http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,903740,00.html 'The US and UK don't care about Iraqis - they've been killing them for years' Thursday February 27, 2003 The Guardian Julian Barnes Odd, isn't it, how late the humanitarian argument is popped into the shopping basket, how close to the deadline those intent on war spot, say, the oppression of Afghan women, or the fascistic nature of General Galtieri? Like most of the February 15 marchers, I find "anti-war equals pro-Saddam" mendacious bullshit. I am anti-war in the sense that I am anti this war now, there, by us, with the justifications so far stated. If Saddam is a threat to his entire region, should we not wait for his region to ask our help? If a threat to his people, there is always the old system of assisting an uprising - except there was one after the last war, wasn't there, and we hung its participants out to dry. I decline to buy the sudden idea of a "humanitarian war" when it will be conducted on current American guidelines: keep US casualties below the level of an average supermarket- mall massacre, bomb from high altitude, road-test the latest hardware, and oops, sorry about that wedding party which just went up in smoke. If, on the other hand, we are now announcing a new and truly ethical foreign policy, in which filthy oppressors worldwide are to be removed in order of filth, I would say that this should be done only with a very high majority vote in the UN, and that former - and current - imperial powers should be extremely cautious in their use of hectoring cant. Those who are anti-war have not somehow been cornered by the question, So, peaceniks, what would you do now? It's quite legitimate to answer, well, we wouldn't be here now, because we wouldn't have started from there then. Instead, a question in return. Saddam disarms voluntarily: do we then invade on humanitarian grounds? Mohamed Heikal In the atmosphere of hysteria in the area now, and with the massive build up of men and arms in the region, and with the feeling of widespread frustration engulfing the Arab world, I think what I will say now could seem like a fantasy and yet I dare to say it. Put the breaks on that horrible machine of war. Keep the inspectors. Ease the sanctions. Give the Iraqi people a chance. Using force would be very dangerous. It will unite Islam, Arab nationalism, Bin Ladinism, terror, the Israel-Palestinian conflict - the frustration in the Arab world will be brought together in one charge. As for sanctions, the problem is that they are helping the regime. I would leave it to the Iraqi people who are coming to the end of their patience. If they were left alone they would take their destiny into their own hands. Sanctions make people dependent on the regime for the distribution of food. If you lifted sanctions you would find that so many things would change. As for the inspectors, they should stay, even though I am completely sure Iraq doesn't have anything. The Americans are all over the area with their U2s and all that and we saw from Colin Powell's presentation to the UN that they are listening to everything; they simply don't have anything. How do you stop them getting the weapons again? They were quite far away from having the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb, probably 10 years. With the biological and chemical weapons, they have the knowledge but any third-world country has the knowledge. If you ease the sanctions, I don't think there is any harm keeping the system of inspections for a long time to come. � Egyptian writer and former adviser to Gamal Abdel Nasser Harold Pinter "What should we do?" The question should be: "What have we done?" The US and the UK couldn't care less about the Iraqi people. We've been killing them for years, through sustained bombing and the brutal sanctions which have deprived hundreds of thousands of children of essential medicines. Many of them are dying and are dead from the effects of depleted uranium, used in the Gulf war. The west has shown total indifference to these facts. What is now on the cards is further mass murder. To say we will rescue the Iraqi people from their dictator by killing them and by destroying the threadbare infrastructure of their country is an insult to the intelligent. We have no moral position in this matter whatsoever. The impending war is about testing new weapons of mass destruction (ours) and control of oil. The arms manufacturers and the oil companies will be the beneficiaries. The United States will be making a giant stride towards controlling the world's resources. The whole thing is about "full spectrum dominance" - a term coined by the US - not me. Noam Chomsky Exactly the right question, and in my opinion, we know exactly the right answer to it. It's useful to remember that Saddam Hussein is not the only monster supported by the present incumbents in Washington until he did something contrary to their interests. There's a long list that they supported right to the end of their bloody rule - Marcos, Duvalier, and many others, some of them as vicious and brutal as Saddam, and running tyrannies that compare well with his: Ceausescu, for example. They were overthrown internally, despite US support for them. That's been prevented within Iraq by the murderous sanctions regime, which has devastated the population while strengthening Saddam, and forcing the population to become hopelessly reliant on him for survival. Solution? Give Iraqis a chance to survive, and there's every reason to believe that they'll get rid of him the way that others have. Meanwhile, strengthen measures to ensure that Saddam, or some replacement, doesn't develop significant military capacity. Not a very serious problem right now, since as is well known, Iraq is militarily and economically the weakest country in the region, but it could be down the road, and in his hands, it would be likely, even without the US and UK to supply him. � Institute professor at the department of linguistics and philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Margaret Drabble Weapons inspections must be part of the answer, and they seem to be having consider able effect. It is true that they are backed up by the threat of force, but this must come from a united United Nations, not from the United States, which is recklessly and deliberately doing its best to undermine the UN's authority. The unilateral threat of force from the US is arousing global hatred and untold potential violence, with implications far beyond the present situation, and it is putting us all at risk. I see no justification for declaring war on Iraq. The human cost of sanctions is high but less incalculable than the human cost of war. We are told that Saddam is uniquely evil, and his regime uniquely wicked, as though this would justify pre-emptive action against him. But he is also 65 years