10/19/2002
Iraq II: The Wrath of Cheney!
OK, I'll talk about the upcoming war.
I don't think it's going to happen.
I think that on November 5th, the day
after the elections, the war talk will begin to subside, the US
will say that Saddam is complying or that the UN will handle it
or some such. That is just how cynical I have become over
the last few years. For a man who said he was coming to
Washington to be bi-partisan, Bush has put some of the most die
hard Rebloodlicans on his front lines, and they fan out with
talking points to the news networks and Sunday gasbag shows with
ruthless efficiency. Besides, whenever Clinton did anything
about Iraq, the exact same people saying we need to strike before
the election were they ones saying the Clinton would attack Iraq
to distract people from Monica Lewinski.
And as time has shown, a horrible economy
is far more dangerous to a member of the Bush family than Monica
Lewinski was to the Clinton family.
However, this shouldn't be about past
Presidencies even if Bush did say in a fund raising speech that
"Saddam tried to kill my Daddy." Which warms my
heart as a lover of pop-culture, since our international policy
is being made with all the loving care and forethought of a Kung
Fu picture.
It should be about why the rush to War is
a bad idea, and why the US striking with provocation for the
first time in the country's history is not the best decision to
make right now. I am far from alone in this thinking, as
the world outside the US is practically jumping up and down
shouting "Slow down, dammit!" to Bush any way they can.
Before I get tarred with the peacenik
brush, I think that US military force has done some pretty damn
good things.
The first Gulf War, while preventable
long before Saddam Hussein went into Kuwait if we hadn't been
asleep at the wheel, was a just use of military force. Hussein
sent his troops into Kuwait, claimed their bank accounts to try
and pay his debts from his decade long war with Iran, and was a
threat to international peace. As with most wars, it got
muddy (we told the people of Iran to rise up, just like we are
telling them now, and didn't give them the promised support) and
left things a bit of a mess.
In the Balkans, after years of allowing
Slobodon Milosevic to allow his armies to commit genocide, the US
finally took action. This was over the objection of the
exact same people saying we should give Bush a blank check to
start a war. The US used a new kind of war, one from the
skies, and pushed back the Serbs, who eventually turned on their
War Criminal in charge, and he is now before an international
court being held accountable for his crimes. Amazingly,
this is how international law is supposed to work, and having
read many accounts of what happened during the Balkans wars, the
biggest mistake by the US in that conflict was not getting
involved sooner. One soldier I know said that while he was
stationed there, he was thanked by citizens, and with tears in
his eyes he told me about how families would clutch as his
clothing just to touch the man who brought them food and saved
their lives.
How can anyone be against that?
The conflict in Afghanistan has turned
out pretty much as I predicted it would, much to my dismay.
Let's be honest, I don't write this stuff
hoping that our leaders screw up, but if a guy who makes jokes
about beer and pie can see the problems, shouldn't people who get
paid to do this stuff do better than me? We went into
Afghanistan, giving the terrorists a good month and a half
warning, dropped bombs and paid the Northern Alliance to do the
fighting, which means the Warlords who set up shop after Russia
got their ass handed to them are back in power. Oh, we gave
the Afghani people food...in containers that looked exactly like
the land mines that littered the countryside. The
containers had "Food!" on it in big letters, but in a
country with a higher illiteracy rate than at most Texas High
Schools, words in English mean about as much to them as the
fascination with Yuh-Gi-Oh! means to me. Most of the high
level members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda (the ones who made the
decisions) got out of the country and are currently in caves
watching TV and saying, "Did you forget about me?"
We haven't even STARTED to bring that
country to a level where they can be considered safe, and there
are still reports weekly of Taliban and Al Qaeda forces staging
attacks. Never mind the fact that history tells us that
when you defeat a country, if you don't help them rebuild, they
come back stronger and more resolute...like Germany did in WWII.
However, we have a short attention span
here, brought on by news networks that have to have two or three
things on the screen at all times, kids who are drugged on
Ritalin until they are old enough for Prozac, ads that are made
for hyperactive ferrets on crack, instant everything and the
belief that if something in the news lasts longer than the
Baseball Playoffs, there better be a celebrity involved. So,
despite not being done in Afghanistan, we're off to Iraq.
Unless you want to be cynical, in which
point you would have to say that Dick Cheney said "We can't
find Osama Bin Laden? Fine, we know where Saddam Hussein is!"
Oh, but how dare I draw that connection,
how Unpatriotic of me.
Let's go over Bush's points from his
speech one by one.
First: Saddam Hussein is defying
International Law and UN sanctions, and we need to use military
force to bring him into compliance.
