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War On Iraq?  Ten Years From Now, What Will You Tell Your Children? 

By a concerned historian

The bottom-line is that there are other ways to solve the "Iraq problem," and containment has worked for over ten years. Furthermore, the Bush administration planned to invade Iraq four years ago (see Sunday Herald, a respected U.K newspaper).  The U.S. mainstream media hasn't rushed to inform you of that little detail, and U.S. commentators that address this fact usually joke about conspiracy theories to lessen the chance of taking heat from angry letters to the editor and irate media bosses.  

War with Iraq is primarily about oil.  The terrorism arguments have some truth, however.  Propaganda never works, after all, if there isn't some measure of truth behind the message.  But the fact is, "our" action could inspire thousands of new terrorists. Nevertheless, even the Washington Post speaks openly about oil being the key issue -- on it's front page, no less.  Although you have to read between the lines (WP, Sept. 15, 2002).   

Within a couple of years, the world is likely going to reach the midpoint of all petroleum product extraction.  Many oil industry executives know this, and that's why BP has changed it's slogan to "Beyond Petroleum," leaving "British Petroleum" in the dust bin of marketing history.  Highly respected industry scientists like Dr. Colin Campbell talk about the issue (e.g., RealVideo Presentation [in English after the five minute German intro]; here are the slides he used in that presentation).  Even the U.S. Geological Survey documents note that the midpoint is not far off.  The Middle East and the Caspian regions house the world's largest untapped resources, and the U.S. seeks to control them.  Don't take my word for it.  Just read Zbigniew Brzezinski's book, The Grand Chessboard:  American Primacy and It's Geostrategic Imperatives.  Better still, just enter that title into an internet search engine and read articles about it, like this revealing one by Mike Ferner, a former Navy serviceman.  No sense in giving royalty revenue to Brzezinski.  As a member of the foreign policy elite on par with Henry Kissinger, he doesn't need your money.

WARS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS BUILT ON LIES 

Does the U.S. Government use propaganda and outright lies to get the American people to buy into wars?  Study history and you will be shocked.  You will find that propaganda and lies are the norm, rather than the exception.  For example, take the 1990-91 Gulf War.  Check out this Christian Science Monitor article, (In War, Some Facts Less Than Factual, September 6, 2002; backup google cache).  Chicanery ran amuck, and even a U.S. public relations firm created a bogus story for testimony to Congress, lying about how babies were thrown on the floor by Iraqi soldiers busting Kuwaiti incubators.  The publisher of Harpers Magazine, John MacArthur, documents this and discusses it in two radio short interviews with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now (part 1) (part 2).  He's not alone in documenting this chapter in recent history, but that radio interview offers a good summary and further context on the general phenomena of lies used to make Americans want war.  There's even some indication that George Bush Sr.'s ambassador, April Glaspie, provided Saddam Hussein with the impression that the U.S. would not act against an Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.  The true history on this episode is a bit murky, but there can be no refuting the fact that lies and propaganda ran amuck once Hussein had already invaded.

So, what is the U.S. up to today?  Given a leaked story that first surfaced in the Times of London, one of the most reputable newspapers in the world, we now know that the Bush administration is planning to spend $200 million of our tax dollars for PR firm actions and other propaganda.  A commentary on this and the link to the original Times of London article can be seen by clicking here (the link to the Times of London story is at the bottom).

Dear God, even if you support the war on Iraq, it should anger you to a boil that virtually every war America has fought has been pushed upon the American people with a host of lies and propaganda meant to whip the populous into a frenzy.  Americans are not stupid, and most Americans are not pacifists.  Most of us will support war when there is valid, real and sound logic.  But the fact is, most wars are not about easily digestible logic.  Wars are usually the byproduct of economic system necessities.  Bush knows he can't ask you to go to war for the preservation of the petroleum economy (plastics, fertilizers, etc., never mind gasoline and natural gas for electricity, heating and cooking) for another 25 years, a war to buy time to extract remaining value in the petroleum economy while permitting the gradual establishment of alternative energy production.  Ask yourself why the Bush administration approves of hydrogen fuel cell cars that are ten years away and which will be part and parcel of a hydrogen economy that will be controlled by the current oil industry companies, while at the same time, the U.S. government provides little to no economic incentives like tax breaks on hybrid cards that exist today, cars that would reduce oil industry profits in the next ten years.  

Sure, fighting terrorism is frosting on the cake.  We are supposed to get that frosting, if you believe Bush.  But don't delude yourself.  The cake itself is global empire, and whether or not we actually lessen future terrorism by invading Iraq in "regime change" (drop the euphemisms, OK) is debatable.  The fact is, Americans are not stupid.  That's why our government constantly lies to us.  Take it as a compliment.

