Bush's Plan for Iraq
Statement by the Committees of Correspondence for
Democracy and Socialism
Oct 16, 2003
While the Bush Administration may claim that the target
of its new first strike military policy are the
governments of countries like Iraq, the real objective
is to undermine and render inoperative the United
Nations Charter. By that we mean not only the words of
that document but the whole range of principles of
international relations evolved and agreed to by most
of the nations of the world in the years since World
War II. What the White House and its "national
security" staff have formulated and announced to the
world is a sweeping and dangerous shift in U.S. foreign
policy that rejects collective security, exalts
militarism and raises new dangers to the planet and its
peoples. It is a development that evokes critical
examination in this country's mass media in inverse
proportion to the alarm it has set off in the rest of
the world.
With respect to Iraq specifically, the White House now
arrogantly asserts its right to declare any country,
organization or movement a "threat" to either our own
country, its interest abroad or the interests of any
other country over whom we throw a blanket of
protection - whether they ask for it or not. On that
basis, says the "Bush Doctrine," the U.S. is justified
in using offensive military force as part of the UN
Charter's right to self-defense.
By every measurement, including those used by U.S.
intelligence services, Iraq is no threat to this
country or its allies. In spite of charges by Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice that Iraq possesses "weapons of mass
destruction," there is virtually no evidence to support
that. According to Scott Ritter, the former head of the
UN Special Commission on Concealment, and long a
scourge of the Iraqi leadership, "It was possible as
early as 1997 to determine that, strictly from a
qualitative point of view, that Iraq has been
disarmed."
The charge that Iraq has ties with Al Qaeda --- absurd
on the face of it considering the secular nature of the
Baathist government in Baghdad--- is based on testimony
by CIA Director George Tenet before Congress that the
"mutual antipathy" the two had for the U.S. "suggests
that tactical cooperation between the two is possible."
It is hard to grace the words "suggests" and "possible"
with the word "flimsy."
What talk about the invasion of Iraq is aimed at is the
U.S. using the pretext of some imagined threat to
change any government the people in the White House
don't like.
When asked if an invasion of Iraq would be shelved if
that country agreed to inspections, Secretary of State
Colin Powell replied, "even then the United States
believes the Iraqi people would be better served with a
new kind of leadership." In short, it is not about
weapons or threats; it's about getting rid of people we
don't like. In today's world that seems to be
especially if they are situated where there is a lot of
petroleum under the region's terrain.
Think for a moment about the list of people the
Administration doesn't like. The U.S. has already tried
to overthrow President Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and
appears prepared to try it again. The White House
doesn't like the leadership in Syria, Libya, the Sudan,
Iran or Cuba. Threatening noises are being directed at
Brazil's probable next president, populist leftist Luiz
Inacio Lula Da Silva and he hasn't even been elected
yet.
The new policy hardly needs a rationale. Anyone who
stands for independence, for resistance to rapacious
globalization, for neutrality and respect of national
sovereignty is likely to be targeted. The
Administration can be expected to come up with some
fabricated excuse, like the recent absurd charge that
Cuba is engaged in biological warfare
preparation, or just simply say that we are deeply
concerned with the condition of the Iraqi people. We
can bomb them for 10 years, embargo their country, kill
their children with starvation and disease, and turn a
whole nation into an international basket case, and
then say we have to invade them to "better serve" them.
The Bush Administration may be able to sell this to the
Congress, and even - for a while - to the public, but
no one is buying anywhere else in the world. The
nations of the world recognize the drums of empire when
they hear them, like Rudyard Kipling urging the U.S. to
"take up the white man's burden" in the Philippines in
1901.
If there is one things that the terrible events in
South Asia should teach us all is that a world divided
into nuclear armed nations following their own narrow
self-interests could end up killing us all. The calm
and reasoned Charter of the UN is our best chance to
emerge from the next 10 years in one piece. Any policy
that undermines the fragile fabric of international
cooperation is a danger to life on the planet.
For more information on CCDS's past statements on the
Middle East
situation, please contact the national office:
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
Socialism
116 West 111th Street, New York, NY 10026-4206
Phone: (212) 663-3526
Fax: (212) 663-3650
Email: national at c...
Web: www.cc-ds.org