Arundhati Roy on war

[LaRusso]

Arundhati Roy
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian
On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawl colourful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse. A building goes down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who loves a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles. On March 21, the day after American and British troops began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, an "embedded" CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty," Private AJ said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11."
To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded" he did sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that linked the Iraqi government to the September 11 attacks. Private AJ stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin. "Yeah, well that stuff's way over my head," he said.
According to a New York Times/CBS News survey, 42 per cent of the American public believes that Saddam Hussein is directly responsible for the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. And an ABC news poll says that 55 per cent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein directly supports al-Qaida. What percentage of America's armed forces believe these fabrications is anybody's guess.
It is unlikely that British and American troops fighting in Iraq are aware that their governments supported Saddam Hussein both politically and financially through his worst excesses.
But why should poor AJ and his fellow soldiers be burdened with these details? It does not matter any more, does it? Hundreds of thousands of men, tanks, ships, choppers, bombs, ammunition, gas masks, high-protein food, whole aircrafts ferrying toilet paper, insect repellent, vitamins and bottled mineral water, are on the move. The phenomenal logistics of Operation Iraqi Freedom make it a universe unto itself. It doesn't need to justify its existence any more. It exists. It is.
President George W Bush, commander in chief of the US army, navy, airforce and marines has issued clear instructions: "Iraq. Will. Be. Liberated." (Perhaps he means that even if Iraqi people's bodies are killed, their souls will be liberated.) American and British citizens owe it to the supreme commander to forsake thought and rally behind their troops. Their countries are at war. And what a war it is.
After using the "good offices" of UN diplomacy (economic sanctions and weapons inspections) to ensure that Iraq was brought to its knees, its people starved, half a million of its children killed, its infrastructure severely damaged, after making sure that most of its weapons have been destroyed, in an act of cowardice that must surely be unrivalled in history, the "Allies"/"Coalition of the Willing"(better known as the Coalition of the Bullied and Bought) - sent in an invading army!
Operation Iraqi Freedom? I don't think so. It's more like Operation Let's Run a Race, but First Let Me Break Your Knees.
So far the Iraqi army, with its hungry, ill-equipped soldiers, its old guns and ageing tanks, has somehow managed to temporarily confound and occasionally even outmanoeuvre the "Allies". Faced with the richest, best-equipped, most powerful armed forces the world has ever seen, Iraq has shown spectacular courage and has even managed to put up what actually amounts to a defence. A defence which the Bush/Blair Pair have immediately denounced as deceitful and cowardly. (But then deceit is an old tradition with us natives. When we are invaded/ colonised/occupied and stripped of all dignity, we turn to guile and opportunism.)
Even allowing for the fact that Iraq and the "Allies" are at war, the extent to which the "Allies" and their media cohorts are prepared to go is astounding to the point of being counterproductive to their own objectives.
When Saddam Hussein appeared on national TV to address the Iraqi people after the failure of the most elaborate assassination attempt in history - "Operation Decapitation" - we had Geoff Hoon, the British defence secretary, deriding him for not having the courage to stand up and be killed, calling him a coward who hides in trenches. We then had a flurry of Coalition speculation - Was it really Saddam, was it his double? Or was it Osama with a shave? Was it pre-recorded? Was it a speech? Was it black magic? Will it turn into a pumpkin if we really, really want it to?
After dropping not hundreds, but thousands of bombs on Baghdad, when a marketplace was mistakenly blown up and civilians killed - a US army spokesman implied that the Iraqis were blowing themselves up! "They're using very old stock. Their missiles go up and come down."
If so, may we ask how this squares with the accusation that the Iraqi regime is a paid-up member of the Axis of Evil and a threat to world peace?
When the Arab TV station al-Jazeera shows civilian casualties it's denounced as "emotive" Arab propaganda aimed at orchestrating hostility towards the "Allies", as though Iraqis are dying only in order to make the "Allies" look bad. Even French television has come in for some stick for similar reasons. But the awed, breathless footage of aircraft carriers, stealth bombers and cruise missiles arcing across the desert sky on American and British TV is described as the "terrible beauty" of war.
When invading American soldiers (from the army "that's only here to help") are taken prisoner and shown on Iraqi TV, George Bush says it violates the Geneva convention and "exposes the evil at the heart of the regime". But it is entirely acceptable for US television stations to show the hundreds of prisoners being held by the US government in Guantanamo Bay, kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs, blinded with opaque goggles and with earphones clamped on their ears, to ensure complete visual and aural deprivation. When questioned about the treatment of these prisoners, US Government officials don't deny that they're being being ill-treated. They deny that they're "prisoners of war"! They call them "unlawful combatants", implying that their ill-treatment is legitimate! (So what's the party line on the massacre of prisoners in Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan? Forgive and forget? And what of the prisoner tortured to death by the special forces at the Bagram airforce base? Doctors have formally called it homicide.)
