- Will there be war in Iraq? Wrong question. There has
been war against the people of Iraq since 1991. This war never stopped;
it is a war fought by the "civilized" world with gentle, civilized
weapons such as malnutrition, water contamination, prevention of medical
services, etc. The better question is: will the war in Iraq be escalated
to a ground invasion?
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- It seems almost inevitable, but there is still room for
reading the tea leaves. Dealing rationally with the arguments put forth
by the White House in favor of war is difficult. They are ridiculous. It
must be particularly tough for corporate journalists committed to not insulting
the administration. What can you say, beyond rolling your eyes, when Bush
recently warned of Iraqi plans for transatlantic remote-controlled aircrafts
attacking American cities? Can you perhaps mention Saddam is also building
photon torpedoes? How can you argue with "secret evidence" of
Iraqi nuclear capability which the administration refuses even to hand
over to the weapons inspectors? Can Cheney at least tip Hans Blix about
the whereabouts of Iraq's alleged secret sites with "warm, warm, warmer,
cold again, warm, warmer"?
- In despair, some even try to peer into Bush's soul, maybe
by gazing into his deep, anxious eyes. Is Bush a cowboy, a frat boy, an
all-American boy, or just a mentally-challenged boy? What does it mean
for America that Bush used to torture frogs when he was young? Is he a
dry drunk? Does he share the belief of some of his fundamentalist fans
in the soon-upon-us Rapture, Armageddon, Apocalypse now? If he does, does
he believe himself to be one of the horsemen? Will he be inclined to hasten
the end of the world? These and many other questions will be resolved in
the next episode of "The Empire."
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- Dwelling too much on these questions is not recommended.
First, gazing into Bush's soul can be hazardous to your health. You might
be sucked in by the vacuum. But the more important reason is that it serves
little purpose. At best, one is led to ponder the deep dysfunctionality
of American politics that allows someone like Bush to rule the world. But
it is too late for that.
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- The goal of understanding what goes on behind the scenes
in Washington should not be to reinforce our status as powerless spectators
of a magnificent drama. Unfortunately, most of the analysis in the media
is exactly that. The really crucial question isn't, "will there be
war," but "how can we prevent war."
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- The administration is quite unified about the right of
the U.S. government to exercise unlimited power over the whole world. But
there are different currents behind this unified facade. Here's what I
understand is going on:
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- First, there is the axis-of-pure-evil, Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Perle
& Co. This is the War Party. Their song is bomb Iraq though the justification
keeps changing monthly. The War Party was all for bombing Iraq already
before the war in Afghanistan (in fact, before the 2000 elections). It
engaged in a sustained effort to launch an attack around November, which
was frustrated by Bush's decision to go through the Security Council. The
War Party did another attempt to launch the war by defining Iraq's anti-aircraft
fire at American and British jets as a "material breach" of the
inspection resolution. That did not work either.
-
- The War Party is still looking for excuses to launch
the invasion. The next date is January 27 when the inspectors' report is
due. If, as it is quite likely, the inspectors find nothing, there might
be attempts to invent or inflate findings. Or we might even be treated
to another blood libel, just like the false baby incubator story that preceded
the war in 1991. Who knows? Perhaps there'll be a "shocking discovery"
that the Iraqi officers' cantina is making soup stock from baby bones.
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- Then there is the axis-of-banal-evil, Rove-Card-Bush
& Co. That is the Bush Re-election Party, obsessed with avoiding a
replay of the first Bush one-term presidency. The Bush Re-election Party
supports the war, but is weary of overspending political capital. In the
face of international pressure and lukewarm domestic support, the Bush
Re-election Party is seeking to outmaneuver the opposition to the war by
co-opting fence-sitters. Before attacking, it seeks to "market"
the war: domestically with outlandish lies and internationally with cash
promises and arm twisting.
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- Finally, there is the axis-of-evil-with-a-disarming-smile,
mostly Powell & Co. -- the I'm a Player Too Party. Powell favors the
more traditional foreign policy style of Papa Bush and Clinton. He is eager
to show how much the U.S. can gain by hardball diplomacy alone. But his
only leverage is his ability to save Bush precious political capital. At
worse, he can be the Republican ambassador to MTV.
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- The differences between the above three parties are minimal
but crucial -- they refer only to what each party sees as its highest priority.
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- Within the War Party, there are two distinct wings: the
"Pentagon uber Alles" wing of Rumsfeld, Cheney and Rice, and
the "Israel uber Alles" wing of Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Faith
& Co. The Pentagon wing wants Power with a capital P: unlimited and
unchecked, over the whole world -- they call it now "full spectrum
dominance." Domestically, to make such foreign policy possible, the
Pentagon wing wants to return to the good old days of the Korean war and
the early Vietnam war, when the government was secret and unaccountable,
and the public much more docile and naive than today.
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- Members of the second wing share this vision, but emotionally,
they seem to be motivated by something else: they believe that an aggressive
U.S. empire is necessary for the "survival" of Israel, for which
they have an inordinate and unseemly attachment that appears to trump all
other considerations. The remarkable resemblance between the advice they
give Bush today and the wildest dreams of Israel's most extreme hawks is
not a coincidence, and neither is the fact that the Sharon government in
Israel is the only other government in the world that is positively salivating
about the prospects of war.
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- The Pentagon wing, Cheney and Rumsfeld, control the brawn,
but it is the second wing, the committed Zionists, that provide most of
the strategic brain of the War Party.
