Hi. At the end Webdiary’s first week in 2003, pro-war readers have hit back with a vengeance.
Harry Heidelberg has big go at Carmen about her column yesterday (Proud to be juvenile, Carmen16Jan), but he’s begun the battle of our new columnists with style – engaged, constructive, and without personal abuse. He talks tough about what he calls the anti-war ‘nostalgia’ of the baby boomers at Harry17Jan.
I met Jim Nolan more than a decade ago when I covered the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal inquiry into Alan Bond’s fitness to keep the licence for Network Nine for the Herald and he appeared for the unions. Jim recently wrote a piece backing a war on Iraq on human rights grounds, and gave me permission to republish it. “What about us lefties who support Tony and George on this one? How about giving the left anti-Saddam, pro-human rights perspective a run?” he wrote. How could I resist?
After Jim’s piece, Darren Urquhart, inspired by the idea of Andrew Mamo and Helen Ferry for a “garage doors against the war” protest in yesterday’s Webdiary (webdiary16Jan) has another idea for suburban Australians to make their mark on the debate.
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Regime Change for Saddam
by Jim Nolan
Disclosure: I am a Sydney barrister and labor lawyer who first joined the ALP in the mid sixties and was active in the anti-Vietnam movement and anti-Springbok South Africa movement in Brisbane. For the last fourteen years I’ve been a barrister appearing mainly for trade unions.
The prospect of a war against the fascist Ba’ath clique in Iraq has seen a predictable reaction by many in the political left in the United States, the United Kingdom Europe and now in Australia. It is well past time however for the knee jerk reaction to the prospect of ‘regime change’ in Iraq to be re-assessed. The rationale behind opposition to intervention in Iraq needs to be carefully considered.
Australians (and in particular the left) acted honourably in pressing for regime change in East Timor – even when the United Nations seemed to falter in its commitment to the East Timorese. Similarly, the intervention of the United Nations in Bosnia should have been welcomed by anyone who felt deeply about human rights. The actions of NATO in Kosovo – to rescue the most significant Muslim community in Europe from ethnic cleansing at the hands of the stalinist orthodox fascist – must also be regarded as a great humanitarian intervention. The same can be said for the British intervention in Sierra Leone. On the other hand, the international community can be condemned for its failure to intervene in a timely fashion in Rwanda.
These examples are sufficient to show that a blanket principle of non-intervention cannot rationally be sustained. The international community is and should be, obliged to act in the face of human tragedy and widespread human rights abuses. It has long been regarded as an important task for the left to take their own governments to task positively to require intervention in the name of human rights and democratic values. Campaigns against the racist regimes in South Africa and Zimbabwe and more recently, Cambodia, East Timor, Burma and Tibet bear this out.
Opposition to regime change in Iraq stands in stark contrast to these principled campaigns. It can only – objectively considered – lend aid and comfort to one of the most brutal and murderous regimes on earth. Anyone considering action which could lead to the prolongation of Saddam regime should be reminded of the ugly brutality of this fascist regime.
Have no doubt that the time will shortly come when this choice will have to be made. Saddam’s authority is not just built on fear and lies. His conduct gives every indication that he has long since lost the capacity for honest dealing. A material breach of the UN resolution by Iraq is as inevitable. So too will be the intervention which will follow.
Will the energies of the left then be spent in excoriating regime change or in championing the status quo of a fascist horror state which human rights advocates have described as having among the worst human rights records since World War II?
The Ba’ath party’s reign of terror
Early in its reign of terror, the Ba’athist regime liquidated communists, trade unionists and liberal democrats. Ever since it has systematically repressed and tortured its citizens- especially anyone suspected of opposition to the Ba’athist regime. Saddam continues to subject Iraqi citizens to forced relocation and deportation, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, “disappearance,” and summary political execution.
The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iraq said as recently as November 1999: “Extreme and brutal force is threatened and applied without hesitation and with total impunity to control the population”. The human rights situation inside Iraq is worse than any country since the end of World War II. Methods of torture used in Iraqi jails include using electric drills to mutilate hands, pulling out fingernails, knife cuts, sexual attacks and ‘official rape’.
