23/03/2003
Essential links:
http://www.iraqbodycount.net/bodycount.htm
http://www.ummah.com/waragainstislam/girl.htm
Another reason to hate America
by Abu Khalid
City-wide bombing in Baghdad as part of the US and UK's "shock and awe" military campaign in Iraq
Foreword: The title of this article does not reflect the authors views, it speaks about the the implications on the entire American nation for what it's government is doing. Although most Muslims such as myself can distinguish between ordinary Americans and their government, some people, not just Muslims, cannot. Hence the title. This author does not support Saddam Hussein in any way or form, and is merely reflecting a viewpoint shared by many people who think from many different perspectives on this conflict.
Introduction
March 2003. War has begun in the Middle-East and Iraq now faces the military might of two major world superpowers, the US and UK. The force of this military campaign is termed "shock and awe" by the US government and it's sympathetic think-tanks. The purpose of this article is to examine the cause of this war, it's illegality and the subsequent reinforcement of anti-US/UK hate around the the world, especially the Muslim nations.
War justified?
The justifications for war were based on certain accusations of the US, they are;
1. Threat to US and the entire world
That is not true, the Iraqi's up until the Gulf War never committed or said anything construing the USA as an enemy to be hit with force. Even to this day, none of their actions indicate such a thing. Iraq under Saddam Hussein attacked three nations in the Middle-East with certain reasons, in the case of Iran, it was a border dispute, in the case of Kuwait, it was a claim to territory historically part of Iraq and over the slant-drilling of Iraqi oil by Kuwait, and in the case of Israel, it was based upon a general opposition to Israel throughout the Middle-East and Muslim world revolving around the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians.
Iraq has never threatened Western nations, culturally, physically or politically. Part of Tony Blair's speech in the House of Commons during the vote for the Rebel Amendment (18/03/2003), the same week war began invoked the tacit accusation against Iraq that it was a threat to the British and Western way of life. In his speech, Tony Blair claims that the UK and it's citizens ought to fight against forces intent on destroying the British and Western way of life. Tony Blair could not have been more wrong when making this accusation against Iraq as for decades now, Iraq has been strongly secular with a highly Westernised society. Indeed, Iraq is not an Afghanistan to warrant such a conclusion. This is symptomatic of the many lies of the US and UK governments used to justify this war, as this article will later show.
2. Possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction
The UN weapons inspectors have spoken out against the US accusations that Iraq possess weapons of mass destruction.
Indeed, Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix stated Iraq is free of all nuclear weapons, refuting the US claim that Iraq possesses such weapons, and subsequently refuting the American and British claims that Iraq is likely to use them on the West.
"Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said today inspectors hadn't found any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. He cast doubt on evidence provided by US Secretary of State Colin Powell indicating Iraq may have cleaned up sites before inspectors arrived. "In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming," Blix told the UN Security Council. Pointing to one case Powell highlighted using satellite photos of a munitions depot, Blix said: "The reported movement of munitions at the site could just as easily have been a routine activity as a movement of proscribed munitions in anticipation of an imminent inspection. Our reservation on this point does not detract from our appreciation for the briefing." [1]
This would mean that a US war based on the claim that Iraq has WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) is not a credible claim. The fact that the Iraqi's have not given enough evidence of the destruction of the documented stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons does not mean the US was justified in going to war in view of the fact that Hans Blix himself stated that the Iraqi's were starting to cooperate and that UNMOVIC needed more time. Indeed, Blix stated that if documentary evidence was not forthcoming, then interviews with Iraqi scientists was the next best thing to account for the chemical and biological weapons. To this effect, Blix states:
"Iraq, with a highly developed administrative system, should be able to provide more documentary evidence about its proscribed weapons programmes. Only a few new such documents have come to light so far and been handed over since we began inspections. It was a disappointment that Iraq's Declaration of 7 December did not bring new documentary evidence. I hope that efforts in this respect, including the appointment of a governmental commission, will give significant results. When proscribed items are deemed unaccounted for it is above all credible accounts that is needed - or the proscribed items, if they exist. Where authentic documents do not become available, interviews with persons, who may have relevant knowledge and experience, may be another way of obtaining evidence. UNMOVIC has names of such persons in its records and they are among the people whom we seek to interview. In the last month, Iraq has provided us with the names of many persons, who may be relevant sources of information, in particular, persons who took part in various phases of the unilateral destruction of biological and chemical weapons, and proscribed missiles in 1991." [2]
The above statement by Hans Blix negates the US claim that Iraq was not cooperating with weapons inspectors, especially if we consider statements by Blix that Iraq was providing the names of such people who can account for the WMD and that Iraq was actively encouraging an environment beneficial for unhindered interviews:
"The second reflection is that with relevant witnesses available it becomes even more important to be able to conduct interviews in modes and locations, which allow us to be confident that the testimony is given without outside influence. While the Iraqi side seems to have encouraged interviewees not to request the presence of Iraqi officials (so-called minders) or the taping of the interviews, conditions ensuring the absence of undue influences are difficult to attain inside Iraq." [Ibid]
The above shows that certain condition cannot be attained inside Iraq, while not blaming Iraq at all. Thus the US and UK are wrong on that count.
