[Peace-discuss] Waging War Seldom Leads to Lasting Peace

[patton paul]

This is a great article, despite the inaccurate reference at the end to
the "democratically elected government of the world's superpower".
__________________________________________________________________
Dr. Paul Patton
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
Beckman Institute  Rm 3027  405 N. Mathews St.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign  Urbana, Illinois 61801
work phone: (217)-265-0795   fax: (217)-244-5180
home phone: (217)-328-4064
homepage: http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ppatton/index.html

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.  It is the
source of all true art and science."
-Albert Einstein
__________________________________________________________________

Published on Wednesday, September 18, 2002 in the lnternational Herald
Tribune
Waging War Seldom Leads to Lasting Peace
by Marwan Bishara


PARIS -- Those who advocate an attack on Iraq have short memories. Since
World War II, the use of force by the United States has consistently
failed to neutralize its adversaries beyond the short term. And in the
Middle East, wars and covert operations have only produced further
conflict.

When the United States tried to kill the Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi
with air strikes in 1986, it killed instead his daughter and 37 others.
The bombing of a Pan Am passenger jet over Lockerbie followed.

The U.S. cruise missile attack on Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998
killed 25 people but left bin Laden alive - and even more dangerous. When
the United States destroyed a factory in Sudan the same year, it turned
out to manufacture not chemical weapons but half of the country's
medicine.

Israel's American-supported military victories against the Arabs failed to
create conditions conducive to Israeli peace or to guarantee long-term
American interests. Instead, these wars have generated sufficient hatred
to transform people into human bombs.

Washington's logic of force has failed in the Middle East and elsewhere.
All three major American wars of the last half a century - in Korea,
Vietnam and the Gulf - ended in stalemate or defeat. Yet Bush
administration officials reckon more, not less, force is needed in order
to achieve America's goals. Contrary to international law, they are
advancing a new doctrine of preemption that gives Washington the right to
intervene anywhere it deems necessary.

By definition, however, unilateral actions are motivated by unilateral
thinking and interests, and therefore do not produce universal solutions.

America's logic of preemption means Libya, Sudan and perhaps Syria are
future candidates for American attacks. All have been labeled totalitarian
seekers of nonconventional capabilities with a terrible record of
aggression and violations of human rights. The Pentagon has already
counted 25 such states and terrorist organizations in pursuit of weapons
of mass destruction. So what to do about them?

In recent years, reflection on the many post-Cold War conflicts - which
have already killed more than 4 million people, mostly civilians - have
led to two American schools of thought.

The geoeconomic school says the dynamics of underdevelopment produce
economic disparities that feed crime and terrorism. Western-imposed
structural reforms in developing countries have led to contraction in
social services, elimination of subsidies for basic foodstuffs and the
dumping of foreign goods as protection for domestic industries ends.

Coupled with the failure of state-centered socialism, this has produced
belts of poverty around Cairo, Casablanca, Tehran and other centers that
have become fertile ground for local and international violence.

The other school underlines cultural differences as a source of conflict -
fundamentalism versus free markets, jihad versus McDonald's, and
eventually a "clash of civilizations." In a time of conflict, such fixed
views of "the other" conveniently slip into dehumanization.

Hence, Islamists have become irredeemable and Saddam Hussein and Osama bin
Laden constitute irrational menaces to human civilization. Never mind that
these two were once Washington's allies against Iranian fundamentalism and
Soviet communism.

The Bush administration has evidently adopted the second approach. Its
objective is not to "dry the swamps" that foster terrorism but rather, in
the words of The Economist, to "disinfect" them. In other words, we are in
for a long-term strategy of "ending" uncooperative regimes and doing away
with those who are not "with us."

Washington has lumped together Saddam and bin Laden, but Saddam is a
product of the petro-military conventional wars while bin Laden is a
by-product of globalization's transnational threats. In both cases, strict
military or economic prescriptions are simplistic and dangerous.

America's ultimate power resides in deterrence, not the actual use of
force. Power, especially when shared, is a source of stability, whereas
force generates instability and humiliation. Only arrogance can explain
the use of force with disregard to international law. Arrogance breeds
enemies and leads to mistakes. No wonder most Americans think America
should not act alone.

America's power doesn't lie just in its giant military. Its economy
accounts for almost one third of the world's economy, and its generates 40
percent of the world's research and development. Its capacity, along with
its allies, to improve life conditions, promote democracy and real
development and hence reduce violence, is unprecedented.

A global response to Sept. 11 could usher in a new era of multilateral
cooperation and revamped international law to deal with the new
transnational threats. An attack on Iraq would do exactly the opposite.
The immediate threat to world stability is coming not from the Iraqi
dictator but rather from the democratically elected government of the
world's superpower. Americans, the ball is in your court.

The writer, who teaches international relations at the American University
in Paris, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.

Copyright ) 2002 the International Herald Tribune