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CounterPunch
March 20,
2003
The Sun Never Sets
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
By KEVIN ALEXANDER
GRAY
"We must make clear to the Germans
that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is
not that they lost the war, but that they started it.... No grievances
or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly
renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."
--Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson,
a U.S. representative to the International Conference on Military
Trials at the close of World War II.
Of course the war on Iraq is not just about oil.
It's about imperialism, capitalism, the spread of white supremacy
and privilege and the extension of unchecked American power,
directed by people who look or think like George Bush, Dick Chaney,
John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle,
Bob Jones and their big business and religious fundamentalist
buddies. But "no blood for imperialism, capitalism, white
supremacy and the extension of unchecked American power"
is too much for a bumper sticker. And it's harder still to get
many white Americans (or people of color) to reject, let alone
fight, to dismantle such an unjust way of existence.
Whether the killing is inspired by the
imperatives of "Manifest Destiny", "Divine Right",
"God's chosen people", the "Master Race"
or "the sun never sets", someone's land and resources
end up being stolen and the people enslaved, oppressed or killed
by their so-called "liberators". Bush can adorn his
war with the nonsensical adjectives "pre-emptive" or
"preventative"-a war to pre-empt war? --but the United
States is clearly the aggressor nation. This is not a war of
self-defense.
Now, I wouldn't want to live in Iraq,
nor do I have any fondness for Saddam Hussein. But imagine Hussein
is the most racist, unpleasant Klansman on an average American
block. And people are scared of him, because they know what he's
already done, and they think he could do just about anything.
What would happen if, unprovoked except by their own fear, the
black folks from another block decided to firebomb his home,
killing him and his family--or maybe just his family, because
he was at a meeting? They wouldn't have a legal leg to stand
on. No prosecutor, no jury in the land would accept an argument
of pre-emption, or prevention and a weasel apology, "Sorry
about the kids, collateral damage." But this is exactly
the argument Bush is demanding that Americans and the world accept.
There are far more reasons to be against
Bush's war than for it. The biggest reason to oppose war is that
it is an instrument of death. Even if the inspectors had found
chemical weapons products in Iraq that does not give anyone the
right to kill its children. Even if they had found elements for
the production of nuclear bombs, that does not give anyone the
right to kill its children. Because that's what war means. That's
what the past twelve years of sanctions have meant - Iraqi children
dying. To take the additional step of committing American young
people to attack a nation of young people-because over 50% of
Iraq's population is under 15 years of age-and to do this in
the name of a plan for empire building hatched by Paul Wolfowitz
twelve years ago: now that is criminal.
Bush and his backers hope for a quick
war. First, they hope to seize the oil fields while waging a
bombing campaign they have named "Shock and Awe," dropping
3,000 or more bombs in the first 48 hours of the attack. This
is the so-called "Baghdad First" strategy. It has
another name: terror bombing. As one Pentagon official said,
"There won't be a safe place in Baghdad." One of the
basic features of terrorism is that it makes anyone a target,
civilian or military, guilty or innocent. Everyone is afraid,
because no one is safe. Still, immediate surrender isn't a given.
There could well be some bloody door-to-door urban fighting.
And with all of this, let's remember, Baghdad is a city of 4
to 5 million people who aren't all named Saddam Hussein.
A few years ago, former U.N Ambassador
Madeline Albright was asked what she thought about a report that
sanctions had led to the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, from
lack of medicine, food, clean water. "Is it worth it?"
CBS's Leslie Stahl asked her. Albright, after a considered pause,
said, "Yes, we think the price is worth it." Now mix
Albright's morbid calculus with the Bush Administration's casual
approach to instigating a human catastrophe. (Once again the
power grid, on which the water purification system depends, will
be a target.) What we are faced with is something quite simple
and easily understood: the cheapening of human life. But not
any human life - Iraqi human life, foreign human life. Their
life, their children, not ours. American, more often, white,
life is priceless. American children are priceless, worth so
much that only the idea that they might not be safe, that they
might live in a world where everyone doesn't just love
them, is used to justify threatening and snuffing out the lives
of other children, lesser children, lesser people.
It is a fundamental moral precept that
every human being is of equal value. If we in this country condone
or ignore what this present administration is doing, we will
be accomplices to mass murder.
As hard as Colin Powell and Condelezza
Rice tried to conjure one, there is no hardheaded geopolitical
consideration of the normal kind precipitating war on Iraq. This
time, Hussein hasn't gassed the Kurds or the Iranians--which
when he did he was receiving military intelligence and biological
and chemical weapons agents from the United States. The running
joke in Washington is that "America knows Saddam has these
weapons because it has the receipts."
