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From a speech delivered by AWC member Jess Sundin on Saturday, September 14, 2002.
While I appreciate the invitation
to speak on this panel today, I have to start by saying how angry I am that
we all have to be hear again, explaining ourselves, educating ourselves, and
organizing ourselves, to try to stop another war before it starts.
I could not believe that
on Thursday, George W. Bush had the sick arrogance to say to the people of the
world, that his "greatest fear is that terrorists will find a shortcut
to their mad ambitions when an outlaw regime supplies them with the technologies
to kill on a massive scale." I mean, it's like he thinks we don't know
his role in history. Like the blood of thousands of Afghani people, Filipino
people and Iraqi people aren't already on his hands. As if he hasn't sent gifts
of billions of dollars of weaponry to murderers in Israel and Colombia. As if
we don't remember that his page, in his father's new world order chapter, isn't
part of the same old book that has justified U.S. aggression throughout the
world for decades.
Well, because we do remember,
because we know the truth, and because it makes us angry, we're here again,
discussing the next brutal war that Bush is planning to carry out against the
world's innocent people.
I know that many of you
have followed the situation in Iraq for years, and my fellow panelists have
given you some excellent background on the situation. I've got a few points
to add to that, and then I want to address the current situation. We can discuss
the "case for war" being made by the Bush Administration, the war
plans that are being launched already, and then, what we need to being doing
to respond, and stop this war before it starts.
Background
In the 70s and 80s, Iraq was North America's best friend in the Middle East.
Our government armed Iraq, and assisted Iraq in a war against its neighbor,
Iran. Back then, the U.S. was uncritical of the political situation inside Iraq.
But things changed after
the war with Iran. The U.S. was increasingly unhappy with Iraqi oil policy,
which did not allow foreign ownership of Iraqi oil wells. Iraqi oil was nationalized,
which means it's owned by the government, and the money from oil sales is put
into the national budget. Iraqi control of this resource was used to develop
infrastructure, to improve the standard of living, to provide high-quality,
free health care, and education. All well and good for Iraq, but not for the
Bushes and other U.S. oil families.
Oil was actually the issue
that sparked Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Kuwait had been stealing Iraqi
oil, and the Iraqi government acted militarily to defend its national resources.
The first Bush Administration never tried to stop the theft, or prevent the
subsequent invasion. Instead, they used it as a pretext for sanctions and war.
The 42-day bombing war dropped
7-tons of explosives on Iraq, a cumulative force equal to that which was dropped
on Hiroshima. More than 100,000 Iraqis were killed. The nation was devastated
- every road, bridge, date plantation, power plant, water or sewage facility
was damaged or destroyed. Homes, schools, mosques, churches, hospitals, everything
was bombed. Even clearly-marked civilian bomb shelters were targets for American
bomber pilots.
The resulting "peace
settlement," was far from just, but it's that framework which is being
used, after 12 years of sanctions and bombings, as a justification for another
major attack.
In his presentation to the
UN, Bush demanded that Iraq eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, end support
for terrorism, cease persecution of civilian populations, release or account
for all U.S. soldiers (or their remains) who were lost in the Gulf War, and
end all trade outside of the oil-for-food program. He claimed that Iraq agreed
to all of this when it surrendered in 1991, and has failed to comply with UN
resolutions since.
Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister,
Tariq Aziz, responded to Bush's speech saying it was "full of lies and
fabrications." I wholeheartedly agree. I don't have time to address all
the charges, and my colleagues here have addressed some of them already, so
I just want to make a few points.
Weapons Inspections
The claims around weapons production, and the insistence that weapons inspector
spies be allowed into Iraq, are outrageous. Many international weapons inspections
teams have established that there is no evidence of nuclear or other weapons
production. If inspectors who were in Iraq for 7 years, had found a bomb factory,
it would have been bombed by the U.S. and British planes. If U.S. intelligence
reports or satellite images, revealed weapons production at a specific place,
this place would have been long-since been targeted and destroyed.