Some recent examples of human rights abuses are: 3000 prisoners executed at the Mahjar Prison between 1993 and 1998; about 2500 prisoners executed between 1997 and 1999 in a “prison cleansing” campaign; 122 male prisoners executed at Abu Ghraib prison in February/ March 2000 and another 23 political prisoners executed there in October 2001.In October 2000, dozens of women accused of prostitution were beheaded without any judicial process. Some were accused for political reasons. Women prisoners at Mahjar are routinely raped by their guards, and prisoners at the Qurtiyya Prison in Baghdad and elsewhere have been kept in metal boxes the size of tea chests. If they do not confess they are left to die.
The Kurds
Opposition to regime change in Iraq also ignores and trivialises the plight of nearly thirty million Kurds – all of whom would dearly love regime change in Iraq. The Kurds are the largest disenfranchised Muslim community in the middle east – much larger than the Palestinians for example.
Iraq’s 1988 Anfal campaign of extermination against the Kurdish people living within its borders resulted in the death of at least 50,000 and as many as 100,000 people, many of them women and children. The Anfal campaign has been widely recognised as a campaign of genocide against the Kurds. The Kurds hold the tragic distinction of being the only community to have been attacked with weapons of mass destruction by their own government.
Kurds in Northern Iraq currently enjoy significant freedom thanks to the protection against Saddam’s army provided by the air forces of the United States and United Kingdom. An absolute non-intervention policy would require withdrawal this air cover. This would serve only to permit Saddam to revive his campaign of genocide against the Kurds.
Saddam’s Shria laws
In 1994 Saddam – supposedly a secular ruler – introduced amputations and branding.
Saddam issued a series of decrees establishing severe penalties for ‘criminal’ offences. These include amputation, branding, cutting off ears, and other forms of mutilation. Anyone found guilty of slandering the President has their tongue removed. The branding was useful to distinguish war wounded amputees from ‘criminal’ amputees. (Information on the ugly truth of this regime is at humanrightswatch.)
Saddam as Sponsor of Terror
These well-chronicled human rights abuses should in themselves be sufficient to persuade the left to argue passionately for regime change. The prospect of Saddam and his clique as the wholesalers of weapons of mass destruction represents a clear and present danger to the civilised world.
It has been argued that there is no ‘smoking gun’ which associates Saddam with Al Qaeda. There is already clear evidence however that Saddam has long been an exporter of terror. Mostly this has taken the form of numerous assassinations of Iraqi dissidents living abroad who were opposed to the regime.
However the Ba’athist regime was also notoriously the sponsor and protector of the Abu Nidal group of Palestinians terrorists who were involved in a campaign of assassination of Palestinian moderates. Abu Nidal died recently in Baghdad – apparently of natural causes.
Saddam Gets ‘Religion’
In order to boost his credentials as a leading Muslim with theocratic fascists like Osama bin Laden, Saddam is presently squandering his limited oil revenues in the construction of grand Mosques. This is only one of numerous gross examples of using precious resources to shore up his regime at the expense of the welfare of the Iraqi population. The grandest will feature a moat in which an island landscaped to reproduce Saddam’s thumb print is to be built. An architect who worked on this bizarre project and gave a media interview about it recently died of ‘poisoning’.
Saddam is Iraq’s Ceausescu
The only possible objection to intervention in the interests of regime change is the civilian casualties which might ensue. The Afghanistan campaign demonstrated that casualties could be minimised. The Gulf war showed that the Iraqi army was a paper tiger and that its largely press-ganged ranks were eager to desert Saddam. The much vaunted ‘republican guard’ may be expected to collapse within days. So long as the Iraqi people are convinced that any intervention will be carried through with conviction – and not betrayed as it was in 1991 – they may be expected quickly to join the push to oust Saddam. Apart from some die hard Saddam loyalists, sensible army officers may be expected to surrender and defect.
Every rational indicator suggests that Saddam will sooner or later meet the same fate as that other joke dictator, Ceausescu. His recent farcical plebiscite and his amnesty for criminals (but not political prisoners) suggests that the regime is feeling the pressure. He has in the past few weeks reportedly recalled the children of Iraqi diplomats – no doubt as hostages against expected defections and denunciations.
