''Armageddon days are here again''

national | miscellaneous | news report Wednesday February 05, 2003 16:27 by Damien DeBarra damiendebarra at blather dot net

the february 15th protests and you...

This piece is a personal refelection on the build up to what seems like an entirely immoral war. It attempts to look at some of the main arguments put forward by the pro-war lobby and aims to arm those who oppose it with some of the verbal ammunition that they can use to fight back...

February the 15th 2003 will bear witness to what many predict will be the largest anti-war protest that our world has ever seen. So what has this go to do with you? The answer is, everything…

In recent conversations about this subject, I have been asked to give my reasons for objecting to this war. I find this a fascinating notion, that I (the one who does not want to see innocent civilians get bombed, burnt and shot) has to defend his position when those who support the people who wish to kick off this conflict do not seem to have to make their case. I would like to suggest that before Britain and the United States start carpet bombing what is left of the crumbling remains of Baghdad and other Iraqi settlements, that it is they who should be making the case. There are those that would argue that the case has been made, that the argument has been won, that to dither is to play into the hands of Saddam Hussein and his despotic regime. Well, what I would like to do (if you can stay awake for a while) is to have a look at some of the arguments that the Bush/Blair axis have put forward for war…

1. ‘’This is about ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction…’’

Britain and the United States claim that they would like to ensure that any Weapons of Mass Destruction that Iraq currently possesses are destroyed. Fair enough, you say. It sounds like a perfectly reasonable position. However, there are a number of small snags in the moral and political position that the Bush/Blair axis has taken. First of all, much of the weaponry that they are so hell bent on finding wound it’s way to Iraq from Britain and the United States in the first place. Doesn’t it seem a little rich to be screaming from inside the UN Security Council about a ‘rogue regime’ possessing weapons which you sold them in the first place? A nation that they bankrolled during an utterly vicious and protracted conflict during the 1980’s to so that they could stymie the threat from another Muslim nation next door.

Second, where (to put it bluntly) the hell are they? To date, all that has been found is a series of empty chemical weapon warheads which, by all accounts, have been out of service for a considerable period of time. The UN weapons inspectors say that they need more time and indeed they should get it as any weapons should be destroyed. Perhaps we should heed the words of former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who has said that Iraq’s capability to develop Weapons of Mass Destruction is almost non-existent. How does he know there are no weapons? Because he helped destroy most of them.

Finally, what exactly qualifies as a ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’? Well, traditionally we think of a device or mechanism such as a bomb, a chemical agent, or a biological weapon such as a virus. Different weapons indeed, but all of these things have one essential element in common: they have the ability to kill a great number of people and leave unimaginable devastation in their wake.
Now, consider this.
Imagine a weapon that has been responsible for the deaths of over one million civilians, over half of whom have been children. Imagine a weapon that sees 1 in every four children born with a form of cancer, that sees thousands die every month of malnutrition, dysentery and a list of other illnesses too numerous to mention. Imagine a weapon that succeeds in enslaving millions more into a life of poverty, disease and suffering. Imagine a weapon that can do all of this and yet leave the tyrannical criminals who run that country relatively unaffected.
What I have described above is what the United Nations Security Council sanctions have done to the people and country of Iraq. Perhaps I am naive but this sounds remarkably like a Weapon of Mass Destruction…

2. ‘’This is about bringing humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people…’’

As I have said above, the UN sanctions that have been in place since the early 1990’s have wrought an almost unimaginable devastation on the Iraqi people. Over a million are dead. The country is in ruins. Education has fallen through the floor. According to John Pilger ‘’The United States, with British compliance, is currently blocking a record $5billion worth of humanitarian supplies from the people of Iraq. These are shipments already approved by the UN Office of Iraq, which is authorised by the Security Council. They include life-saving drugs, painkillers, vaccines, cancer diagnostic equipment…’’

This has led to the deaths of 600,000 children. I’ll just say that again. 600,000 children. . That is 5000 – 6000 children a month. With an average age of under seven. And George Bush and Tony Blair have the unmitigated audacity to tell us that this is about liberating the people of Iraq? They have the sheer effrontery to tell us that this slaughter of civilians (and that is exactly what this is) is, in the words of Madeleine Albright ‘worth it’? That they have the nerve to show their face in public, never mind claim to the Iraqi people (as George Bush did at his State of the Union address) that the enemy was not sitting outside the borders but inside, boggles the mind.

3. ‘’This is because Iraq has violated United Nations resolutions…’’

Yes. Iraq has violated United Nations resolutions. No-one disputes this and indeed no well informed person should be in any doubt that this is a classic example of the kind of regime that is in place in Baghdad. Now, I have no doubt that many who read this piece will brand me as an anti-American. Others will probably find a way to call me an anti-Semite. Other will call me an apologist for Saddam Hussein. Let me categorically state that I am none of the above.

