By Kevin Kumala
Staff Writer
March 17 President George W. Bush has declared an ultimatum for the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The American president gave the Iraqi leader and his sons 48 hours to leave the country or face military conflict.
As much as this may sound like an aggressive war-mongering policy, this whole notion of a preemptive strike against Iraq was made public many months ago. Some in the American administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have made it very clear that they favored a first-strike policy against Saddam, with or without the United Nations.
Despite the diplomatic efforts by the United States in the United Nations Security Council to gain its backing for the use of force, America decided to go at it alone with a few of its allies.
Bush has mentioned a number of times that if America continued its non-intervention policy, it would be a policy of appeasement against an evil regime. However, what the American public has failed to understand is that the continued work to disarm Iraq peacefully using the weapons inspectors is a policy of containment sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, and surely is not appeasement.
A preemptive policy drafted by a nation in fear of attack or destruction has always been legal in international law. The Israelis did it when they were threatened with annihilation by the Arab States in 1967 and today, Bush is using that fear to justify an attack. However, the conditions set up by the law only justifies such actions if and when a clear-and-present danger arises for that particular nation. In other words, a military strike against another sovereign nation before it strikes against you can be justified if the aggressor poses an imminent national security threat to the other.
Today, how can we say that Iraq poses a direct security threat to America? National security concerns developed only after the Sept. 11 attacks by terrorists. So far, there has been no conclusive evidence of the involvement of the Iraqi regime in those attacks. Throughout the last several months, public statements and analysis have been leaning toward probability that Saddam would provide terrorist groups with weapons of mass destruction in order to see it being used against American interests. This, along with other diluted facts that the administration has provided, is the outlining basis for this war.
It is comprehendible that a leader of a country presumes certain facts and actions of his enemy for the sake of the entire population’s security.
It is a delicate game played when dealing with foreign policy. In this case, Bush is presuming that Saddam has these weapons. He is also presuming that those weapons would be given to terrorist elements if not used directly by his own military. He is presuming that just because a leader of a nation strongly disagrees with America, it should therefore be eliminated because that state would then form alliances with those same terrorists that wish to see America’s destruction. All these presumptions are understandable for any intelligent individual to have.
However, are these presumptions or speculations, as some have called it, reasons to go to war? No. Where was this fear and haste to go to war before Sept. 11? Why now? Why Iraq? North Korea obviously poses more of a direct threat with its nuclear weapons and its threat to use them against America.
This Republican administration has aggressively tried to correlate the terrorist threat and the Iraqi threat, or the lack there of. They seem to be successful so far. Just like Saddam Hussein spurts out propaganda after propaganda to prop up his military dictatorship, this administration too is spreading its own “word” in to justify its invasion of Iraq.
If this war ends by clean and quick and if America is able to prove that Saddam is in fact hiding his illegal weapons from the international community, then the international community would be more understanding, even apologetic to this American president for not having supported him before intervention. However, if this war drags out in a bloody and ruthless battle of urban warfare within the streets of Baghdad and if thousands of people die on either side, then opposition to this war will increase and a repeat of the Vietnam War might occur for the Americans.
Today, I call on the entire world to pray for peace in these very uncertain times. In whatever religion you believe in I call on you to pray with me that the American men and women who are blindly fighting this war for this arrogant leader will be kept safe from chemical and biological weapons. I pray that the innocent civilians of Iraq will be sheltered from the missiles of destruction. I pray that the American citizens will realize that this war should only be fought with the international community’s backing. I pray that this war will be short and that the objectives of disarmament will be successful. I pray that no radical groups will use this war to blindly justify killing more innocent civilians in this country or any other. I pray that Bush will find some other way to enhance America’s defenses instead of planning more attacks on other nations who have serious disagreements with the United States. And lastly, I pray that the whole world is praying with me.
March 27, 2003