When I was in Baghdad, Iraqi's
complained that the burden of proof placed on them is unfair. Bush says it's
true, so you have to prove otherwise, or we're going ahead with our war. And
how could Iraq possibly prove itself innocent? As long as there are buildings
with roofs that can provide cover for people making biological agents (like
baby milk factories, or the pharmaceutical company that Clinton destroyed in
Sudan), as long as Bush and the Pentagon and Kofi Annan don't KNOW FOR A FACT
that EVERY INCH of Iraq is free of wrong-doing, then according to the Bush logic,
Iraq has not yet complied with its agreements and UN resolutions.
This isn't simply unfair.
We need to recognize a very important political problem with the US/UN demands
of weapons inspections. No country, least of all the United States, would be
willing to have government buildings, industries, and military sites open to
the scrutiny of foreign inspectors. Inspections are a violation Iraq's sovereign
rights.
In spite of this fact, Iraq
has not complained that there are inspectors. Rather, Iraq complains that they
are not neutral. The majority of inspectors have been from the U.S., Britain,
and their allies. This is equivalent to having enemy spies in your country.
The most serious problem
with the inspectors, is that they have instigated conflicts that serve to justify
U.S. military attacks. While weapons inspectors haven't found evidence of weapons
production, they have fabricated findings, like trace elements of something
that can be a component of some weapons, 3 feet down in the soil. In other cases,
they barge into government offices and demand to review government documents.
Of course, Iraqi officials can't allow this, and inspectors claim that Iraq
is resisting inspections. These incidents are used to justify U.S. attacks.
After the last incident,
Iraq expelled the weapons inspectors, and said they would not be allowed in
again until the sanctions on civilian goods were lifted. Me, I think it's amazing
that Iraq would agree to inspections under any conditions. Yet the US and the
UN have never considered Iraq's reasonable demands about fair inspections and
an end to sanctions.
Oil-for-Food Sanctions
Never mind that President Bush has given us no evidence that Iraq is trading
outside of UN regulations, nor has he proven his outrageous claim that the Iraqi
government is depriving its people of food and other goods. If I start talking
about what a liar Bush was on Thursday, I'll never finish. Let's talk about
the idea of sanctions.
As you've heard from the
other speakers, the sanctions prevent Iraq from importing sufficient civilian
goods to feed and provide health care to the population. What little is allowed
into the country is not a donation or a loan to Iraq, they pay for everything
they import, through this bogus Oil-for-Food operation. Oil proceeds also pay
the Sanctions Committee for their work, pay the UN to monitor food distribution,
pay reparations to Kuwait, and they were used to pay for the weapons inspectors
too.
The UN Sanctions Committee
only allows in half of the chlorine needed to treat drinking water, there is
a shortage of even the most basic medications, and food is also in short supply.
Also, the Sanctions Committee limits the import of construction goods to repair
Iraq's battered infrastructure. Sanctions that target civilian populations are
violations of international law.
So what gives the UN, the
US or anyone the right to limit access to life's basic necessities? Just the
fact that they say so? There is no way that people of conscience can accept
this policy - a policy of slow starvation. Even if the conditions in Iraq improve
over time, we must oppose the policy of sanctions, of limiting Iraqi trade and
access with the outside world. Sanctions are a violation Iraqi sovereignty.
The Real Motives for
War
So in spite of twelve years of oppressive sanctions, and brutal drive-by bombings,
the United States is still not happy with Iraq, and Bush Two is ready to go
back to war. So we've got to ask ourselves why? Is it a family feud, and Junior's
going back to finish what his daddy started? Is it about the oil, even though
Iraq is not a competitor now?
While it's true that the
Bush family, along with other members of the current Bush Administration have
vast ties to the U.S. oil industry, and while they are still hungry for open
access to Iraqi oil reserves, I don't think this is the main thing driving the
current war drive.
