MARCHING FOR TYRANNY
Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda wants to destroy American society just as Karl
Marx and Friedrich Engels longed to destroy capitalism when they wrote in
The Communist Manifesto: ³A specter is haunting Europe: the specter of
Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to
exorcise this specter². And they knew that only with a bloody revolution
could Communism possibly triumph. Commencing in Russia during the winter of
1917-18 the Bolsheviks spread terror and brutality throughout the land
finalizing their revolution with millions of people being killed by Lenin
and Stalin. The ³Powers of old Europe² failed to exorcise the specter of
Communism; it inexorably crept into the shadows of the West, constantly
threatening democracy until it was destroyed by the United States. Today, we
are faced with pretty much the same alien challenge and the ³Powers of old
Europe² are once again unable to exorcise the danger.
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE
Europe is intractably divided over the issue of Iraq and the gap could widen
into a formidable chasm. The very existence of this division is contrary to
all that the European Union personifies, given that the treaty of the EU
maintains that membership countries must work towards a common foreign
policy and ³coordinate their actions in international organizations². Few
people seem to recognize that it is no coincidence that decline of old
Europeıs military capabilities is in direct proportion to its insistence on
the use of diplomacy. ³Weapons of mass distraction² the French political
writer, Jean-Francois Revel terms it. It is as if French statesmen and the
soi-disant intellectuals are locked into a mindset that fails to register
anything inconsistent with their preconceived pacifist convictions
especially anything that might involve the use of force. That, in spite of
the fact, that history amply demonstrates that diplomacy never was something
that staved off tyranny.
All this perfectly suits Russia. The dream the Soviets could not accomplish
during the Cold War (nor the Germans during the previous two World Wars) is
now becoming reality thanks to the France and German alliance Russia cobbled
together. France and Germany are not only dividing Europe but they are
weakening NATO and the Security Council as well. They are doing just what
the Soviets longed for, split the Atlantic pillar, and isolate Europe from
America, which in the long run will weaken the new Europe and thereby
eventually strengthen Russiaıs grip on Europe.
MUDDLEHEADED APPEASEMENT
History repeats itself. Yet again antiwar militants are marching to their
hoary pacifist tune, urging a policy of appeasement at any price, just as
they did during the pre-World War II period, the Cold War, the Vietnam War,
the 1991 Gulf War, the Yugoslavia conflict and in Afghanistan. Emboldened by
worldwide demonstrations, a rebellious (and vocal) minority of the Western
public is demanding ³power to the people² like Saturday afternoon bleacher
buffs that so gleefully goad a perceived myopic baseball umpire. With no
appreciation for reality, they refuse to believe that war is sometimes
inevitable and necessary as it was in the Balkans, and could have saved
millions of lives if it had been employed in Rwanda before the situation
metastasized into a bloodbath. With their customary hypocrisy they ignore
the tyranny Saddam has inflicted upon his own people; with their
pseudo-morality they denounce the right to self-defense and with their
biased perspective they try to corrupt defense policy.
Carrying things to extremes, such ideologues might even demand legal
prosecution of those in the executive branch that they believe have indulged
in war crimes by pursuing the removal of a dictator by means of war. All the
while these very same anti-war veterans gleefully support Russiaıs stance
against the war, ignoring how much blood that country has spilled in
Chechnya. As they ignored the absence of UN authorization for the Western
intervention in Bosnia; as they ignore the fact that Saddam Hussein has
twice invaded his neighbors, tortured and killed thousands of his own people
and has even used weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when he gassed the Kurds
and the Iranians. Anything is possible from these people while under their
spell of anti-war nirvana sentiment.
Anti-American xenophobia is flourishing in the compost of free speech and
folly. Nowadays it is the street that is striving to dictate foreign policy
to the politicians. ³Power to the people² is their pernicious rallying cry,
the decisions of the elected officials appear to have been subjugated by the
mob rule of noisy minorities. Logic has become irrelevant. The activists
disregard the truth with astonishing precision. Ignoring the end they claim
to abhor the means. What the peaceniks close their eyes to is the fact that
if their cause was satisfied, Saddam would end up being stronger than ever
and his tyranny would increase proportionally. Or to credit them with
intelligence (belied by their actions) when they are actively supporting a
bloody dictator in the same fashion that they appeased Lenin, Stalin,
Hitler, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh. Flushed with success, Saddamıs defiance
against America would be seen as a victory by all the fanatical Muslims
worldwide (not to mention the residual, lost-cause Marxists vainly hoping
for an American setback) and would inspire even further civil atrocities and
terrorist activity. For that reason preserving the status quo could be even
more deadly than an eventual war.
A PIPE DREAM
European opponents to war persist in believing the Americans are only in it
for oil. They accuse President Bush of wanting to control the oil reserve of
Iraq. What they donıt take into account is that with the overall cost of a
war, and the billions of dollars one would need to restore the Iraqi oil
supplies after the war, plus the likelihood of plummeting oil prices (prices
collapsed once Operation Desert Storm began in 1991) there is no profit to
be made out of it for the United States. If it was about oil, the U.S. could
have lifted sanctions years ago in exchange for oil and be done with it. In
fact, in a sense the European moaners and groaners are right about it being
for oil, for France the oil is a critical criterion not to go to war. That
is the precise motive galvanizing the French government to do everything it
can to avoid a conflict that would oust the dictator, Saddam Hussein. If
there were a regime change, France would stand to lose billions of euros in
outstanding debts and oil contracts.
Just a few months ago Saddam assured France, Russia, Germany and Syria that
they would have ³priority² in trade opportunities and contract bids for
government projects. (It comes as no surprise that all four countries are on
the UN Security Council, consistently voting pro-Iraqi positions.) Then on
Feb. 6th Russia signed a $200 million contract with Iraq involving energy,
communications, agriculture and transport. On Feb. 10th Iraq told Russia it
was ready to sign a cooperation agreement with Russia worth $40 billion. All
this on top of a deal that was signed months ago worth $1.52 billion.