This time, Iraq has invaded no one, seized
no land, occupied no territory, committed no sudden international
atrocity, nor put the lives of people in other countries in particular
peril. Even Iran, Iraq's next-door neighbor and the country it
gassed, opposes a U.S. invasion. And our next-door neighbor,
Canada, opposes the war.
Vice-President Dick Cheney calls Hussein
a "mortal threat" but let's be real. The United States
has a $400 billion Pentagon budget; Iraq's military budget is
about $4 billion. America has thousands of nuclear weapons, many
of which are produced right here in South Carolina at the Savannah
River Plant; Iraq doesn't have one yet, or the means to deliver
it. And although chemical weapons have been internationally
banned, the U.S. still has 75% of its stockpile. Anniston, Alabama,
alone has enough sarin, VX nerve agent, and mustard gas to kill
or incapacitate millions. So, even if Iraq obtained one nuclear
weapon or two, would that present a "mortal" danger
to the United States? The United States has survived for four
decades against two formidable foes - Russia and China - with
thousands of nuclear weapons aimed at us. And when it comes
to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, "We're
number one!"
If Iraq is a "mortal threat",
what about the 16 other countries in the world that have or might
have nuclear weapons, the 25 countries that have or might have
chemical weapons, the 19 other countries that have or might have
biological weapons, and the 16 other countries that have or might
have missile systems? Is the United States going to invade them
too?
Ironically, an American invasion may
actually increase the odds that Hussein will use chemical or
biological weapons. Back in 1991, he had chemical or biological
weapons loaded onto missiles. The elder Bush warned Hussein that
if he used those weapons, he would face devastating retaliation.
Everyone, including Hussein, understood that meant having a
nuclear bomb dropped on his country. So he backed down. Today,
Bush the son is talking "regime change". So Hussein
has absolutely no incentive not to fire whatever chemical or
biological weapons he might have hidden at U.S. troops, Israel,
Turkey or Kuwait.
War on Iraq is not about enforcing U.N.
Security Council Resolution 1441 or any other resolution. If
that were the case, the U.S. would have to invade Israel, a country
in violation of numerous resolutions (223, 242,267,271, 298,
446,452 and 465) and led by Ariel Sharon, a war criminal. Sharon
has effectively transformed Gaza and towns in the West Bank into
concentration camps, where people are under constant curfew,
penned in by barbed wire, surrounded by tanks and soldiers and
threatened constantly with homelessness by bulldozing. Israeli
soldiers kill Palestinians every day. On March 16 they killed
an American, crushed her under a bulldozer. The death of Rachel
Corrie, a U.S. peace activist, was not a mistake; it was a warning
that the Israeli government doesn't care who is opposed to its
policies of oppression and occupation.
Bush can talk about the United States
not being at war with Islam or the Muslim world, but after a
while, as the brutality escalates or America tires of "nation
building" and paying to rebuild what it has destroyed, many
in that world will find the argument insulting. Sooner or later
the "chickens will come home to roost", with a greater
likelihood of suicide bombers striking here in America. Already
the run-up to war has inflamed Muslim fundamentalists, who had
previously despised Saddam Hussein as an infidel. Even the government
reports it has been a boon for al Qaeda's recruiters. Hard to
see how that is in the interests of the United States.
As a civil libertarian, I believe an
invasion of Iraq is unconstitutional. Article 1, Section 8,
of the U.S. Constitution gives the right to Congress and only
to Congress to take the United States to war. But Congress has
been silent and impotent from the start. It gave Bush a blank
check use-of-force authorization after 9/11, with Representative
Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) as the sole voice of dissent. Now the
most passionate voice of opposition to an imperial presidency
and war without Congressional declaration or even debate is an
ex-Klansman, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va). Byrd accused his colleagues
of "sleepwalking through history" and hoped "that
this great nation and its good and trusting citizens are not
in for a rudest of awakenings."
Since just after World War II, presidents have usurped this power
of Congress, and Congress has abdicated it. There has not been
a Congressional declaration of war since December 1941, though
there have been plenty of wars since then--Korea, Vietnam, Panama,
Grenada, the Dominican Republic, and the Gulf War. There also
have been numerous other nations the United States has assaulted
directly or covertly over the last six decades.
