The War
21/03/2003
- Opinión
Just think. In the middle of last year, when this war was still only
gestating, George W. Bush stated that 'we have to be ready to attack in
any obscure corner of the world'; ergo, Iraq is an obscure corner of
the world. Does Bush believe that civilization began in Texas and his
fellow Texans invented writing? Has he really never heard of the
library of Niniveh, the tower of Babel or the hanging gardens of
Babylon? Has he really never heard even one of the tales in the
thousand and one nights of Baghdad?
* * *
Who elected him president of this planet anyway? I was never asked to
vote in any such elections. Were you?
Would we elect a president who was deaf to the population? Would we
elect a man incapable of hearing any but the echoes of his own voice? A
man deaf to the ceaseless thunder of millions of voices in the streets
declaring peace on war?
He has not even heeded a word of friendly advice from the German writer
Günter Grass. Realising that Bush felt driven to demonstrate something
very important to his daddy, Grass suggested that he see a
psychoanalyst rather than bombing Iraq.
* * *
In 1898, president William McKinley declared that God had commanded him
to seize the Philippines in order to civilize and christianize their
inhabitants. McKinley said that he had spoken with God at midnight as
he roamed the corridors of the White House. Over a century later,
president Bush assures us that God is on his side in the conquest of
Iraq. What time was it and where was he, we wonder, when he got the
divine message? We might also ask why the messages to Bush and to the
Pope at Rome were so contradictory.
* * *
War has been declared in the name of the international community, which
is sick of wars. And as per usual, war has been declared in the name of
peace. It's not about oil, they say. And yet, if Iraq produced radishes
rather than oil, would anyone seriously suggest invading?
Have Bush, Dick Cheney and sweet Condoleeza Rice really all given up
their top jobs in the oil industry? Why is Tony Blair so obsessed with
the Iraqi dictator? Could it be because 30 years ago Saddam Hussein
nationalized the British Iraq Petroleum Company? And how many oil wells
is José María Aznar expecting to get when the spoils are divvied up?
The oil-drunk consumer society is deathly afraid of withdrawal
symptoms. And Iraq is where the black elixir is cheapest, and possibly
most plentiful.
In a peace demonstration in New York, one placard read: "Why is our oil
beneath their sands?".
* * *
The United States says it expects a lengthy military occupation
following its victory. US generals will be in charge of setting up
democracy in Iraq.
Will this be a democracy like in Haiti, the Dominican Republic or
Nicaragua? They occupied Haiti for 19 years and set up a military power
base that eventually became the dictatorship of Francois Duvalier. They
occupied the Dominican Republic for nine years and laid the foundations
for the dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. They occupied
Nicaragua for 21 years and founded the dictatorship of the Somoza
family.
* * *
The Somoza dynasty, set on the throne by the Marines, lasted half a
century before being swept away by popular fury in 1979. Then,
president Ronald Reagan got on his horse and set out to rescue the
country from the threat of the Sandinista revolution. Among the poorest
of the poor, Nicaragua was a country with all of five elevators, and
one escalator that didn't work. Nevertheless, Reagan proclaimed that
Nicaragua was a menace; and as he spoke, TV screens showed a map of the
United States with a red stain spreading from the south to illustrate
the course of the imminent invasion. Can president Bush be copying the
panic-rousing speeches of his predecessor? Can Bush be saying Iraq
where Reagan said Nicaragua?
* * *
Newspaper headlines in the run-up to war: "The United States is
prepared to resist attack".
Record sales of insulating tape, gas masks, radiation pills ... Why is
the executioner more afraid than the victim? Is it only this climate of
collective hysteria? Or does it tremble at the foreseeable consequences
of its actions? And what if Iraqi oil sets fire to the world? Will this
war not be just the vitamin shot that international terrorism was
looking for?
* * *
We are told that Saddam Hussein succours the fanatics of Al Qaeda. What
is this - his very own viper's nest? Islamic fundamentalists loathe
him. Can we say that a country is satanic where people watch Hollywood
movies, many schools teach English, the Muslim majority do nothing to
prevent Christians walking about sporting crucifixes and it is not
uncommon to see women wearing trousers and daring blouses?
There were no Iraqis among the terrorists who demolished the twin
towers of New York. Almost all of them were from Saudi Arabia, the US's
number one client in the world. Another Saudi is Bin Laden, the villain
that the satellites track as he flees on horseback across the desert
and the first to step forward whenever Bush requires his services as
professional ogre.
* * *
Did you know that in 1953 president Dwight D. Eisenhower said that
"preventive war" was invented by Adolf Hitler? He said: "...frankly, I
wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about
such a thing".
* * *
The United States makes and sells more arms than any other country in
the world. It is also the only nation to have dropped atomic bombs on
civilian populations. And traditionally it has always been at war with
somebody. Who is it that threatens world peace? Iraq?
* * *
So Iraq does not heed United Nations (UN) resolutions? And what about
Bush, who has just dealt the most resounding blow ever to international
legality? And what about Israel, the leading specialist in ignoring UN
resolutions?
Iraq has ignored 17 UN resolutions, Israel 64. Will Bush bomb his most
loyal ally?
* * *
Iraq was devastated by the war waged by Bush senior in 1991and has been
starved by the blockade following it. What weapons of mass destruction
can so thoroughly ruined a country possess?
Israel, which has been usurping Palestinian land since 1967, has an
arsenal of nuclear weapons that guarantees its impunity. And then
Pakistan, another faithful ally and furthermore a notorious hotbed of
terrorists, flaunts its own nuclear warheads. But the enemy is Iraq,
because Iraq "could possess" such weapons. If it did indeed possess
them, as North Korea claims to do, would they be so keen to attack? And
what about chemical and biological weapons?
Who sold Saddam Hussein the chemicals he needed to make the poison
gases that asphyxiated Kurds, and the helicopters they were launched
from? Why won't Bush let us see the receipts?
In those years of war against Iran and war against the Kurds, was
Saddam any less of a dictator than he is now? Donald Rumsfeld himself
visited him on a mission of friendship. Why are we so concerned about
the Kurds of Iraq and not about the much greater number of Kurds
murdered in Turkey?
* * *
Defence Secretary Rumsfeld has announced that his country will use
"non-lethal gases" against Iraq. Will these be the kind of non-lethal
gases that Vladimir Putin used last year in a Moscow theatre, killing
over a hundred hostages?
* * *
There were a few days there when the United Nations covered up
Picasso's Guernica with a curtain so that Colin Powell would not be put
off his bugle calls by such nasty scenes.
What size of curtain will they use to cover up the butchery in Iraq, in
the form of blanket censorship imposed on war correspondents by the
Pentagon?
* * *
Where will the souls of the Iraqi victims go? According to reverend
Billy Graham, president Bush's spiritual adviser and celestial
surveyor, paradise is none too roomy - no more than fifteen hundred
square miles. The chosen will be few. Now guess which country has
bought up all the entrance tickets?
* * *
And one last question, borrowed from John Le Carré:
- Will they kill many people, daddy?
- No-one you know, dear. Just foreigners.
[translated by Alistair Ross]
https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/107159?language=en
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