When the "Allies" bombed the Iraqi television station (also, incidentally, a contravention of the Geneva convention), there was vulgar jubilation in the American media. In fact Fox TV had been lobbying for the attack for a while. It was seen as a righteous blow against Arab propaganda. But mainstream American and British TV continue to advertise themselves as "balanced" when their propaganda has achieved hallucinatory levels.
Why should propaganda be the exclusive preserve of the western media? Just because they do it better? Western journalists "embedded" with troops are given the status of heroes reporting from the frontlines of war. Non-"embedded" journalists (such as the BBC's Rageh Omaar, reporting from besieged and bombed Baghdad, witnessing, and clearly affected by the sight of bodies of burned children and wounded people) are undermined even before they begin their reportage: "We have to tell you that he is being monitored by the Iraqi authorities."
Increasingly, on British and American TV, Iraqi soldiers are being referred to as "militia" (ie: rabble). One BBC correspondent portentously referred to them as "quasi-terrorists". Iraqi defence is "resistance" or worse still, "pockets of resistance", Iraqi military strategy is deceit. (The US government bugging the phone lines of UN security council delegates, reported by the Observer, is hard-headed pragmatism.) Clearly for the "Allies", the only morally acceptable strategy the Iraqi army can pursue is to march out into the desert and be bombed by B-52s or be mowed down by machine-gun fire. Anything short of that is cheating.
And now we have the siege of Basra. About a million and a half people, 40 per cent of them children. Without clean water, and with very little food. We're still waiting for the legendary Shia "uprising", for the happy hordes to stream out of the city and rain roses and hosannahs on the "liberating" army. Where are the hordes? Don't they know that television productions work to tight schedules? (It may well be that if Saddam's regime falls there will be dancing on the streets of Basra. But then, if the Bush regime were to fall, there would be dancing on the streets the world over.)
After days of enforcing hunger and thirst on the citizens of Basra, the "Allies" have brought in a few trucks of food and water and positioned them tantalisingly on the outskirts of the city. Desperate people flock to the trucks and fight each other for food. (The water we hear, is being sold. To revitalise the dying economy, you understand.) On top of the trucks, desperate photographers fought each other to get pictures of desperate people fighting each other for food. Those pictures will go out through photo agencies to newspapers and glossy magazines that pay extremely well. Their message: The messiahs are at hand, distributing fishes and loaves.
As of July last year the delivery of $5.4bn worth of supplies to Iraq was blocked by the Bush/Blair Pair. It didn't really make the news. But now under the loving caress of live TV, 450 tonnes of humanitarian aid - a minuscule fraction of what's actually needed (call it a script prop) - arrived on a British ship, the "Sir Galahad". Its arrival in the port of Umm Qasr merited a whole day of live TV broadcasts. Barf bag, anyone?
Nick Guttmann, head of emergencies for Christian Aid, writing for the Independent on Sunday said that it would take 32 Sir Galahad's a day to match the amount of food Iraq was receiving before the bombing began.
We oughtn't to be surprised though. It's old tactics. They've been at it for years. Consider this moderate proposal by John McNaughton from the Pentagon Papers, published during the Vietnam war: "Strikes at population targets (per se) are likely not only to create a counterproductive wave of revulsion abroad and at home, but greatly to increase the risk of enlarging the war with China or the Soviet Union. Destruction of locks and dams, however - if handled right - might ... offer promise. It should be studied. Such destruction does not kill or drown people. By shallow-flooding the rice, it leads after time to widespread starvation (more than a million?) unless food is provided - which we could offer to do 'at the conference table'."
Times haven't changed very much. The technique has evolved into a doctrine. It's called "Winning Hearts and Minds".
So, here's the moral maths as it stands: 200,000 Iraqis estimated to have been killed in the first Gulf war. Hundreds of thousands dead because of the economic sanctions. (At least that lot has been saved from Saddam Hussein.) More being killed every day. Tens of thousands of US soldiers who fought the 1991 war officially declared "disabled" by a disease called the Gulf war syndrome, believed in part to be caused by exposure to depleted uranium. It hasn't stopped the "Allies" from continuing to use depleted uranium.
And now this talk of bringing the UN back into the picture. But that old UN girl - it turns out that she just ain't what she was cracked up to be. She's been demoted (although she retains her high salary). Now she's the world's janitor. She's the Philippino cleaning lady, the Indian jamadarni, the postal bride from Thailand, the Mexican household help, the Jamaican au pair. She's employed to clean other peoples' ****. She's used and abused at will.
Despite Blair's earnest submissions, and all his fawning, Bush has made it clear that the UN will play no independent part in the administration of postwar Iraq. The US will decide who gets those juicy "reconstruction" contracts. But Bush has appealed to the international community not to "politicise" the issue of humanitarian aid. On the March 28, after Bush called for the immediate resumption of the UN's oil for food programme, the UN security council voted unanimously for the resolution. This means that everybody agrees that Iraqi money (from the sale of Iraqi oil) should be used to feed Iraqi people who are starving because of US led sanctions and the illegal US-led war.
Contracts for the "reconstruction" of Iraq we're told, in discussions on the business news, could jump-start the world economy. It's funny how the interests of American corporations are so often, so successfully and so deliberately confused with the interests of the world economy. While the American people will end up paying for the war, oil companies, weapons manufacturers, arms dealers, and corporations involved in "reconstruction" work will make direct gains from the war. Many of them are old friends and former employers of the Bush/ Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice cabal. Bush has already asked Congress for $75bn. Contracts for "re-construction" are already being negotiated. The news doesn't hit the stands because much of the US corporate media is owned and managed by the same interests.

