Iraq was necessary first example of preventive war doctrine
The Bush administration’s declaration of the grand strategy of preventive war was rightly understood to be an ominous step in world affairs. It is not enough, however, for a great power to declare an official policy. It must go on to establish the policy
as a new norm of international law by carrying out exemplary actions.
Accordingly, as the new strategy was announced, the war drums began to beat to rouse public enthusiasm for an attack on Iraq. The target of preventive war must have several
characteristics:
It must be virtually defenseless.
It must be important enough to be worth the trouble.
There must be a way to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.
Iraq qualified on all counts. The
first two conditions are obvious. The third is easy to establish. It is only necessary to repeat the impassioned orations of Bush, Blair, and their colleagues, such as Bush’s eloquent denunciation of Saddam in his January 2003 State of the Union address.
Anyone threatened by Iraq can approach UN Security Council
There are legitimate ways to react to the many threats to world peace. If Iraq’s neighbors feel threatened, they can approach the Security Council to authorize a appropriate measures to respond to the threat. If the United States and Britain feel
threatened, they can do the same. But no state has the authority to make its own determinations on these matters and to act as it chooses; the United States and Britain would have no such authority even if their own hands were clean, hardly the case.
Source: Acts Of Aggression, by Noam Chomsky, p. 16
Jul 2, 2002
UN authorizing US force in Iraq allows Iran to use force
Suppose that the Security Council were to authorize the use of force to punish Iraq for violating the cease-fire UN Resolution 687. That authorization would apply to all states: for example, to Iran, which would therefore be entitled to invade southern
Iraq to sponsor a rebellion.
Iran is a neighbor and victim of U.S.-backed Iraqi aggression and chemical warfare, and could claim, not implausibly, that its invasion would have some local support; the
United States and Britain can make no such claim.
Such Iranian actions, if imaginable, would never be tolerated, but would be far less outrageous than the plans of the self appointed enforcers.
It is hard to imagine such elementary observations entering public discussion in the United States and Britain.
The United States and Britain are now engaged in a deadly form of biological warfare in Iraq. The destruction of infrastructure and banning of imports to repair it has caused disease, malnutrition, and early death on a huge scale, including
567,000 children by 1995, according to U.N. investigations; UNICEF reports 4,500 children dying a month in 1996.
In a bitter condemnation of the sanctions (January 20, 1998), 54 Catholic Bishops quoted the Archbishop of the southern region of
Iraq, who reports that “epidemics rage, taking away infants and the sick by the thousands.”
The United States and
Britain have taken the lead in blocking aid programs--for example, delaying approval for ambulances on the grounds that they could be used to transport troops, barring insecticides to prevent spread of disease and spare parts for sanitation systems.
A: To answer your question a sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden’s views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region.
Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause
maximal harm to the Russians-quite possibly delaying their withdrawal-though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic
and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to “destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans” (according to London Times correspondent Simon Jenkins).
Source: Interview on Radio B92, Belgrade
Sep 18, 2001
Islamic hatred based on US support for repressive regimes
Q: [Why did bin Laden pick the US as a target?]
A: Bin Laden is bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes of the region, which he regards as “un-Islamic,” including the Saudi Arabian regime, a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden
despises the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel’s brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year: And like others, he contrasts Washington’s dedicated support for
these crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein. These sentiments are very widely shared,
[even among] wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region. Among the great majority of people suffering deep poverty and oppression, similar sentiments are far more bitter, and are the source of the fury and despair that has led to suicide bombings.
Source: Interview on Radio B92, Belgrade
Sep 18, 2001
Stop the escalating cycle of violence
Q: Do you expect [Sept.11] to profoundly change US policy?
A: Bin Laden and others like him are praying for “a great assault on Muslim states,” which will cause “fanatics to flock to his cause.” The escalating cycle of violence is typically welcomed by
the harshest and most brutal elements on both sides.
The initial response was to call for intensifying the policies that led to the terrorist attack: increased militarization, domestic regimentation, attack on social programs. Terror attacks, and the
escalating cycle of violence they often engender, tend to reinforce the authority and prestige of the most harsh and repressive elements of a society.
If the rich and powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and resort to
extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of violence. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public within the more free & democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course.
Source: Interview on Radio B92, Belgrade
Sep 18, 2001
US chartered UN & must follow UN decisions on Iraq
The debate over the Iraq crisis kept within rigid bounds that excluded the obvious answer: the US and UK should act in accord with their laws and treaty obligations. The relevant legal framework is formulated in the Charter of the United Nations,
which is recognized as the foundation of international law and world order, and which under the US Constitution is “the supreme law of the land.” The Charter states that “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace,
breach of peace, or act of aggression, and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken.“
There are legitimate ways to react to the many threats to world peace. If Iraq’s neighbors feel threatened, they can approach the
Security Council to authorize appropriate measures to respond to the threat. If the US and Britain feel threatened, they can do the same. But no state has the authority to make its own determinations on these matters and to act as it chooses.