When that time comes, if Saddam’s republican guard is permitted to strike out at the population without hindrance, many of his brave opponents may be expected to meet the same fate which befell democratic forces in 1991.
At the end of the Gulf war – at the urging principally of the corrupt Saudi oligarchy – the international community made the cowardly decision to permit Saddam to reassert his rule. The slaughter of his political opponents far exceeded the repression witnessed in East Timor. We in the west owe all these people and their families and comrades a significant debt which now waits to be repaid. The challenge for all of us is whether we are to be remembered as the supporters of those who will see Saddam off- or as having stood in their way.
None of the facts about the true horrors of the Ba’ath regime appear seriously to be challenged by anyone. What then (in the memorable phrase) is to be done?
There are two principal reasons for hesitation about intervention. The first is concerned with potential casualties. Many of my political comrades say that if a targeted assassination of Saddam and his henchmen could be arranged, they would not object. This in itself is a tectonic shift in thinking about the conduct of international relations – to recall for a moment Guatemala, Mossadeq and Allende! Leaving that aside, what this concession means is that the approach to intervention requires only a judgment about the probable results which flow from intervention or non intervention not about the morality of regime change itself.
This is a grim calculus but not one which suggests that one option is automatically superior. What it necessitates is a deliberate decision that a prolongation of Saddam’s regime will not lead to the murder, torture and further brutalisation and impoverishment of the Iraqi people on a scale which will exceed the human costs of intervention. In my judgment, another two or three (or more) years of brutality and its inevitable bloody and chaotic aftermath is too high a price for the Iraqi people to endure. It cannot be tolerated when the realistic alternative is a short sharp military intervention which can now confidently be predicted to topple the much hated Saddam in a matter of weeks if not days.
There is a second and perhaps in truth more substantial rationale against intervention. This is the visceral knee jerk anti-Americanism which still pervades political debate. America’s past sins, it is argued, disqualify it from any legitimacy in a struggle like this. A case in point is the former support for Saddam by the US.
Whereas the truth of this past alliance of convenience is incontrovertible, its justification to oppose US intervention now does not withstand analysis. Past sins to which the US and its allies were a party make the obligation to put things right all the more imperative, not otherwise. What better gesture to make amends to those who have suffered under the Ba’ath regime than to be their liberators – albeit belatedly. It is also worth reflecting upon the fact that that disqualification based on past conduct would have disqualified Australia from any role in East Timor.
The real campaign ahead will be to insist that the international community meets its obligations to the people of Iraq to rebuild the country, to develop democratic institutions based on tolerance and allow its people access to the benefits derived from its oil wealth. The price of that intervention must be that the international community is to be kept to its word in Iraq as much as in Afghanistan – even when more immediate issues distract the attention of decision makers. This task – to redouble the campaign for human rights, the rule of law, and secular democracy -is the far, far preferable call upon the left’s energies.
This article was first published in workersonline
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Darren Urquhart in Sydney
I like the “Garage Doors Against the War” idea, and agree with its premises: The suburbanites in developed countries are the centre of the information war; corporations and the media are the real centers of power and contemporary strategies call for actions against them, and oil is at the center of the looming war.
I have a few points to add.
The rich suburbanites in the developed world (and that’s rich by “world” standards, not our standards) are at the centre of the ‘Information War’ because we hold the real power – the power that can see governments, and empires, fall. At the end of the day Bush, Howard, Blair are nothing without the support of the suburbs. However, the information war is being cleverly waged and we have been convinced that we are powerless.
Andrew Mamo and Helen Ferry say that “protest against government is an anachronistic agency for change”, but it can still work. The only problem is that suburbanites need to get thoroughly pissed off before they’ll leave the couch and wade through clouds of tear gas on the street. You need large numbers in street protests to get a government’s attention and you only get sufficient numbers when the suburbanites join in – see the Sorry march in Sydney and the anti-Vietnam war protests in the 60s.
However before the government will budge, the action must be sustained (see the failure of Sorry to impact policy) and that takes time. In the meantime much damage is done (see Vietnam).