With regards to biological and Chemical weapons, Hans Blix regretted the fact that UNMOVIC did not have a chance to enforce the Weapons Inspections program on Iraq, criticising the eventual unilateral US-imposed 3-month deadline when he stated:
"I naturally feel sadness that three and a half months of work carried out in Iraq have not brought the assurances needed about the absence of weapons of mass destruction or other proscribed items in Iraq, that no more time is available for our inspections and that armed action now seems imminent." [3]
UN resolution 1441, the resolution by which the USA is attempting to base it's war on, was passed with the assumption that such a short deadline of 3 months would not be given (indeed it was not given by the UN, it was unilaterally created by the US). Thus the US claim that their war is based on that is blatantly false. Other arguments advanced by pro-war hawks were justifying war based on accumulated Iraqi violations of previous UN resolutions, but these resolutions and their sanctioning of war were intended for a certain time, i.e. the time when they were passed. The passing of UN resolution 1441 itself implied that the other resolutions did not sanction war as 1441 gave Iraq "another chance" to disarm (bear in mind that according to Scott Ritter the former chief weapons inspector, Iraqi was already 95% free from weapons of mass destruction).
3. Iraq supports terrorism
This is yet another claim of the US and UK. In this particular case, no link has yet been established pointing towards Iraqi support of terrorism. This must be reiterated as many people fallaciously are judging Iraq based on faulty evidence of the US and UK. The first lie in this anti-Iraq campaign was shortly after September 11th 2001 when it emerged that the leader of the hijackers, Muhammad Atta met with Iraqi agents in Prague, Czech Republic. This was later dismissed as a case of mistaken identity as a man looking like Muhammad Atta was confused as Atta when the US asked the Czechs to combs their intelligence files concerning Atta.
"An April 28 Newsweek report sought to kill the story for good. According to the story, the Czechs had, months earlier, quietly acknowledged that they "may have been mistaken about the whole thing." After a lengthy search, the FBI had found no evidence that Atta was even in Prague in April 2001." [4]
Two other claims of support for terrorism occur with the citing of Palestinians and Al-Ansaar Al-Islaam, a group allegedly being connected with Al-Qaeda and supported by Iraqi agents. The claim that the Anthrax attacks were Iraqi engineered has even been dismissed by American investigative authorities themselves, it has now been traced to a person in the US and has no bearing on the Iraqi issue.
The Palestinian issue can be refuted easily enough, the Iraqi's simply provide money to the families of the bereaved, to suggest that the Iraqi money is a incentive for young Palestinians to go out and blow themselves up is being very callous regarding Palestinians and ignorant of their own struggle against oppression.
The issue with Al-Ansaar Al-Islaam on the other hand is quite murky, with the USA regularly citing their own sources regarding Iraqi support for the group and the groups Al-Qaeda connection. It is dangerous to blindly believe in the US claims when they are the ones who seem hell-bent on attacking Iraq.
