by the International Minister
March 19, 2003
Today, with the long war against Iraq just having expanded into Baghdad with the first missile attacks after the deadline in Bush's ultimatum to Iraq, MIM mourns in advance the loss of life in Iraq. Whether the united $tates wins in a day or whether the Iraqi people grind out a war that turns a five or six digit figure of aggressor troops into dust, the loss of life in Iraq is unnecessary. Our species can do better, but it will take a global perspective.
No moral grounds
While even the reactionary Pope and French President Chirac have condemned this war, it is obvious it has no "moral grounds," no matter what one's upbringing. After all, Chirac is from the same reactionary wing of imperialism as Bush. Chirac comes from the French version of the U.$. Republican Party.
The bottom line is that peace in the world depends on an internationalist viewpoint's conquering the species. The kernel of that idea can be expressed in Christian terms as the "golden rule." It means placing oneself in the shoes of the "other guy." As long as the principle of internationalism applied as a "golden rule" among nations is ignored, we will be stuck in "what-goes-around-comes-around" terrorism and war.
This does not mean we are pacifists. It means that Bush's violence does not contribute to internationalist answers. Rather Bush's violence is partly fear-mongering panic about weapons of mass destruction. Yet weapons of mass destruction are merely a symptom. Bush's supporters often say "guns don't kill people; people do." There are reasons people create weapons of mass destruction and use them as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Bush has never addressed the causes of war except by making them worse.
Violence that prevents violence: a scientific question
What Bush does is a perfect example of reactionary repressive violence. It whips up a furor over a symptom and claims to tidy up after the problem. Fascism can also be seen as one huge effort to tidy up the problems created by capitalism, but fascism cannot succeed because it cannot let itself know the sources of its own existence. In contrast, Abe Lincoln also used repressive violence, but Lincoln's violence ended up being progressive repressive violence, because Lincoln had a plan to eliminate slavery and other causes of conflict. Lincoln used violence against a cause of violence. Bush uses violence that will only inflame the world's people more. People who understand this will readily understand how it is that Stalin violently repressed so many people but still the life expectancy of his people doubled. As a reactionary, Bush has no plan or capability to use violence to reduce violence. So absent is a plan to reduce violence that many have concluded the real cause of the war is "blood for oil."
When it comes to questions of international relations and peace, what is "moral" is what tends to promote species survival. If I$rael were a "moral" actor, we would have seen peace in the Middle East a long time ago, given that I$rael is much stronger militarily than its existing and potential enemies in a short-run conventional sense. Likewise, Bush's approach to turn the whole Third World into one giant West Bank cannot succeed anymore than I$rael's approach.
At first glance the question of war and peace may seem to divide neatly into moral and tactical questions. That is wrong. I$rael is not at peace: that is a scientific fact. The United $tates spends more money on the military than the rest of the world combined and it has the world's largest economy; yet the united $tates is subject to terrorist attack from people who could pick easier targets if they were opportunist: these are also scientific facts and they indicate something about the approach of i$rael and the united $tates.
Bush tries to address moral concerns by saying Uncle $am will try to make the war as short as possible and leave Iraq in a happy democracy better off than it was before the war. People with a knowledge of Iraq or any Third World people's love of self-determination know why the united $tates is hated there. It may seem to be a "tactical" question as to whether Bush has the capability to bring about "democracy" in Iraq, but in fact, moral and tactical (instrumental) questions are merged. In contrast to what we often hear about ideological dispute in contrast with scientific dispute, the morality of "world peace" is uncontroversial, but the science of how to bring that about is controversial.
Mourning the death of innocent Iraqis
The Iraqi people are a victim of the most horrific imperialist power in history--the united $tates. What Iraqis seek is self-determination, which is a natural and healthy motive that George Washington pursued. That is why the nationalism of the Iraqi people cannot be equated with the twisted nationalism of overfed Amerikkkans who oppose "French fries" and use that as a justification to kill Iraqis.
We also mourn those of the u.$. troops who are too young and foolish to understand world affairs and why they die in Iraq--and of course, already some have died in training for this war. However, unlike the Iraqis, we can say that the u.$. troops did at least have a chance to avoid their fate. Whether they were watching too much nakednews.com (which is the leading news website in the male 18-34 age group) to pay attention to political matters or whether they read too many romantic tales of military adventure, the U.$. troops had the economic opportunity to educate themselves better and push their country away from aggression, but they failed.
Although there is almost no limit to humyn economic capabilities and growth, the population of the united $tates is too busy reading trashy romance novels and playing video games to consider economic cooperation that would bring global peace. Again and again, the Amerikkkan and I$raeli rulers say that killing Third World people is the solution to the problem. They succeed in killing many people including their own in "friendly fire" while failing to bring "democracy," peace and economic cooperation.
In every way, the Amerikan rulers and the 70% of the Amerikan public that backs them(1) are "asking for it." It's clear that Amerikkkans respect nothing but force--not international law, not the treaties they signed, not the United Nations and not the "humyn rights" they often speak of. The trouble is that these war-mongers impose their terrorism-generating system on the rest of us in North Amerika. Vice-President Bush under Reagan armed and trained Bin Laden to fight the Soviet Union. Then the war-mongering majority waged a war on Iraq and caused Bin Laden to start attacking the united $tates; yet the Amerikkkans don't get it to this day. Now they want another war on Iraq--and get this--because of a link of Iraq to terrorism! No shit, Sherlocks: you created it!
The stupidity does not end there. Vice-President Cheney said on March 16th (and subsequently backed by Bush) that Iraq has nukes; yet Cheney is exactly the one pushing for war to take over Iraq all along.(2) Talk about asking for it! The fact is that every single humyn-being on this planet lives at the tolerance of other humyn-beings, and this becomes more true the smaller the planet gets. The sooner we get that through our skulls, the better off we will all be.
While some companies make money selling bombs, we of the u.$.-based peace movement live under the constant threat of war and terrorism in retaliation for what the Amerikan majority did. We of the minority are tired of their wars for oil, their backing of I$raeli massacres of Palestinians every day, their profiteering on weapons and everything else that deprives us of a non-negotiable right to live in peace without terrorism. If the u.$. imperialist majority wants to change things ("regime change") in Iraq, it can move there. In democracy, the majority only determines what happens among those who voted, not in countries thousands of miles away. If the Amerikan knucklehead yahoos want "regime change" in Iraq, they can move to Baghdad.
We the peace-loving minority have a non-negotiable right to be free of the violence caused by the majority's desire to make the world in the image of Ronald McDonald. If they want a war to remove the veil from Afghanistan's wimmin, and they think they know how to do it, the Amerikkkans should move there. If Amerikkkans don't want Kim Jong-il to produce nuclear weapons for profit, we'd suggest that they get out there and bid higher for those weapons than other bidders, because there is no other logic within the capitalist system. Whatever these Amerikkkans want to do, they should do it without endangering anyone else's non-negotiable rights to security.
Note:
1. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52020-2003Mar19.html
2. http://www.msnbc.com/news/886806.asp; see also Reuters published Mar 17 2003.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42837-2003Mar17.html