No to War!

By the editors of Sozialismus

[This article originally published in: Sozialismus Nr.2 (February 2003), 30/263 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web, http://www.linksnet.de/artikelphp?id=833.]

There are many good reasons for speaking out against a new Iraq war. Let us begin with the most obvious reasons:

- UN resolution 1441 granted comprehensive inspection possibilities to the inspectors of the world organization. Unlike the 90s, the Iraqi leader has not resisted the inspections.

- No evidence of weapons of mass destruction was found. If the inspectors find nothing, the UN Security Council cannot legitimate any military intervention. “A preventive war unleashed without evidence would be a disaster for the rule of law consciousness of the West and a grievous setback for the further development of a radical right to international peace” (Heiner Geissler, SZ, January 20, 2003).

- The US administration under Bush Jr. is not interested in the rule of law or in peace. Rather we are witnesses to a step backward in international law and the rule of law with the imprisonment of “combatants” arrested in Afghanistan and with the denial of combat status and elimination of inspections of humanitarian organizations and legal assistance. The blockade against the establishment of an International Court, the expansion of international proscription of conventional weapons (land mines etc) and high tech ammunition (uranium-enriched grenades etc) can be understood in this connection.

- Even if weapons of mass destruction are discovered by the UN inspectors, the neighboring states are not so threatened that a “pre-emptive strike” would be legitimated. Non-military disarmament operations must be carried out. The doctrine of preventive attack is not compatible with the acknowledged (even if not always observed) rules of international law. There can only be a preventive war in the special case that an enemy state or its political class immediately mounts an attack. The assertion of a military doctrine based on “preemptive strikes” would be the end of the present world order. Then only the right of the stronger would be in force. No one really wants to live in such a world.” (Christian Tomuschat, Spiegel, 1/20/03)

- No “danger is looming” in the case of Iraq. Rather a political example encounters us that was applied in the struggle against the dictatorial Taliban regime. After the rise of the military clan around Saddam Hussein who became the dictator of Iraq, the country attacked Iran in 1980 and could rely on US support in a protracted trench warfare (up to 1988). With the 1990 attack on Kuwait, the Americans began a confrontation course with the Hussein clan. The 1991 capitulation of the Iraqi dictator had no domestic political consequences because the Americans were thirsty for oil at that time and had no idea about a new order of Iraq with its complicated ethnic groups and traditional political opposition.

- A military demilitarization of Iraq would have considerable victims in the civil population. Neither the US alone nor the US with its allies has the ability or resources for actually making peace in Iraq or an economic-social reorganization in the phase following the war. In addition, the whole region could be destabilized economically and politically with a military intervention.

Saddam Hussein and his clan doubtlessly represent a misanthropic politics. However conditions in Iraq are only different in degrees from conditions in several neighboring states. The massive military armament in this region involves historically dubious borders and delusions about developing a US power base through territorial extension. Besides a luxurious lifestyle, the oil wealth allows the potentates massive armaments that cannot be financed by underdeveloped countries.

The fragile balance among the regimes of the region is a constant challenge. This was one of the decisive reasons for the second Gulf war. What was central at that time was the military presence in Saudi Arabia – the most domestically unstable regional power -, not direct control of the Iraqi oil fields. Influencing development in Iran with its far-reaching political and social upheavals was also vital. The military option in no way solves the geo-political challenges. Even after the end of the system confrontation, neither the US unilaterally nor in alliance with other capitalist centers can afford the material and financial resources necessary for an occupation over many years and for the economic and political reconstruction. The presuppositions for enforcing a regional distribution of power conforming to power interests are lacking. In Yugoslavia, this problem was pushed off on the Western Europeans. In Afghanistan, the problem of reconstruction is still burning. In the case of Iraq, far-reaching questions are stifled. No one can give a cogent answer how a nation-building process in the Middle East can be organized in a time marked by the decline of state orders in vast parts of the southern hemisphere.

To some war opponents, the argument that the world power US seeks the security and control of geo-strategic hierarchies of power and spheres of influence is not convincing. The military buildup can only be explained as the direct grasp of the fossil energy raw material oil. “Securing the oil supply” for the metropolises of the “North” is doubtlessly important in all questions concerning the Middle East and the Gulf. However deriving wars from this imperative raises new problems. A stabilization of the price of oil to the pre-war level is only possible in the medium term with a very brief successful military action. The price of oil will rise with the continuance of the war and the magnitude of the destruction. The costs of the war will also explode. Conservative estimates are $140 billion war costs and $500 billion occupation costs. Deutsche Bank (the German Central Bank) has calculated that a worldwide economic recession would be the result. The economic grounds of war must be considered. However the peace movement does not need a consensus in this question to convincingly mobilize against the war.

