Hi Mary, Regarding the Marxist quote from me: I was answering a point about the ANSWER website, which I still haven't looked at. I should have said: it wouldn't surprise me if there was a lot of Marxist/Socialist Worker organization behind some anti-war actions. I didn't mean to imply that all anti-war campaigners are Marxists.
To address your points: Mary wrote: >1) Some of us have problems with the U.S., or a small group of >nations, serving as the "world's policeman." Who appointed this >group, under what legal or moral authority? When America was attacked on September 11, it earned the right to defend itself, and defence can be pre-emptive. It makes no sense to say that America was attacked by al-Qaeda and therefore can't defend itself by attacking Iraq. Al-Qaeda is not a terrorist group or a nation-state. It's an umbrella term for a number of related activist groups loosely associated with Islamic fundamentalism. These and other terrorist groups are financed by a number of governments. Iraq is one of them. No "smoking gun" evidence has been revealed of, say, a meeting between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but there are hundreds of intelligence reports of a relationship between Iraq and fundamentalist groups, prior to and since September 11. Iraq is also a major supporter of the Palestinian rejectionist groups, including Abu Nidal, PFLP, PFLP-GC, PLF, Hamas and others. All this gives America, in my view, the moral authority to act as "world policeman" when it comes to terrorism. Many would argue -- not only the moral right, but a duty. >Mary wrote: >2) The West preaches democracy, and them interferes consistently in >the internal affairs of others. Yes, here we're talking about the >internal affairs of a dictatorship, but at what point does the means >taint whatever good end may be accomplished? Yes, the means can taint the end, and I take that point and agree with it. But in this limited case of Iraq - we can't tell a man who is hanging upside down in an acid bath, or a woman who is being gang-raped by prison wardens in front of her husband and children, or a prisoner who is being kept in a morgue container for months on end with only 30 minutes daylight each 24 hours - that - yes, sorry, we could rescue you, but it would mean INTERFERING and that would "taint the end" i.e. would make your rescue somehow not worth it. The situation in Iraq is so appalling that there is very little America could do that would taint the end. And anyway, to talk of ends is to be a moral consequentialist, and I would say that's problematic in itself. Mary wrote: >3) The further loss of innocent life. Yes, point taken again. All we can do is hope that the Iraqis surrender quickly and I think they will. There would have been a loss of innocent life had the Allies bombed the concentration camps during WW2. Yet Jewish groups were begging them to do this, for obvious reasons. I believe this is a similar situation. Mary wrote: >4) The timing and location: why Iraq? Why now? To some of us, >this seems to be more about politics-as-usual than about solving a >problem. Why Iraq and why now? Because Saddam supports terrorism. Because he has weapons of mass destruction. Because Iraq is (potentially, I believe) the second largest oil supplier in the world. Because he is torturing his people. Because he has destroyed Iraq's economy. Because there is now, for the first time, a halfway credible opposition and they are begging for war. Because there is evidence of financial complicity in September 11. Because the last thing the world needs is a devil's pact between Saddam and the Islamic extremists. Saddam was only ever kept in power by the West as a bulwark against the Islamists: if he's no longer offering that, he's put himself out of business. And because, with Tony Blair and George Bush supporting each other, there is the will to do something. For all these reasons, now is the time. >Mary wrote: >5) The hypocrisy of the "weapons of mass destruction" argument >(slippery phrase, by the way. What exactly does it mean?). Which >nations have the most "weapons of mass destruction"? What if some >othe nation, or cadre of nations, decided to regulate THEM (us)? >Who decides, and based on what? Based on who is abiding by the rule of law. Based on who can be trusted not to use them, or to use them only defensively. Based on which countries are democracies. You seem to be saying there's no choosing between America, UK, Europe on the one hand, and Iraq, N. Korea, Libya, Iran on the other. But there's a huge moral difference between these countries. Weapons of mass destruction is not, as I see it, a slippery phrase. These are weapons which can cause massive casualties: nuclear, chemical and biological. Take the germ warfare program as an example. This has been developed by Rihab Taha, an Iraqi woman with a British PhD. She has ADMITTED to producing 19,000 litres of botulism toxin and 8,500 litres of anthrax. One tiny drop of either would kill a healthy adult. This is only what she has admitted to making. In 1988 alone, Iraq imported 39 tons of growth media -- 17 tons of which remain unaccounted for. Growth media is a mixture of sugar, proteins and minerals that allows microscopic life to grow. It has a legitimate use in hospitals where swabs are placed in the mixture for diagnostic purposes. Iraq's consumption of growth media in hospitals was just 200 kg a year according to UNSCOM. So what has it done with the missing 17 tons? Taha has also admitted making aflatoxin, which causes liver failure; ricin, a castor bean derivative which impedes circulation and causes lung damage; and clostridium perfringens, which causes gas gangrene, a flesh-rotting disease. She also led research on foot and mouth disease, cholera, salmonella and the Plague, as well as a virus that kills children by causing diahorrea, another virus that causes the eyes to bleed and - most worryingly - camel pox, believed by intelligence agencies to have been used as a model for smallpox, as camel pox is safer for the scientists to work with, but uses the same growth medium as smallpox. Three million smallpox particles would fit onto the period at the end of this sentence, yet just one is enough to infect someone. In 1990, just after the invasion of Kuwait, Saddam ordered Taha to find a way to load these viruses onto rockets and bombs. She did this, producing around 155 biological bombs within the following few months. Again, this is only the number she has admitted to producing. That is what is meant by "weapons of mass destruction". Mary wrote: >6) The slippery slope that's being created by the U.S., perhaps >aided by some allies, launching a preemptive first strike against a >nation that *it believes* has weapons that it *may* use >irresponsibly. First strikes have never been official U.S. policy: >at least, not for major actions. Why start now? Is this threat >that much removed, categorically, from all others that the U.S. and >other Western nations have faced? And it is, where's the proof? Is >there ANYTHING that Iraq could do to convince the U.S. and its >allies that it doesn't have what it's thought to have? I think not. The U.S. and UK have the proof, but they're not making it public because they would endanger their sources. This isn't bluster. They have some good human sources in Iraq who are invaluable and who are risking their lives, and they don't want them to die. The US is helping Blix, has just started to, and is going to do it slowly, to see whether he can be trusted. But it isn't hard to work out what some of the proof is, Mary. Most of the parts, equipment, viruses, growth media etc have been supplied by the West, most notably Germany. So it's just a question of asking these companies what they supplied. How do you disarm Saddam, if not by a first strike? Wait until he's sent a nuclear bomb to Tel Aviv? A question for you: what facts would convince you that this is a just war? Sarah