[LaRusso]

Operation Iraqi Freedom, Tony Blair assures us is about returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people. That is, returning Iraqi oil to the Iraqi people via corporate multinationals. Like Shell, like Chevron, like Halliburton. Or are we missing the plot here? Perhaps Halliburton is actually an Iraqi company? Perhaps US vice-president **** Cheney (who is a former director of Halliburton) is a closet Iraqi?
As the rift between Europe and America deepens, there are signs that the world could be entering a new era of economic boycotts. CNN reported that Americans are emptying French wine into gutters, chanting, "We don't want your stinking wine." We've heard about the re-baptism of French fries. Freedom fries they're called now. There's news trickling in about Americans boycotting German goods. The thing is that if the fallout of the war takes this turn, it is the US who will suffer the most. Its homeland may be defended by border patrols and nuclear weapons, but its economy is strung out across the globe. Its economic outposts are exposed and vulnerable to attack in every direction. Already the internet is buzzing with elaborate lists of American and British government products and companies that should be boycotted. Apart from the usual targets, Coke, Pepsi and McDonald's - government agencies such as USAID, the British department for international development, British and American banks, Arthur Anderson, Merrill Lynch, American Express, corporations such as Bechtel, General Electric, and companies such as Reebok, Nike and Gap - could find themselves under siege. These lists are being honed and re fined by activists across the world. They could become a practical guide that directs and channels the amorphous, but growing fury in the world. Suddenly, the "inevitability" of the project of corporate globalisation is beginning to seem more than a little evitable.
It's become clear that the war against terror is not really about terror, and the war on Iraq not only about oil. It's about a superpower's self-destructive impulse towards supremacy, stranglehold, global hegemony. The argument is being made that the people of Argentina and Iraq have both been decimated by the same process. Only the weapons used against them differ: In one case it's an IMF chequebook. In the other, cruise missiles.
Finally, there's the matter of Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. (Oops, nearly forgot about those!)
In the fog of war - one thing's for sure - if Saddam 's regime indeed has weapons of mass destruction, it is showing an astonishing degree of responsibility and restraint in the teeth of extreme provocation. Under similar circumstances, (say if Iraqi troops were bombing New York and laying siege to Washington DC) could we expect the same of the Bush regime? Would it keep its thousands of nuclear warheads in their wrapping paper? What about its chemical and biological weapons? Its stocks of anthrax, smallpox and nerve gas? Would it?
Excuse me while I laugh.
In the fog of war we're forced to speculate: Either Saddam is an extremely responsible tyrant. Or - he simply does not possess weapons of mass destruction. Either way, regardless of what happens next, Iraq comes out of the argument smelling sweeter than the US government.
So here's Iraq - rogue state, grave threat to world peace, paid-up member of the Axis of Evil. Here's Iraq, invaded, bombed, besieged, bullied, its sovereignty shat upon, its children killed by cancers, its people blown up on the streets. And here's all of us watching. CNN-BBC, BBC-CNN late into the night. Here's all of us, enduring the horror of the war, enduring the horror of the propaganda and enduring the slaughter of language as we know and understand it. Freedom now means mass murder (or, in the US, fried potatoes). When someone says "humanitarian aid" we automatically go looking for induced starvation. "Embedded" I have to admit, is a great find. It's what it sounds like. And what about "arsenal of tactics?" Nice!
