico:
A New Butt-Kisser
Milan Rai
Oil and
War
Jason Leopold
How Reliant Energy Bilked California
Consumers and Got Away with Only a Slap on the Wrist
Robert Jensen
The
Message from Porto Alegre:
Restrain the Empire!
Neve Gordon and Catherine Rottenberg
The Empire Strikes Back: Sharon and Settlers Destroy the Infrastructure
of Palestinian Existence
Edward J. Steele
War Dollars: What's a Few Zeroes Among Friends?
CounterPunch Wire
More Signs of Protest:
British Version
Website of the Day
Masturbate
for Peace!
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax--Deductible Donation Today Online!
CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- CounterPunch Special:
The Persecution of Gershon Legman by Susan Davis: Smut, the Post Office, Commies
and the FBI;
- Reeling Democrats: Is Pelosi the Answer?
- Gandhi v. Hitler: the Secret Race for the Nobel
Prize;
- Sullying Mario Savio's
Memory;
- Lynching Then and Now;
- Earn While You Learn: Chris Whittle and Child Labor;
The Case of the Pompous
Professor;
- The Class Struggle in
Boston: All that
Effort, But What Did They Get?
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide
web audience is soaring , with about seven million hits a month
now. This is inspiring, but the work involved also compels us
to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make
a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now!
Or Call Toll Free 1 800 840 3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|