That war opponents and the political left in the wider sense have a hard time developing and popularizing a long-term policy is more important for mobilization. The Iraq conflict is a good example. Since the beginning of the 1980s, we have known about the repressive, misanthropic character of the Hussein regime and its expansionist tendencies towards its neighbors. We all like to postpone answering fundamedntal questions: How can international peace be developed by the UN or other institutions? How can an effective control of the minimum democratic standard not be undermined by any political regime? What power could be vested in international organizations? Many of us reach for the short formula “No blood for oil” because we don’t like to speak of violations of international law and minimum political-social standards for all citizens on the globe and are in the dark how progress on this terrain can be achieved as quickly as possible.

That wars and preventive military strikes by states and their ruling classes have no legitimation any more is an historical achievement. In the last decades, there were advances in international peace and agreement on human rights and constitutional standards which are also worn down again and again by new forms of “denationalization and privatization of war” and civil war economies. As a result, we cannot simply cede securing peace and protecting human rights to international organizations. Rather we must do our utmost for the further development of civil society standards in international relations.

In the US, approval of the policy of the Bush administration has clearly fallen. In Europe, overwhelming majorities in the population are against a third Gulf war. A great terrain exists for the peace movement that could be “occupied”. This political weakness must be overcome in the long term. Let us resolutely say No to a military intervention in Iraq!

Let's go point by point:

1. Saddam Hussein has resisted the 1441 inspections. He has been in material breach on a number of counts, as set forth by Hans Blix and Colin Powell.

2. Evidence of WMD's, including mustard gas, as well as other banned, including long range missiles, materials were found.

3. Bush is interested in the rule of law and peace. It is Saddam Hussein, enabled by the French, Russians, Chinese and Germans, who is flouting the rule of law and endangering peace.

4. Neighboring states are in danger. Saddam Hussein has attacked Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (remember Kafgi?) and Israel (remember the SCUD attacks). He has attacked without provocation or justification. He is a menace to the entire region.

5. If America wanted Iraqi oil, we would have lifted the sanctions and dealt with Saddam Hussein.

6. If civilians are injured, it will be because Saddam Hussein continues to put military targets in proximities to civilians, for the purpose of using civilians as human shields.

As usual, it is the Left who is enabling a murderous dictator remain in power, its their history: the USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea.

J. Lowe's assertions are so clueless that either he has an IQ on par with his "Woeful-wits" son of a Bush, or he is a paid CIA provocateur.

Just one single example shows how silly his belief in "Colon" Powell's "dog-and-pony" testimony was--Powell plagiarized a 12-year-old collage report as his "evidence"!

Short on information.

Powell showed conclusively that Iraq is not complying with the inspections and is, in fact, continuing to play a shell game. Even the French acknowledged that.

And he was only repeating what Blix said: Iraq is not cooperating with the inspections.

To bend over and spread them for you and Mr. Bush?

I could sleep 12 hours waiting for a substantive response. . .

None will ever be forthcoming, for one reason. There is no substantive opposition to war with Iraq, only hate-America bs.

Just the little facist worms inside it.

...JBlo is waiting for and argument that he has no intention of listening to....

I love these self-congradulatory assholes...They come along saying "Everybody knows that the sky is polka dotted, your failure to debate me on this point proves that I am right. I claim victory." and then go off on a little masturbatory celebration...while we just laugh at how stupid they are.

Why cast your pearls before swine?

Keep it up , JBlo...you are very entertaining. I will cut your posts and send them to my friends around the world saying "See...idiots like this really DO exist...hard to believe as it is...."

Outside of the U.S. Controlled media Colin Powell is now a laughingstock.

His vaunted Dossier from pal Tony was an out of date plagiarized piece of disinformation which MI6 disavowed before it was released. It was prepared by secretaries and functionaries with no particular Intelligence expertise.

Powell' s alleged weapons sites were toured by media people at Saddam's invitation and were shown to be either long abandoned or never a weapons site.

The intercepts were devoid of context or time stamp, were vague at best, of suspiciously poor quality, and could have in any event been recorded prior to the last Gulf Massacre.

BushBlower to JBlo: Jay - your post was excellent. You are correct on every point. "

...as they move from solo performance to circle jerk !(although I strongly suspect that BushBlower & JBlo are one and the same, there can't be too many living, breathing people THAT fuckin' stupid...

..they both BLOW in any event....)

print and distribute!

BA - I can always count on you for comic relief. The man who tried to cover up My Lai, used a phoney dossier, and photos, and is "highly" respected. That is definitely a knee slapper. I know Harry Belafonte thinks much of him.

I think Colin Powell should consider a career in stand-up. You could be his Charley McCarthy.