In most parts of the world, the invasion of Iraq is being seen as a racist war. The real danger of a racist war unleashed by racist regimes is that it engenders racism in everybody - perpetrators, victims, spectators. It sets the parameters for the debate, it lays out a grid for a particular way of thinking. There is a tidal wave of hatred for the US rising from the ancient heart of the world. In Africa, Latin America, Asia, Europe, Australia. I encounter it every day. Sometimes it comes from the most unlikely sources. Bankers, businessmen, yuppie students, and they bring to it all the crassness of their conservative, illiberal politics. That absurd inability to separate governments from people: America is a nation of morons, a nation of murderers, they say, (with the same carelessness with which they say, "All Muslims are terrorists"). Even in the grotesque universe of racist insult, the British make their entry as add-ons. Arse-lickers, they're called.
Suddenly, I, who have been vilified for being "anti-American" and "anti-west", find myself in the extraordinary position of defending the people of America. And Britain.
Those who descend so easily into the pit of racist abuse would do well to remember the hundreds of thousands of American and British citizens who protested against their country's stockpile of nuclear weapons. And the thousands of American war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam. They should know that the most scholarly, scathing, hilarious critiques of the US government and the "American way of life" comes from American citizens. And that the funniest, most bitter condemnation of their prime minister comes from the British media. Finally they should remember that right now, hundreds of thousands of British and American citizens are on the streets protesting the war. The Coalition of the Bullied and Bought consists of governments, not people. More than one third of America's citizens have survived the relentless propaganda they've been subjected to, and many thousands are actively fighting their own government. In the ultra-patriotic climate that prevails in the US, that's as brave as any Iraqi fighting for his or her homeland.
While the "Allies" wait in the desert for an uprising of Shia Muslims on the streets of Basra, the real uprising is taking place in hundreds of cities across the world. It has been the most spectacular display of public morality ever seen.
Most courageous of all, are the hundreds of thousands of American people on the streets of America's great cities - Washington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco. The fact is that the only institution in the world today that is more powerful than the American government, is American civil society. American citizens have a huge responsibility riding on their shoulders. How can we not salute and support those who not only acknowledge but act upon that responsibility? They are our allies, our friends.
At the end of it all, it remains to be said that dictators like Saddam Hussein, and all the other despots in the Middle East, in the central Asian republics, in Africa and Latin America, many of them installed, supported and financed by the US government, are a menace to their own people. Other than strengthening the hand of civil society (instead of weakening it as has been done in the case of Iraq), there is no easy, pristine way of dealing with them. (It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to "rid the world of evil-doers".)
Regardless of what the propaganda machine tells us, these tin-pot dictators are not the greatest threat to the world. The real and pressing danger, the greatest threat of all is the locomotive force that drives the political and economic engine of the US government, currently piloted by George Bush. Bush-bashing is fun, because he makes such an easy, sumptuous target. It's true that he is a dangerous, almost suicidal pilot, but the machine he handles is far more dangerous than the man himself.
Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy at the helm of his forces. And President George W Bush is certainly that. Any other even averagely intelligent US president would have probably done the very same things, but would have managed to smoke-up the glass and confuse the opposition. Perhaps even carry the UN with him. Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the American empire.
Now that the blueprint (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire) has been put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits predicted.
Bring on the spanners.

