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http://www.dawn.com/2002/09/24/op.htm#3 Dawn (Pakistan) September 24, 2002 Doublethink By Omar Kureishi One accepts the utter futility of writing about the looming war in Iraq. The minds are made up in Washington DC. When the Pentagon speaks, the case is closed. Why then do some of us continue to write? I see it as a kind of catharsis, getting it off our chest, purging the anger one feels at the prospect of hundreds of thousands people being killed, a country destroyed, an entire region destabilized. For what? To rid the world of Saddam Hussain, the most dangerous man in the world, in some such words of Tony Blair, who no doubt will mount a white steed and lead the charge to Baghdad. Actually, he won't. He will stay snug at 10 Downing Street as will Dick Cheney in his safe, secret hideaway, speeding "glum heroes up the line of death" (Siegfried Sassoon). In more chivalrous times, the knights in shining armour went themselves to battle. Now they only send in the armour, though this is not likely in Iraq, there will be no ground-battles. The Yanks will be coming from the air, B-52s and Stealth bombers and if boldness is required, helicopter gun-ships, a high-tech version of the flying carpets. John Dillinger was one of the most notorious gangsters in the rich and varied history of mob-crime in the United States. He was on the 'most wanted' list. Herbert Hoover's G-Men did everything possible to hunt him down. The option was not then available to bomb Chicago to the stone-age in order to kill or capture him. Though the United States did mount a full scale invasion of Panama in order to get one of its former agents, Manuel Noreiga. It was during that invasion that the Stealth bomber made its debut. It seemed a safe enough war to put this billion dollar aircraft through its paces. For good measure, the United States also invaded Grenada, no doubt for reasons of self-defence, the reported presence of some Cuban advisers constituting a clear and present danger. As if to demonstrate that Britain and the United States were two hearts that beat as one or not to be upstaged by Reagan, Margaret Thatcher took Britain into war against Argentina over the Falkland Islands. One of the benefits of this war was that many Britishers were given a geography lesson. Most didn't know where or what the Falkland Islands were. A salad dressing? In all this war merry-making, the United Nations was an on-looker as it had been during the Vietnam war. In his speech to the United Nations, George Bush Jr. had asked: "Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it become irrelevant?" The United Nations has been irrelevant since it came into being, as had been the League of Nations. The League of Nations had been founded after World War-1 with the avowed objective to make the world safe for democracy. It watched, helplessly, as Japan invaded China, it remained silent when Mussolini invaded Abbyssinia and was powerless as Hitler tore up the Versailles Treaty and went on a binge in Europe. The League of Nations was impotent because collective security did not suit the ambitions of those major powers who could have prevented World War-2. Not having learnt any lessons, the United Nations came into existence at San Francisco in 1945 with an even loftier objective, "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." It's a pretty gloomy record, the United Nations does not deserve to be called even 'a paper tiger.' George Bush Jr. made it perfectly clear that the United States would do what it thought was in its best interests and the United Nations could tag along and any resolutions that the Security Council came up with would have no bearing on the plans to invade Iraq. What the United States was asking the United Nations to do was to provide it with the fig-leaf of multilateralism. The United States wants Iraq to surrender unconditionally and to hand over the head of Saddam Hussain on a silver platter or in a gunny-bag. It does not matter which. Saddam Hussain has weapons of mass destruction and would not hesitate to use them. As I wrote in a previous column, weapons of mass destruction per se do not pose a threat. It depends on who has them. Saddam Hussain used chemical weapons in the Iraq-Iran war and 'gassed' his own people. Clearly barbaric acts. In the Vietnam war, US planes dropped more than bombs. C-123 transport planes destroyed thousands of acres of forest and crops by spraying them with chemical herbicides, also known as defoliants. The most commonly used defoliant was Agent Orange which contained dioxin, a highly poisonous substance. Neil Sheehan in his Pulitzer Prize winning book A Bright Shining Lie discloses that "after the war scientific tests indicated that the Vietnamese of the South had levels of dioxin in their bodies three times higher than inhabitants of the United States." One can understand the concerns about chemical weapons by those who have used them and have first-hand knowledge of their effects. There is speculation that Iraq may have nuclear weapons. There is no speculation about Israel. It is a confirmed fact that Israel has them. But Ariel Sharon is a man of peace. The Star of David on the Israeli flag is really an olive branch. Welcome to doublethink. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? 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