|
CounterPunch
August
30, 2002
War on Iraq
Debate
Ultra-Hawks
v. Moderate Hawks
by Robert Jensen and
Rahul Mahajan
The question dominating the news: When will we
go to war against Iraq?
The answer: We are already at war with
Iraq.
The debate over the Bush administration's
call for war is usually described as hawks v. doves -- those
for the war pitted against those opposing war. In fact, the debate
in mainstream news is hawks v. hawks; the question isn't whether
or not to wage war, but what form that war should take.
Bush and the ultra-hawks want a full-scale
war as soon as feasible, to secure control over Iraq and its
oil. The hawks at  the moderate extreme argue
for continuing "containment," a euphemism for devastating
economic sanctions and regular bombing in the so-called "no-fly
zones."
Sanctions, imposed after Iraq's 1990
invasion of Kuwait, are administered through the United Nations
but in place only because the United States insists; most of
the rest of the world has condemned them. The embargo has helped
cause the deaths of more than 500,000 children under the age
of 5, according to a UNICEF study. That's why two former U.N.
humanitarian coordinators in Iraq -- Denis Halliday and Hans
von Sponeck -- have resigned in protest, calling the sanctions
immoral and even genocidal.
Though the sanctions have strengthened
Saddam Hussein's control over Iraq while punishing ordinary people,
the United States insists they remain.
Starting with a complete ban on oil sales
and frequent restrictions even on basic medicines, the sanctions
have gone through stages. Currently, there is no limit on total
oil sales and most medicines are allowed in, but there are still
major problems with funding projects to repair critical infrastructure
and foster economic development.
Combined with the almost complete (and
quite deliberate) destruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure,
particularly water- and sewage-treatment plants, by U.S. forces
during the Gulf War, the sanctions have meant increased malnutrition,
disease and death -- not for Saddam but for the Iraqi people.
U.S. official blithely claim that the
so-called "smart sanctions" approved by the Security
Council in July would solve these problems. But instead of feeding
Iraqis, the changes mostly helped confuse the public -- which,
according to some U.S. officials, was the original intent of
smart sanctions.
Now, as worldwide attention to the effects
of sanctions has decreased, the humanitarian situation has worsened.
Even as cumbersome bureaucratic procedures for approving imports
were supposedly streamlined, the monetary value of "holds"
(contracts held up by some nation on the Sanctions Committee,
almost always the United States) is at $4.7 billion, higher than
before smart sanctions were proposed. Worse, because of a  retroactive oil-pricing scheme recently
implemented by the United States (oil companies don't know what
price they'll pay for Iraqi crude until after it is loaded),
Iraqi oil exports are way down; in August, exports averaged 800,000
barrels per day, compared with more than 2 million at earlier
points. This funding shortfall means Iraq is unable to pay even
for some approved humanitarian imports.
U.S. officials blame all this on Saddam,
and certainly the Iraqi government has made some questionable
allocations of resources. But Tun Myat, the current U.N. humanitarian
coordinator in Iraq, has described Iraq's food distribution as
"second to none," echoing evaluations by other UN officials.
While the sanctions kill slowly, the
United States continues to patrol the no-fly zones in the northern
and southern parts of Iraq, bombing at will and killing civilians
-- at least 27 attacks by U.S. planes in 2002. The most recent,
on Sunday (Aug. 25), killed eight, according to Iraq.
When challenged, U.S. officials robotically
repeat that they bomb only when threatened by Iraqi air defenses.
However, despite U.S. claims, there is no U.N. Security Council
authorization for this violation of Iraqi sovereignty. U.S. journalists
rarely mention the obvious point -- that if the United States
ceased its illegal patrols, Iraqi radar would not "light
up" U.S. planes, making U.S. attacks unnecessary.
While not militarily significant, these
attacks serve to terrorize the Iraqi people and remind everyone
that the United States exempts itself from international law.
Combined with the sanctions, they constitute a war on the people
of Iraq.
While the fanatical hawks argue with
the moderate hawks about the way in which a war against Iraq
should proceed, virtually all the world opposes a full-scale
war. It's time for us to realize that most of the rest of the
world also wants to stop the containment war, end the suffering
of the Iraqi people and begin the diplomatic process necessary
for regional peace.
Robert Jensen
is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas and author
of Writing
Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream.
He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
Rahul Mahajan
is a member of the Nowar
Collective and the Green Party candidate for Governor
of Texas. His book, "The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism," (Monthly Review Press, April 2002) has
been described as "mandatory reading for anyone who wants
to get a handle on the war on terrorism." He is currently
writing a book on Iraq titled "Axis of Lies: Myths and Reality
about the U.S. War on Iraq."
He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca.
Today's Features
Alexander Cockburn
American
Journal:
Hitchens, Kissinger, Springsteen, Haggard & Elvis
Wayne Madsen
Bush's
Bizarro World
Michael Donnelly
A Real
Healthy Forests Initiative
Anis Shivani
Progressive
Irrelevance?
