[Peace-discuss] Fwd: IVINS: Sometimes You Should Leave the Rattlesnake Alone

[Margaret E. Kosal]

Nothing new ... but Molly has such a effective way of sayin' it  ...

>IVINS: Sometimes You Should Leave the Rattlesnake Alone
>
>MOLLY IVINS
>CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
>
><http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jan/01162003/commenta/commenta.asp>http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jan/01162003/commenta/commenta.asp 
>
>
>     AUSTIN, Texas -- "Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, 
> but a means by which we arrive at that goal." -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
>     Normally, making the case for peace over war requires the brain of a 
> gnat. "Jaw, jaw," said Winston Churchill, "is better than war, war." 
> There's not much historical evidence that war does anyone any good: some 
> rare cases of "just war" under St. Augustine's definition. Mostly war (A) 
> kills a lot of people, causing hard feelings; (B) doesn't solve anything; 
> (C) has hideous unintended consequences that often lead to more war. 
> Avoid war if at all possible is the first rule of statesmanship.
>     Conservatives are fond of pointing out there are problems in this 
> world that can't be solved by throwing money at them. There are even more 
> that can't be solved by dropping bombs on them.
>     We are in such a strange position here, preparing to attack a country 
> that has neither attacked us nor threatened to attack us. President Bush 
> calls his new doctrine "pre-emptive war," but pre-emptive war is what 
> Israel did in 1967, with the Egyptian army massing on its borders. They 
> attacked first under clear threat. John Ikenberry, professor of 
> international relations at Georgetown University, told The Washington 
> Post that this administration has embarked on something "quite 
> extraordinary in American history, a preventive war, and the threshold 
> for justification should be extraordinarily high."
>     Try to wrap your mind around the concept of preventive war. We tried 
> having a war to end wars (didn't work); now we're having a war to prevent war?
>     I am perfectly well aware there is a case to be made for taking out 
> Saddam Hussein -- you can make it on humanitarian grounds alone. The 
> question is whether it's riskier to leave him alone or take him out. The 
> oldest of all Texas dicta is, "Leave the rattlesnake alone." Those of us 
> who spend time outdoors here not infrequently encounter snakes and 
> sometimes have to kill them. But the rule is: You don't bother the snake, 
> snake won't bother you. Saddam Hussein is 68 years old and slipping.
>     I assume we can defeat Hussein without great cost to our side (God 
> forgive me if that is hubris). The problem is what happens after we win. 
> The country is 20 percent Kurd, 20 percent Sunni and 60 percent Shiite. 
> Can you say, "Horrible three-way civil war?" And as George W. Bush 
> himself once said, "Unrest in the Middle East causes unrest throughout 
> the region."
>     Let me point out what we have already lost: enormous amounts of 
> goodwill and esteem all over the world. We are the saber-rattlers here; 
> we are the aggressors, and the world knows it. The indifference of this 
> administration to the opinions of the rest of the world is astonishing. 
> After 9-11, we threw away more goodwill and sympathy than you can imagine 
> by switching from the hunt for Al Qaeda to this ancillary (if that) 
> mission to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
>     There is no evidence connecting Iraq to Al Qaeda. As Rep. Dennis 
> Kucinich of Ohio said in a recent speech: "Iraq has not committed any act 
> of aggression against the United States. Iraq was not responsible for 
> 9-11. Iraq was not responsible for the anthrax attack on our nation. The 
> United Nations has yet to establish that Iraq has useable weapons of mass 
> destruction. There is no intelligence that Iraq has the ability to strike 
> at the United States. According to the CIA, Iraq has no intention to 
> attack America, but will defend itself if attacked."
>     "Why, then, is our nation prepared to send 300,000 of our young men 
> and women into house-to-house combat in the streets of Baghdad and Basra? 
> Why is our nation prepared to spend $200 billion or more of our 
> hard-earned tax dollars for the destruction of Iraq?"
>     Richard Perle, chair of the Pentagon's Defense Advisory Board, is a 
> leading member of the small attack-Iraq-no-matter-what claque that is 
> relentlessly pushing this war. He said bluntly last week in Britain that 
> it makes no difference whether the U.N. weapons inspectors find anything 
> or not. Great, we're ready to go to war on no evidence.
>     This war is not inevitable, and the person who can stop it is you. 
> Monday, Jan. 20 is Dr. King's holiday. People all over the country will 
> be rallying and marching in his honor, celebrating not only his eloquent 
> opposition to racism and poverty, but his equally passionate protests 
> against militarism. You get more than a vote in this country. You get to 
> speak up. Write, phone, fax and e-mail your representative, senators and 
> the White House. Vote in the streets. Do it.
>     "History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period 
> of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but 
> the appalling silence of the good people." -- Dr. King
>     -- -- -- --
>
>Comment:  Both CIA Director Tenet and former head of Iraqi military 
>intelligence al-Sammurai have said that it is an attack on Iraq that might 
>provoke Saddam's use of biological weapons.