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The case against war
by Paul Findley
This is a moment of great national peril. A U.S. military assault on Iraq
will have terrible consequences for America. Even if Saddam Hussein
possesses an array of weapons of mass destruction, the inevitable costs of
war far exceed any possible benefits.
War will mean death or injury for U.S. troops. If it entails street by
street fighting, the toll will be heavy. Thousands of innocent,
politically-powerless Iraqi people -- mostly Muslims -- will be torn to
shreds. Vast areas will be blighted. The agony suffered by these
civilians will outrage many millions of people worldwide, especially 1.2
billion Muslims, more than six million of them U.S. citizens. These
passions will widen and deepen the ugly gulf that, thanks to public policy
and private bigotry, already exists between Muslims and the U.S. government.
If war comes, it may provoke rather than prevent the use of weapons of mass
destruction. If Saddam Hussein is cornered, he is apt to fight back with
every weapon at his command.
The war's financial cost will be enormous. The administration has given
estimates from $50 billion to $200 billion.
Perhaps the greatest costs will be inflicted on America internally. In
our quest for security against acts of terrorism by the Iraqi dictator and
others, we already sustain heavy costs: ethnic and religious
discrimination, the impairment of individual liberty, personal privacy,
and due process. If war comes, these costs will rise.
War will severely damage America's reputation as a champion of the rule of
law in international affairs. At the president's request, Congress has
already abandoned our government's long- standing opposition to preemptive
acts of war, measures that are strictly prohibited in international law
except when a nation is under imminent danger of attack.
By this action, Congress has trivialized war making the most oppressive of
all governmental oppressions -- by making it an easy instrument of
presidential power. President Bush is now the most powerful military
leader in human history. He need not consult any person or institution
before ordering war.
This is not the America that my generation defended in World War II.
Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator, but there is no credible evidence
that he had anything to do with 9/11 or that he poses an imminent threat to
the United States or any other nation.
In rushing to war, President Bush defies opposition that is rising at home
and overwhelming throughout the world. The Muslim world already sees the
war as it truly is -- the first big step by America -- the new imperial
power from the West as it sets forth to reorder the entire Middle East to
suit its own security needs and those of Israel, the only nation on earth
that strongly supports Bush's war plan. British support hangs by a thread.
The plan to assault Iraq is not a sudden aberration. It predates 9/11. It
is one step in a controversial plan for American world dominance that was
formulated a decade ago by a small group within the administration of the
first President Bush. Most of them -- principally Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle -- have now attained positions of great influence in the
administration of the second President Bush. The undertakings they recommend are
now approved steps in the president's announced plan for
the United States to maintain itself as the unchallenged military policeman
of the world.
In that role, the U.S. government will establish a network of foreign bases
and keep other nations from posing a threat to U.S. security. International
institutions will be relegated to a supportive role or irrelevance. The State
Department document on security issued on September 20, 2002, provides
details.
Meanwhile, festering grievances against America have gone unattended.
Since 9/11, our government has spent vast sums and instituted
rigorous intrusions on civil liberties in the name of homeland security,
but is has done nothing to redress major, legitimate complaints against
government policy, specifically, our government's flagrant complicity in
Israel's long oppression and humiliation of the mostly-Muslim Palestinian
community.
Many respected observers believe that 9/11 would never have happened and
there would be no rush to war today if the U.S. government had refused to
support Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians. Today, the
pro-Israel bias of our government is more extreme than ever before. Our
government seems oblivious of the anti-American fury this bias generates.
In these grave circumstances, the president should disenthrall himself
from past declarations. He should accept the clear decision of the world
community against war in Iraq, let the UN inspection process continue, and
end America's longstanding bias in Middle East policy.
If, instead, he orders war, America's future is bleak.
These observations arise from my long experience as a member of the foreign
affairs committee of the U.S. House of Representatives and extensive
experience in the Middle East over the past thirty years.
Mr. Paul Findley, who
served as a Republican congressman from Illinois for 22 years, is the
author of
'They Dare to Speak Out' and a member of the American
Educational Trust's Foreign Relations Committee.
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