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CounterPunch
February
28, 2003
To Declare Pre-emptive War
is to Declare a Bankruptcy of the Imagination
By ELIOT KATZ
I search for the language
that is also yours--
Almost all our language has been taxed by war.
--Allen Ginsberg,
from "Wichita Vortex Sutra"
A patriot is one who wrestles for the
soul of her country.
--Adrienne Rich,
from "An Atlas of the Difficult World"
In 1991, President George Bush Sr. seemed to search
almost nightly for new ways to justify the Gulf War. The most
eye-popping explanation occurred the night Bush Sr. glared into
our nation's TV cameras and seriously declared that war against
Iraq was needed to protect American jobs. I recall thinking at
the time that this was a surprisingly desperate move, testing
such a new and ridiculous excuse for war on U.S. audiences. But
I also remember acknowledging the creativity of the president's
handlers, and realizing sadly that there was an element of honest
confession in this terrible excuse for war, since the U.S. economy
for decades has been shamefully tied to the growth of weapons
industries--and expensive missiles once launched would need to
be replaced.
Now George Bush Jr.'s administration
is playfully testing their own ever-shifting menu of explanations
for war. At first, the threat of war was necessary to insure
unfettered inspections, which it was claimed that Saddam Hussein
would never allow. Now that inspectors have been given unfettered
access, the goal posts have moved, with the new claim being that
it is up to Saddam to lay his biochemical weapons on the table.
If he refuses, he is lying and in material breach of resolution
1441. If he were to reveal banned weapons after filing a report
saying he had none, he would presumably also be a proven liar
and in material breach.
Of course, the question of weapons matters
most on those days when the goal of pre-emptive war is to disarm
Saddam. On other days, the goal morphs to become regime change
and bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. This is especially
the case on those days when the public seems unconvinced that
Saddam is currently a tangible threat to Americans, when it indeed
seems like a war on Iraq may make us less safe by driving more
people around the world into terrorist camps and eroding the
international law-enforcement goodwill that will be needed to
prevent future terrorist attacks from being planned and carried
out. Other factors cited on different occasions for pre-emptive
war include Saddam's prior use of chemical weapons (during a
period of U.S. support) and the allegation that Saddam once tried
to kill Bush Jr.'s father. The newest reason for military action,
offered by President Bush in his speech on February 27th to the
American Enterprise Institute, is that the war in Iraq "will
set in motion progress" towards the creation of a Palestinian
state. In true Orwellian fashion, he noted in this speech that
"we will act to restrain the violent and defend the cause
of peace."
All of his cited explanations may indeed
play a role in the current Bush administration's thinking on
Iraq. From a distance, one cannot easily distinguish between
a president's heartfelt, and his stated, motivations. Sometimes
it seems that, like his father, Bush Jr. is trying out a host
of different reasons for war, with his fingers crossed, hoping
one of them will stick in the American psyche and with the international
press. At other times, it seems like the Bush team is hoping
to make a heavy case via the haphazard accumulation of medium-weight
objects. One thing is sure: Since it first named Iraq as a member
of the "axis of evil," the Bush administration has
been putting its full creative and imaginative energies into
designing excuses for war.
The ultimate theatrical act in this regard
was Colin Powell's speech to the Security Council. What incredible
creative effort went into writing this speech: combing intelligence
archives for aerial photos that could be described in the most
incriminating of narratives; excerpting audiotapes of bugged
phone conversations that could be presented in the most criminal
of contexts; scripting graphic novellas to explain how illegal
weapons sites are regularly scrubbed clean just moments before
the inspectors arrive.
It wasn't too long before key aspects
of Powell's speech began to be discredited. Hans Blix maintained
that it would be near impossible for major weapons sites to be
freshly doctored without leaving behind signs that his inspection
team could easily notice. Reporters on the ground contradicted
the administration's assertion about a chemical weapons plant
in Northern Iraq. It was discovered that a British government
document cited approvingly by Powell had been plagiarized from
a post-grad student's old research paper. Partly as a result
of these credibility fissures, Powell's speech did not sell well
in Europe, though there was a small spike in war-support here
in the U.S., where the mainstream press exhibited hardly any
skepticism about the details of our Secretary of State's presentation.
