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CounterPunch
September
13, 2002
Who is the Madman Here?
Bush's UN
Non-Sequiturs
by Tom Gorman
President Bush spoke to the UN General Assembly
on Thursday, September 12 about the supposedly urgent need to
attack Iraq. The following is a list of statements made by him
that are either illogical, half-truths, or outright falsehoods,
with responses to each.
1. "Twelve years ago, Iraq invaded
Kuwait without provocation."
Kuwait had been slant-drilling the Iraqi
oil field of Rumallah as well as driving down the price of oil
at a time when Iraq was in desperate need of funds to rebuild
its infrastructure after the Iran-Iraq War (in which Iraq was
the favored state of the US). While it is arguable whether this
was justification for an invasion, this provocation is significantly
less specious than that cited for, say, the American invasion
of Panama seven months earlier.
2. "And the regime's forces were
poised to continue their march to seize other countries and their
resources."
Satellite imagery showed no Iraqi military
buildup in the border regions with Saudi Arabia in either Iraq
or occupied Kuwait in September 1990, as revealed in a series
of articles in the <St.Petersburg> (FL) Times in January
1991. Yet the elder President Bush fabricated this "aggression"
to justify Operation Desert Shield.
3. "Had Saddam Hussein been appeased
instead of stopped, he would have endangered the peace and stability
of the world. Yet this aggression was stopped by the might of
coalition forces and the will of the United Nations."
Hussein was appeased by coalition forces.
After the cease-fire of March 1991, Hussein asked for permission
to fly air strikes against rebels in both the northern and southern
no-fly zones of Iraq. The elder Bush granted Hussein's wish,
even though the American President had publicly encouraged the
Kurdish population of Iraq to rise up. Hussein brutally suppressed
the rebellion.
4. "In 1991, Security Council
Resolution 688 demanded that the Iraqi regime cease at once the
repression of its own people, including the systematic repression
of minorities, which the council said threatened international
peace and security in the region. This demand goes ignored."
Of course it goes ignored, considering
Bush's father gave Hussein the green light to continue his brutal
suppression of Iraq's minorities.
5. "Last year, the UN Commission
on Human Rights found that Iraq continues to commit extremely
grave violations of human rights and that the regime's repression
is all-pervasive."
Yes, and UN organizations have also repeatedly
stated the devastating effects of US-led sanctions on the people
of Iraq. Should Iraq then call on the international community
to attack the US?
6. "Tens of thousands of political
opponents and ordinary citizens have been subjected to arbitrary
arrest and imprisonment, summary execution and torture by beating
and burning, electric shock, starvation, mutilation and rape."
Unfortunately, this is quite the norm
in many places in the Middle East, including close American allies
Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Pakistan.
7. "In 1993, Iraq attempted to
assassinate the Emir of Kuwait and a former American president."
In retaliation for this attempted assassination,
evidence of which was dubious at best, the Clinton Administration
launched 24 cruise missiles against Baghdad, killing six civilians,
including artist Laila al-Attar. By this standard, Iraq could
launch cruise missiles at Washington, as their leader has been
the object of several assassination attempts by the US. (They
would, of course, have to get in line behind Cuba, whose leader
has been the target of American assassination attempts for much
longer.)
8. "United Nations' inspections
also reviewed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard
and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding
and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons."
The technology for such chemical and
biological weapons was, of course, first given to Hussein by
the US. The "Butcher of Baghdad" joyfully used this
capacity against Iran (the intended targets of the American "largesse")
as well as against Iraq's Kurdish minority (a nice ancillary
benefit). The details of this American support for Hussein's
chemical weapons program were detailed in an August 18, 2002
front-page article in The New York Times.
9. "We know now, were it not
for that war, the regime in Iraq would likely have possessed
a nuclear weapon no later than 1993."
Making it only the second nation in the
region to be so armed (third if we count Pakistan). Israel, of
course, sought to maintain its neighborhood nuclear monopoly
by bombing an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, an action condemned
by the US so as to show support for its new ally, Saddam Hussein.
10. "Are Security Council resolutions
to be honored and enforced or cast aside without consequence?"
From Israel's 35-year-old refusal to
abide by Security Council Resolution 242, which calls for an
immediate end to the US client's occupation of the West Bank
and Gaza and citing "the inadmissibility of the acquisition
of territory by war" (the same rationale which compelled
the Security Council to condemn the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait),
"cast aside without consequence" seems to reflect the
position of the American government.
11. "We want the resolutions
of the world's most important multilateral body to be enforced."
Read the above as, "We want those
resolutions--and only those resolutions--aimed at America's official
enemies to be enforced."
12. "If the Iraqi regime wishes
peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and
act to suppress it--as all states are required to do by UN Security
Council resolutions."
Strange words from the leader of the
only nation to be condemned by the World Court for terrorism,
namely the United States terrorist war against Nicaragua.
13. "If the Iraqi regime wishes
peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population,
including Shi'a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkemens and others--again,
as required by Security Council resolutions."
And again, standards to which US allies
are not only not held but are actively supported in violating
(Indonesia murdering the Timorese, Israel's ethnic cleansing
of Palestinians, Turkey brutally oppressing its Kurdish minority).
Never mind that, as stated above, Hussein's suppression of his
domestic population was encouraged and supported by the US--both
before and after the Gulf War.
14. "If the Iraqi regime wishes
peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel
whose fate is still unknown."
Assuming they were even so inclined,
it is unlikely that the Iraqi infrastructure--destroyed by over
a decade of sanctions and bombing--is capable of making any accounting
for missing coalition military personnel. Accounting for the
more than 200,000 civilians killed by those coalition forces
is itself an impossible task.
15. "If the Iraqi regime wishes
peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the
Oil-for-Food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds
from that program to ensure that the money is used fairly and
promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people."
Demanding that Iraq "accept U.N.
administration of funds from" Oil-for-Food makes as much
sense as demanding that a prisoner serving a life-sentence "accept"
that he is incarcerated. All money from the Oil-for-Food program
is kept in a UN-administered account at the Bank of Paris in
New York. Roughly thirty percent of that goes to pay the UN administration
costs and reparations to Kuwait. The remainder is not spent on
palaces, weapons, or anything else Hussein might desire, for
he never sees or controls the money.
16. "The United States has no
quarrel with the Iraqi people. They've suffered too long in silent
captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause
and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it."
Indeed, but liberty from whom? From the
former American client, Saddam Hussein, who falls in and out
of grace of the US, or Anglo-American-led sanctions that intentionally
seek to deprive the Iraqi people of the most basic necessities
of life? What is it exactly that the people of Iraqi deserve?
Apparently, not even the means to repair their water filtration
systems to prevent children from dying by the hundreds from diarrhea.
17. "Free societies do not intimidate
through cruelty and conquest. And open societies do not threaten
the world with mass murder."
Except, of course, the United States,
which threatened the entire world with destruction for forty
years, thinking billions of people better dead than Red.
Bush's thesis seems to be simple: Iraq
cannot have nuclear weapons. This seems reasonable only for the
two seconds that it takes to realize that Bush is the leader
of the only country ever to use nuclear weapons in anger. Hussein
is not allowed even to contemplate a horrible act for which the
United States remains not only unapologetic, but even proud.
Who is the madman here?
Tom Gorman
lives in Pasadena, CA. He welcomes comments at tgorman222@hotmail.com.
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