[Antiwar]
“With the Kosovo war, the criminal mendacity of U.S. foreign policy seemed to have reached its limit. The lies, the venality, the puffed-up grandiosity of our preening leaders and their repulsive spokespersons – surely, you think, it can’t get any worse that that. But just wait until you see what they have cooked up for us come September – a major new offensive in the U.S.-British war on Iraq, according to news reports. And preliminary indications are that it can indeed get worse.”
“The war on Iraq is not starting up again – because it never stopped. Since 1991, the U.S.-British attack has been continuous, albeit varied in its intensity, and casualties have been high. As many as one million Iraqis, mostly children, the elderly, and women, have been murdered by US sanctions, felled by malnutrition, disease, and the intolerable conditions imposed by the blockade. And also killed, in increasing numbers by the bombing raids carried out against Iraqi cities and villages. These raids have been stepped up, lately, as if in preparation for something bigger – and the propaganda war is also picking up, as witness this dispatch from the Associated Press that reads like something out of “Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.””
“AP reports that, after bombing Ba’shqua, a small town a few hundred miles north of Baghdad, and killing two civilians, a small child and a grandmother, “the US military “denied responsibility for the deaths.””
There “are no regrets. If the Iraqis are dying, it is their own fault, not ours. The sanctions are Saddam’s fault, since he has refused to surrender. The starving children are also Saddam’s responsibility – since he is supposed to be stealing the food and medicine and building palaces with the proceeds of his oil money. On top of all this, we are asked to believe that the Iraqi government is engaged in a massive auto-genocide. This obvious lie is repeated endlessly, hypnotically, to a mesmerized and massively indifferent American public, which is prepared to believe anything about Saddam. But just how long can they expect to get away with it? When the bombs really start falling in massive numbers, and the Iraqis have the hubris to actually fight back, are we going to have to listen to US officials blandly declare that “Saddam is killing his own people”?”
“The countdown to war begins at the mid-September meeting of the foreign ministers of the UN Security Council member states. Once again, Britain is the spearhead of the operation: it is the Brits who are expected to submit a resolution that will provide a new legal rationale for renewed military action against Iraq. Though backed by the US, Britain is taking the lead – politically as well as rhetorically. Just as President George Bush has his spine “stiffened” by the harpy Thatcher, so Clinton is being continually hectored into action by Blair and the British Foreign Office. This is a development that no doubt pleases the “Atlanticist” conservative intellectuals who surround George Dubya, but the conservative grassroots have to ask: is the US military now taking its marching orders from Number 10 Downing Street – and is this what they mean by “NATO expansion”?”
“The first hard news of pending military action against Iraq – an Agence France Presse dispatch which we linked to from this site – is written in an oblique and even mysterious style. It quotes a nameless Western diplomat “well acquainted with Iraqi affairs” who warns that the British resolution, if adopted, “will provide the United States and Britain with a new legal tool to take measures against Iraq. Pressure is rising in the United States to impose a deadline on Iraq to meet conditions set by the United Nations, after which Washington must act.” The diplomat went on to state, with an air of considerable authority, that “the US administration is under pressure to act quickly with only six months left before the start in earnest of the US presidential election campaign.” Under pressure – from whom?”
“Desert Storm II is brought to you by the same bipartisan cabal of politicians, profiteers, and ideologues that hailed President George Bush’s crusade for a “New World Order.” Fresh from their great “victory” in Kosovo, where the last of the Serb civilians are being hunted down and expelled, the NATO-crats are now setting their sights on Baghdad. And while there was some dissent in ruling circles about the wisdom of Bill and Tony’s Excellent Adventure, there is unity on the question of war with Iraq. The war-loving “progressives” of the Blairite Left and the war-crazed Tories in England and America, the Democrats and the Republicans, the oil companies and the arms industry, the foreign lobbyists and their American fifth column – soon they’ll all be clamoring for the Allies to “finish the job.” Will we wake up one morning, some day soon, to find that US troops are in the middle of Iraq, fighting alongside the British on the road to Baghdad? The only question is: when?”
“Under these circumstances, it is necessary for the antiwar movement to once again rev up its reluctant motor – or motors – and swing into action. Literally, that is what is needed – not editorials, articles, “links,” and cyber-talk, but action to stop this war before it starts. The fate of thousands of Iraqis is in your hands. Americans, and West Europeans, as residents of the aggressor nations (or, rather, subjects of the aggressor governments), have a particular moral responsibility to act before it is too late. […] Whatever the crimes of Saddam Hussein, he will have to answer to his own people, and to history, not to some judicial or political authority acting in the name of a “New World Order.” Our concern is with the crimes of our own governments, who bomb and starve children in the name of “international law” – and use war as a rationale to expand their own power over our lives.”
“Now is the time for Left and Right to unite and fight against the Clintonian war machine before it starts raining mass death on Iraq.”
“Come on, all you San Francisco lefties, Commies and concerned “liberals” alike – and all you libertarians out there – wake up and let’s get busy. We have to start exposing this one before it starts.”
Read more: IS IRAQ NEXT?
2021-week09
