The Hyperion Chronicles

#98 War of Words (II)

In #97, I introduced the topic of the day: war with Iraq. I also gave you the argument against it, supplied by my good friend Kevin Teague. Below, I have my arguments. They may not address directly what Kevin wrote, because we worked apart, and I still don’t know what he said. (In fact, in a Hyperion Chronicles first, my readers will know what’s in the column before I do). Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading his thoughts, and I hope you get something from mine, too.

There are several issues involved here, and I could spend hours on each of them. I want to use the bulk of my space to deal with two main points, though, so let me just mention these briefly. First of all, why does part of Europe oppose the United States in this? It’s a complicated answer, and one I won’t get into right now, but suffice it to say that their own incredibly war-like past, the lingering continent-wide hatred of Jews (the question of Iraq or anything in the Middle East usually involves Israel and Palestine), and the resentment or even jealousy of having there only being one Superpower left in the world, and it’s not any of them; well, that makes Europe mad too. And what about oil? I’m not going to say that oil has absolutely nothing to do with why the United States is coming down on Iraq, but those conspiracy theorists who blithely think that’s the only reason are just ignoring the facts. If oil was what we wanted, we’d have taken the oil the last time we were there, and maybe we should have. The real story about the oil isn’t the United States, but is France, Russia, and Germany; not-so-coincidentally, the three countries making the most noise about our staying out of there. You see, France and Russia, and to a lesser extent Germany, all have contracts with Saddam’s Iraqi regime for digging up future oil, once the embargo is lifted. These contracts would be null and void, and these countries would stand to lose billions, if Saddam is ousted. Now, I won’t go so far as to say that this potential loss of revenue is the only or even main reason for the vehement opposition coming from across the pond, but it has a lot more to do with it than U.S. interests.

And for those thinking Bush is doing this for purely political reasons: that doesn’t fly either. Bush is taking a huge risk by going in there. If something goes terribly wrong, and the war is not won in a timely fashion, or the casualty figures are much higher than we thought, he could be through. Finally, there are those who say that America going in will cause us to be attacked more. Well, besides the idiocy of allowing tyrants to dictate what we do, this just doesn’t make sense. Most of the actual people in the Arab world don’t have a problem with the West, and if they weren’t afraid of being imprisoned or killed would admit they would much rather live over here in relative freedom than with what they have. But for the radicals, I don’t think it would make any difference if we left the Middle East, bombed Israel, or even flew over the region dumping money. They’d still want us to die, for everything we stand for, and everything they don’t.

But let’s talk about the main issues. Over the last weekend millions of people demonstrated in different countries against war in Iraq, something Saddam Hussein took as a real coup. My thinking: so what? Many more millions of people, even in this own country, were against going to war against Hitler. It doesn’t make them right.

The bigger spectacle, though, is the ideology behind the protestors themselves. I’m willing to go so far as to say that some of the anti-war protestors have good intentions, but like many things, their myopia is shortsighted and foolish. Do they really think there will be less killing if there is no war? Far more people have died in Iraq outside the Gulf War than in it. As Tony Blair pointed out in an address last Friday, Saddam has gassed and killed over 100,000 of his own people since the end of the Gulf War. Since he came to power, over 1,000,000 people have died in various wars that man started. The blistering misery that the Iraqi people live under every single day, the horrible conditions, the malnutrition, the thousands of preventable deaths from dysentery and hunger and other communicable diseases; all of those things and more are not the fault of the America or the world. Just like in North Korea, where the president starves his people to build up his military, the fault here falls directly at the foot of Saddam himself.

This is the way it is with dictators, from Hitler and Stalin, to Iraq and North Korea; the men in charge brutally starve, enslave or butcher their people to get what they want. This is certainly what had been happening in Afghanistan. The Taliban had a stranglehold on the people, and were killing them both quickly and slowly, sucking the life out of the country. And while, regrettably, there were civilian casualties in our war into Afghanistan to get the Taliban and fight Al Qaeda, the people of that country are much better off now. Over two million refugees have returned, and over 3 million new children are now in schools, half of them girls, something that had never happened before. And it’s the same thing in Iraq, even with the oil. Saddam Hussein has had his foot on the neck of his people, in the manner of brutal dictators for all eternity, crushing them to death. The money the world set aside for humanitarian aid Saddam did his best to divert to his own army, never caring about his people.

These protestors that I saw marching in the streets so self-righteously over the weekend have got to realize that as horrible as war is, their ideals are condemning those people to a much worse life. Do they honestly think that the incursions of a war, as bad as they are, are better than the misery that is there now? And don’t tell me it’s the bloody sanctions. We left Afghanistan alone for years, and look what happened there. In Iraq, the power to end sanctions has always been with Saddam, if he’d simply disarmed. Whether there is war or not, there is killing and suffering going on there. If you want to talk about the Just War argument, it is impossible to believe that there will be less killing, less suffering, less misery in the world by leaving Saddam in power than by taking him out, and it’s the myopic protestors who would have innocent blood on their hands if the powers-that-be decided to listen to them. To me it’s like blaming the surgeon because of the pain after surgery, and the scar left on the body. Yes, surgery hurts, the pain is intense, there are side effects, and a lengthy recovery process. But if there is cancer in your body, you don’t curse the surgeon who can remove it. You thank God the surgeon is there.

