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Arrian
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Kneel before Grog!
Jul 2001
time: 00:25
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I found the following editorial in the Sydney Morning Herald, and thought it was a good read. It's just one opinion - and it doesn't have me advocating war all of a sudden, but it was interesting...
quote:
February 14 2003
As an American who lives part-time in Sydney, I always feel refreshed by the sun, the scent of gums and an Australian trait often absent in America: a calm, considered, informed and self-critical view of world affairs. This year has been entirely different.
At Bookoccino, in Avalon, the owner told me he'd been berated for a window display of Bush at War, a book about the White House by the Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward. The book grossly offended a customer, not because of its contents - which he hadn't read - but because its cover bears a photo of Bush. Another customer felt sickened by the shop's music: a Frank Sinatra >CD that included America the Beautiful.
As a panellist at the Perth Writers' Festival, I argued that we should topple Saddam Hussein on behalf of Iraqis - adding that I'm a Quaker-educated, Ralph Nader-voting Greenie (and a Balmain writer who drinks lots of latte). Several audience members hid their faces, as if embarrassed for me, while others likened me, at their gentlest, to the CIA agent in The Quiet American.
Spirited debate is healthy, and the US ambassador shouldn't moan about it. Also, the Bushies invite abuse with their energy policies, contempt for the UN and crusader rhetoric. What depresses me, though, is the certitude of many Australians, particularly those on the left. Raging at war messengers makes it hard for any part of the message to be heard. At the risk of being flayed again, here's why many US liberals support military action:
As a reporter who has visited Iraq eight times and seen its torture victims in Kuwaiti morgues and London psychiatric wards, I can't dismiss Saddam - as the left often does - as just another despot the US has demonised to justify war. Bush's (and Howard's) hypocrisy on human rights doesn't diminish Saddam's evil, or the salvation his downfall would be to Iraqis. I've reported on many tyrannies, including Ceausescu's Romania; none compare to Iraq. To downplay this, or to equate other nations' injustices with those of Iraq, is morally obtuse, and reminiscent of last century's apologists for Stalin, a leader Saddam greatly admires and most resembles.
Women and children are favourite targets of Saddam. In Kurdistan in 1991, my wife, Geraldine Brooks, saw the job records of Iraqi policemen, including one whose duties were designated "violation of women's honour": a state rapist. Desperate for cannon fodder, Saddam has ordered gynaecologists to remove IUDs. In a falsely Islamic "return to faith campaign", Saddam's henchmen publicly behead alleged prostitutes. Children are tortured to extract confessions from parents, and UN sanctions - which Saddam has subverted to build palaces and buy weapons - have had their worst impact on the young. Toppling Saddam would end this, freeing young Iraqis to grow up without fear of dying in Saddam's trenches or gulags.
I've reported on two Gulf wars, including a 1988 visit to a corpse-laden desert where Iraq gassed Iranians. There are other nasty regimes with awful weapons, but none with Saddam's track record. In a country with the population of Australia, Saddam has caused the deaths of some 1.5 million people, half of them his own. No army since Germany's in World War I has Iraq's expertise in deploying poison gas. The fact that the West helped build Saddam's arsenal, and let him use it, doesn't diminish the danger he may still pose. If anything, our past sins give us an even greater obligation to atone for our betrayal of Kurds and Shiites who rose up against Saddam in 1991.
Saddam has not only torched oilfields, but has poisoned and drained the vast marshes in southern Iraq to deny cover to Shiite rebels. This ecological calamity dwarfs such laudable green causes as logging in Tasmania (and occurred during the decade of Saddam's "containment"). Saddam has also despoiled Iraq's antique heritage. Babylon is now a hideous monument to the new Nebuchadnezzar, with fresh bricks inscribed "Laid in the era of Saddam Hussein".