[C0ckney]

there's nothing like a balanced assesment, and that is nothing like a balanced assesment.

[Az]

Yeah, SURE I'LL READ IT.

[Aro]

Originally posted by Azazel
Yeah, SURE I'LL READ IT.

[Az]

Seriously, I have plenty of things to do with the time that it would take me to read that article, and that would be more productive:
find a cure for cancer, build an object that would be seen from space, scratch my balls till they bleed....


Why do people even bother posting these 12+ page crapola essays? Get this : NOONE WILL READ THIS.

[LaRusso]

of course. the bulldozers are mightier than swords...

[Bereta_Eder]

Just read the beggining.

I think it's ironic that the US (and the doggie) is attacking the one regime in that area that has NOT encouraged international terrorism, not even indirectly.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Originally posted by C0ckney
there's nothing like a balanced assesment, and that is nothing like a balanced assesment.

Yes, the article doesn't even give the slightest hint that Saddam is one of the most murderous tyrants on Earth.

Is there any criticism of Saddam's regime in there somewhere? Just a hint that maybe they're perhaps a little unpleasant?

Or did I just miss it?

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by paiktis22
Just read the beggining.

I think it's ironic that the US (and the doggie) is attacking the one regime in that area that has NOT encouraged international terrorism, not even indirectly.

Thats becasue they have so much fun terrorising their own population

[Jack the Bodiless]

IIRC, Saddam has paid money to Hamas. Of course, he isn't the only one. But it means that he has supported international terrorism.

And those SCUDs launched against Israel in 1991 were international terrorist attacks also, against a nation that was not participating in the war.

[Bereta_Eder]

US and Israel are the same, in both theory and more importantly practise to these countries.


Sadam regime has not sponsored int. terrorism in any way, especially if u compre it with plenty of other regims in the area, which makes this in. war on terrorism and attacking iraq so absurd.

[gsmoove23]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Yes, the article doesn't even give the slightest hint that Saddam is one of the most murderous tyrants on Earth.

Is there any criticism of Saddam's regime in there somewhere? Just a hint that maybe they're perhaps a little unpleasant?

Or did I just miss it?

Its sort of implied in the part where she mentions how the US supported him through the worst of his excesses and continues to prop up unsavory characters around the world.

It may be a diatribe but its a reasonably well written one. Too bad these things never really change anyones mind because most people who disagree never get past the first paragraph.

[Jack the Bodiless]

...Ah, found it at last.

Near the bottom of the second chunk:

At the end of it all, it remains to be said that dictators like Saddam Hussein, and all the other despots in the Middle East, in the central Asian republics, in Africa and Latin America, many of them installed, supported and financed by the US government, are a menace to their own people. Other than strengthening the hand of civil society (instead of weakening it as has been done in the case of Iraq), there is no easy, pristine way of dealing with them. (It's odd how those who dismiss the peace movement as utopian, don't hesitate to proffer the most absurdly dreamy reasons for going to war: to stamp out terrorism, install democracy, eliminate fascism, and most entertainingly, to "rid the world of evil-doers".)

But, of course, the author offers NO alternative strategy for dealing with Saddam Hussein.

