On Wed, Mar 19, 2003 at 12:47:16PM -0500, Jon Gabriel wrote: > http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/03/19/left/index.html
That was an excellent article, thanks for posting it. It is by far the closest to my own thoughts of any discussion I've read about the Saddam problem. Here is another excerpt from the article, dealing with arguments against the war and counter-arguments: 1. Conflict can be solved without war. This is a noble faith, and I wish it were true. But history is rich in examples of people who were able to throw off repression only with force, and sometimes only with the help of foreign allies. More than 50 million people dead in World War II prove the point. Moreover, the argument suggests that the Salvadoran rebels weren't right to take up arms against the death-squad government there, that Nicaraguans weren't right to take up arms against the Somoza dictatorship, that the African National Congress wasn't justified in employing arms against apartheid when apartheid would not yield to reason alone. Even the American revolution, perhaps the most durable democratic revolution in world history, was powered by the barrel of a gun. 2. We can't solve all of the world's problems. The popular variant: Why Iraq? Why now? Why not North Korea? I am tempted to answer: Yes, let's liberate North Korea too. There are 22 million people there living under a despotic, almost cultlike mind-control government that starves its population and pours its meager resources into soldiers and guns. But that is not the real intention of those who make this argument. They cite North Korea to block a move against Iraq, apparently untroubled that such a calculus leaves two despots in power rather than one. Such demands for moral consistency ignore the fact that there is no consistency in the nature of the conflicts and that each, therefore, requires a different approach. Because North Korea has a much bigger and more lethal military, it would be more difficult to unseat, and so the human cost of a military action against North Korea could be far higher. Further, it has seemed clear that Kim Jong Il wants negotiation, and because the U.S. has resisted, he is escalating the threat of violence. Saddam's game is much different, and by most accounts, he is much less likely to change through negotiation. 3. We have to let the Iraqis solve their own problems. This argument, very similar to arguments made on behalf of the Viet Cong in the 1960s, seems an homage to democratic self-determination. In fact, it is almost cruelly naive. Saddam's effectiveness over 20 years has been in crushing dissent before it has a chance to form. He arrests, imprisons, tortures and kills based on suspicion alone, and sometimes even in absence of suspicion. If you have a dissident thought, you not only risk your own life, but the lives of your family and friends. Coup attempts have repeatedly been cruelly crushed in advance. Saddam's willingness to back up the threat with violence, systematically, every day, millions of times, has assured that the Iraqis cannot solve this on their own. 4. Invading Iraq will give rise to a new legion of terrorists. The U.S. invasion of Kosovo helped protect a Muslim minority; the invasion of Afghanistan helped to free a Muslim population, though the follow-through has been insufficient. This argument assumes that other Muslims in the region are not smart enough to get that message. In fact, though, Saddam's support in the Muslim world is, at best, limited; despite the prevailing propaganda, Iraqi exiles in the region have had some influence in tempering the inclination to make Saddam an Arabic martyr. Yes, it's true that an invasion might drive some into the terrorist camp. But if we are paralyzed by that fear, or if we fail to act because we fear a terrorist counterattack, then the intolerance of the terrorists and the repression of the dictators win out over liberation. 5. We have to let the U.N. weapons inspectors finish their job. This is a credible argument, but it raises worrisome questions. According to a detailed written report prepared and delivered last week by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, the inspections teams has been unable to account for 550 shells and 450 bombs filled with mustard gas; 6,526 bombs containing about 1,000 tons of chemical warfare compounds; 10,000 liters of anthrax; and up to 19,000 liters of botulinum toxin. British foreign secretary Jack Straw -- once described by the Sunday Times of London as "the decent man of politics" -- last week further expanded the list of missing items: 1.5 tons of VX nerve agent; 6,500 chemical bombs and 30,000 weapons for delivering biological and chemical weapons. The question is: What if Saddam doesn't account for them, and the inspectors can't find them? Is an invasion justified then? Confronted with this contradiction, some antiwar activists have recently argued there is no evidence to prove that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. That argument is nearly untenable, except on a basis of wishful thinking. 6. This is a war for oil. The general variant: Bush does not have the right motive for war. The evidence suggests this is not a war for oil, or not purely so. Though Bush's motives have been as changeable as the political weather, and therefore largely unconvincing, the record suggests that some of his closest advisors believe that by moving the Taliban out of Afghanistan, turning Saddam out of Iraq and, perhaps, fomenting democratic revolution in Iran, the U.S. will have partially neutralized the cancerous anti-American sentiment that thrives in the region. Is that plausible? Perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't. Clearly, the women of Afghanistan are better off today than they were under the Taliban. Clearly, Saudi Arabia has signaled that it will move toward some modest democratic reforms. Many in the Iranian democracy movement believe that a U.S. intervention against Saddam will help their cause. But still, let's suppose the war-for-oil charge is true. Suppose further that, in the process of seizing control of the oil fields, Saddam's system of repression is broken and the political prisoners are freed. The result is unintended, but it is positive nonetheless. Or would it be better, as some seem to suggest, that Saddam and his system of terror be left in place if only so that Chevron didn't get control of the oil? 7. The U.S. is guilty of gross hypocrisy because it backed Saddam in the war against Iran and helped him rebuild after the Gulf War. Yes, the U.S. and other Western powers are guilty as charged. At what point, then, does the time come to correct the error and to make reparations for this moral failure? The arguments of the Bush hawks are no more persuasive. Even when they have argued that invading Iraq is a human rights issue, it's almost impossible to take them seriously because none of their arguments in favor of war have been steady or consistent. And yet, here is the paradox: Bush is insincere and untrustworthy, but at least he's talking about stopping torture and repression. On the left, none of these arguments frames the war issue as an issue of freedom (or even relative freedom) vs. totalitarianism. With the exception of the argument in favor of weapons inspections, each is designed to block forceful action against a dictator who has the DNA of Hitler and Stalin. None of the arguments above offers a plan for ending torture, ending suppression, and protecting human rights and civil liberties. -- "Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.net/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
