Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas
Austin, TX 78712
work: (512) 471-1990
fax: (512) 471-7979
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu
copyright Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen 2003
Posted on ZNet, Counterpunch, and Common Dreams web site, March 20, 2003. Also appeared as "Here in the belly of the beast, citizens must resist imperial drive," Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star (VA), March 23, 2003, pp. D-1, 3.
by Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Last night, our president announced a war to the nation and the world. Let
us be clear about what this war is and what it is not.
This war is not the result of a failure
of diplomacy.
This war is not a pre-emptive war.
This war is not about weapons of mass
destruction.
This war is not about terrorism.
This war is not about the liberation of
the Iraqi people.
Diplomacy: Nations
typically engage in diplomacy to avoid having to go to war. After Iraq invaded
Kuwait in 1990, numerous attempts at diplomacy were made by France, the Soviet
Union, and the Arab League. They all foundered, primarily on the intransigence
of the first Bush administration. In this case, the second Bush administration
tried to use "diplomacy" to create a war out of whole cloth, making no
attempt to negotiate with Iraq. In fact, as Iraq made concession after
concession -- as it became increasingly clear that whatever pitiful arsenal Iraq
had could be found and dismantled if inspections were allowed to continue --
U.S. attempts to strong-arm other countries into supporting the war became
increasingly crude and coercive. Although those attempts mostly failed, they
were hardly aimed at preventing the war.
Pre-emption: In
order to pre-empt a threat with war, there must be some credible reason to
believe that the threat exists and that no other strategies will address it. A
threat involves capability and intent. In this case, the Bush administration was
not able to show that Iraq has the capability, and no attempt was made to show
that it had the intent to attack.
Weapons of Mass Destruction: As
time passed, the administration’s lies, half-truths, and distortions became
increasingly ridiculous. From scare stories about an "unmanned aerial
vehicle" that turned out to be a glider held together with spit and baling
wire, to forged documents claiming that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from
Niger, nothing has held water. Claims of mobile biological laboratories were
refuted by weapons inspectors, as were claims that Iraq had or was about to get
nuclear weapons. And, of course, ongoing inspections would have ensured that no
arsenal could be built.
Terrorism: This
claim is even more absurd. The best the Bush administration could come up with
was a Jordanian militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a member of Ansar al-Islam whose
ties to either al-Qaeda or the Iraqi government are completely unsubstantiated.
A recent British intelligence assessment concluded that there is no link between
Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Liberation: The
United States does not care about true democracy for Iraq. In 1991, when a
popular uprising after the Gulf War threatened to oust Hussein's government, the
United States intervened to keep Hussein in power. The reason, as officials
explained later, was that the United States wanted a military coup to preserve
what Richard Haas of the National Security Council called "Saddam's regime
without Saddam." Since 9/11, the Bush administration has funded a coup
attempt in Venezuela, installed a puppet regime in Afghanistan, and cracked down
on basic democratic protections in the United States. It would be ironic if the
administration wanted democracy for Iraqis but not for Americans. U.S. plans for
Iraq clearly involve establishing yet another puppet regime
So, what is this war? It is an act of
premeditated aggression. It is part of an attempt to put the tremendous energy
reserves of the Middle East more tightly under American control. It is the key
stage in the building of a new empire. It is part of a long-term attempt to
establish more clearly than ever the rule of force in international affairs and
sweep away any role for international law or institutions beyond those in
service to the empire.
Another fact we must remember: This war did not begin last night.
March 19, 2003, was simply the start of a new, more intense phase of the
U.S. attack on Iraq that has been going on since the end of the 1991 Gulf War,
through the harshest economic embargo in modern history and through more than
four years of regular bombing.
Already, hundreds of thousands -- possibly more than a million
-- innocent Iraqis have died in this ongoing assault. As we count the
civilian casualties from this newest phase, they must be added to this roster of
the dead so that the costs of the U.S. war will not be obscured.
This is crucial to understand, because when U.S. military forces topple the
government of Saddam Hussein, we shouldn’t be surprised if ordinary Iraqis
cheer. Their celebrations will not be about only the demise of a dictator but
about the hoped-for end of a regime of fear and deprivation imposed by the
United States, in which parents have been forced to watch children die of
malnutrition and disease caused by the enforced poverty created by the embargo.
And, finally: Just as the war against Iraq did not begin last night, the
larger war for empire will not end with Iraq. Other nations, notably Iran, are
already on the target list. Bush administration officials talk of remaking the
map of the Middle East. Beyond that is the desire to counter the rising power of
China.
The American takeover of Iraq likely cannot be stopped. But just as there
has been a time for war, there can come a time for justice if we -- the citizens
of the empire -- recognize that
this battle may be lost, but there is still a world to win.
Rahul Mahajan’s latest book is the forthcoming “The U.S. War Against Iraq: Myths, Facts, and Lies.” Robert Jensen, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, is the author of “Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream. Both are members of the Nowar Collective (www.nowarcollective.com). They can be reached at rahul@tao.ca and rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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