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- The War Party seems to be the administration's motor;
no doubt it has set the agenda regarding Iraq. But Powell succeeded in
forcing the U.S. to seek a Security Council resolution and renewed arms
inspection instead of striking unilaterally. This has delayed the war by
a few months. The delay cannot be credited to Powell's influence, which
is minimal. It must be credited to the rise of an anti-war sentiment and
the fear that a unilateral war would not be approved by a majority of Americans.
The party that makes the final decision is still the Bush Re-election Party,
not the War Party.
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- This is our opportunity. We can hope to stop the war
by raising the amount of political capital Bush must spend. The War Party
needs to start the war within the next two months. After that, in the summer,
the cost of logistics and the advancing elections timetable might make
war impractical. So, it might be now or never. This is the time for action,
not speculation.
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- There will be a march in Washington D.C. on January 18th.
The last march was big with about 100,000 people showing up. This one has
to be big, too, preferably huge. We need to be there. We need to send a
message to the White House that there is a large anti-war movement already.
We need to make Karl Rove understand that this movement will grow even
bigger if the war is escalated, that it will expose the price Americans
will pay for the war, and that it will eventually cost Bush the election.
We must make Karl Rove make Bush worry that his presidency doesn't end
up like Johnson's or Nixon's.
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- The march is organized by the International Answer coalition.
It and various other groups organize transportation and many will also
organize a nightover if required. Many other groups will participate with
their own banners. The weeks ahead are marked for sustained anti-war actions
all over the world, so there will be plenty of opportunities for people
who cannot travel to Washington to participate in expressing their objections
to the war.
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- The anti-war movement is a coalition, not a party. There
is no abiding ideology and no required readings. Opposition to the prospect
of this U.S. aggression unites a broad spectrum of Americans of different
and even opposing political stripes: socialists, anarchists, liberals,
feminists, Quakers and members of almost every other American faith, army
veterans, minorities' rights activists, libertarians, conservatives, environmentalists,
isolationists, etc. There are also many, many people who are just citizens
who smell something fishy.
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- You don't have to agree with International Answer or
with me in order to join the anti-war demonstration. All you have to agree
with is that you have an opportunity and a duty to stop the coming slaughter.
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- Here are a few other reasons to participate:
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- * The war will devastate Iraq (again), kill tens of thousands
of innocent people, and an unknown number of American GIs, mostly from
minority groups and from working class backgrounds (none of the white hawks
in the current White House has ever been near enemy fire. They all had
the opportunity and chose not to. Dying in uniforms is a privilege almost
totally reserved for minorities and poor whites.)
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- * The war will be a naked act of aggression against a
country that hasn't attacked the U.S., that has no plans to attack the
U.S. and no capabilities of attacking the U.S.
-
- * The war will be a boon to terrorist organizations recruiting
people willing to kill Americans.
-
- * The war will hasten the scraping of the Bill of Rights
and the suspension of American democracy.
-
- * The ten commandments say murder is wrong. So is stealing.
Killing Iraqis in order to steal their oil is a double offense.
-
- * The war will train more young Americans in murder and
dehumanization, a training that quite a few of them -- such as Timothy
McVeigh, the D.C. sniper and many other less remarkable victims of militarization
-- will later turn against their spouses, children and neighbors.
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- * The war will cost hundreds of billions in direct costs
and potentially trillions in the likely economic disruption that will result.
That means lower standards of living for everyone.
-
- * The war will suck the air out of what's left of America's
social services, and will therefore contribute to misery, insecurity and
crime all over America.
-
- * The war will damage U.S. international standing and
relations with friendly countries. It will make American foreign policy
more expensive and more difficult. By making peaceful diplomacy difficult,
it will make war even more attractive; hence, the war will engender more
wars.
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- * The war risks bringing chaos to the Middle East, boosts
the rise of militant Islam as the only alternative to American colonialism,
and plunges the Middle East into a new century of bloodshed.
-
- * The war, or everything that will go wrong with it,
will be soon blamed on "the Jews," thanks to the good work of
Perle, Wolfowitz & Co.
-
- * War is hell. We don't need a reason to resist it. We
need an excellent reason to support it. So far, nobody has offered any
serious one.
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- So make plans to be in Washington Saturday the 18th.
Better yet, spread the news to friends, family and neighbors. Bring your
own big party to Washington and earn points towards the real peace prize.
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- This is our chance to save tens of thousands of lives.
We don't get such chances every day.
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- Of course, there is much more one can do instead or beyond
going to one demonstration. To start with, here is a list of websites with
information on other anti-war groups:
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- United for Peace
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- Not In Our Name
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- Iraq Peace Team
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- Nonviolence Peaceforce Canada
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- Christian Peacemaker Team
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- Friends Peace Team
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- End the War
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- Michigan Peace Team List
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- If you find every other group too liberal, too radical,
too religious, too secular, too anything else for your taste, then why
not start your own?
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- [Gabriel Ash was born in Romania and grew up in Israel.
He is an unabashed "opssimist." He writes his columns because
the pen is sometimes mightier than the sword - and sometimes not. Gabriel
is the Middle East Editor of YellowTimes.org's News From the Front, located
at the following URL: http://www.YellowTimes.org/nftf.html. He lives in
the United States.]
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- Gabriel Ash encourages your comments: gash@YellowTimes.org
-
- YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion
publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced,
reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies
the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to
http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
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