Many of us who have been watching the
administration cast its fishing net for a convincing rationale
for war have developed our own ideas about what motivates the
Bush administration to focus so narrowly on military options.
Personally, I think it's a confluence of many factors. To start
with: oil, water, geopolitics, and an addiction (economic and
psychological) to weaponry. I also think, based on the anonymous
reports from his friends that have appeared in print, that Bush
literally believes that he has been placed in the White House
at this time, not by five ultra-conservative Supreme Court justices,
but by God, with God's intention being that he use the rest of
his presidential term to fight the contemporary equivalent of
World War II. Exhibiting the all-or-none thinking of an overzealous
former alcoholic, Bush the Anointed has proven himself to be
fairly immune to arguments based on logic, law, or historical
distinctions. Lastly, when our unelected leader says that he
is afraid Saddam will give biological or chemical weapons to
Al Qaeda, I believe this to be an actual fear, even if the cited
links between Saddam and Al Qaeda have been almost universally
acknowledged to be weak, and even if a recent Newsweek article
(March 3rd issue) reveals that at least one high-ranking Iraqi
defector told the CIA in 1995 that Iraq had destroyed its chemical
and biological weapons stocks (while retaining design and engineering
plans) after the Gulf War. My guess is that Bush probably figures
that Al Qaeda undertook its reprehensible attack with very little
conceivable rationale--on the other hand, as a former ally of
the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations who has been humiliated
for the last twelve years, Saddam might very well harbor deep-seated
desires for revenge.
But even if we acknowledge Bush's fear
in this regard as a justified paranoia, such paranoia cannot
be allowed to trump international law (such as article 51 of
the UN charter) and to set an immoral precedent for pre-emptive
war--especially when almost all reasonable observers believe
that weapons inspections can be used to assure that Saddam Hussein
poses little actual risk to Americans. In a recent issue of The
Nation (March 10th cover date), Richard Falk elaborates on the
dangers of setting such an unlawful precedent: "Imagine
establishing a precedent that might be invoked by China to attack
Taiwan pre-emptively, or India in relation to Kashmir."
Falk concludes, "Not only the peace of the world but the
vitality of our democracy is in acute danger if the US government
continues down this path of lawlessness." the Bush administration's
paranoia and militaristic belligerence has erased much of the
sympathy people around the globe felt toward America after September
11th, and has escalated tensions and dangers throughout the planet,
from North Korea and the Phillippines to Colombia. The terrible
risks inherent in pre-emptive war--the potential deaths of thousands
of innocent Iraqis, the danger to U.S. troops, the likely rise
in terrorist recruitment, the long-term environmental degradation
of the region through oil fires and depleted uranium, and the
temptation to move on to the next war and the next generation
of dangerous weaponry--simply cannot be justified by any of the
reasons offered by the Bush administration or any that I could
come up with on my own. It would be nice if, instead of brainstorming
justifications and military strategies for a pre-emptive war,
the Bush administration would devote its creativities to thinking
about nonwar alternatives. But then I suppose it would not be
the Bush administration.
As opposed to the Bush team, the antiwar
movement has thus far exhibited a tremendous political imagination.
What a beautiful, inspiring sight it was to see an international
day of antiwar rallies take place on February 15th, with over
10 million people out on the streets of the planet calling for
peace. What an impressive level of political and technological
creativity it took to coordinate and pull off such an unprecedented
worldwide event. One could see the movement's imagination evident
on every block here in New York City, just by looking at the
inventive signs, banners, and puppets lining the streets--humorous,
diverse, and pointed. The number of poets, actors, and artists
speaking out against this war, even before it has begun, has
been extraordinary--no wonder the antiwar movement has such an
advantage on the level of the imagination.
