Subject: Not just oil:The REAL Reason for their push to attack Iraq 

Hi -- I am sending this to a select subset of you whom I know..
I haven't posted in a while, partly work, partly personal reasons..

I hope the title is enticing: yes, oil is part of it, but it's not the
real, biggest reason. George Monbiot below adds more critical
background, and reasons; then, in brackets, I add one more reason of
my own -- the least talked about, and I think the most important
reason (real reason, not the absurdities they tell us on TV) behind
the moves to attack Iraq. It even explains why Bush would be ready to
spurn his oil-money close buddy-buddies, the Saudis -- as no other
factor can. -HB



THE LOGIC OF EMPIRE

by George Monbiot
August 06, 2002

There is something almost comical about the prospect of George Bush
waging war on another nation because that nation has defied
international law. Since Mr Bush came to office, the United States
government has torn up more international treaties and disregarded
more UN conventions than the rest of the world has done in twenty
years.

It has scuppered the biological weapons convention, while
experimenting, illegally, with biological weapons of its own. It has
refused to grant chemical weapons inspectors full access to its
laboratories, and destroyed attempts to launch chemical inspections in
Iraq. It has ripped up the anti-ballistic missile treaty, and appears
to be ready to violate the nuclear test ban treaty. It has permitted
CIA hit squads to recommence covert operations of the kind which
included, in the past, the assassination of foreign heads of state. It
has sabotaged the small arms treaty, undermined the international
criminal court, refused to sign the climate change protocol and, last
month, sought to immobilise the international convention on torture,
so that it could keep foreign observers out of its prison camp in
Guantanamo Bay. Even its preparedness to go to war with Iraq without a
mandate from the UN Security Council is a defiance of international
law far graver than Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with UN weapons
inspectors.


But the US government's declaration of impending war has, in truth,
nothing to do with weapons inspections. On Saturday, John Bolton, the
US official charged, hilariously, with "arms control", told the Today
programme that "our policy ... insists on regime change in Baghdad and
that policy will not be altered, whether inspectors go in or not." The
US government's justification for whupping Saddam has now changed
twice. At first, Iraq was named as a potential target because it was
"assisting Al-Qaeda". This turned out to be untrue. Then the US
government claimed that Iraq had to be attacked because it could be
developing weapons of mass destruction, and was refusing to allow the
weapons inspectors to find out if this were so. Now, as the promised
evidence has failed to materialise, the weapons issue has been
dropped. The new reason for war is Saddam Hussein's very
existence. This, at least, has the advantage of being verifiable. It
should surely be obvious by now that the decision to wage war on Iraq
came first, and the justification later.

Other than the age-old issue of oil supply, this is a war without
strategic purpose. The US government is not afraid of Saddam Hussein,
however hard it tries to scare its own people. There is no evidence
that Iraq is sponsoring terrorism against America. Saddam is well
aware that if he attacks another nation with weapons of mass
destruction, he can expect to be nuked. He presents no more of a
threat to the world than he has done for the past ten years.

But the US government has several pressing domestic reasons for going
to war. The first is that attacking Iraq gives the impression that the
flagging "war on terror" is going somewhere. The second is that the
people of all super-dominant nations love war. As Bush found in
Afghanistan, whacking foreigners wins votes. Allied to this concern is
the need to distract attention from the financial scandals in which
both the president and vice- president are enmeshed. Already, in this
respect, the impending war seems to be working rather well.

The United States also possesses a vast military-industrial complex,
which is in constant need of conflict in order to justify its
staggeringly expensive existence. Perhaps more importantly than any of
these factors, the hawks who control the White House perceive that
perpetual war results in the perpetual demand for their services. And
there is scarcely a better formula for perpetual war, with both
terrorists and other Arab nations, than the invasion of Iraq. The
hawks know that they will win, whoever loses.

In other words, if the US was not preparing to attack Iraq, it would
be preparing to attack another nation. The US will go to war with that
country because it needs a country with which to go to war.

[A partial criticism -- and the "Real Reason" revealed: This is true,
but even more than oil and more than the above, there is another
reason, having to do with the rulers in Washington's need to
intimidate the entire world: Historically, whether you are a dictator
(Noriega) or a humanitatian elected official (Chile's Allende,
Guatemala's Arbenz,..), if you "crossed" Washington, you are crushed
and eliminated. That's been the very strong historical "success" story
Washington has had.  The US has been successful at implementing this
grim logic. Allende in Chile, the democratically elected Arbenz (for
land reform that United Fruit Company (no joke) didn't like), the
1984-elected Ortega in Nicaragua, and dictators like Noriega who were
on the CIA payroll and supported by the US until he refused to help
the CIA with its dirty tricks wars elsewhere...(Yes, it came out the
Noriega told the CIA he'd no longer help them supply the illegal
contra terrorist war -- not long before the former CIA "asset" became
suddently the "bad guy".. see e.g. the well respected North American
Congress on Latin America (NACLA))...

..It all boils down to: what happens if a country says "no" to
the US and manages to not be crushed? Cuba is one of the *very* few
examples of such, and --coincidence?-- this small island is among
those most obsessed about by Washington, which supports the most
extremely brutal regimes elsewhere (including Indonesia which
committed the largest proportional holocaust of the 20th century,
killing 200,000 or a full 1-in-3 East Timorese)

[That] Saddam Hussein is stronger now than 1990 is an embarrassment to
Washington, but much more is at stake than embarrassment of this sort
-- much more. Support for the regime of sanctions is breaking down,
and if these end, what will happen? The fact Saddam Hussein is a
dictator is not the real problem for them -- Washington supported him
during his far worst crimes, even giving him aid AFTER knowing about
the gassing of the Kurds we hear so much about (talk about hypocrisy
when they invoke that now..!)  but if Iraq's leader survives, it would
be ONE example showing that it's *possible* to not obey the US and
still survive..an example which would mean dozens and dozens of other
countries, whether democracies or not, whom Washington has been
bullying, might feel a bit safer in NOT going along with Washignton's
dictates (let's call them what they are) the dictates of the IMF, and
so on. That is about the most intolerable thing Washington could
imagine. That is extremely threatening.