old and frightened and he and his regime will not live for ever. Nobody expected the Berlin Wall to fall, but it did. And so will Saddam fall. His grip on power must by now be tenuous. The fewer innocent lives he takes with him, the better. JG Ballard I think there are great dangers in going to war now and one has to accept that the world is not a perfect place. It may be that we have to accept that Saddam's Iraq represents one of the world's blackspots that we can't do very much about. This notion that we need to replace all the world's unsatisfactory, unpleasant or cruel regimes, if put into practice, would destabilise the entire planet. We pay our diplomats and economic experts huge sums of money to come up with sanctions, economic pressures, bribes and economic and political threats. Saddam has been contained with them for the past 11 years. As far as I know he's not feeding dangerous weapons (assuming he's developed them) to terrorist groups. As for the sanctions: some things can't be justified. But a million or more people were killed in Rwanda and as far as I know we did absolutely nothing. Some of the more unpleasant regimes in the world today have deplorable human-rights records - China, for example. But we're only too eager to get enough McDonald's into their country. There's no council of perfection. One has to accept that in an imperfect world, but leaving Saddam where he is, under the sort of economic pressures that he is under, would be more effective than launching a full-scale blitzkrieg against the man. That's going to have huge repercussions. In a paradoxical way, Saddam may be a force for stability in the Middle East, in the sense that the playground bully - like the drunk on the aeroplane - concentrates the mind of everyone else. Michael Atiyah The people of Iraq should be saved from war, from sanctions and from Saddam Hussein - in that order. By all means let the UN keep its inspectors there, increasing them if necessary, and widening their scope to include humanitarian objectives. At the same time, we should lift sanctions on all except the most obviously dangerous materials. This would show that the outside world was genuinely interested in helping the Iraqi people. With the relaxation of tension, with outside aid and with a firm UN presence in Iraq there would be the prospect of internal liberalisation and change, leading in due course to a peaceful change of regime. Meanwhile relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds would be transformed by a fair settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli problem. All this should be the real UN objective, and it would carry the full force of undivided world opinion. I am glad that Tony Blair, realising the unconvincing nature of the threat posed by Iraq, has shifted to the high moral ground. I, too, am all in favour of helping the Iraqi people but I would prefer not to kill them first. � Leading mathematician and former president of the Royal Society Woody Harrelson There is no question that Saddam Hussein is a brutal, evil, genocidal tyrant who has pursued weapons of mass destruction and probably lies awake at night dreaming of his own little stockpile and eventual world domination, starting with the Middle East. The US and British governments understand what weapons of mass destruction he has procured because they sold them to him. They understand that he is the most brutal kind of terrorist - because they created him. So what should we do? Stop the sanctions. If we believe in human life, then let the Iraqi civilians have the medicines and things they need to survive. Don't let 5,000 children die per month and add to the 500,000 that have already lost their lives because of the sanctions that have been in place since the Gulf war. Let the inspections continue. The UN was designed to deal with situations just like these. Let them do their job. What's the hurry? This mad march to war is because the Bush oiligarchy doesn't want to take the time to potentially discover that there are no weapons of mass destruction. No matter what Iraqi's level of compliance, no matter if the UN is with them or not, no matter how many millions take to the streets, they want war. And most of all, we need to sift through the fear-based media and distinguish between propaganda and fact. Propaganda: this is a war on terrorism. Fact: this is a war for oil. Propaganda: George W Bush declares: "Of course, we prefer a peaceful solution." Fact: 77,000 body bags were just ordered by the Pentagon for potential American "casualties". Ken Livingstone All the evidence is that the weapons inspection regime in Iraq is working. After three months the inspectors have found no significant evidence indicating that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction capable of threatening its neighbours and that would justify war. The inspections should continue to ensure this. Implementation of UN resolutions must be maintained for Iraq and be extended to other countries in the region. This is particularly the case for Israel, which is in violation of UN resolutions to withdraw from the occupied territories. Selective, rather than general, enforcement of UN resolutions will create permanent instability in the region with global consequences. Terry Eagleton We must take seriously the idea that for humanitarian issues we must do this, and the left needs to take into account the fact that if the second UN resolution goes through they will lose a lot of support. However, those on the other side must face questions from us about why we didn't do this five years ago? Why are we clinging to the coat tails of the States when they have never made the humanitarian reasons a priority for war. Questions such as these assume that there is an answer, that there is black and there is white but there is sometimes a balance of evils. I believe that there are some moral situations that do not have a straightforward answer and I don't have a pat answer for this or any other moral issue. I am against war because, while the humanitarian argument is strong, the long-term backlash is not a price I am prepared to pay. I believe the process of containment has worked fine for 12 years and while the things we can do might be inadequate there are options. Giving the weapons inspectors more time and more power is a start; contain and supervise him while we wait for a bullet to get rid of him. � Literary critic 27.02.2003: Ronan Bennett: 'Any fool can make war. Peace requires greater vision and courage' 27.02.2003: Zadie Smith: 'We proceed in Iraq as hypocrites and cowards - and the world knows it' 27.02.2003: Voices against war: 'If Saddam were to be removed, it should be by M16 or the CIA' 27.02.2003: Voices against war: 'It's not our job to pull Arab chestnuts out of the fire for them'
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