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March
19, 2002
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
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bin Laden and Bush
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March 19, 2002
Attacking Iraq Brings
Nuke Holocaust Closer
By Tariq Ali
A new war is being plotted against Iraq and, while
most of Europe is nervous, the boy scout in No.10 is ready and
willing once more.
The Generals, Admirals and Air Marshals
know there is not much left to destroy.
In August 1999 the New York Times reported:
"American warplanes have methodically - with virtually
no public discussion - been attacking Iraq."
In the last eight months of 2001, US
and British pilots have fired 1,100 missiles against 359 targets
in Iraq.
In October 1999 American officials were
telling the Wall Street Journal they would soon be running out
of targets.
"We're down to the last outhouse,"
they admitted.
By the end of the year, the Anglo-US
airforces had flown more than 6,000 sorties, and dropped 1,800
bombs on Iraq.
By early 2001, the bombing of Iraq had
lasted longer than the US invasion of Vietnam.
And still they talk of going on because
he has "weapons of mass destruction".
Even if he does, they're useless if he
can't deliver them.
Economic sanctions have driven the population
into misery. Before 1990 the country had a per capita GNP of
over $3,000. Today it is under $500, making Iraq one of the
poorest nations.
What justification is offered for this?
THAT Saddam's regime is stockpiling weapons
of mass destruction. Thus the civilized world - read Israel
- can never rest until Saddam is killed.
The argument is hollow.
The deadly threat from Iraqi weapons
was never a problem as long as the regime in Baghdad was regarded
as a friend in Washington and London.
As Iraq crushed Communists at home and
fought Iranian mullahs abroad, few apprehensions about its weapons
were expressed.
Once the Iraqi regime had turned against
Western interests in the Gulf, of course, the possibility of
it acquiring nuclear weapons suddenly became an apocalyptic
danger.
But this is no longer a valid view. Today
the nuclear monopoly of the big powers has collapsed with India
and Pakistan getting the weapons.
And Iraq's own nuclear programme has
been thoroughly eradicated.
Even the super-hawk Scott Ritter, the
UNSCOM inspector now says there is no chance of its reconstitution.
He says the blockade should stop and a new war would be a disaster.
That the Ba'ath regime is a tyranny no
one could doubt. That it is unique in its cruelties is an abject
fiction.
Turkey, where the Kurdish language is
not permitted in schools, has displaced 2 million Kurds from
their homelands.
This is much worse than Iraq, where -
whatever Saddam's other crimes - there has never been any attempt
at this kind of annihilation. Yet, as a valued member of NATO
and candidate for the EU, Turkey suffers not the slightest
measure against it.
And the Saudi kingdom makes not even
a pretence of keeping human rights. Yet no state in the Arab
world is more toasted in Washington.
In killing and torture, Saddam was never
a match for President Suharto, whose massacres in Indonesia
far exceeded Iraq's.
But no Third World regime was more prized
by the West.
Not a single part of the argument for
war stands up.
So what? I've heard it said. Blair's
favourite foreign policy man, ex-diplomat Robert Cooper, has
said: "We need to get used to double standards."
The maxim underlying this view is that
we will punish the crimes of our enemies and reward the crimes
of our friends.
This moral blank cheque will increase
terrorism.
If Iraq is attacked, the instability
in the region will be accompanied by a desire to punish the
US and its allies.
The worst-case scenario of a nuclear
explosion in the US might well come true.
That's why a political solution is needed.
A war could end badly for all sides.
Tariq Ali
is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. His most recent book
is The
Clash of Fundamentalism, published by Verso.
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