If you study history, you will find many other examples of propaganda and revisionist history deconstructed with the passage of time.  Some examples include:

* The Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor was not only allowed to happen, but FDR executed a carefully developed plan to lead the Japanese into the attack.  At the time, Americans were sick of "European Wars," fresh off World War I, the war that President Wilson told us would make the world "safe for democracy."  In 1940, over seventy percent of the American population didn't want anything to do with World War II.  FDR had to change public opinion, and could conveniently slow down Japan at the same time by threatening Japan's access to oil.  (Sources:  one; two; three .... and many others;  ultimately, I believe WWII was a "just war," excluding the nuclear bombing of Japan and the firebombing of Dresden to be sure, but FDR nevertheless lied, and it took 50 years for the revisionist history to be fully deconstructed)

* The 1898 Spanish-American war was pushed on America by calls to "Remember the Maine."  But in fact, Spain didn't blow up our ship in Cuba.  It was either an accidental explosion of the ship's boiler, or a U.S.-planned explosion of the ship's boiler.  This is beyond question and fully documented.

* The Gulf of Tonkin incident in Vietnam that got Congress to give President Lyndon Johnson a "blank check" was in fact bogus

And on and on....  Nothing herein is conspiracy theory.  It's all thoroughly documented historical fact.  Study history and you'll find many other examples.

THE U.S. IS NOW HONEST AND PUBLIC ABOUT "OUR" EMPIRE

The U.S. foreign policy establishment openly discusses the merits and issues related to U.S. global empire.  Don't take my word for it.  Just read Foreign Affairs, the most respected and influential foreign policy journal in the entire world, published by the Council on Foreign Relations.  A prime example can be found in an article in the current (September/October) issue titled "America's Imperial Ambition," by Georgetown University professor G John Ikenberry.  Ikenberry notes that America "will use its unrivalled military power to manage the global order."  You can see part of this article at the Foreign Affairs website, but they only show the first part of articles to non-subscribers (any American university library will have the journal in their stacks).  Alternatively, you can read a summary of the article in the reputable Asian Times.  No two ways about it, the Bush administration "neo-conservative" Chicken Hawks have an aggressive "understanding" of what Pax Americana means.  For perspective and links to further information, check out this San Francisco Chronicle editorial. 

BE ABLE TO LOOK AT YOURSELF IN THE MIRROR AND TO FACE YOUR KIDS

Don't be lazy.  Get out and join demonstrators calling for alternatives to war.  Fax, call and write your Congressional representatives (don't email or sign those web petitions because those are ignored, in part, because Congress knows those channels are too easily manipulated, and therefore not truly representative).  Those actions do make a difference.  Bush, after all, wasn't initially going to bother with the U.N.  A contributing factor in his decision to go to the U.N. was the Democrats slowly getting half a spine as an increasing number of average Americans flooded Congress with messages of opposition (never mind the fact that the media has, for the most part, not reported this fact).

How will you look at your children in the years to come if you didn't make a stand?  Sure, we may not be able to stop this war.  But the point is that if you do nothing, you have to live with yourself.  

I don't profess to have the answers, and I'm not a pacifist.  But I know when I'm being lied to, and I know that this particular war will not serve our long-term interest.  Containment has worked against Iraq and we have no reason to rush our other alternatives because containment addresses the red herring argument about Iraq working on nukes and other weapons of mass destruction.  We can have containment while strong sanctions and disarmament efforts take place.   Iraq doesn't represent a clear and present danger in the immediate future -- period, end of report.  Any statement to the contrary is a lie.  And to all of you that think war can be the answer, fine...  Maybe in a year or two, if the situation changes, a war may be justified.  But stop the lies.  Even the CIA is talking about Iraq having the ability to finalize nuclear production in a minimum of seven years, and weapons inspectors can find fissionable material for "dirty bombs" more easily than just about any other type of dangerous substance because nuclear material radiation is more easily detected than other substances that can be used in weapons of mass destruction.  And sure, Saddam Hussein is a cruel dictator that represses his own people and has used chemical weapons on his own people.  But the United States helped him build those weapons and we didn't do squat when he used them on his own people.  The fact is that the dictates of geopolitical strategy come with policies that are contradictory when set side-by-side and with the removal of intervening years.  

Enough innocent people have died already (over 500,000 Iraqi children under sanctions according to the U.N.), and constantly throwing military might around in an unstable region could quite literally result in global nuclear war and the extinction of humanity.  You think I'm exaggerating?  Sadly, I'm not.  Only the probability is debatable.  Israel has already informed the world she will likely retaliate if Iraq attacks with missiles (regardless of what Iraq's missiles carry).  That could lead to various chain reactions, regardless of what Israel decides to use.  And the fact is, the U.S. and Russian missile early warning systems have had scores of false alarms.  We were 30 seconds away from extinction when Yeltsin's generals were telling him the U.S. had launched a surprise nuclear attack in 1995.  The U.S. has a first-strike nuclear doctrine, so Moscow is edgy when their early warning systems sound false alarms (even though the media almost never discusses this in public).  It turned out to be the launch of a satellite that went off course in time to have the Russians realize it wasn't a rocket heading for Moscow.  All of this is documented by Dr. Helen Caldicott (see below).  A domino-style regional conflict might happen in the Middle East, and that could stress these early warning systems, triggering accidental nuclear war.  India and Pakistan might go on edge too, compounding the risk of computer-generated nuclear war.  Humanity dances at the risk of Murphy's Law.  One of these days, we could all be vaporized or die in global nuclear winter.  Ignorance is not bliss, it's a game of Russian roulette, and the stakes are human extinction.  

