O O Ø O O O O
Bang The Drum
The moral case for war.
First, rid your mind of all the recent media speculation about the US, Iraq, and the impending military action. Count only those things you know or can reasonably expect to be true, given the usually suspect sources.
Now let’s work through a little exercise:
Do you suppose Iraq has been attempting to develop wide-ranging chemical and biological weapons? Never mind what has or hasn’t been proven by United Nations weapons inspectors. Has Hussein’s regime been looking for cheap and effective weapons to deploy—as threats or otherwise—against his numerous enemies?
It likely has. Weaponized biological agents could be to the New World Order what thermonuclear stockpiles were to the Cold War. A viable and deliverable stockpile of small pox could make Hussein a disproportionate heavy in the so-called balance of power. And if you recall, The USSR was never at threat of Yankee invasion, no matter how unpopular their leaders might have been in America.
It is irrelevant that the smoking gun has yet to be found by weapons inspectors. (They won’t find one.) Iraq is a large, sophisticated country, with a cunning leader fighting to save his regime, and probably his life. The UN is a paralyzed bureaucracy with prescriptive codes to follow. Who’s going to win this particular game of hide and seek?
The Role Of Government
Next question: What is the role of government?
That’s an easy one. We all know the only justifiable roles for any government are to uphold the rule of law at home, and to protect its citizens from foreign attack. In other words, security.
So the conclusion is, if you can reasonably say Saddam is developing weapons to threaten and attack the United States, then there is a moral justification for America to invade: self defence. If the States don’t invade, and an attack actually materializes, then the government will have forsaken its only duty to protect its citizens.
It follows that the US has very little choice but to invade: Iraq wants to do harm to the States, and it very likely has, or soon will have, the means to do so.
(If you believe I've overstated the case here for Iraq’s pursuit of biological weapons, then your conclusion must be—and it probably is—that there is absolutely no justification for an invasion. This is fair.)
Please let’s forget all the troublesome foreign policies that got the United States into this mess: the posting of troops in Saudi Arabia, the first aborted invasion of Iraq, its earlier arming of the same, its blind defence of Israel, its enormous appetite for foreign oil, and so forth.
The question that gets us beyond all this waffling with weapons inspectors and old-Europe/new-Europe name calling, is whether or not Iraq is developing the means to launch an attack on America. If that is true, then the case is made.
Does this put every country in the position of having to prove they’re not developing devastating weapons, or risk an American invasion? No. Iraq is a special case, because the events of the last two decades have proven them to be an unusual threat.
Never Mind Al-Qa’ida
This is the moral case to be made for an invasion of Iraq. Al-Qa’ida has nothing to do with it. It also has nothing to do with oil, or Israel, or revenge, or the United Nations, or the suppression of the Kurds, or the liberation of the Iraqi people. If the United States wants to invade Iraq, they have every business doing so, but they can’t use anything other than self defence as justification.
And ultimately, that’s the problem that I have with this war: the reasons the American leaders are giving quite often miss the only true mark. Please, Mr. Powell, stop trying to draw non-existent links between hard line Islamists and Saddam Hussein. Mr. Rumsfeld, please stop berating the various members of the European Union. Mr. Bush, please just stop.
Stop holding up all of these terrible justifications, and get the job done in the name of self preservation. (Some facts to that effect would also be nice.) Otherwise, the reasons are just reflective of the sort of meddlesome foreign policies that got you in this mess in the first place. A moral act done for immoral reasons is not a moral act at all.
Evan Spence
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
PD DLXXXVIII
Postscript
I’ve just had a re-read of this rant, and truth be told, the whole thing sort of makes me sick. This must have been what they were talking about when they mentioned “having the belly for war.” Still, I think my one lean point here is valid: a war on Iraq depends on the razor-thin argument of self defence. And it’s an argument that hasn’t been made.