Dredging up the history of how men like Saddam gained power isn't going to actually solve this problem. Nor is it justification for inaction.

It can easily be argued that the French created Hitler (by the Treaty of Versailles). How would this knowledge have been relevant in 1939?

(...and, no, I'm not trying to equate Saddam with Hitler in terms of the military threat he now poses to others. But the threat he poses to elements of the population of his own country is similar).

[gsmoove23]

I don't think any alternative was necessary. Pre-war Bush and the UN were doing just fine with their good-cop bad-cop routine. You ask for an alternative to a problem that no one felt was worthy of war in the first place.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

But, of course, the author offers NO alternative strategy for dealing with Saddam Hussein.

This is by far the most frustrating aspect of the rhetoric aimed at the war. 12 years of "inspections" did little except enrich French, German and Russians corporate fat cats. Where was the compassion for poor Iraqi children then? The opposition pov seems to be that death and suffering from neglect and blissfully ignoring the problem is somehow infinitely better than trying to do something about it.

[gsmoove23]

Originally posted by gunkulator
This is by far the most frustrating aspect of the rhetoric aimed at the war. 12 years of "inspections" did little except enrich French, German and Russians corporate fat cats. Where was the compassion for poor Iraqi children then? The opposition pov seems to be that death and suffering from neglect and blissfully ignoring the problem is somehow infinitely better than trying to do something about it.

That arguement only has any weight after 9/11(which had nothing to do with Iaq). There was no reason or will in international or US opinion to invade Iraq. Clinton tried but found it impossible to rally support. Of course there was no will to invade Iraq before Saddam invaded Kuwait either, when he had much more dangerous capabilities.

There has never been any indication that saddam would sell chemical weapons to terrorist groups, hes never done it in the past and even during 12 years of devastating embargoes he has not resorted to extreme or desperate tactics. Its conveniently overlooked that the much talked about Ansar group in northern Iraq is deep in Kurdish controlled territory and is mainly supported by Iran. Oh yeah, have they found the supposed chemical lab there yet?

[Jack the Bodiless]

How is that relevant?

It seems that gunkulator's position is similar to mine. Saddam deserves to go because of his appalling human-rights record (one of the worst in the world).

Frankly, I don't care what the excuse was, I'm just relieved that action is being taken. Just as I was relieved when the Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden: it provided the political will to put an end to that regime.

[gsmoove23]

One of the worst in the world? What does that mean? Try one of the most publicized in the world. Compared to other 3rd world leaders he's a drop in the bucket. Lets remove em all, that way we can have the worst human rights record in the world. Remember, its the Saddams of this world that make America look good.

[Lincoln]

Originally posted by LaRusso
Arundhati Roy
Wednesday April 2, 2003
The Guardian
...So, here's the moral maths as it stands: 200,000 Iraqis estimated to have been killed in the first Gulf war. Hundreds of thousands dead because of the economic sanctions. (At least that lot has been saved from Saddam Hussein.) More being killed every day. Tens of thousands of US soldiers who fought the 1991 war officially declared "disabled" by a disease called the Gulf war syndrome, believed in part to be caused by exposure to depleted uranium...

With this type of math in science we would still be saying the earth is flat. I wonder why he does not mention the number of people tortured in Iraq or the number that Saddam has ordered killed. And why does he not mention that the alternative to war was more years of sanctions that would kill more people? Here is how his math works:

2+2=4 -16=4

[Jack the Bodiless]

One of the worst in the world? What does that mean? Try one of the most publicized in the world. Compared to other 3rd world leaders he's a drop in the bucket.

Which ones are those? There are maybe two or three others in his league, no more.

[Flubber]

a very slanted piece-- every adjective is carefully chosen to set an anti-war tone with really nothing to soften or moderate the bias.

I like that the writer has the freedom to write his opinion and cite his carefully chosen "facts". The right to free speech includes the right to be completely biased.

Personally I find such writing ( whether for or against this war) to be unpersuasive since the bias is so obvious that I find it almost impossible to trust anything they say.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
One of the worst in the world? What does that mean? Try one of the most publicized in the world. Compared to other 3rd world leaders he's a drop in the bucket.

