In a speech to U.S. Americans held last night in Cincinnati, Dubya made another attempt to justify an unjust plan to invade Iraq using ground forces. It’s important to describe his plan as “using ground forces” instead of “declaring war” because the Persian Gulf War never ended.
For the past 12 years, U.S and British warplanes have flown thousands of sorties over Iraq (27,000 from December 1998 to October 1999 alone), repeatedly bombing military and civilian targets. 1,600 Iraqis have been killed by these raids.
The Administration would much prefer U.S. Americans to believe that Iraq is some kind of new and burgeoning threat to global security and, to achieve that end, the President will say anything, no matter how nonsensical.
The threat to American National Security, we are told, comes from Iraq. Of course, only the Iraqi regime is at fault because of their “history of aggression” and “drive to an arsenal of terror.” It’s hard to imagine any country without a history of aggression so we won’t get hung up on this point, but we’re not entirely sure about the whole “drive to terror” issue.
Such a “drive” would imply that the Iraqi regime actually isn’t capable of doing anything. Subsequent comments will confirm as much.
Eleven years ago, Iraq agreed to destroy all weapons of mass destruction as a condition of ending the Persian Gulf War. UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter spent seven years as Iraq’s public enemy number 1 in disarming the regime. Mr. Ritter is a former Marine and a staunch Republican. He claims that 95% of Iraq’s weapons infrastructure was destroyed. There is no reason that anyone, especially El Presidente, should take Ritter’s word as anything less than the truth. Ritter, it should be noted, feels that this drive to war is a dangerous and unnecessary political game.
Dubya does not want to be confused by the facts so his speech continues.
Members of the Congress of both political parties, and members of the United Nations Security Council, agree that Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace and must disarm. We agree that the Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.
“Members of Congress,” with the exception of 19 House Democrats led by Representatives Kucinich, Pelosi, and Lee, the handfull of House Democrats that have put their political asses on the line by traveling to Iraq, including Representatives Rahall, Thompson, McDermott, and Bonior, and Senator Byrd, who threatens to tie up swift passage of the war resolution with a fillibuster, have proven themselves to be spineless and completely bereft of courage. They are willing accomplices to the destruction of the Republic for their short-term political gain. They will comply with the faulty logic of an illegitimate president with deep wells in the energy industry and a personal vendetta against Saddam. When Bush sends American soldiers to die for worthless propaganda, the blood of those soldiers will stain Congress as much as the President.
As for the UN Security Council, we want to know who else, besides the United Kingdom, supports the US Goal of “regime change” in Iraq?
“Nobody” would be a good guess.
If the U.S. was truly concerned about biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, then the US Would invade Pakistan and India along with demanding weapons inspections from China and Israel. If the U.S. was truly concerned about the moral justifications for preemptive strike, it would launch attacks against Saudi Arabia and Egypt. If the U.S. was truly concerned about the security of the nation, then the Government would devote more of the monstrous $270B “defense” budget to improving our economic, health, and environmental security, amd less to the seditious military-industrial complex.
Bush goes on to say that Iraq is a bigger threat than other state because it combines “the most serious dangers of our age in one place.” The Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program is controlled by a “murderous tyrant.” In of itself, that is a valid point—nobody with murderous tendencies should have weapons of mass destruction. They might use such weapons against people that just want to be left alone.
Perhaps the US should commit to praxis this new philosophical insight before using its extensive military machine against anyone else.
The most revealing part of the speech comes when Dubya implies that the U.S. knows with absolute certainty that Iraq possesses such weapons. “If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today — and we do — does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?”
His rhetorical question contributes absolutely nothing to justifying any preemptive strike against Iraq. Nothing he says in the speech justifies any kind of violence. The US wants to invade Iraq for the same reason that Iraq invaded Kuwait: nothing less than oil.
The Bush Administration still has no clue as to what happened on 9/11/2001. They sit at the helm of an empire that has done so much harm to so many people in our name that they also have no clue where future attacks will come from. The Middle East is just the tip of the iceberg. There is much latent hatred towards the corrupt practices of a rogue U.S. military machine lying just below the surface. Future attacks can come from myriad spots on the globe. The price of vengeance will be the lives of ordinary and unaware US citizens.
If you are ready to accept the consequences of baseless military deployment, then, by all means, continue your support of the junta leader. However, if you wish to have a country that leads by example through competent diplomacy rather than solving all matters at gunpoint, it is time to speak up against the war and take democratic action against the Government, and put our nation back on a course that guarantees the establishment of justice, the insurance of domestic tranquillity, provisions for a common defense and the securing of the blessings of liberty to us and our posterity.
Preemptive strike against Iraq and anyone else is an abdication of the U.S. Constitution and an astounding disregard for the American people.
