Raise your hand if you like Saddam Hussein. My hand is not
raised. Now raise your hand if you think there is ample
justification for invading his country. Look ma, still no
hands.
As much as I disapprove of and worry about the Iraqi regime, I
can’t get over the fact that the Iraqis have not attacked us
and there is no international move to send troops.
It was one of our American presidents that came up with the idea
for the United Nations (as well as the League of Nations that it
grew out of), and the United States has played host to this 188
nation body since its inception. We’ve set a pretty good
example.
But are we going to reverse all of that in the second year of
the 21st century? Are we going to tell the other 187 nations that
have (more or less) followed our example that we were just kidding
and that they can use their copies of the U.N. charter for toilet
paper?
Bush has already informed the United Nations that if they
don’t see things our way on this one, they’re
“irrelevant.” Pretty ironic, since he was speaking at
our own U.N. building in New York City.
And it’s also very scary, particularly in terms of the
message sent to the rest of the world. If we dismantle a sovereign
nation simply because we want to, it will be a first for the United
States.
If we move into Iraq tomorrow, who will tell India that it
can’t move into Pakistan on Friday? After all, the Indians
have better evidence of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal than we do
Iraq’s. What if they were to follow our lead? We might all be
wearing acid-wash jeans by Friday.
I know what you’re saying: we should have paid better
attention to Pakistan in 1999. But the president couldn’t do
a lot back then. For some reason the same people who are now
worried about Iraq’s nuclear arsenal were then convinced that
a stain on a dress was our most pressing issue.
The White House has tried to justify war by saying Iraq may have
nuclear capabilities by the end of the decade, but that’s not
saying a whole lot. It only took the United States three years to
build its first atomic bomb and it didn’t know what it was
doing. Students have made atomic bombs (of the non-fissionable
variety, of course) as college science projects. In fact, if you
really apply yourself, you may have nuclear capabilities by the end
of the decade.
Furthermore, the wars that other presidents have led this
country into have worked on an ideological level. The Revolutionary
War: life, liberty, happiness. The Civil War: freedom. The Gulf
War: a nation’s right to sovereignty. If there’s a way
to put an altruistic spin on this conflict with Iraq, no one seems
to have figured it out yet.
It seems instead to be the antithesis of the Gulf War point.
That’s why the rest of the world is against it and why the
United States seems destined to turn against it too.
So one last point and I’m off to drop acid and write folk
songs: If we don’t invade Iraq, we may fall victim to another
terrorist attack (chemical, biological, nuclear ““ take your
pick). If we do invade Iraq, we may still be attacked. But you know
something? In the latter case we won’t even be able to call
it terrorism. The Iraqis will simply be fighting back.
It’d be nice if we could flash forward fifty years and
read what the history books will say. Of course, frankly,
it’d be nice to know there’ll still be history books
period.