Over 100 German companies are involved in financial deals with Iraq, from
cosmetics to energy and transport services. Direct trade between Iraq and
Germany amounts to some $350 million per year, but more important is the
indirect trade that goes through a third country, that amounts to $1 billion
annually.
Franceıs mega oil company, TotalFinaElf has worked hard to position itself
as Saddamıs sole oil exporting ally in anticipation of sales worth some
$18.25 billion per year. Since 1996, Iraq has ordered $4.5 billion worth of
good and services directly from France and $7 billion worth received through
third parties. Last July France signed a $5.3 billion business deal with
Iraq. And that same summer Saddam said he wished to re-establish full
commercial ties with France by re-opening its trade section in its Paris
embassy.
More recently, an examination of the UN files revealed that there were more
objections, concerning exports from France to Iraq, occurred than any other
exporting country. This included chemicals, refrigerated trucks, specific
laboratory equipment that could have a WMD application, and sophisticated
military communications equipment. Into the bargain, a classified report,
originating from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, gives an
account of suspicious exports from France containing a particular pesticide
containing VX that could be exploited as a chemical warfare agent.
WHAT THE PROTESTORS PRETEND TO IGNORE
It was naïve from the beginning to believe that the inspections would be
anything other than a farce. Vice President Dick Cheney was right when he
said that a ³return of the inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever
of compliance with UN resolutions. On the contrary, there is a great danger
that it would provide false comfort that Saddam was somehow back in his
box.² The UN has been providing false comfort for all too long. Moreover,
how can the UN be taken seriously when that institution approved that in May
Iraq will take over the presidency of the UN Conference on Disarmament and
that the newly elected chair of the UN Human rights Commission is now Libya?
While the human rights activists cheer for Saddam and deride President Bush
they are unconcerned with the true devil in their midst. Saddamıs legacy in
the use of chemical and biological weapons is unprecedented and the evidence
of his dealings with terrorists is substantial.
For example:
1. In 1978 the Iraqis sponsored the mercury poisoning of Israelıs citrus
fruits for the Palestinian terrorists.
2. Iraq used the insidious, long-term poison thallium for political
assassinations.
3. Saddam arranged the mass poisoning of fugitive Kurds escaping to Turkey.
4. Saddamıs chemical weapons between 1987-98 killed something like 16,000
Kurds.
5. In 1994 Iraq planted an Iraqi genetic engineering scientist into New York
City to conduct a biological terrorist attack.
Donıt they know, or have they forgotten, that the brain behind the first
World Trade Center terrorist attack was an Iraqi? And that bomb makers had
mixed sodium cyanide into the bombıs construction in the hopes that the gas
would have caused thousands of causalities.
Saddamıs regime has been involved in terrorism, both overtly and covertly,
for years. Two Iraqi intelligence defectors have told of their work at the
Salman-Pak terrorist training camp, informing Western intelligence of how
the students were drilled in terrorist acts, including the hijacking of
airliners armed only with knives, sabotage and assassination techniques.
Archives of satellite photographs did indeed confirm that a Boeing 707
aircraft was used on the terrorist training field.
Early in 1999 an Arab newspaper, ³al-Watan al-Arabi², printed in Paris,
disclosed that in Oct. 1998, after many meetings between Osama bin Laden and
Iraqi officials, forged a secret pact to wage a terrorist war on the United
States. In effect an Arab troika consisting of Iraq, Sudan and bin Laden was
founded to finance and construct biological and chemical factories in Sudan
to be administered by Iraqi scientists for the very purpose of ³confronting
the U.S., the common enemy.²
CONCLUSION
The instigators of these recent peace marches are the same ilk of
anti-Western demonstrators that have protested policies of freedom and
civilization since the days of the Vietnam War up through the World Bank and
IMF protests. They are the followers of Communism or other totalitarian
regimes, or anarchists, or nihilists, including fanatical Islamic factions,
and other ³useful idiots² as Lenin fondly called people who are willing to
supply the rope that would hang themselves. All these disparate agents have
an abject hatred of the United States based mostly on jealously from their
own failed causes. Some of the participants may have been misguided
innocents; most were fanatics out to promote Saddamıs anti-war propaganda
with no interest in opposing or moderating his tyrannical legacy. Whichever,
both served the same practical purpose for Saddam, that of legitimizing his
beastly, oppressive regime a fine lot to fall in step with!
What it comes down to is that America does not need a UN benediction over
going to war against Iraq; the UN has to either enforce its own resolutions
or resume being as powerless and inept as they have been over the years.
America and the UN-blessed coalition of the first Gulf War never signed a
peace treaty ending the war with Iraq. It was only a conditional ceasefire,
which authorizes the continuation of the war if Iraq violates the conditions
of the ceasefire. Saddam has not ended these violations since the day he
signed the agreement. Furthermore, since when is it necessary to have the
UNıs consent to go to war? Lady Thatcher didnıt seek their blessing when
she embarked upon the Falklands War, nor did President Reagan during his
invasion of Panama and Grenada, nor did the allies in attacking Serbia, nor
has France currently in the Ivory Coast.
To decline now, from this war of liberation, would be the worst signal one
could send to people like Saddam or the peaceniks, not only that it would
make a mockery of the very fundamental law of civilization that of the
right of defense of its people, we would lose all credibility in the Middle
East. And by the way, the biggest worry among Arab leadership (and Iraqıs
neighbors) is that the United States wonıt go through with the war.
Peter B. Martin
February 2003
Montcuq, France
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