Nicaragua: US destroyed Sandanistas & real hope for reform
The hatred that was elicited by the Sandanistas for trying to direct resources to the poor (and even succeeding at it) [was the basis for] the US launching a three-fold attack against Nicaragua.
We exerted extreme pressure to compel the World
Bank to terminate all projects and assistance.
We launched the contra war along with an illegal economic war to terminate what Oxfam rightly called “the threat of a good example.”
We used diplomatic fakery to crush Nicaragua. The US virutally
tripled CIA supply flights to the contras, and within a few months the peace plan and [a fair] election campaign were totally dead.
US achievements in Central America in the past 15 years are a major tragedy, not just because of the appalling human
cost, but because a decade ago there were prospects for real progress toward meaningful democracy and meeting human needs. These efforts might have worked and might have taught useful lessons-which if course was exactly what US planners feared.
Vietnam War about destroying “virus” of independence from US
Ho Chi Minh led the national movement of Vietnam. There was fear in the US that the Viet Minh might succeed, in which case “the rot would spread” and the “virus” would “infect” the region, to adopt the language the planners used year after year.
What do you do when you have a virus? First you destroy it, then you inoculate potential victims, so that the disease does not spread. That’s basically the US strategy in the Third World. If possible, it’s advisable to have the local military destroy the
virus for you. If they can’t, you have to move your own forces in. Vietnam was one of those places where we had to do it.
Right into the late 1960s, the US blocked all attempts at political settlement of the conflict, even those advanced by Saigon
generals. If there were a political settlement, there might be progress toward successful development outside our influence-an unacceptable outcome.
The US did achieve its major objective in Indochina. Our basic goal was to destroy the virus.
Israel is the only country in the Mideast with nuclear weapons. But “Israeli nuclear weapons” is a phrase that can’t be written or uttered by an official US government source.
That phrase would raise the question of why all aid to Israel is not illegal, since foreign aid legislation from 1977 bars funds to any country that secretly develops nuclear weapons.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 65
Jan 13, 1991
Gulf War: US refused diplomacy & forced violence in Iraq
The US was concerned that the energy resources of the Middle East remain under our control, and that the enormous profits they produce help support the US.
The US also reinforced its dominant position, and taught the lesson that the world is to be
ruled by force. Washington proceeded to maintain “stability,” barring any threat of democratic change in the Gulf tyrannies and lending tacit support to Saddam Hussein as he crushed the popular uprising of the Shi’ites in the South.
Source: What Uncle Sam Really Wants, by Noam Chomsky, p. 67-68
Jan 13, 1991
Panama: Noriega’s crime was independence, not drugs
The US government knew that Noriega was involved in drug trafficking since 1972. But he stayed on the CIA payroll. Yet, when Noriega was finally indicted in 1988, all the charges except one were related to activities that took place before 1984-
back when he was our boy, helping with the US war against Nicaragua, stealing elections and generally serving US interests.
It’s all predictable. A tyrant crosses the line from friend to villain when he commits the crime of independence.
One mistake is to go beyond robbing the poor and to start interfering with the privileged. By the mid-1980s, Noriega was guilty of these crimes. He seems to have been dragging his feet about helping the US in the contra war.
His independence also threatened our interests in the Panama Canal. Since we could no longer trust Noriega to do our bidding, he had to go.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US government-media told us that Iraq’s aggression was a unique crime and merited a harsh reaction. “America stands against aggression, against those who would use force to replace the rule of law”-
so we were informed by President Bush. The media and the educated classes repeated the lines.
Second, these same authorities proclaimed in a litany that the UN was now at last functioning as it was designed to.
They claimed this was impossible before the end of the Cold War.
The US wasn’t upholding any high principle in the Gulf. The reason for the response to Saddam Hussein was because he stepped on the wrong toes. Hussein is a murderous gangster-
exactly as he was before the war, when he was our friend and trading partner. His invasion of Kuwait was an atrocity, but well within the range of many similar crimes conducted by the US and allies and nowhere near as terrible as some.
Take the term peace process. The na‹ve might think that it refers to efforts to seek peace.
Under this meaning, we would say that the peace process in the Middle East includes the offer of a full peace treaty to Israel by Sadat of Egypt, along lines advocated by the entire world, including official US policy;
the Security Council resolution of January, 1976 introduced by major Arab states with the backing of the PLO, which called for a two state-settlement; PLO offers to negotiate with Israel for mutual recognition; and annual votes at the UN General Assembly
calling for an international conference on the problem.
The peace process is restricted to US initiatives, which call for a unilateral US-determined settlement with no recognition of Palestinian rights. That’s the way it works.