Okay, so maybe it's really
about terrorism - I mean, that's the story, right? Well, in a way, yes. If we
understand the "war on terror" as a justification for expanding U.S.
political, military and economic control to unfriendly countries around the
world.
The Middle East is one of
the most important regions of the world for maintaining U.S. political power
- there are important resources, the region strategically located south of Europe
and West of Asia (the homes of our two main global competitors), and most countries
in the Middle East are unstable politically, and not necessarily friendly to
the United States. To have military bases in the Middle East, to have friends
in the Middle East, and to have business in the Middle East are all essential
for any super power.
Iraq is a barrier to those
goals. Iraq has remained resolute since 1991 - it has not become an American
outpost or puppet. Worse than Iraq's own indiscretions, Iraqi resolve is an
example to its Arab neighbors. An example that the U.S. can't afford.
The Plan for War
Let there be no question in the minds of anyone here, President Bush intends
to go to war with Iraq. There's already a build-up of military personnel and
equipment in the region, in Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Diego Garcia island.
There are 400 U.S. warplanes already there, along with some 30,000 troops in
the region. Bombings in the no-fly zones have stepped up - last week one operation
included 100 planes attacking Southern Iraq.
So what is the plan? Reports
suggest that there are two different ideas on how to go into Iraq, but both
have the goal of seizing Baghdad. One would use around 50,000 troops, and take
about two weeks to prepare; the other would need to gather 200,000 or more troops
before attacking, and military analysts suggest that this would require about
two months to prepare.
So when do the preparations
begin? Bush is seeking UN and Congressional support for his military campaign.
Most likely, the earliest that support would come would be early November. According
to news reports in the last couple days, the latest start date would be in January.
Of course, we can't read Bush's mind. He may decide to go ahead without formal
approval, he may start preparing, while the politicians are still talking about
it.
Whenever Bush decides to move forward, this will not be a small war. Iraq is not likely to give up easily. And neither can we.
Our tasks
I imagine that most of us are here because we are optimistic people. We must
do everything in our power to stop the war on Iraq before it starts. And once
it starts, we must be among the loudest in the world to speak out against it.
Events like this are very important - as peace activists we need to understand the situation we're facing, we've got to educate ourselves on the facts. The next thing is to reach out and bring new people into our movement. Last night, one of the local news stations reported a poll where 55% of those polled support a U.S. invasion, and 33% are like us and say that the U.S. should stay out. We've got to double and triple the size of that opposition, and then we have to take all those people into the streets with us to protests this war.
We can organize and educate
on campuses, in our work places and neighborhoods. It's very important that
we work with the Iraqi community, with activists like Sami. We can make ties
to the growing resistance among Palestinians and their allies, who are speaking
out against another U.S. policy in the region. We can connect with the people
who have already opposed Bush's bogus war on terror, at home and abroad. Anywhere
that there are people who might be willing to take a stand, it's our job to
go there and talk about what's wrong with Bush's plan for war.
We can start calling on
community leaders to take a stand against war, we can protest our Senators and
Representatives - NONE of whom have spoken out against the war drive. We've
got to show our community members, our elected officials, and the world, that
there are many people in the U.S. who do not support Bush's new terror war.
We can and must mobilize thousands of people right here in Minnesota to speak
out, we can march in the streets, some of us will protest through civil disobedience.
We must do whatever we can to raise the political costs at home for another
Bush war abroad.
Brothers and sisters, our work to support Iraq is incredibly urgent. We have been able to turn back the war drive before - like in February 1998, when U of M students and students at Ohio State University, made fools of the Clinton Administration, when it came to our campuses to try to make the case for war. Iraqi people saw those protests and were inspired to keep holding the line. We've got to do that again, and again. Everywhere the Administration goes, we've got to be there, reminding them that we won't go to war quietly - this started with the protests outside Bush's UN speech, where activists like us chanted, "No War for Oil" and "Hands Off Iraq!"
Anti-War
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