First, if a bolt of lightning were to streak out of the sky, strike Saddam Hussein in the head and blow him off the face of the earth, leaving nothing other than a pair of smoking boots, I for one would not shed any tears. His appalling human rights record and actions during the invasion of Kuwait are testament enough to what kind of man he is. But that is not what this is about. This is about double-standards. Iraq has violated 12 UN sanctions. Israel, which is the nation in receipt of the largest aid package from the United States is in violation of 44 UN resolutions. Add to this their illegal occupation of Palestinian land which they have held since the 1960’s and the daily slaughter of Palestinian civilians which many commentators have described as outright genocide. The now re-elected leader of the nation, Ariel Sharon, has been held personally responsible by an internal Israeli investigation for the slaughter at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut in 1982. Officially around 700 people died. Other estimates say it could have been as many as 3000 people.
Where are the economic sanctions for Israel? Where are the clamorous calls for regime change in Israel? They have weapons of mass destruction don’t they? They’ve been accused of human rights violations as well haven’t they? Why the difference of treatment for Iraq and Israel? What does Israel have that merits such special treatment? Or perhaps I should phrase that another way. What does Iraq have that Israel does not?

Second, I am not anti-American. I have friends and family living in America and I have many American friends where I live, a large number of them Jewish. But I am anti-imperialism and I think I know it when I see it. I am not anti-Israeli but I am anti-colonial and I think I know colonialism when I see it. Not that any of the above will stop the accusations…

4. ‘’This is because of terrorism and links to Al Qaeda…’’

Since George Bush’s ‘Axis of Evil’ speech, it has been a priority of this White House administration to try and create a link between the situation in Iraq and the events of September the 11th 2001. These attempts have been a spectacular failure. The latest attempt, during the Presidents’ second State of the Union address, was staggering. According to a report in the Guardian newspaper ‘’Mr Bush did not go into detail about the allegation of a connection between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden but, according the White House, it was built largely on the questioning of al-Qaida detainees.’’ This is, presumably, the Guantanamo Bay Camp X-Ray detainees. The ‘unlawful combatants’ that have no legal standing, no legal rights and who are being detained indefinitely. They have no way of defending themselves and we have absolutely no way of checking what they may or may not have said. Bush’s allegation is completely unverifiable. This is quite incredible: that the President of the United States could justify going to war on such a claim seems almost inconceivable. Yet there it is folks. It seems that there is literally nothing that this White House administration will not do to go to war.

5. ‘’This is about Human rights violations…’’

Many claim that this conflict is about human rights and their violations. As stated above, I have no doubt just what kind of man Saddam Hussein and I have no doubt what kind of regime he presides over. Yet, if this conflict is about bringing him to justice then why, oh why, have both Donald Rumsfeld and Jack Straw said that if Hussein chooses to go into exile, that he would not face prosecution for War Crimes for his actions against the Kurdish people (notably dumping mustard gas on them). This was on the same day that the press reported that Milan Milutinovic (the former president of Serbia) was to face war crimes charges before the Hague. This is an outrageous double-standard, especially considering that so much of President Bush’s State of the Union address focused on the human rights abuses taking place in Iraq. If this is such a matter of concern then why not try Hussein for these crimes? America has no such intention of course because they do not support the very mechanism by which he could be tried: the International Criminal Court. Why do they not support this? Well, the reasons could be multiple, but what immediately strikes me is that were the USA to recognise the authority of this court, numerous American politicians (Henry Kissinger for one) could end up defending themselves before it. But still the President uses the spectre of human rights violations to stoke up hate and fear in the USA, prior to attacking Iraq.

The real reasons for this war taking place are worthy of a whole other piece of writing and I shall not list them here. I will however just say this: it may be too late to stop this war from starting (it seems that nothing will get in Bush and Blair’s way) but it is not too late to bring such an enormous pressure to bear that we can get it stopped. It’s been done before and we can do it again. There are alternatives to war.

This is our planet. This is our world. These are our societies and our brother citizens. The million Iraqis that have died as a result of the UN Security Council sanctions were our fellow human beings. They were not faceless hordes of collateral damage. They were not plastic pieces in a giant game of ‘Risk.’ They were men, women, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children, wives, husbands and lovers. The same goes for the next batch of Iraqi civilians who will die because of American and British Weapons of Mass Destruction. As George Monbiot has said “Our loyalty is to the principles we defend and to those who share them, irrespective of where they come from” This war is not just a war on Iraq. It is a war on all of us. This is a war on freedom and free people everywhere. It is a war that, whether you like it or not, involves you.

You can help. You can get angry and you can make yourself heard. You can start by attending the February 15th protests.
My sincere thanks for taking the time to read this.

Find out more:

Ireland: http://irishantiwar.org/

Britain: http://www.stopwar.org.uk/

USA: http://www.internationalanswer.org/

Accusations of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism and general tree hugging, bleeding-heart liberalism to: [email protected]
www.damiendebarra.homestead.com