Monday, February 2, 1998
Bombing Iraq would be a mistake
WAR Americans should get facts straight before inciting more
violence
By Christopher Calder
Our politicians have disseminated a great deal of propaganda to
justify a new bombing campaign against Iraq. Saddam Hussein has
been compared to other world conquerors like Adolph Hitler, which
is utter nonsense. Hussein was our nurtured "ally" until recently
and was so loyal and polite he even asked our permission to invade
Kuwait. He thought he had received our permission through our
ambassador before he attacked. Hussein only wanted to invade
Kuwait, not Saudi Arabia. Britain artificially created Kuwait for
its own selfish interests and Iraq simply wanted it back. Iraq was
also angered by Kuwait drilling oil from Iraqi wells. I do not
justify the invasion. I simply wish the United States to understand
Iraq’s motives.
The United States has never had a mutual defense pact with
Kuwait, and neither has Britain, France nor Israel. All of those
countries have attacked Iraq without direct provocation and all of
those nations have "weapons of mass destruction." Remember, Israel
destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor a few years before the war. How
would Americans feel if a foreign nation bombed one of our
reactors? Would we forgive and forget and turn the other cheek?
We evicted Iraq from Kuwait, killing thousands of Iraqi soldiers
as well as many civilians. Through a seven-year embargo we have
killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, the sick and the
elderly. Now we wish to bomb Iraq some more though Iraq has never
attacked or even threatened to attack the United States. Hussein
may be a pest and a villain but he has never been a world
conqueror, a threat to the United States or even a big supporter of
international terrorism.
Our own government has committed many more terrorist acts than
Iraq, including mining the harbors of Nicaragua. We continue to
finance Israel’s totally illegal ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
from their own land and we continually speak with two faces. Israel
has ignored many U.N. resolutions to withdraw from the land it
illegally stole in an attack in 1967. Israel has assassinated many
people around the world, including American citizens, for political
reasons. We do not call Israel a "terrorist nation" and we have
never launched air raids on Jerusalem.
Why are we so self-righteous? How can we justify a new war when
the entire world except Britain, Israel and Spain are against any
new violence? How effective will our bombing be when CNN is going
to show a daily civilian body count, making a prolonged attack
politically impossible? We will simply unify the Arab world against
the United States, destroy any hope of peace in the Middle East,
and at worst, possibly spark a nuclear war. This is American
arrogance and pig headedness at its worst.