Don't read into my statement incorrectly.  I'm not a wishy-washy liberal thinker, and you can argue that the odds of the extinction scenario is low.  But don't lie to yourself.  The probability is somewhere between zero and 1.  It is not zero, and as a result, we live in an insane world.  By definition, extinction of humanity is insanity.  I know all to well that the world is full of contradictions and that on some levels, it seems rational to many people that our global political and economic system is set-up the way that it is.  But the fact remains that while the system "works," it simultaneously fails miserably.  A system that, as a byproduct, creates a world were extinction is possible is insane and worthy of CONSTANT calm discussion and analysis (not the crap we get on TV);  furthermore, the imbalances created in a world that is capable of creating 500 people that own about 50% of planet's wealth (versus a population in excess of 6,000,000,000) is also worthy of calm discussion and analysis.  That's another ball of wax and beyond the scope of this open letter.  But if you want to end terrorism once and for all, some solution (I don't know what it is) to create a bit more equality in our world is the only way, regardless of the fact that you are correct if you argue that poor nations and the Islamic world has at least some (NOT ALL -- hardly) share of "blame" for their current status.  Facing the possibility of the extinction of humanity, even the mega-rich have a vested interest in trying to figure out how to continue to dominate, but with a softer step.  So, my message to the global elite:  get a grip, or your great great grandchildren will never exist, and don't delude yourself (as some of you have) with eugenics, population control and orchestrated genocides because that will not guarantee the existence of your future generations.  The Samuel P. Huntington "Clash of Civilizations" paradigm may accurately describe the world in some respects, but following that paradigm will doom your great great grandchildren -- they will never exist.  Truth be told, the global elite (and/or their advisors) understand these truths, but they don't know what paradigm can be put in place as an alternative that will simultaneously preserve their status.  Sadly, the world will likely have to wait for all hell to break loose before the global elite sees it in their interest to embrace an alternative paradigm.  But it will only take a few visionaries among them, combined with the voices of the masses.     

Dr. Helen Caldicott has spent nearly her entire life studying the risk that humanity may extinguish itself.  Her new book, The New Nuclear Danger:  George W. Bush's Military Industrial Complex is mandatory reading for anyone that cares about preventing the extinction of the human race (and it's a very readable book;  it's not for egg-heads).  You can get a taste for her views by checking out this radio interview and speech.  Forgive what may seem as a digression from the discussion of Iraq, but in truth, everything is connected in the often contradictory world of geopolitics.  Heck, while I'm at it, I have one more book recommendation for you:  The War on Freedom:  How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001.  No other book will likely make you think as much as this one.  It will blow your mind.

I am not a communist, nor an anarchist.  I'm not a revolutionary of any stripe.  I do believe in the functioning of the capitalist system when there is some balance provided by government (don't get me started on corruption in America), coupled with honest religion and spiritualism on the part of the population.  Marx did have one thing right, however.  Religion often is the opiate of the masses, and we definitely see this in parts of the "religious right" in America.  To my fundamentalist Christian "born again" countrymen (this includes George W. Bush) that stand idly by for an eventual heaven, I ask you how you can believe biblical prophecy of Armageddon justifies the abrogation of many of Christ's other teachings in our nation's day-to-day lives?  Hey, believe in the prophecies of rapture and Armageddon all you want.  I'm OK with that, I guess...  But acknowledge the fact that you have a contradiction on your hands.  You're ignoring many of Christ's other teachings on how you must live your lives.   This paragraph is tangential, but still relevant even to agnostics and atheists (I'm somewhat in that camp) because a great many of the "leaders" taking us down the path to war believe in these fundamental and thoroughly contradictory tenants of the New Testament.

SO, WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?

So, what's it going to be?  Are you going to get out on the street and PEACEFULLY demonstrate?  Are you going to contact your Congressional representatives?  Are you going to contact gatekeepers in the media, demanding that they report on the fact that Congress has been flooded with messages from Americans, messages that are over 95% against war with Iraq (opinion polls are deceptive by the way questions are asked, and although "protestors" are motivated and are thus messaging in a higher percentage relative to public opinion on the whole, I have no doubt that the true percentage of the American public that doesn't want war with Iraq is around 70%)?  

So, what's it going to be?  Are you going to buy into the idea that you have no power, no voice?  If you do nothing, what are you going to tell your children ten years from now?  Hopefully, we'll all still be here.

Thank you for your time,

A concerned historian

Photo Credits:  1) Bush photo for "fair use" only under US Copyright law;  source:  Reuters, Kevin Lamarque;  2) Family at Portland demonstration, October 5, 2002, Portland IndyMedia.