The month of December saw several faiths this year celebrating their religious holidays. Muslims celebrated the end of the month Ramadan, and Christians reveled in Christmas cheer. And as they gathered with their loved ones, their close families and friends, how much thought was being given to the drums of war beating ever so loudly by the US government?
Barely had the initial reports from the UN inspectors reached the UN offices in New York, when the US government, along with Tony Blair trotting obediently in tow, declared that war must go on. And this in spite of several appeals by the top UN inspector that there was not yet any proof that Saddam was indeed building these awful weapons of mass destruction that would destroy Washington and London, let alone Iraq having any remote capability of launching them!
And notwithstanding the fact that US and British warplanes have been patrolling the skies over Iraq ever since the Gulf War with little or no resistance from the Iraqis, US officials and a host of unnamed sources within the Pentagon, were busily portraying Iraq as the potential purveyors of Armageddon, with no more facts to base such claims on than the sensory perceptions within a few feet of their noses.
Then why is there this continuing urgency by President Bush et al to push alarm buttons in the directions of Iraq? Is it in pursuit of more blood, now that things have settled down in Afghanistan? The US defense budget has certainly taken a dramatic hike upwards, so wouldn’t now be a good time for the Pentagon generals to try out their own weapons of mass destruction?
Is it for the rich oil fields that lie under Iraq? So what if the price is collateral damage‚ in the form of a few million innocent Iraqis? Bombs do go astray, you know. The French and the Russians would then have to negotiate with the conquering powers for the lease rights on such rich territory. Could this all be thirst for oil?
Or is this a personal vendetta between Bush Jr. and Saddam? After all, Bush Sr. elected to have Saddam walk. Is it to prove to the American public that Bush Jr. has cojones? And please don’t read me wrong. Saddam is a bad guy. But then so are Mugabe, Sharon, and a host of other cruel and murderous tyrants. But I don’t see the US war machine busily engaging itself towards those countries.
The US media in pursuit of advertising dollars is busily engaging itself for the upcoming drama by a host of nightly news specials determined to define and simplify the Iraqi nation as one more threatening than Al-Qaeda. And in quite a few cases, those very unnamed sources‚ have even been quoted in the US press inferring that Al-Qaeda is being spawned by Iraq. Such bull and balderdash is apparently being sold in heavy doses to the unsuspecting American public.
The US government is today wearing the hat of the world’s top cop. Such a position carries along with it great moral responsibility and need for restraint. But what good is having all that power if you cannot use it? The present administration, ever so trigger happy, is content to go at it alone if it has to. This approach has generated distrust of their motives, and any international goodwill generated as a result of the 9/11 attacks is fading fast in the face of such rowdiness and political mayhem.
And a news item on one of the wire services recently summed it all up. After a formal strategy session on Iraq had broken up in the White House Situation Room, two senior officials continued to argue about how the world’s only superpower ought to act. The Pentagon’s man said that if America has clout, it must use it: “This is the era of American hegemony,” he argued. “We don’t need allies.” The State Department’s man countered that it is not enough to impose America’s will on the world. “You live in a different world than I do,” was the blunt reply.
A different world indeed! Iraq today is surrounded by legions of US forces that heavily dot the map of the region. Yet the Iraqis are no more a threat to Washington than Santa Claus on his sled!
This is an immoral war! An unjustified war! And the evidence up to date has validated every moral and conscientious objection to the evil that propels this pursuit of human destruction. When bombs leave their pods or bays, they make no distinction between the innocent or otherwise.
Look over and around to your loved ones this holiday season. If the images of some of them blown up and in shreds appeals to your sense of humanity, crippled or maimed as surely hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children will become, then indeed the war must go on!
— Tariq A. Al-Maeena, [email protected]
Arab News Features 28 December 2002