That explains the "paradox" many voices for peace haven't been able to
explain, of why Bush would seriously consider breaking even with the
Saudis (that is only one notch less, than breaking with Israel, that's
how close Washington-Saudi connections are) over this matter. But when
we see that removing Saddam Hussein and further torturing Iraq's
civilians is a Washington move to teach *the* *world* (not Saddam) a
lesson, it all, finally, makes very good (if chilling) logical sense
after all -HB]

[One last aside: How many Americans know -- how many of you know --
that the former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations, the
UN's Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq, resigned after 34 years with
the UN in September 1998, quitting his (prestigious and high-paying)
job in protest over the sanctions, saying exactly what critics have
said, that they are brutally killing Iraqis, not doing any good, and
pointing to dishonesty by Washington in its stated "objectives". Then
-- get this -- they get someone else to be Chief Weapons Inspector --
they try for someone "safer" and more conservative, naturally one
imagines they tried hard -- and they hired Hans Von Sponneck.

Only some 2 years later, Von Sponneck, too, ends up resigning in
protest over the sanctions, against from a prestigious and high-paying
job (asking, "How long should the civilian population of Iraq be 
exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?"
 Two days later, Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Program in
Iraq, also resigned, saying privately that what was being done to the
people of Iraq was intolerable)..what if Americans knew this? Both of
these gentlemen, and others with very relevant knowledge ( key MP from
the UK for example) who offer other perspectives, were told by Joe
Biden et al they are Not Welcome to testify in the Iraq "Hearings"
Just do a web search for "Dennis Halliday" and "children" say..  -HB]

[Monbiot concludes his analysis:]

Tony Blair also has several pressing reasons for supporting an
invasion. By appeasing George Bush, he placates Britain's right-wing
press. Standing on Bush's shoulders, he can assert a claim to global
leadership more credible than that of other European leaders, while
defending Britain's anomalous position as a permanent member of the
Security Council. Within Europe, his relationship with the president
grants him the eminent role of broker and interpreter of power.

By invoking the "special relationship", Blair also avoids the greatest
challenge a prime minister has faced since the Second World War. This
challenge is to recognize and act upon the conclusion of any objective
analysis of global power: namely that the greatest threat to world
peace is not Saddam Hussein, but George Bush. The nation which in the
past has been our firmest friend is becoming, instead, our foremost
enemy.

As the US government discovers that it can threaten and attack other
nations with impunity, it will surely soon begin to threaten countries
which have numbered among our allies. As its insatiable demand for
resources prompts ever bolder colonial adventures, it will come to
interfere directly with the strategic interests of other
quasi-imperial states. As it refuses to take responsibility for the
consequences of the use of those resources, it threatens the rest of
the world with environmental disaster. It has become openly
contemptuous of other governments, and prepared to dispose of any
treaty or agreement which impedes its strategic objectives. It is
starting to construct a new generation of nuclear weapons, and appears
to be ready to use them pre-emptively. It could be about to ignite an
inferno in the Middle East, into which the rest of the world would be
sucked.

The United States, in other words, behaves like any other imperial
power. Imperial powers expand their empires until they meet with
overwhelming resistance.

To abandon the special relationship would be to accept that this is
happening. To accept that the US presents a danger to the rest of the
world would be to acknowledge the need to resist it. Resisting the
United States would be the most daring reversal of policy a British
government has undertaken for over 60 years.

We can resist the US by neither military nor economic means, but we
can resist it diplomatically. The only safe and sensible response to
American power is a policy of non- cooperation. Britain and the rest
of Europe should impede, at the diplomatic level, all US attempts to
act unilaterally. We should launch independent efforts to resolve the
Iraq crisis and the conflict between Israel and Palestine. And we
should cross our fingers and hope that a combination of economic
mismanagement, gangster capitalism and excessive military spending
will reduce America's power to the extent that it ceases to use the
rest of the world as its doormat. Only when the US can accept its role
as a nation whose interests must be balanced with those of all other
nations can we resume a friendship which was once, if briefly, founded
upon the principles of justice.

Source:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=2191

[Another aside, about which more later perhaps, but briefly, who
remembers Panama? What about democracy? One thug (Noriega) was
replaced with another (Endara). What about drugs?  We were told it
would "stop illegal drugs". Did it? Ok, we can stop rolling on the
floor laughing at that one. All of this, on top of hundreds (lowest
estimates) to thousands (non-Noriega Panamanian sources) of
Panamanians killed. That's peopel's mothers, father, babies. What
happens when Washington ("we") install a strong-man?  Remember
Pinochet? Never mind, remember Iran, installing the brutal Shah of
Iran by the CIA, what did that lead to?  The rise of the
Ayatollah..Who created the Taleban? CIA money to fight the USSR...how
many failed examples do we need? More to the point, how many corpses?

I don't talk much about the Holocaust and my family, but very
recently, my last remaining grandparent died -- she having been one of
the (very few) in my family, who courageously escaped Nazi Germany,
when she was 24. When I look back at that catastrophe of human
history, and the ones we are still allowing to be created in our name
today (including in Iraq, and also the AIDS holocaust in Africa we
are allowing in the name of drug profits) I remember Ghandi's response
to the question of what he thought about Western Civilization: "I
think it would be a good idea" Whether that happens, depends very much
on what we, as US citizens, choose to do or not to do, today..  -HB]