There are of course practical answer to the "why Saddam?" question. The US is not omnipotent and has to choose its battles. Besides gassing his own people invading his neighbors, Saddam controls a large amount of oil which is a vital component for the well being of the industrial world. Those who poo-poo this notion are free to take up walking to prove their ability to go without.

In addition, Saddam's neighbor's provide the US with much needed military bases. No bases = no war. Finally, Saddam has no real allies. Sure there are countries that deplore the war, but they cannot publicly be pro-Saddam. He is a pariah who will be missed by noone when he's gone.

Lets remove em all, that way we can have the worst human rights record in the world.

Not a bad goal, but unattainable. Still, it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness

[gsmoove23]

Its fine to say I don't mind the war so much because afterwards the new regime will be better to its people. Its foolish to say that this in anyway was the objective. Bush came to power on a platform stating he would avoid just such humanitarian entanglements.

Saddam controlling the oil was in no way a danger to the industrial world, I don't know how you can argue it was. He wanted to sell it as much as we want to buy it. However, US control of the oil will be a great boon to OUR industry, this is true.

[ThePantaloonDog]

There are of course practical answer to the "why Saddam?" question. The US is not omnipotent and has to choose its battles. Besides gassing his own people invading his neighbors, Saddam controls a large amount of oil which is a vital component for the well being of the industrial world. Those who poo-poo this notion are free to take up walking to prove their ability to go without.

The problem with this reasoning is that Saddam is a horrible choice to pick a fight with. He is the secular head of state keeping the country together by means of terror and violence. Iraq is inherently unstable which without a strong government to keep its various factions together will fall into anarchy. An excellent example is the current "governement" in Afghanistan. The state of Iraq will not take to democracy no matter how many troops, loaves of bread, or billions of dollars we poor in.

In addition if you hadn't noticed for the last hundred years the Middle East has known to be a tad unstable and its people a tad defensive of WEstern meddling. I'm sure all of those Arabs reading the newspaper are cheering for the Western hegemon to crush their Arab brothers and sisters. This war is more likely going to increase much of the hatred the Arab world has of the U.S. that's why Saddam was a poor choice.

And this article is worthless. The author must be drowning in her own spittle as she spouts every anti-American 'fact' she's heard. Her article hurts the anti-war movement more than helps it.

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Its fine to say I don't mind the war so much because afterwards the new regime will be better to its people. Its foolish to say that this in anyway was the objective. Bush came to power on a platform stating he would avoid just such humanitarian entanglements.

No argument from me. I don't have a clue why Bush thought we needed to be in this fight.

Saddam controlling the oil was in no way a danger to the industrial world, I don't know how you can argue it was. He wanted to sell it as much as we want to buy it.

Control = power. Saddam is enormously wealthy and can afford to shut off the oil for long periods of time. He doesn't care how much this hurts his own people. I'm guessing you didn't live through the 70's oil shocks and witness firsthand how the entire western world can be held hostage to a handful of fabulously rich oil sheiks.

However, US control of the oil will be a great boon to OUR industry, this is true.

Bush's stated goal is to return the country to the control of the Iraqi people, so, no we don't get to keep the oil. If he does not do this, then he is every bit the imperialist that his critics paint him to be.

[gsmoove23]

Bush's stated goal is to return the country to the control of the Iraqi people, so, no we don't get to keep the oil. If he does not do this, then he is every bit the imperialist that his critics paint him to be.

Their are no Iraqi oil companies, but there are American ones. They'll be pumping the oil for a long time to come. Interestingly Bush was asked before the war where the funds for the recontruction of Iraq will come from. The answer? Much will come from international donations but most will be covered by the sale of Iraqi oil. Now, who is going to get most of the rebuilding contracts? American companies. This is all quite plainly stated.

Saddam is enormously wealthy and can afford to shut off the oil for long periods of time. He doesn't care how much this hurts his own people. I'm guessing you didn't live through the 70's oil shocks and witness firsthand how the entire western world can be held hostage to a handful of fabulously rich oil sheiks.