Matt Siegfried
What's
Behind Bush's War Moves Against Iraq?
William Hughes
Power
to the Laity
Chris Floyd
The Secret
Sharers:
The CIA and the Murder of Frank Olson
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
New Print
Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- War Talk As White Noise:
Anything to Get Harken and Halliburton
Out of the Headlines;
- First Hilliard, Then
McKinney: Jewish
Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the
Middle East; Intimidation
is the Name of the Game; Smearing
"Insane" McKinney As Muslims' Pawn;
- The Missing Terrorist?
Calling Scotland
Yard: "Where's Atif?"
- They Never Booed Dylan!:
Tape Transcript Shows
Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter
Yarrow!
- New Shame from the Liffey
Shrike
Remember, the CounterPunch website is
supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe
Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|
August 30,
2002
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Hitchens, Kissinger, Springsteen, Haggard & Elvis
August 29,
2002
Chris Floyd
The Secret
Sharers:
The CIA and the Murder of Frank Olson
August 28,
2002
William Ring
War on Iraq:
The Brightest Scenario
August 27,
2002
Sam Bahour
The Violence
of Curfew
Wenonah Hauter
From Johannesburg:
Pacts with the Devil: Public-Private Partnerships and the Global
Environment
Jerre Skog
Wanted:
"Our Kind of Guy"
in Iraq!
Uri Avnery
Letter
to a Pilot
August 26,
2002
Sami Al-Arian
Fighting
for the Right of
Dissent and Due Process
Ruebner /
Turaani
What
is Israel Hiding?
Norman Madarasz
Brazil
and the IMF:
Democracy and Emerging Market Liberalism
Robert Fisk
War Crimes:
Reporters Aren't Prosecutors
Douglas Valentine
Phoenix,
CIA and Maj. Gen. Bruce Lawlor: From Vietnam
to Homeland Security
August 24
/ 25, 2002
Susan Davis
Proverbial
Wisdom:
Of Clogs and Enron
Falk / Krieger
No War
Against Iraq
Ceylon Mooney
Fasting
for Iraq
Jonathon
Wright
Police
Brutality in Atlanta
Ralph Nader
Congress's
Pay Raise Scam
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Chainsaw
George
Alexander
Cockburn
Alterman
Cheapens Holocaust
August 23,
2002
Dave Marsh
Selling
Out?
Anthony Gancarski
Super-Duper:
Oil, al-Qaeda and a West African Adventure
William Hughes
Lieberman's
Conflict
of Interest?
Kurt Nimmo
The Lapdog
Conversion of CNN:
They Didn't Want to "Criticize" a Popular War
Sean Donahue
Hardline
in Colombia
August 22,
2002
Sean Donahue
Hardline
in Colombia
Wayne Madsen
Crushing
Congressional Dissent: The Fall of Hilliard, Barr and McKinney
Gilad Atzmon
The Zionist
Lobby and
American Foreign Policy
Robert Johnson
Right
Wing Doves?
Alexander
Cockburn
Taking
Down McKinney
August 21,
2002
Gary Leupp
The Return
of Mani
Romi Mahajan
Bhopal
on $40 a Day
Jerre Skog
Bush and
Europe:
Fun, Profit & Betrayal
Tom Crumpacker
The
Politics of the Cuba Embargo
August 20,
2002
Kathleen
Christison
Israeli
Tilt: the NYT
and Palestine
August 14
/ 19, 2002
Susan Davis
Played
Out: a Journey to Central City, Colorado
CounterPunch
Staff
Our Favorite
Films
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Usonian
Utopia's:
Frank Lloyd Wright, Working Class Housing and the FBI
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon and the Iron Wall
Uri Avnery
A Phone
Call from Hell
Wendy Brinker
Racism
is Alive and Well in the South Carolina Death House
Hamit Dardagan
The
Unbearable Lightness of Bombing
Ahmad Faruqui
The Legacy
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Philip Farruggio
Leading
by Example
Anthony Gancarski
Union
Jackass: Richard Perle's UK Charm Offensive
Jeff Halper
Fortress
Israel: the Message of the Bulldozer
Robert Jensen
Our Failures
are Borne by the Palestinians
Gary Leupp
An Open
Letter to Bruce Springsteen about Bush's War on Terrorism
Dave Marsh
Sing a
Simple Song
Rashmi Mayur
To Johannesburg
in Search of Hope
Steve Perry
Another Fine Mess:
Martha Stewart and Paul Wellstone
Anis Shivani
What's
Next...Concentration Camps?
Edward Said
Punishment
by Detail
Jeff Taylor
Paul Wellstone's
Legacy
August 10/11,
2002
Walt Brasch
The Bush
2 Legacy...So Far
August 9,
2002
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Corporate
Crime:
More Shareholder Power
Not the Solution
Ansar Ahmed
The Waning
of the
Pax Americana
Alexander
Cockburn
War,
the Military and the Hunt for the "Violence Gene"
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
|