In regards to Iraq, some argue that Bush
has the authority to wage war by virtue of three Congressional
actions. First, in 1991, Congress gave his father the authorization
to wage war against Hussein (though technically it did not declare
war). But was that authorization an open-ended go-ahead to wage
war against Iraq forever, or anytime any president happened to
feel like it? And did Congress grant the son the right to change
the regime there now, more than a decade later?
The second Congressional act that Bush
backers cite is the September 14, 2001, use-of-force authorization,
which allows Bush to attack any person, group, or country that
he believes was involved in the attack of 9/11. But while Powell,
Rice and others (to include corporate media) have been doing
their damnedest to lay some of the blame for the 9/11 attack
on Hussein, there is no evidence connecting the two and no credible
link has been established between Hussein and al Qaeda, or between
Iraq and the anthrax-laced letters that killed several Americans.
Then, in October of last year, prior
to offering 1441to the U.N. Congress passed a resolution authorizing
the use of force, if necessary, against Iraq. But none of these
measures was ever a Congressional declaration of war.
Presidential candidates Rep. Dennis Kucinich
and Al Sharpton have been the most critical of Bush's war, but
other Democratic presidential candidates use anti-war sentiment
to the extent that they can carve out votes. Sharpton is the
only candidate challenging both the legitimacy of the war and
the legitimacy of the Bush presidency. No one has dared utter
the world impeachment, yet.
Most Democratic candidates have not challenged
Bush's legitimacy to wage war because in their heart of hearts
most want to join the I-can-make-war Club. One of the qualifications
for being president, after all, is the willingness to use America's
nuclear "deterrent"-that is, to threaten or commit
mass murder in the name of national security.
Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential
front-runner claims to oppose war but said, "When the war
begins, I support the troops and I support the United States
of America winning as rapidly as possible. When the troops are
in the field and fighting remembering what it's like to be those
troops, I think they need a unified America that is prepared
to win."
Presidential candidate Howard Dean, who
calls Bush's foreign policy "ghastly" and "appalling,"
has been painted as the Democrats' most vocal opponent of a unilateral
war against Iraq. But once war breaks out, he says, "Of
course I'll support the troops."
The impulse to support the troops is
understandable. They're our kids, cousins, sons, daughters, fathers,
mothers, neighbors, friends and even grandparents. We want our
soldiers--young people who risk too much for too little pay--to
come home in one piece. Many don't want to be where they are.
There is an economic draft in this country, and many are there
because of it. But blindly supporting the troops while they're
fighting an immoral and illegal war is misguided and wrong.
Perhaps the best way to support the troops is to increase the
effort to get them home. The government is spending a billion
dollars a day to keep soldiers in foreign lands for this war;
we should demand that the money be used to educate kids and give
them options other than the military. We should also be encouraging
kids not to join the military. It makes them the imperialists'
apprentices. In the era of modern warfare especially, it forces
them to be murderers and terrorists. And when the war is over,
if it doesn't kill them-and a low rate of U.S. battlefield casualties
is becoming common-it kicks them to the curb. More than 164,000
Gulf War veterans are officially disabled. High percentages of
every city's homeless population are veterans. Somehow the money
always runs out when it comes time really to support the troops.
There have been only lies and immorality
in the drive to war. Sure, Hussein is a bad guy but it really
isn't about him. It's about what the U.S. stands for. Bush and
all his apologists must be called to account, including Rice
and Powell. In the African-American community, the two should
be granted the same pariah status as Clarence Thomas: Rice as
the "devil's handmaiden" and Powell as a company man.
At this point Rice is just a mouthpiece, but many portray Powell
as a man of principle. Remember the Powell Doctrine? It states
that the U.S. should only go to war after addressing the following
concerns:
Is a vital national security interest
threatened?
Do we have a clear attainable objective?
Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Is the action supported by the American people?
Do we have genuine broad international support?
By Powell's standard, war on Iraq is
without foundation. His doctrine has been replaced with the Wolfowitz
Doctrine, which claims America's right to war by virtue of its
superpower status and the rest be damned. Yet Powell has gone
along with it.
The Bush Administration is using 9/11
as an excuse to terrorize and brow beat the world while simultaneously
stripping away our rights here at home. Under Bush, the government
has instituted a foreign and domestic policy of revenge, pre-emptive
killing, support of political assassination and torture and the
creation of a class of individuals, groups and countries with
absolutely no human, legal and civil rights. Once labeled a
terrorist an individual, group or country has no rights that
anyone is bound to respect. Sound familiar?