As you said before, Saddam has few friends and even if OPEC was behind him oil production has diversified quite alot since the 70s. If Saddam was ever so foolish to cut off his oil other oil producing coutries would quickly pick up the slack and Iraq would be the only one hurting. His control of the oil in Iraq has never been a danger.

[gunkulator]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by gsmoove23

Now, who is going to get most of the rebuilding contracts? American companies. This is all quite plainly stated.

Of course. Money is what this has always been about. Notice how the countries making the biggest fuss (France, Germany, Russia) were also those profiting the most from their deals with Saddam. I would be shocked if the new gov't did not look more favorably on US companies. The Iraqi people don't give a hoot over which foreign oil company makes the money. For them, a democratic gov't can't possibly be worse than what they had.

If Saddam was ever so foolish to cut off his oil other oil producing coutries would quickly pick up the slack and Iraq would be the only one hurting. His control of the oil in Iraq has never been a danger.

Saddam has made it no secret that he wants all the oil in the ME. His Iran invasion was chiefly in the south were the oil fields are. Kuwait was a prelude to Saudi Arabia. His sons were likely to be no better. The region is more stable with his ilk gone.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by gsmoove23

That arguement only has any weight after 9/11(which had nothing to do with Iaq). There was no reason or will in international or US opinion to invade Iraq. Clinton tried but found it impossible to rally support.

And Bush didn't have much support and went ahead anyway.

Originally posted by gsmoove23

There has never been any indication that saddam would sell chemical weapons to terrorist groups, hes never done it in the past and even during 12 years of devastating embargoes he has not resorted to extreme or desperate tactics.

I would call the selective starvation of his population an extreme tactic. While the connections of this regime to Islamicist terrorists is thin to say the least, Iraq has had a long connection to terrorists, including training, logistical support and sanctuary.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Its fine to say I don't mind the war so much because afterwards the new regime will be better to its people. Its foolish to say that this in anyway was the objective. Bush came to power on a platform stating he would avoid just such humanitarian entanglements.

I don't have to agree with someone's rationale for an action to agree with the action. Just because Bush and company put out a new justification for the war every couple of days doesn't mean that I have to support that particular justification merely because I support the war. Just as various diametrically groups oppose the war doesn't mean that they cannot reach common ground in their opposition. Thus whatever Bush's objective was is immaterial to anyone else's feelings about the war. People agree with the action or disagree for their own reasons.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Saddam controlling the oil was in no way a danger to the industrial world, I don't know how you can argue it was. He wanted to sell it as much as we want to buy it. However, US control of the oil will be a great boon to OUR industry, this is true.

Wrong on both accounts. Saddam was using his oil money to build up his military, which without provocation (opinions vary in regard to Iranian actions prior to the first Gulf War) has attacked three strategically important countries since he rose to power. Two major oil producing states and nuclear armed Israel. The invasion of Kuwait forced much of the industrialized world to react by puting the lives of their troops on the line. A series of planned terrorist acts against Western interests were thwarted by close cooperation between a number of states during Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm. A nuclear weapons program was well under way when it was brought to a halt by coalition forces in 1991. The man was a danger to the whole world, though perhaps not a mortal danger to most of it.

As for the Iraqi oil, it isn't going to help the U.S. much, as we are going to let them sell it and use the money to rebuild. I think it very likely that much of the tab for getting the Iraqi oil industry back on its feet will be picked up by the Coalition of the Willing or other members of the international community. Why not use the oil money to pay for the reconstruction of the oil industry? Because Iraq owes about four years of oil revenues in debts to other states and entities. There simply isn't enough oil money generated in Iraq to rebuild itself and service its debt simultaneously, not to mention enough for the U.S. to skim a profit in addition. The United States isn't going to profit from this war by any measure, though certain companies who have political pull will of course manage to make some of our tax money back in profits. A truly crooked administration would just take the billions we will spend on the war and reconstruction, cancel the invasion and use it to pay off people directly, leveraging that money tenfold.