In the days since the historic antiwar
rallies, the main charge I have seen leveled against the movement--from
right-wing talk show host Sean Hannity to British Prime Minister
Tony Blair to East Timor's Jose Ramos-Horta--is that it does
not sufficiently recognize the atrocious nature of the Saddam
Hussein regime, and that a war to remove Saddam is necessary
in order to bring democracy and human rights to the people of
Iraq, a cause which the left ought to support. Of course, the
equating of "support for war" with "support for
democracy in Iraq" has been a rhetorical tactic of the hawks
all along, from the old hawks like Perle and Rumsfeld, to the
recent converts like Christopher Hitchens, whose arguments for
military intervention can sometimes sound persuasive when he
is citing the names of progressive Iraqi exiles who favor a bombing
campaign.
As a response, it should first be pointed
out that it is difficult to believe that bringing democracy to
Iraq is really all that high on the Bush agenda given that:
1. The Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations
supported Saddam Hussein during the most despotic era of his
regime;
2. War in Iraq, according to administration
plans, is likely to be followed by a long-term American occupation;
3. There are other dictatorial regimes
around the world being supported by the current U.S. administration;
and 4. The Bush-Cheney team has shown
little respect for open government and popular democracy here
at home. Indeed, as journalists are increasingly reporting (see,
for instance, Katha Pollitt in The Nation's issue dated March
10, or Paul Krugman in The New York Times on February 21st),
prominent Iraqi exiles have begun complaining publicly about
the Bush administration's antidemocratic postwar plans.
Almost nobody on the left disputes the
totalitarian nature of the Saddam Hussein regime, but the obvious
needs to be stated: It is simply too risky a gamble to bomb
the very people one claims to want to liberate, especially amid
the dense population of five million people living in Baghdad.
In mid-January of this year, a group of about 30 progressive
"US Academicians Against War" went on a fact-finding
trip to Baghdad. In addition to their pre-arranged schedule,
a few in the delegation were able to arrange a conversation with
two progressive Iraqi professors which took place beyond the
range of official Baath Party minders. During the conversation,
excerpts of which will be published in the next few days in the
online journal, Logos (www.logosjournal.com), these Iraqi professors
were able to express their disapproval of Saddam. But they clearly
did NOT think bombing Iraq was a very appealing idea. They dislike
the Iraqi regime, but did not want to die to get rid of it--as
one noted, "there would be too many sacrifices." It
should not be too surprising that progressives living in Baghdad
would disagree with exiles about the desirability of a bombing
campaign!
The Iraqi professors were not asking
to be ignored by the world community. They supported international
pressure to promote human rights in Iraq. And they noted that,
in the past, the U.S. itself has successfully used economic incentives
to help promote democracy without the use of military aggression.
(They also expressed their belief that Iraqis would never accept
the leadership of U.S.-allied exiles, they called for the lifting
of sanctions which have hurt mainly civilians, and one of them
expressed support for an independent Kurdish state.) These Iraqi
professors acknowledged that nonviolent, long-term democratic
change in Iraq would be a slower and more difficult process than
building democracy in a nation that was not under such tight
social control. But political vision ought to enable us to come
up with nonwar alternatives to support Iraqi desires for democracy
and human rights. To believe (ala the Bush administration, Sean
Hannity, and Christopher Hitchens) that the choices with regard
to Iraq are the extreme poles of either war or status quo is
simply unimaginative, all-or-nothing thinking that does not recognize
the dynamic complexity of our lived world.
The most progressive traditions of the
left have always been internationalist, solidarity-filled traditions.
And, more and more, I have been seeing ideas being suggested
for demonstrating solidarity with the Iraqi democratic opposition
that do not include war. On a recent Hannity and Colmes show,
independent Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont suggested that,
in addition to continuing inspections, the UN could flood the
country with human rights observers, an idea that would seem
consistent with the views of the Iraqi professors cited above.
Even Christopher Hitchens acknowledges that Saddam is weak right
now, comparing his reign to the final period of Ceaucescu's rule
in Romania. In such a weak moment, a flood of human rights observers
might help to hasten his fall.
In mid-February, a group of European
left parties (including the Left Party of Sweden, the Party of
Democratic Socialism of Germany, and the French Communist Party),
along with the Communist Party of Iraq, issued an Appeal that
declared "Another world -- without wars -- is possible."
