[Peace-discuss] Assume they find WMDs

[Ricky Baldwin]

I agree that we should start using these arguments –
last year.  For most of us, any finding of WMD’s in
Saddam backyard won’t change our opinion.  Even a UN
Security Council vote, or a Congressional declaration
of war, wouldn’t sway us.  We’re against war because
it’s crazy, immoral and stupid.  

As Jim says, war will only get us more blowback – and
debt – not protect us.

As John says, the US is in violation of UN
Resolutions, and so are several of our allies – in the
case of Turkey and Israel, quite a few more violations
than Iraq.  Some of these, by the way, involve
“weapons of mass destruction”. (And the US is still
the only country ever in the whole history of the
world to drop an atomic bomb on anybody, let us not
forget, both times on civilian targets, in violation
of the rules of war at the time.  So can “we” be
trusted more than Saddam Hussein?  Obviously not,
especially since we backed him for years.  That’s not
guilt; that’s evidence.) 

The Bush Administration has been backing away since it
took office, too, from what progress had been made
towards reducing the world’s nuclear arsenals, right? 
Same goes for landmines and many other monstrous
inventions, as Margaret always reminds us.  In my
opinion, we should take every opportunity to take up
Bush's call for disarmament, and turn it back on him: 


Sure, we want Iraq disarmed, along with Israel and the
whole region (as called for in the UN Resolutions
passed twelve years ago), as well as the US and
everybody else.  But let’s not be hypocrites.  Let’s
start with the country with the most “weapons of mass
destruction”, the country that trains and supplies the
most terrorists, the country we have the most
influence over, the country we have a democratic right
to control – not small fry like Saddam Hussein.

But the single-minded question will always be: So how
do we deal with Saddam Hussein?  I think we shouldn’t
dodge the question.  We do have a special
responsibility in Iraq, and several other countries
where the US influence has not been exactly good for
the locals.  Our first responsibility there must be to
help the Iraqi people: aid not sanctions.  Shouldn’t
there at least be an arms embargo?  Definitely, for
the whole region.  In fact, we should start treating
the arms trade like the slave trade.  Then we can get
down to some serious negotiations that might help
somebody (not an easy task even then, but a damn sight
better than in the present tinderbox setting).

Anyway, that’s my idea.  Others will have theirs.  And
it is worth a little discussion, but ultimately we
don’t need a polished and perfected plan unless we
have some dream of implementing it.  What we need to
be doing is talking to more and more people, spreading
the good word and trying to find a few more helpers. 
Maybe we should be having this discussion in the
context of “How to Talk to Your Neighbors About the
War” - ?

Maybe we could even practice on each other?

Ricky

--- Jim Buell <jbuell at prairienet.org> wrote:
> I'd second both your arguments - no amount of hidden
> weapons could justify 
> the US government's engaging in a pre-emptive
> invasion and war that is 
> predicted, and intended, to kill half a million
> civilians. As even American 
> Legion types are fond of saying, "This country
> doesn't start wars, we 
> finish them." (Yeah, I know that isn't the
> historical reality, but the 
> so-called Bush Doctrine yanks away even the pretense
> in an abhorrent new 
> way. Most people, in the US as elsewhere, are
> repulsed by that, I think.)
> 
> Even people who somehow believe that incinerating
> another half-million 
> Iraqis would be "worth it" (re-borrowing Madeline
> Albright's words) to save 
> a few thousand Americans, would have to realize that
> a massacre of this 
> scale is guaranteed to lead to massive retaliatory
> terrorism for 
> generations to come. And even that says nothing of
> what an even more 
> emboldened group of US militarists and profiteers
> would be itching to 
> perpetrate elsewhere around the globe, if this
> invasion turns out to be as 
> much a turkey-shoot as the attackers think it will
> be - and what the 
> responses of billions of infuriated people might be
> to those further 
> spiralings into a brutal, totalitarian global
> empire. That's not only 
> nightmarish - it's utterly unsustainable given how
> over-armed the nations 
> of this planet are. The answer has to revolve around
> putting the power and 
> resources of this nation and the world into
> furthering real democratic aims 
> like those articulated in FDR's Four Freedoms speech
> and the UN's 1948 
> Universal Declaration on Human Rights. That cannot
> be done at missile 
> point, and certainly not by setting up the kind of
> corporate-friendly 
> neo-colonial kleptocracy that is envisioned for a
> post-apocalyptic, er, 
> post-war, Iraq.
> 
> Jim
> 
> At 11:22 AM 2/6/2003 -0600, John Fettig wrote:
> >* Chuck Minne <mincam2 at yahoo.com>:
> > >  Put differently, what do we say when the
> evidence is discovered? And
> > >  shouldn't we be saying it now?
> >
> >What you already said is a good start.  You can be
> assured that they are
> >either going to find WMD's, or at the very least
> prove that they exist.
> >There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Saddam
> is hiding things
> >that he is not supposed to have.  But it doesn't
> change my feelings
> >about turning 10 million Iraqis into refugees (or
> at least make them
> >need humanitarian aid), nor does it change my
> feelings about killing 1/2
> >million civilians (these are UN estimates!).
> >
> >So that's my main argument.  War is terrible...we
> should not start one.
> >In this situation diplomacy and investigation has
> not proven (in my
> >mind) to be of no use, we should continue to
> pressure Saddam through
> >inspections and diplomatic measures, but we should
> not resort to war.
> >Anybody who is for the war is going to jump on you
> for this argument,
> >though.  Bush and his henchmen are working round
> the clock to convince
> >the American people that inspections and diplomacy
> have failed, and that
> >we have no other choice but war.
> >
> >So basically I feel as though the people of this
> country would back a
> >war if they thought it would make them safer.  The
> moral question that
> >they need to answer is: does saving the life of a
> few thousand americans
> >justify the slaughter of 1/2 million Iraqis?  I am
> always surprised when
> >people answer this question with a yes; well maybe
> more saddened than
> >surprised.
> >
> >John
> >
> >_______________________________________________
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>
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> 
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