WHAT‘S WRONG WITH: “I’LL SUPPORT WAR IF THE UN APPROVES?”
Ask residents of Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo about what that
means--suicide! Like it or not, that's what past
experience with this approach suggests.
Historically the UN only "succeeds" at peacekeeping after
people have been burned. In fact, in Bosnia it's
peacekeepers sometimes actively assisted genocide, as in
the case of UN troops who would open up huge floodlights
on civilians trying to flee an encircled Sarajevo at
night. That made it easy for Serbs to pick them off.
Women, kids, men--it made no difference and UN troops
would repeat the same act every night.
At one point, the Serbs grabbed UN peacekeepers and
chained them to their artillery and tanks as shields to
prevent bombing when the UN threatend action. Naive
peacekeepers voluntarteering as human shields who thought
they were going there to protect schools and hospitals
(unnecessary because never American targets but these
people start believing thier own rhetoric after awhile)
find themselves assigned to oil fields, power plants and
local palaces. Like volunteers in Spain in the 30s
disenchanted as they watched Russian-controlled
republicans execute rivals such as democratic socialists
on the same side, some have become disenchanted and
decided to leave which isn't as easy as getting there.
The "keep the faith regardless of evidence" types will
remain in place as they did in Spain while the Orwells and
Koestler's will leave.
PACIFISM AND CONCERN FOR THE IRAQI PEOPLE
To oppose action now out of “concern for the Iraqi
people“ is to offer the alternative of Saddam & Sons
indefinitely. You could have made the same case against
liberating France and the rest of Europe in World War II.
History suggests that people faced with the prospect of
living indefinitely under a brutal occupier will always
take their chances on a short war if provided they get out
from under. Again, see Kosovo and Afghanistan where the
same “concerns” for their welfare were cited as reasons
for not acting.
When it comes to willingness to use force, sometimes “a
stitch in time” does indeed “save nine.”
Hitler astutely sized up and exploited the power of
pacifism. Failure to stop him in the thirties while
Germany was militarily disadvantaged led to 50 million
deaths in World War alone The war in turn made possible
a Soviet superpower, a Cold War and an Israeli state,
along with all later repercussions.
Like Hitler, Saddam recognizes the power of pacifism and
is betting the house on it. Unfortunately for him, a few
nations with the wherewithal to stop him refuse to succumb
to the bandwagon logic. Chirac chooses to imitate
Daladier, but Brits and the Americans have learned their
lesson.
THE SOVIET COLLAPSE AS HOPE
Some pacifists who denounce Saddam as despicable suggest
that he can be ousted in other ways but seem to engage in
wishful thinking.
--"Let the Arabs oust him," they say but the Arabs lack
the means. Only the US has it and only the US can do it.
--"Let the Iraqis overthrow him," they say--an equally
improbable prospect given the repressive technology
available to a modern state with the will to use it.
--"Look at what happened to the Soviet State in l989,"
they say noting that it can happen in Iraq.
They also conveniently three important things:
l. Part of what made the Eastern European collapse
possible was the fact that the governments there were
imposed from outside and never enjoyed much popular
support, no matter what official propaganda said. The
number of internal beneficiaries with a stake in the
regime as well as the benefits they got were far smaller
than under Iraq's regime.
2. The latter revolutions could not have succeeded were it
not for the presence of Mikhail Gorbachev and his
reluctance to use the old means to preserve the empire.
In Iraq's case, there is every reason to believe that
without outside intervention, Saddam will remain in power
until he dies, to be followed by another monster in one of
Saddam's sons--a situation that more closely resembles
that of North Korea than what happened in Syria after
Assad's death. What makes the prospect of ouster even
worse than in North Korea is that Iraq's oil wealth and
the willingness of certain powers to deal with him limit
how far economic collapse can go. Insiders will continue
to live well under Saddam and Son and there are far more
of them, all with much to lose if anything changes.
3. It took 72 years for the Soviet Union to collapse along
with states under it's control. Even then, they could
have made it last for a long time if they had the will, as
Saddam & Sons surely will. In the meantime, multi-
millions died and far more suffered in gulags. What
pacifists seem to be proposing is that Iraqis live like
this into the indefinite future in the hopes of a l989
scenario someday. Why shouldn't Iraqis have peace,
prosperity and freedom from terror now, REGARDLESS of the
motives the US may have for liberating Iraq? In any case,
it beats the motives of the French and Russians whose
policies seem to have more to do with preserving economic
arrangements with Saddam than with idealism. |
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