NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, 11 September 2004 — A thousand US soldiers have now officially died in Iraq. Americans will soon vote on whether the war there is “worth the cost.”

That we don’t calculate the cost in Iraqi lives as well is a superpower’s prerogative. But regardless, Americans can’t yet answer whether the war is worth it. Because US President George Bush’s real reason for fighting the war is still unclear.

Bush’s stated reasons — that Saddam Hussein conspired with Al-Qaeda, possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that imposing democracy from the barrel of a gun would create a “freedom arc from Tel Aviv to Turkey” and perpetual peace would reign — proved bogus.

But US bellicosity toward Iran as it seeks nuclear capabilities clarifies things.

Bush’s war is about the three “B”s: Bases; Bombs (as in nuclear); and Balance of Power.

US Secretary of State Collin Powell showed himself utterly out of the neocon loop when he warned if the US “broke Iraq,” it would have to “fix it.”

Fix Iraq? Whatever for?

For the great democracy that will supposedly bloom there?

If democracy truly “blooms”, the three “B”s cannot be achieved, and the Yankees will have to go home. A thousand US lives spent for nothing. Best Iraq remain broken, lying shattered in ever-increasingly eviscerated pieces, to show the rest of the Middle East what might happen to them if they dare to do what Saddam did.

Go nuclear. Yes, Saddam dared, and for coming close, he was profoundly punished. Iran is now trying. And both Israel and the US are threatening to pre-emptively stop Iran in its tracks.

Neocons do not fear religion, Ayatollah rule, or terrorism. Saddam could not have been a more secular ruler, ruthlessly fighting Iran’s religious state with US assistance. His comfort to Al-Qaeda was minimal at best. It was his determination to possess nuclear weapons that sealed Iraq’s fate.

The Israelis bombed Iraq’s reactors twice, but failed to stop this process.

Enter the Americans.

Israel has the bomb. We need to ask now, before battling Iran: Are a thousand dead Americans, and thousands more to come, “worth it” to keep Israel the Middle East’s reigning nuclear power?

Israel began its own nuclear weapons program in 1949, after seeing how the atomic bomb made Japan’s warrior culture similar to Islamic militarism — surrender. American U-2 overflights observed Israel’s Dimona reactor, which Israel alternatively claimed was a textile plant, an agricultural station, and a metallurgical research facility. By 1960, Ben Gurion admitted Dimona was a nuclear facility, ostensibly “for peaceful purposes.” US inspectors came seven times in the 1960s, but were repeatedly stymied.

Sound familiar? Sound like Iraq?

In 1964, Israel’s secret reactor “went critical.” In 1966, Israel covertly tested. By 1967, Israel reportedly had at least two nuclear weapons, which Israel’s then-Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered armed during the Six Day War.

Armed for Armageddon. If Israel found itself losing to the Arabs, it could push the button. A button it steadfastly refused to admit it had.

A button that cost 34 American soldiers their lives and wounded 172 when Israeli aircraft and torpedo boats bombed their ship, the USS. Liberty, on June 8, 1967. The Liberty was a spy ship collecting intelligence on Soviet intercontinental bombers then stationed in Alexandria, Egypt. The Liberty’s crew insists it was in international waters and flying the US flag when the Israelis attacked. Of its 294 crew, three were National Security Agency technical advisors and linguists.

Another three were US Marine Russian and Arabic specialists.

Not one Hebrew specialist was aboard. The Liberty was not spying on Israel. But Israel was the nation with something to hide.

Scholars speculate Israel mistook the Liberty for an Egyptian freighter, or wanted to hide their planned invasion of the Golan Heights or their summary executions of hundreds of unarmed Egyptian POWs at El-Arish when the Liberty was just 13 miles offshore.

But the Liberty looked nothing like an Egyptian vessel, and Israel’s bad acts were not worth American lives. But killing Americans would be justified, to Israel, to hide Israel’s fledgling nuclear arsenal. And during the Six Day War, Israel not only bombarded the Liberty, but shot down one of its own valuable Mirage fighters when it accidentally strayed into Dimona’s air space. So secret was Dimona that in 1973, Israel shot down a Libyan airliner flying too close, killing 104 innocent passengers.

So add 34 more American lives to the 1,000 in Iraq.

And if we don’t count Iraqis, we certainly won’t be counting Libyans.

In the throes of an election where “draft-dodgers” impugn decorated “heroes,” remember the Liberty’s captain, William Loren McGonagle, awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity for defending his ship and crew from Israel.

Americans must consider the FBI’s investigation into Israeli spying, revolving around the neocons’ Iraq and Iran policies, and question how far they will go for Israel, and why.

Asking questions never killed anyone.

Right?

— Sarah Whalen is an expert in Islamic law and taught law at Loyola University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.