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Few
people could be in any doubt but that the US is absolutely
desperate to wage war on the Iraqi people. After months
of wrangling with the UN the US has come up with yet
another draft resolution which it hopes will enable
them to use the UN as a fig leaf for its mission of
regime change in this most “rogue” of “rogue
states”. It calls for "immediate, unimpeded,
unconditional and unrestricted access to presidential
sites equal to that at other sites", with the
explicit threat of force if Iraq fails to submit to
these conditions. In short this is the equivalent
of opening up the White House or 10 Downing Street
to the eyes of clearly stated enemies. Iraq's Culture
Minister, Hamed Yousef Hamadi, called the U.S. draft
a "declaration of war." Of course it is.
As National Security adviser, Condoleezza Rice says
“it has to be tough enough and has to be clear
enough that you might have a chance to get the job
done”.
The
“job” at hand has already been laid out
in a document written in Sept 2000, entitled Rebuilding
America’s Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources
For A New Century. The document was produced by people
who are now at the heart of the Bush Administration.
It states ‘The United States has for decades
sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional
security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq
provides the immediate justification, the need for
a substantial American force presence in the Gulf
transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein…….we
need to fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous
major theatre wars as a core mission’ (remember
this is pre Sept 11th).
Of
course the UN cannot be depended on to act as an obstacle
to the US plans. At the centre of the UN stand the
most powerful, most violent, most heavily armed states.
It would stretch credulity to the limit to believe
that there is a schizophrenic tendency amongst the
world’s superpowers that means that they act
benevolently when they all come together. They do
not become any less imperialist when they act together
through the UN rather than separately. Everywhere
from their role in Palestine to Somalia they have
proven themselves to be a tool for beating the enemies
of the “West” into submission.
If
they were really concerned with the biggest threat
to world peace and “civilisation” then they
would start with the US. The US has just signed into
law a $355.1 billion defence bill, it is the world’s
biggest producer and exporter of weapons of mass destruction,
it is the world’s biggest exporter of torture
equipment, its death penalty sanctions the killing
of its own citizens, it ignores the Geneva convention
on the rights of prisoners (Guantanamo Bay), it has
hundreds of thousands of troops in nearly every area
of the globe (34,000 in S Korea alone), it enables
UN resolutions to be smashed by arming Israel to the
teeth (the UN don’t seem to mind), it is the
ONLY state in the world to have actually used nuclear
weapons (killing 250,000 in Nagasaki and Hiroshima),
it has a proven track record of using biological and
chemical weapons (Agent Orange and Napalm in Vietnam)
and it has bombed 21 countries (including a medical
factory in the Sudan) since the 2nd world war.
The
UN is certainly not against barbarity or weapons of
mass destruction per se. In the Gulf war of 1991 some
88,000 tons of bombs - the equivalent of seven Hiroshima-sized
atomic bombs - were dropped on Iraq, that is on average
one atomic bomb a week; “a scale of destruction
that has no parallels in the history of warfare."
Between
100,000 and 200,000 Iraqis were killed during the
more than six weeks of carpet-bombing compared to
134 allied troops (a large amount killed by “friendly
fire”). There were 300,000 to 700,000 injured.
On the Road to Bazra - afterwards known as the "Highway
of Death" - U.S. warplanes bombed thousands of
Iraqi soldiers, mostly Kurdish and Shia conscripts,
burning them alive as they tried to flee.
Today
in Iraq, the Radiation levels from depleted uranium
are 84 times higher than the World Health Organisation’s
safe levels thanks to the depleted uranium shells
dumped on the country. Rates of cancer have rose by
500%, and infant deformity and mortality has rocketed
since the end of the Gulf war.
The
US led, and UN imposed sanctions have killed one million
Iraqis, half of them children. Of course their British
sidekicks in the latest plans have a similar bloody
past. From India to Ireland, brutality, torture and
murder were the favoured tools of the “civilisers”.
They armed every crackpot dictator around the globe
(including Saddam) to wage terror on their enemies
both within and without.
Yet,
the road to war is not without difficulties for the
US and Britain. Momentum is already building against
their plans, with 400,000 on the streets of London
last month and 100,000 expected in Washington and
San Francisco this month.
Therefore,
it is the responsibility of everyone who is opposed
to the war to make their voices heard and try to stop
the slaughter. We need to build a movement that can
pull the rug from under the feet of the warmongers.
Silence at this important junction will damn all of
us to a life where war and profit are the priorities
rather than tackling the poverty, misery and desperation
that increasingly pollutes all our lives.
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