US hypocrisy regarding the UN
It is a weak argument that "the UN will lose it's effectiveness if it does not vote for action". Such comments are full of fallacies. The main reason for the US attacking Iraq ostensibly is to force Iraq to comply by the UN's own resolutions, yet in the name of the UN, the US is prepared to defy the will of the UN and attack Iraq in the UN's name.
The question must be asked, why would the UN become irrelevant if it does not attack Iraq? Let us assume that the UN has judged a war to be an incorrect course of action, that does not mean the UN is impotent, it means the UN after lengthy consideration of the facts has decided war is not the correct course of action. Thus since the US acted unilaterally in the face of UN refusal, does that not mean the US is the one making the UN irrelevant?
It is also not true that the US decided to attack Iraq unilaterally because France was exercising an "unreasonable veto", due to the fact that this war is unpopular worldwide, it would have given this war an air of legitimacy if the US and UK allowed a UN vote on the war by waiting to see if the majority of nations on the UN Security Council passed a resolution allowing a war. Thus in the face of a single veto by France, if the war had the number of votes required to pass a resolution on the Security Council, then in the minds of many people, the war then would have gained legitimacy. The fact that the US and UK did not wait for a vote shows that the USA was not very confident that the Resolution would be passed.
"At the United Nations, Cameroon's ambassador Martin Belinga-Eboutou said the Security Council's six undecided nations had proposed a 45-day deadline for Baghdad. But Fleischer dismissed even a month-long extension as a non-starter." [5]
Indeed, they must have known this due to their spying on UN delegates [6].
Hypocritical US policy
Many points can be raised in this subject. Regarding Iraq's violations of UN Resolutions, Israel has violated over many UN resolutions. With regards to the question of Iraqi violations taking precedence over Israeli violations;
"Resolution 242 referred to the seizure and occupation in the 1967 six-day war by Israeli military forces of lots of other countries' land inhabited in the main by Palestinians. Resolution 242 called for the "withdrawal of Israel's armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict"...."How does the reaction to resolution 242 compare with the one passed last week on Iraq? The Iraq resolution has been pursued with furious haste. Weapons inspectors are expected in Iraq in a matter of days, and if there is the slightest even momentary hesitation on behalf of the Iraqi government, everyone assumes that war will follow. Resolution 242, on the other hand, has been passed for 35 years. For all that time it has been contemptuously ignored by the Israeli government. What conclusion can we draw from this comparison? Some international lawyers argue that the Iraq resolution is passed under chapter VII of the UN charter and therefore requires prompt action, while resolution 242 does not. But why not? Why is the demand for Israeli withdrawal not backed up with a threat of force? As President Bush himself put it in his speech to the UN general assembly on September 12: "Are security council resolutions to be honoured or cast aside without consequence?" The real argument behind the double standard seems to be this: unanimous UN resolutions assisting US oil imperialism will be enforced with the most ruthless military rigour, while unanimous UN resolutions directed against states friendly to the US will be ignored. Whether that is what the founders of the UN had in mind is not clear. What is clear is that whatever happens in Iraq, Palestine is still the issue." [7]
Adding to this, the UN Resolution 194, the Right of Return which states that Palestinians have a right to return to their land and homes from which they were ethnically cleansed in 1948 and afterwards (such as in the village of Qibya in 1953 when Ariel Sharon led a raid with a group of Israel Special Forces and massacred 69 people and the expulsion of Palestinians after the 1967 war). Further UN resolutions have been passed on numerous issues, such as Israeli settlements to killing of innocent Palestinians. Many of these [8] have been subject to an unreasonable veto by the US as well [9] making it's claims against France's "unreasonable" veto very hypocritical. To then make war on a nation potentially killing millions while partly justifying a war on something another nation claimed they would do and which the US itself committed many times further angers many millions of people who cannot understand such double-standards. Such actions serve as a breeding ground for potential Al-Qaeda recruits.