Australians regard Americans as deranged Utopians when they speak of a liberated Iraq becoming a model for the region. This is an insult to Iraqis, who are well equipped to build a free, stable society. Iraq is not Afghanistan. It is rich not just in oil but in water, well educated and much more secular than its neighbours. Kurds in the northern safe haven have contained score-settling and created a civil society. Given the chance, other Iraqis could too. A free, prosperous Iraq would offer an alternative model of change to Arabs in neighbouring, ossified states which have no outlet for dissent except radical Islam.
I've seen several wars up close and shudder at phrases such as "surgical strike". Innocents will die, including unwilling Iraqi soldiers (who often surrendered in Kuwait to reporters like me). But military intervention can also relieve death and suffering, as it indisputably did for Muslims in the former Yugoslavia. To do nothing consigns Iraqis to more terrorism and courts grave risk for the region, and therefore the world.
Most of what we know about Iraq's arms has come from defectors, not inspectors. Nor is Saddam a rational leader who won't dare risk reprisal by using his weapons. He's twice brought his regime near ruin with reckless invasions, lobbed Scuds at two other states and so terrorised Iraqis that he lives in hiding with body triples. Why risk giving Saddam another chance to finally prove that he has ghastly weapons and the will to use them again?
The oil-drenched Bushies and their evangelical embrace of Ariel Sharon allow people to believe that war is a petrol grab and a blow on behalf of Zionist expansion. I don't believe this. Nor will war necessarily benefit big oil or a greater Israel. The last Gulf War led directly to the Madrid peace talks - since spiked by extremists on both sides - and another costly war will again focus world attention on resolving this conflict.
Big oil has always preferred stability to regime change, hence US support for the odious Saudis. When Iraqi oil comes fully on-stream, the price is likely to fall sharply (a boon for developing nations, not just US guzzlers), and the Saudis - the main fomenters and financers of Islamic terrorism - will be weakened. It's also naive to suppose Iraqis will cede their oilfields to Exxon. The Kuwaitis didn't.
Admittedly, the US won't have credibility on this front until it cuts its gluttonous oil consumption and addresses global warming - tasks that realistically must await regime change in the US in 2004. Insha'allah.
Tony Horwitz, a former Herald reporter and Wall Street Journal war correspondent, is the author of Baghdad Without A Map and Into the Blue. |
-Arrian
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lord of the mark
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FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
Care to explain why Saudi Arabia isn't the target then ? They are the most active at financing terrorism and radical islamism, while Iraq remained wordly until very recently, and spent its money in traditional warfare rather than terrorism. |
Thats pretty simple - you go into Saudi first, you got most of the population against you, and saddam at your back making things worse. you go into Iraq FIRST, you get people who are happy you are there, who will support you when you put pressure on Saudi. You are correct that Saudi,eliminating its support for terrorism and its global support for the most radiacal forms of wahabi islam, is the ultimate goal, but the only reasonable way open to getting there is to go into Iraq first. Why do you think some of the biggest oponents of war in the US, like Scowcroft and Zinni, are people with longstanding ties to Saudi??? Why do you think the arabs who came on board, like the Kuwaitis and Qataris are just the ones trying to escape the Saudi shadow?? Why do you think we couldnt do this until we had built an airbase in Qatar to replace facilities in Saudi??? Why do you think the Saudis just this week have floated a plan to go partway toward democratization, and have gone public with the fact that Al Qaeeda targeted a refinery there some months ago and that they actually did something about it??? They know the game is almost up, and theyre starting to try to get back into favour. In that sense the war is achieving its goal before the first shot is fired. But if we back down now expect that to be reversed - they'll go with the "strong horses"
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Ned
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of Aptos, CA
Oct 1999
time: 21:25
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quote:
Originally posted by jimmytrick
I don't know what the world view of UN authority is but I am certain that Americans have never even considered the idea that the UN has any authority over the US. You would have to kill 200 million Americans before the US yielded to outside authority.
The purpose of the war with Iraq is to establish that nations cannot sponsor terrorism without facing direct confrontation with the US military. It's about establishing a deterrant. Now Bush can't come out and say that of course.
