GIVE WAR A CHANCE
Most of my mates will know I love the Beatles. Classics after classics I belt out in my showers like 'Hey Jude', 'Let it be', 'Give Peace a Chance'. More importantly, I believe in everything that the four boys from Merseyside stood for. Peace, love empathy. So it may come as a bit of surprise to some of you that I choose to steal Lennon's song title and bastardise as today's topic.
Now, I know there are many of you out there who feels the war is illegal and unjustified and that there are alternative measures of disarming Hussein's regime. But it is also true America has more than its fair share of devout detractors and these people, in times of peace or war will always be looking to bring people's attention to its crimes and aggressive foreign policies.
Which isn't all that bad when I think of the rapacious, global bully that America is and how it has benefited from its aggressive acts promoting self-interest but these are not concrete reasons for us to be slating the war. Whereas I'm standing on the side of humanity, there are many anti-war folks who are simply protesting based on hypothetical assumptions built on anti-American sentiments.
For me, it was never a question of war against Saddam. I think America will go in and kick his regime's collective ass and get the job done. Period. But the greater war lies in convincing people that the ends justify its means. Let us not pretend for one moment that with UN's acquiescence one less innocent life will be killed.
This war, as the Americans will like to tell us, is all about liberating the Iraqi people. I'm sceptical of such a claim and so is the rest of the world but whatever the ulterior motives (if any) if it eventually liberates the Iraqis, is it necessarily such a bad thing?
While Bush may make all kinds of half-witted remarks and make a complete ass of himself on TV, not to mention he looks like a chimpanzee, which makes taking what he says seriously really difficult, it's hard to ignore when Blair speaks. Simply by reason that since coming into power, he's being pushing at international conferences for debt relief for 3rd world countries, foreign aids and pushing Bush, to use Iraq's oil reserves after the campaign to rebuild the nation.
It is a fact that 3-4 million Iraqis, 15 % of population, have
fled homeland since Saddam's reign. A regime where corporal punishment includes
amputation of limbs and branding with hot iron. We all have a laugh about
'compulsory circumcision' every now and then but it's just not that funny
when you have your ears or tongues hacked off as punishment. And what about
the persecution of the Kurds and the Shia?
We are talking about a regime here that has women raped in front of their
husbands and children, has children's limbs broken in front of their parents
as forced coercion.
Some will even argue that Gulf War redux is about conquest and American imperialism. Well, perhaps this whole war is about transparency. Perhaps it is about the idea that the world has become a very dangerous place and that secretive dictators who obviously have screws loose cannot be trusted to play with very dangerous toys or run nations.
Tell me which country has worse human rights record than Iraq?
Tell me how many died in Saddam's jails?
(nearest 10,000 is good enough)
How many died in the Anfal campaign of genocide against the Kurds?
(nearest 100,000 is good enough)
How many got raped by his professional rapists?
How many of the several hundred thousand Kurds killed in his genocide were
killed by chemical weapons?
How many Kurd leaders has Al-Ansar brigade killed on his orders?
Now ask yourself:
How much VX and Anthrax did Saddam produce? How much is left?
WHERE IS IT? (Hans Blix would like to know!)
And how many marching against war either (a) don't care about above items or (b) don't know about Saddam's brutality and terror ties and are too arrogant to get informed about it? (c) how many protesters are just going against the war because of the transgressive, cool nature of the anti-war propaganda?
Granted, people will die. Civilian casualties will result from the war, as Iraq will only be too happy to tell us. But there are times when justice demands the use of force as a response to violence, hatred, and injustice.
And what about other alternative peaceful measures? -Some may ask. Can deterrence work against Iraq? Clearly, Saddam Hussein has used the period since inspections ceased in 1998 to build up weapons of mass destruction. His previous use of those weapons and his ongoing efforts to violate UN agreements give little reason to have faith in deterrence. To be sure, it might be possible to keep Iraq contained within its borders. Saddam's army may not be sent anywhere at all. But even so, his weapons of mass destruction may well do a lot of travelling, whether through overt or covert use, whether at the hands of the Iraqis or of international terrorists. Therefore, deterrence must involve - as the UN itself has repeatedly agreed - keeping Saddam from acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
Long before any of us even heard of the Taleban, the repressed Afghan women raised their tormented faces and lamented 'why doesn't the West help us?' Just as the Iraqis has been for the past 20 years or so in Saddam's regime. A point made all the more clear by the welcoming reception they gave the US soldiers. We look back, as we should, with shame at our inaction while Bosnian Muslims and Rwandan Tutsis were being slaughtered. In violation of the just war framework, the cries of the innocent went unheard or unheeded. Of course, no administration can protect all Americans everywhere at every point in time. No country or international body can protect all civilians everywhere at every point in time from being preyed upon by the ruthless. That is utopian, and the just war tradition cautions against such utopianism and overreach. But it also insists that those who have the power to stop the mass killing of innocents may well be obliged to do so.
A lot will argue that the war is about oil; a point bantered widely by anti-protesters. While the whole topic about oil may take another long discourse by me, making the use of figures and statistics (and we all don't want to go into that!); the crux of my argument is that the fate of millions of Iraqis is more important than the outcome of the hypothetical assumptions many fantasists come out with to oppose the US hegemony. And even if acting on brutal self-interest, America did in its wake, liberate the Kuwaitis and Afghans. Is liberating the people of Iraq such a bad thing?