While I agree that UN sanctions should be
followed, Israel is defying a set of UN sanctions, as are Russia,
China, India, Pakistan and a number of countries in Africa.
South Africa was sanctioned more than any country in the history
of the UN during Apartheid, but we didn't rush over there with
troops and tell them they had to allow black people to vote and
hold land. As for defying International Law, the US is
generally the pot and we are shouting very loudly that the kettle
is black. We took our name off of the International
Criminal Court treaty because we don't want US citizens to be
held accountable to international law.
Second: Saddam Hussein has weapons
of mass destruction and is willing to give them to terrorists.
Hussein's history shows that he won't
give them to terrorists OR ANYONE ELSE! He trusts no one,
works deals with no one and tends to double cross his military
partners (just ask Kuwait...or the US when we were his silent
partner in the 80's). He may have weapons of mass
destruction, as does Pakistan (who's leader came to power in a
Taliban supported military coups and just changed the
Constitution so that it was much harder to remove him from power
and gave him most of the decision making power), India, and a
number of other countries that it would be a damn good idea if
they didn't have bullets for their guns.
To be honest, this reason is why we need
to get the inspectors back in the country. "But Saddam
kicked them out because they were getting too close!" I hear
you say...but you're wrong. The US ordered them out of the
country during 1998 when we were threatening war during Clinton's
Impeachment, and the Saddam refused to let them back in after it
was discovered that a number of members of the inspection team
were CIA operatives and were reporting their findings to the US
instead of the United Nations.
As a caveat, if Hussein refuses to let
the inspectors back in after his public concerns are either
addressed (no spies on the team and it's all above board) or
dismissed (yes, there will be people from the US on the team, so
shut up, sit down and get rid of the Village People facial hair),
then there is a good, solid reason to start bombing suspected
weapons sites. War? I don't know.
Third: Al Qaeda operatives are
working with Iraq.
This was brought up in a Sunday show on
FOX by Condalezza Rice, and again by Bush in his speech on 10/7/2002.
Maybe it's even true. However, the CIA released a report on
Monday saying that there had been no high level contacts between
Hussein and Al Qaeda. White House Spokesman Ari Fliesher
said that Al Qaeda operatives had gone to Iraq after leaving
Afghanistan...never mind that they were sighted in area
controlled by the Kurds, where Iraqi soldiers are not allowed.
Oh, and just so you know, the Kurds? The ones we left high
and dry during the last Gulf War? They are supposed to be
our allies and in Bush's military planes that have been leaked to
the press, they are the ones who we will be partnering with
during the ground portion of the war.
So much for "You are either with us
or you are with the terrorists".
I could pile on, pointing out that Iraq
is more like that Balkans than the Balkans, a country arbitrarily
made by colonists, filled with ethnic minorities that have no
connection to each other and will need a leader who can hold all
of those groups together somehow. Hussein has done it with
fear and demagoguery, whipping him people to hate Iran, Kuwait
and finally the US to hold power.
I could point out that the Bush People
have publicly said they are not in the business of nation
building, but if they impose a "regime change", SOMEONE
is going to have to do the heavy lifting of bringing the country
food, medicine and into the 20th Century, something we are
failing at miserably in Afghanistan.
I could point out that Israel, who sat on
its hands during the last Gulf War so as not to create an all out
World War now has a leader who stays in power by keeping the
country in a constant state of chaos and has said that if Iraq
fires a single missile at them, they will strike back with all
the force they have.
I could point out that the Bush
Administration's plan of "we send in a few troops and the
people will rise up" is the same plan used at the Bay of
Pigs in Cuba and North Vietnam. Since Fidel is still
happily giving speeches just a bit longer than this droning, that
plan isn't exactly a winner.
Oh. Wait. I just did. That's
a really bad literary device. If you have a better one, let
me know, because at this point I'm just talking to myself and Ted
Rall anyway.
Anyway, I just want people to think about
one thing. Why is it, that if Saddam has been defying these
sanctions for 11 years, and working on weapons in secret for 4
years, we need to take action before November 4th, when Bush's
people have set as the deadline for Congress to act?
Just a quick reminder, November 4th is
Election Day, so forget about how your 401 (K) has done so poorly
it's now a 101 (F). Forget than unemployment among people
are 25 - 40 is higher than it was during the recession of 1990-1992.
Forget about how the CEO culture is so corrupt that rap record
producers look at them and go "Damn, those guys are sleazy."
Forget all that stuff, because there's a
war on.
And to be honest, I'm starting to think
that there will always be a war on.