Arguing against the principle of "preventive wars,"
their Appeal includes "Support for the struggle of the Iraqi
people and their democratic opposition forces to depose Saddam
Hussein's dictatorship," and recommends an international
convention convened by the UN, with participation of the Iraqi
opposition, to "develop effective means, based in international
legitimacy, for assisting the Iraqi people to depose the despotic
dictatorship, establish genuine democracy and avert the dangers
of war."
Human rights observers, economic incentives,
an international convention--these are just a few proposals I've
seen mentioned in my various readings and TV watchings. Surely,
with all of the brilliant minds we have on this earth, we can
come up with others as well. My own pet theory for a nonwar alternative,
admittedly unrealistic at the moment, is that our government
ought to be pressured into supporting the International Criminal
Court (ICC). If the U.S. were to demonstrate its own willingness
to allow a select few of its own former officials to be judged
by history, then perhaps a murderous leader like Saddam could
be indicted, further weakening his standing and hopefully empowering
people in Iraq or a UN law-enforcement body to attempt an arrest.
This idea might fall under the utopian rubric of "make arrests,
not war." In the January 2003 issue of The Progressive,
Iraqi exile Faleh A. Jabar wrote an article entitled "Opposing
War Is Good, but Not Good Enough," in which he offered a
similar idea--though without mentioning any specific legal venue--arguing
against war and simultaneously urging antiwar activists to help
apply pressure to remove Saddam Hussein: "One, threaten
Saddam with indictment. Two, give him an alternative for safe
passage at the same time."
Specific ideas for nonwar alternatives
to support democracy and human rights in Iraq will likely be
too complex or controversial to be agreed upon by mass movements
or large coalitions at this time, when a resounding and united
"No War" seems more immediately called for as the possibility
of impending conflict draws near. And, in different countries
and contexts, different sorts of proposals for solidarity would
surely be needed. But I do think that we will need to dig into
our deep well of political vision and imagination to research
and develop proposals for solving world problems as nonviolently
as possible--if not for the near term, than for the possibility
of a humane future in the 21st century.
Within the peace movement and the American
left in general, there seems to be a broad agreement that America
needs new priorities in both domestic and foreign policy. In
domestic policy, we need a higher priority placed on social issues
like education, health care, housing, living-wage jobs, the environment,
and the elimination of discrimination based on race, gender,
or sexual orientation. In foreign policy, there seems to be widespread
understanding that the U.S. and the world would be safer if U.S.
foreign policy was based more solidly on human rights, international
law, the reduction of nuclear weapons, and a vastly increased
level of multinational cooperation, from treaties on environmental
protocols to agreements on fair trade. (At least one national
group, Peace Action, has begun promoting such a wide-ranging
program in a Campaign for a New Foreign Policy.) With inventive
political and communication strategies, it should be possible
to turn these sensible progressive ideas into majority viewpoints,
and even successful electoral platforms, in the years ahead.
In the meantime, the time between the
world mean as is and the world we mean to become, while we think
about peaceful strategies for the 21st century, I hope we can
succeed in stopping this very risky war and lowering the Bush
administration's bellicose rhetoric (and exorbitant military
budget) that is escalating tensions and dangers across the globe.
The Bush team continues its straight-ahead approach to war. But
despite the administration's rhetoric and a fairly compliant
mainstream press, the American public seems more and more to
believe that the case for war has not been made, and that this
war will not make us any safer. Inspections in Iraq are supported
by the vast majority of folks around the world and should continue.
As long as the inspectors are in Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime
is contained, and far less of a threat to his own people than
he was during the years in which he received the support and
military assistance of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.
There is no need for a war that would risk killing so many. At
the end of a poem I wrote shortly after 9/11, I noted that our
choices for the future seemed to me: "The sometimes bitter
juices of justice, human rights, law, and peace / Or shot after
shot of eternal bloodthirst." During the next 97 years,
it will take a great deal of political imagination to build a
peaceful century.
Eliot Katz
is the author of three books of poetry, including Unlocking
the Exits (Coffee House Press, 1999). He is a coeditor of
Poems
for the Nation (Seven Stories Press, 2000), a collection
of political poems compiled by the late poet, Allen Ginsberg.
A cofounder of Long Shot literary magazine, he is the new poetry
editor of the online politics journal, Logos.
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