The terrorist label has been extended
from those that fly planes into buildings to those who sell and
buy weed on the street to those who oppose the Bush plan for
world domination. While the faces on the anti-drug television
ads that tie the drug trade to terrorism are white, the faces
that go to jail are black. The war on drugs has already stripped
countless black Americans of their rights, once branded terrorists
they will be reduced to below nothing status.
While opinion polls show only 19.2 percent
African Americans supporting Bush's war aims, black people have
not attended anti-war rallies in huge numbers. Blacks don't
have any special obligation or greater urgency to oppose this
war than whites, although we have a greater, far more bitter
familiarity with the way lives are unequally valued. African
Americans, because of our history, understand white supremacy
and privilege. And those of us who understand the difference
between movement and opposition know that confronting these demons
by creating a peace alternative is the movement that must be
built.
African Americans must also be mindful
that well over 30 percent of those U.S. Army troops sent to fight
Bush's war are black. And while Bush gives lip service to diversity,
he attacks affirmative action. He condemns Trent Lott one day
and places wreaths on Confederate soldiers' tombs the next. While
he takes the country down an economic spiral, which affects blacks
disproportionately, he is willing to run huge deficits to wage
an illegal and immoral war. Bush may hoist Powell and Rice as
the new black leader archetypes, but they are not acting in the
best interests of black Americans, or any Americans for that
matter.
Maybe things will go well, the smart
bombs will hit only military targets, and U.S. soldiers will
make short work of the war. But what about the peace? Even if
the war is a success by its authors' standards, the question
of winning the peace in a pursuit that is so very wrong from
the beginning is hard to fathom. What this moment in history
does, in a sense, is sharpen what should have been the task for
the black movement, the labor movement, the progressive movement,
all along. Martin Luther King defined the real "axis of
evil" 36 years ago. He warned, "that the problem of
racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem
of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that
are interrelated." As for America, King said, "A nation
that will exploit economically will have foreign investments
and everything else, and will have to use its military to protect
them. All of these problems are tied together."
Those "triple evils" of racism,
economic inequality and militarism King talked about didn't just
come together during the Vietnam era and are now coming together
again. They where together from the beginning, one feeding the
other in a relentless loop. Some say that under Bill Clinton
we had "peace and prosperity", but the number of poor
people stayed about constant with what it was 30 years ago, and
more bombs were dropped on Iraq ton-for-ton during his administration
than during the entire Vietnam War.
There's always a war somewhere; there's
always a military system sucking the life out of societies at
home and abroad, just as there's always racism and economic inequality.
War makes all of those things worse. But the reason to oppose
it, other than to save the lives of innocents, is the same as
the reason to struggle in this world at all: because the present
set-up is not serving the people, is not serving humanity, is
not just or equitable or enlivening. It's a death trip. "Life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness" sounds more radical
every day.
In wartime we must not lay down and be
quiet for the sake of "unity." We must take to the
streets, to the steps of Congress and the White House. Locally,
we must go to those government institutions that feed the war
machine to make the peace presence known, our voices heard and
our demands met. We must support any international call for sanctions
against this government. And we must call for a full investigation,
debate, or whatever you want to call it, on how George Bush made
America an international outlaw nation. We must resist the impulse
and drive to try to control the world.
Let us remember as Dr. King said, "There
is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the
gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way
out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows.
Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends
toward justice. Let us realize that William Cullen Bryant is
right: Truth crushed to earth will rise again. Let us go out
realizing that the Bible is right: Be not deceived, God is not
mocked. Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Thanks to JoAnn Wypijewski for her
constant help and Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive Magazine
for his earlier case against war.
Kevin Alexander Gray is a CounterPunch contributer and civil rights
organizer who lives in Columbia, South Carolina. He can be reached
at: kagamba@bellsouth.net
Yesterday's
Features
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream (Interview)
Jason Leopold
Rumsfeld and Bush Sr. Opposed 1989 UN Investigation of Saddam
for Human Rights Violations
Josh Ruebner
An
Open Letter to My Former Dean, Paul Wolfowitz (and Other "Court"
Jews)
Mitchel Cohen
The
Gulf War 12 Years Later: Why Class Matters
Carlos Fuentes
The Insulting Insinuations of the Bush Regime
Fareed Marjaee
The Road to Jerusalem Goes Through Baghdad
Rick Giombetti
The Savagely Soft Underbelly
of the Anti-War Movement: Misquided Faith in the UN
Rich Procter
Rove Memo: How to Launch a War
Ritt Goldstein
Oil
War: the Smoking Guns
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