The issues of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) is full of more US hypocrisy. Israel is known to possess 200+ nuclear weapons, in a very unstable region, this has prompted so-called rogue states such as Iran to build them in response, as a result, nuclear weapons are seen as a deterrent in the Middle-East and thus desirable. Iraq was on the path to creating one, Iran is said to be on the verge of possessing one. The catalyst for this seems to be Israel, yet no demands have been made by the US for Israel to open up it's facilities or face sanctions (or indeed military actions, as it once contemplated doing against Libya for allegedly trying to build nuclear weapons), while it threatens Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and placed sanctions (now removed due to 9-11) on Pakistan and India. These actions highlight the double-standards in their actions as no consistency is shown here, it's relations with Israel on this issue brings to the fore the special relationship they have with Israel which is widely seen as one of the major causes of Muslim resentment of USA.
An argument is put forth that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East, but that myth is swiftly refuted by highlighting the fact that Israel is a Jewish state dedicated to maintaining a Jewish majority, while being based on land which was stolen from it's original Palestinian occupiers. It builds Jewish-only roads, illegal settlements on land stolen from Palestinians for Jews only, refuses to allow Palestinian refugees take back their land and homes and regularly disrupts the Palestinian economy by staging military incursions, building Jewish-only roads cutting off Palestinian trade routes, and unequally distributing water between Jews and Palestinians. In view of this, the argument that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle-East and thus should not be criticised for possessing nuclear weapons falls flat on it's face.
A further argument for war against Iraq is Iraqi national liberation and the ridding of a brutal tyrant, if the US was so sincere in this endeavour, then why not stop supporting Israel and it's occupation by giving the Israeli's $3 billion per (now the USA has recently agreed to give $10 billion) annum against the historically wrong Palestinians? Would the US condemn an attack on Israel by an Arab coalition intent on liberating the Palestinians from their Israeli occupiers? If the USA was sincere in it's endeavour to rid the Iraqi's of a brutal tyrants, then why support such brutal tyrants in the Muslim world such as Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, the Saudi monarchy and a whole host of other tyrants and dictators? Clearly then it's actions against a brutal tyrant for being a tyrant is overshadowed by it's support for numerous tyrants who fall in line with US interests. This extreme hypocrisy is one of the major issues spoken of by people who are very anti-US government.
Some lies used to justify the war on a broken people
Following are some US claims which have been refuted. These indicate how dangerous it can be to be misinformed, as this can lead to following the policies of people whose agenda can eventually lead to many problems for Americans in general.
Bush, in listing justifications for a US attack on Iraq, asserted that: “There is a poison plant in Northeast Iraq.” This was merely a repetition of the claim Secretary of State Colin Powell made in the Security Council on Feb. 5, when he displayed a satellite photo of the alleged site. The Observer newspaper’s Luke Harding who was among a group of journalists who visited the site, wrote: “If Colin Powell were to visit the shabby military compound at the foot of a large snow-covered mountain, he might be in for an unpleasant surprise. The US Secretary of State last week confidently described the compound in north-eastern Iraq run by an Islamic terrorist group Ansar al-Islam as a ‘terrorist chemicals and poisons factory.’ Yesterday, however, it emerged that the terrorist factory was nothing of the kind more a dilapidated collection of concrete outbuildings at the foot of a grassy hill. Behind the barbed wire, and a courtyard strewn with broken rocket parts, are a few empty houses. There is a bakery and no sign of chemical weapons anywhere only the smell of paraffin and vegetable ghee used for cooking. In the kitchen, I discovered some chopped up tomatoes but not much else.”(Revealed: truth behind US ‘poison factory’ claim, The Observer, Feb. 9, 2003). The BBC and US network ABC carried reports from their journalists that concurred completely with Harding. Yet the issue got almost no attention, and neither Powell nor Bush has been asked to explain how such flimsy ‘evidence’ could be used to justify a war. [10]
Following on from this, another lie propounded by the US administration:
General Kamel was the West's "star witness" in its case against Saddam Hussein. He was no ordinary defector. A son-in-law of the Iraqi dictator, he had immense power in Iraq; and when he defected, he took with him crates of secret documents on Iraq's weapons programme. These secrets have been repeatedly cited by George W Bush and his officials as "evidence" that Iraq still has large quantities of deadly weapons of mass destruction, and that only war can disarm it. Bush, his officials and leading American commentators, have frequently lauded General Kamel as the most reliable source of information on Iraq's weapons. The Blair government has echoed this. In 1995, General Kamel was debriefed by senior officials of the United Nations inspections team, then known as UNSCOM, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The complete transcript, now disclosed for the first time, contradicts almost everything Bush and Blair have said about the threat of Iraqi weapons. For example, General Kamel says categorically: "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear - were destroyed." All that remains, he says, are the blueprints, computer disks and microfiches. Newsweek says that the CIA and Britain's MI6 were told this; and Blair and Bush must have been told the truth. In other words, it is likely that Iraq has been substantially disarmed for at least eight years. [11]
The people of Iraq have been suffering for very long now due to sanctions, repression and nearly daily bombing, bombing them in a "shock and awe" campaign will greatly increase their suffering. The human losses in an unjustified war will only serve as a recruitment tool for radical groups. 2 million Iraqi's have died now due to sanctions, Iraqi's have been denied medicine, face bombing nearly everyday, are suffering from many diseases due to sanctions which can be cured in many other countries, and now they face one of the most powerful military campaigns in history. The tragic loss of life will always be used in radical rhetoric against the USA.
