Where to begin? The motive for the Iraq war needs to be examined more thoroughly. The Bush administration began their argument for war against Iraq on the basis that Iraq contained weapons of mass destruction, which violated UN stipulations. This argument had nothing to do with the actual reasons for war; it was merely a convenient and simple explanation. It seemed plausible too, after all the United States provided Saddam Hussein's Iraq with these weapons during the 1980s during the reigns of Reagan and Bush. It appeared to be a surefire bet to win the support of the American public. Hussein must possess weapons of mass destruction because we have the documentation that we sold them to him.
It might seem like a huge scandal to some of us that Hussein's weapons were American made. But the administration had explanations for this too. First of all, how many Americans actually know of this transaction of destruction anyhow? The media did nothing to educate the public about this fact either. When that information did surface, Hussein could simply be portrayed as a traitor to the United States. We had aided him against Iran and then he turned around and began a war with helpless Kuwait. This seems logical enough.
However, many questions and statements are ignored with this line of reasoning. The fact that we should have known Hussein was not to be trusted when he went to war with Iran in the first place. We cannot, on the one hand, sell Hussein weapons of mass destruction, and then on the other hand, exploit his use of those weapons as a reason to go to war against him. Where did Hussein's transformation occur? I would argue that it occurred long before he wrestled power away from his predecessor. It happened when he lost his nationalist and socialist ideology of the Baath party, of which he belonged. Hussein was never democratically elected, but taking down Iran's government was more important to the United States than principle. Regardless, the Bush administration assumed that Hussein still possessed the weapons that the United States had sold to him. After all, Rumsfeld and Cheaney were present when Hussein had bough the weapons.
So it was quite a shock, there was even awe, when inspections of Iraq turned up nothing. How could this be explained? He must be hiding them. His poor starving army must be able to outsmart the representative body of the entire world, right? Had this so-called madman complied with a UN resolution?
It took many months for the Bush administration to finally admit that Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction. However, I contend that even had Hussein controlled weapons of mass destruction, it would not have been a legitimate reason for war anyway. Hussein did not have the technology to launch those weapons onto United States soil thus rendering any self-defense argument inappropriate. Hussein's hatred for Israel is well known. Israel is an ally of the United States, which makes defending that nation reasonable. This is where dubbing Hussein a madman becomes dangerous. A madman is devoid of logic. Attacking Israel would be quite illogical from Hussein's standpoint. What would he have to gain? The best thing that could result from an Iraqi attack on Israel is that Hussein would revisit his position after the first Persian Gulf War. But in all likelihood, Hussein must have known that his fortunes would fare far worse this go-round.
Saddam Hussein was not a madman as Bush has claimed. He was a logical man. As Americans, we disagree with his premise, but one can be logically sound even with a faulty premise. Hussein's premise was that he wanted to maintain his power. Attacking Israel would certainly not aid his goal of persevering power.
The next argument for the war saw the United States as liberators of the Iraqi people from the evil dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Again, Hussein was a dictator when the United States sold him weapons of mass destruction. In recent years we have seen numerous bloodless coups against corrupt dictators. The two keys in a popular bloodless coup are the bloodless part and the absence of overt international aid to the coup. Hussein's reign of terror need to be dethroned, but the United States' method fit none of the factors that make up a bloodless coup. Instead, many thousands of Iraqis have died. It is difficult to see a gun-wielding group of people as liberators when they have killed your family and friends. The United States was an outside force, who appeared not to listen to outside advice, whether from allies or Iraqis themselves.
Another fallacy with this reason is that there are many dictators in the world. To be consistent, the United States must overthrow all of them. Instead, the United States allies itself with some of these dictators including Pakistani General Pervez Musharraf. There is no logic to the argument that the United States must depose a Hussein because he is a dictator and does not believe in freedom and democracy, when the United States also allies itself with other dictators.
It has been argued that the United States mission in Iraq has been to spread freedom and democracy to its people. Again, the above argument regarding allied dictators either disproves this reason or converts it to absurdity. After the election this past January in Iraq, some people who were against the war starting seeing its value. They felt that if Bush had articulated his ideology better, they would have supported the war. If Bush had simply said, that the aim of the war was to spread democracy to Iraq, the cause would have been worthy. Certainly the Iraqi people "deserve" democracy. But do they deserve it anymore than the Pakistani people? Do they deserve democracy if they choose another form of government? Democracy needs to reflect the will of the people. If the people are justifiably against the United States, then the government should reflect that belief.
Bush pumped up the American value of freedom all throughout the build up to the war and ever since. During the same period, people are detained in Guantanomo Bay in Cuba without being formally charged with any crime. Arabs and Muslims have been detained within the United States' borders without being formally charged with any crime also. The civil liberties of United States' citizens have been challenged for an indefinite amount of time. Bush cannot claim that we are fighting for freedom while restricting freedom during the fight. He is contradicting American values if he continues to do so.
Another reason for the war was the supposed link between Al Qaida and Iraq. Osama bin Laden's organization is grounded in religious extremism. Hussein is a secular nationalist. The two do not mix, probably to as great a degree as bin Laden and the United States mix. In fact, I say Hussein and bin Laden are further apart than the United States and bin Laden, because Hussein never trained bin Laden against the Soviet Union in the 1980s as the United States had. The 9/11 Commission showed that there was no meaningful link between the two groups. The argument was very pervasive in the Bush administration's reasoning for war. The Iraq war was to be another retaliation to the attacks of September 11, 2001. But as important as this argument was to the administration, it was completely inaccurate and cannot be debated against any further.
Ousting Hussein was not the problem, the violent authoritative way in which it was carried out is. It is still not clear what the true motives of the war were. The United States' thirst for oil was certainly hyped up by dissenters of the war. Since the war began, oil prices have jumped dramatically in United States, allowing for oil companies to cash in.
No comments:
Post a Comment