But let’s be honest. You can make quite a few cases in the world where the right thing to do would be to go in and end human suffering, to make things better. But America, like every nation ever, doesn’t act without self-interest involved. And here there is plenty. Forget the oil for a minute. That’s a factor, but a bit of a smokescreen. We only get 20% of our oil from the Middle East, and while oil companies use any and all opportunities to raise prices, our lives would not be ruined by not having Iraq’s oil. But that’s another argument. What we’re talking about here is safety. There are many established links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. His agents have been heard and seen talking to Al Qaeda operatives. Saddam regularly sends ten and twenty-five thousand dollar checks to the families of the suicide bombers in Palestine. Whether or not he’s doing that to court anti-Israeli sympathies, he’s still supporting terrorism.

But the links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, which should be enough by themselves to go in right now and destroy this man’s regime, are not the scariest part. His weapons program is. Saddam has and is developing all kinds of biological weapons. And by the way, he’s already used them on his own people. There is Anthrax, VX gas, and a dozen you’ve probably never heard of (and believe me, those are worse than the ones you have). Besides chemical weapons, he’s desperately trying to get nuclear weapons. Folks, he’s not doing this to complete a commemorative set. This is the guy who, as I’ve written, has started wars left and right, attacked Israel, attacked his own people, and it looks like he has attacked our gulf war troops with chemical weapons. Time is definitely on his side.

And these inspections…it boggles the mind to watch such a three-ring circus. Look, at the end of the Gulf War it was clearly determined that Iraq had these weapons and was developing others. Contrary to popular belief, the inspections were not set up like Columbo or IRAQ BLUE, where top-notch investigators would find the hiding spots. We’re talking about a country the size of California, and material that could be hidden in a mayonnaise jar. The inspections were never supposed to be about that. They were supposed to help the Iraqi government be better able to prove that they were getting rid of these weapons, and weren’t developing more. Instead, over the last 12 years, there have been 17 different resolutions, and from Saddam we’ve had the ultimate game of Three Card Monte, as Iraq has delayed, obfuscated, and otherwise completely flouted the international community, in this case the useless United Nations. Saddam has tried declaring his palaces holy and hiding stuff there. He’s held the inspectors at the front door while the material was hustled out the back. He’s not let the U2 planes have access, as agreed to in the resolutions. He agreed to let scientists be taken out of the country, where if they wanted to they could plead asylum and not fear reprisal, then let it be known that anyone who did this was a traitor. Several times over the years he actually threw the inspectors out. And all the while he keeps building weapons. Time is definitely on his side.

And the word has done nothing but sit on its hands. In some ways, this is like a two year old, who acts so selfishly because up ‘till then he’s never been told no and has gotten virtually everything he wants by crying. Or, think about it this way: have you ever had a parent or adult threaten you again and again, but never follow through? What did you do? The way it works is that we learn not to fear the threats, because we know they are empty, and we keep right on doing what we’re doing, and pushing the envelope, seeing how much we can get away with.

That’s what’s happened here. Saddam has pushed and pushed, and doesn’t fear the U.N., because he knows there will always be more meetings, more time, one more chance to say, “Okay, now I’ll behave!” This has happened before. Does anybody remember Germany in the 1930s? (For more extensive analysis on this, re-read or ask me to re-send Columns # 63-65, where I talk about this more) The point is: the world has given Saddam and Iraq no reason to fear inaction. The United Nations is worse than a paper tiger, it’s a paper giraffe, just sitting there quietly, eating from thorn bushes and watching with its neck craned out. Let me ask you this: what happens once Saddam gets his hands on a nuclear weapon, and either uses it himself or funnels it through the terrorist network to Al Qaeda? Then you will want to act. But see, then it’s too late. Then Saddam or bin Laden or any terrorist can hold the world hostage with the threat of an attack on an entire city or region.

September 11 happened for many reasons, and maybe ultimately couldn’t have been avoided. But partly—and I can’t stress this enough—September 11 happened because we didn’t respond before. The World Trade Center was attacked in 1993. Our military base in Saudi Arabia was attacked in 1996. Two of our Embassies were bombed in 1998. The USS Cole was bombed in 2000. Each time we did little or nothing. Whether you like it or not, whether you wish the world were different, this is the way the world works: it only understands strength. Call it the law of the jungle.

The reason the lion doesn’t attack the elephant is because it knows it will die. I would love to live in a world of mutual respect for ideas. Hell, I plan to take over the world one day and live that way. But right now that’s not where it is. A great deal of the world only understands, only respects, strength. To keep being attacked (as the United States has been), to never keep your word (as the United Nations has not through 17 empty resolutions), this does not invite peaceful actions of our enemies. All this tells them is that they can get away with a little bit more, and a little bit more. Well, I would have thought that September 11th the “little-bit-more” would have finally run out. I would have thought that people would finally see the need to act, and sooner rather than later. I guess not. Maybe, like Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, America needs more than one lesson. Unfortunately, they will get it.

So what will it take? How many people does Saddam have to kill? To how many of his own nation’s children does he have to bring suffering? Or bring it closer to home: how many Americans have to die in an attack funneled through Iraq, before we do something? As for me, you can pick any reason you like. The people of Iraq will be safer, the Middle East will be safer, the world will be safer, and most importantly to Americans, America will be safer with this man, this government, gone. It’s as simple as that. The sooner we act, the better, because time is not on our side.

This concludes my experiment into giving both sides of an issue. Fear not; come next time you’ll only have to read the rantings of one zealot. I hope you learned something you didn’t know, and were provoked to think about the issue in a way you hadn’t before. Kevin and I thank you both.

Fighting the good fight (or not fighting, as the case may be),

Hyperion and Kevin,
February 19, 2003

Credits:
Font and spacing help from Koz
Editing help from Bear
Special Thanks for Kevin for going along with this and classing up my column