Saddam, in addition to his many other sins, sponsors terror by providing rewards for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. That, and the 9/11 attacks is really all that was needed to convince the Bush administration to remove Saddam. The rest of the talk is just window dressing. |
Jimmytrick, this may be true. But as many have observed here, the U.S. once backed Saddam when he was seen as a buffer against Iran. Even after the victory in the Gulf War, Bush left Saddam in power explaining that Saddam was a necessary evil because he provided a bulwark against a more radical and menacing Iran.
America's attitude toward Saddam began to change in 1989-90 when we learned about his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Also he began threatening the United States naval presence in the Persian Gulf. Apparently in discussions with Kuwait about their border dispute and finances, Kuwait had said that if Iraq were to invade, the United States would be soon be there to protect it. Shortly thereafter, Iraq "accidentally" shot a missile into a U.S. Navy destroyer on the patrol the Persian Gulf.
But as I said, after the Gulf War, Bush left Saddam in power because he was perceived as a necessary bulwark against Iran. At the same time, Bush and the United Nations insisted that Saddam agree to the disarmament of his weapons of mass distruction, in particular, his nuclear weapons development program.
Well, the disarmament of Saddam did not work because he refused to cooperate. At the same time, Saddam's support of terrorism against Israel increased. He now has apparently thrown in with al Qaeda. Correspondingly, the Iranians have become less of an immediate threat. Perhaps they are even operating with us in the war effort. I wouldn't be surprised.
But the deciding factor for our concern over Iraq has to be 9/11. We simply cannot have an enemy regime with WoMD out there who can give those weapons to an al Qaeda willing to use them.
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Last edited by Ned on 14-02-2003 at 06:41
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Capt Dizle
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quote:
Originally posted by Ned
Jimmytrick, this may be true. But as many have observed here, the U.S. once backed Saddam when he was seen as a buffer against Iran. Even after the victory in the Gulf War, Bush left Saddam in power explaining that Saddam was a necessary evil because he provided a bulwark against a more radical and menacing Iran.
America's attitude toward Saddam began to change in 1989-90 when we learned about his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Also he began threatening the United States naval presence in the Persian Gulf. Apparently in discussions with Kuwait about their border dispute and finances, Kuwait had said that if Iraq were to invade, the United States would be soon be there to protect it. Shortly thereafter, Iraq "accidentally" shot a missile into a U.S. Navy destroyer on the patrol the Persian Gulf.
But as I said, after the Gulf War, Bush left Saddam in power because he was perceived as a necessary bulwark against Iran. At the same time, Bush and the United Nations insisted that Saddam agree to the disarmament of his weapons of mass distruction, in particular, his nuclear weapons development program.
Well, the disarmament of Saddam did not work because he refused to cooperate. At the same time, Saddam's support of terrorism against Israel increased. He now has apparently thrown in with al Qaeda. Correspondingly, the Iranians have become less of an immediate threat. Perhaps they are even operating with us in the war effort. I wouldn't be surprised.
But the deciding factor for our concern over Iraq has to be 9/11. We simply cannot have an enemy regime with WoMD out there who can give those weapons to an al Qaeda willing to use them.
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Ned, you are one of the few posters here whose comments I normally find sensible.
People here tend to mix morality and geopolitics. This isn't practical. All nations commit moral outrages in the effort to protect its interests...unless they are in a position to have a Big Stick Carrying Daddy to look out after them.
Insofar as trying to do the right thing I'd say that America has more than a few instances in their past where it has taken risks for humanitarian issues. It's just that folks here who are foaming at the mouth anti-Bush anti-American won't acknowledge it.
Now that there is no Soviet sword hanging over NATO and many member nations have this warm and fuzzy feeling due to the formation of the EU, suddenly the US has a few less friends. Well, thats fine. They will come running back when their ass gets into a collective crack and then we will in a position to make them sweat before we bail them out again.
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14-02-2003 02:14
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