In all this cacophony, there's one voice missing: that of the Iraqi people, who have been suffering for decades from repression, war and sanctions, who will suffer the most when the war actually begins and who are likely to feel the after effects of the war for many years to come. The people of Iraq are Saddam Hussein's victims, not his accomplices. But they will bear the brunt of war -- again. Most Americans remember the Gulf War as relatively bloodless. Actually, some 3,000 Iraqi civilians were killed directly in allied attacks....Under the sanctions regime imposed by the United Nations after the war, a rich country became poor: Infant and child mortality shot up, life expectancy dropped and humanitarian agencies report that at least one out of five children in south and central Iraq suffers from chronic malnutrition. The country's economy has collapsed. More than 60% of Iraqis get virtually all their food through government-distributed rations of flour, rice, tea, cooking oil, beans and other commodities. [12]
Making Bin Laden's job easier
As we have seen in the above article, the US' actions in Iraq are unjust and unethical. The fact that it acted without the permission of the UN also makes it illegal. Many lies form part of the justification for the war on a people who have suffered immensely, losing nearly 2 million innocent people due to sanctions. The casualties of this war will be huge according to the UN, nearing 600,000 in the first phases during and shortly after the war [13], and under these weak pretexts, the US wants to war. Considering that some of the pretexts for war, like WMD are hypocritically ignored by the US, and concern for national liberation and tyranny is selectively applied, with Muslims usually being the victims, this illegal and unethical war will further compound the anti-US government feeling in the Muslim world and exonerate to a great extent the speeches of people considered "extremists" in the Muslim world. With resentment against the USA for it's support of the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine while funding the settlement expansion by vetoing UN resolutions against them and aiding the Israeli's with nearly $3 billion per annum, with the mainly US supported sanctions on Iraq which has killed nearly 2 millions innocent people, it's support of brutal tyrants in the Muslim world and then it's hypocritical declarations that it is a force for "peace and justice" in the world among the major issues of Muslim resentment, the type of views termed "anti-American" will only flourish in the Arab and Muslim world, and with such views potentially gaining a strong grip on many millions of people, recruitment for Al-Qaeda can only get easier, along with subsequent terrorist attacks on America and it's citizens.
References:
[1] http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/02/15/1044927819765.html
[2] http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/recent%20items.html
[3] http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/blix19mar.html
[4] http://slate.msn.com/id/2070410/
[5] http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/606075
[6] http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0302-01.htm
[7] http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/comment/0,10551,838915,00.html
[8] http://www.mediamonitors.net/michaelsladah&suleimaniajlouni1.html
[9] http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=1579&CategoryId=4
[10] http://dailystar.com.lb/opinion/11_03_03_b.htm
[11] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12729598&method=full&siteid=50143
[12] http://www.hrw.org/editorials/2003/iraq031603.htm
[13] http://www.casi.org.uk/info/undocs/internal.html