In any event, protesting against the Howard government and even forcing policy change does nothing to impact the real source of power in Washington DC. Australia could tomorrow turn into a 18 million strong band of rabid tree-hugging commies and Washington wouldn’t blink. When it comes to influencing the power elite who seek to re-engineer our world we have no power as citizens. Zip.
However, we do have considerable power as consumers.
That oil plays a major role in the approaching Iraqi war and in the wider strategic goals of the Bush Administration is, surely, beyond question now. More and more people are seeing through the various smoke screens of WMD, liberating the Iraqi people, enforcing UN resolutions, tackling terrorism etc. The double standards and hypocrisy on display is pure comedy.
However, oil is just a part, maybe even a smallish part, of the overall Bush Administration strategy. The grand vision involves total US domination over land, sea, air and space (see newamericancentury). The authors of this report, written in 1999/2000, include Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defense secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld’s deputy), George W Bush’s younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney’s chief of staff). It is difficult to avoid the feeling that these people seek a level of power through military, economic and strategic domination that is beyond anything the world has seen before.
I have a few more premises to add to those made in “Garage Doors Against the War”.
Premise 4: Big business has the ear of the President. Big business finances the two US Presidential candidates when they campaign and so have a kind of veto right at that early stage. These campaigns are big, big deals and cost plenty. When the new king is anointed his benefactors line up for pay back.
Once in power the US President maintains close and serious contact with big business. Maybe someone could find out how many official conversations George W has had with the head(s) of Mobil-Exxon since coming to power and compare it with contacts with Howard. I wonder who wields the greatest power in Washington, Howard or Mr.Mobil?
Premise 5: Extremists pose a clear and present danger to peace-loving people all over the world. Islamic extremists flying planes into buildings, blowing up nightclubs and hotels causing considerable and understandable anxiety. Hindu extremism is on the rise in India. National extremism regularly rears its head and is apparently a concern today in Iraq. But another form of extremism is going unreported. American extremism is a dangerous reality in our world today. The views and actions of the Bush Administration are extreme.
Pre-emptive war without provocation or overwhelming evidence of imminent danger, is extreme.
Continuing to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the world’s most advanced and deadly war machine and into a whole new generation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is extreme.
Pouring money into the war machine and ignoring the plight of millions of Americans with no health care, barely-there welfare and an annual murder rate that leaves any recent American war in its wake, is extreme.
Thumbing your nose at international law, treaties, opinions and UN Resolutions is extreme.
Invading dozens of countries, killing millions of people, overthrowing democratic governments and supporting terrorists is extreme.
To believe, really believe, that you are God’s chosen people, his special sons and daughters for whom victory is destiny, is extreme.
In my experience the American people are not extremists. My friends, family and business partners there are great people. They are not extremists. However, extremists have taken power. They reside in the Pentagon, the media, the corporate world and now the White House.
I propose we identify these extremists as Amerikans, or maybe Americists, primarily to avoid confusing them with the American people – our mates forever.
So:
* the suburbanites are the key to Western political power;
* effective protest against government is slow and, for Australians, probably ineffective against the Amerikans;
* the pursuit of oil and wider strategic goals dictate US foreign policy; and
* big business is heard in Washington and American extremism is real and terrorising (specially if you are currently a resident of downtown Baghdad).
Proposal:
We, the suburbanites of the developed world, can have our voices heard via the heads of Big Business. It is our consumer dollars that makes them Big in the first place – they owe us one.
We should appoint say five US companies to be our spokespeople in Washington. Big, big companies with well loved consumer brands, iconic American brands, and with plenty of business being conducted outside of America. Businesses whose products have equally well distributed competitors.
This proposal is for an Amerikan Boycott.
The companies we nominate to be our spokespeople will not see any more of our consumer dollars until they achieve effective policy change in Washington DC. We do yet seek regime change but we are running out of patience with the current regime. They must hear us, and act, or innocent businesses will feel our wrath.
As a starting point we could look to Mobil-Exxon (number 2 on the Fortune 500 with revenues of US$191 billion), Ford (#4, US$162b), Coca-Cola (#99, US$20b), McDonalds (#139, US$15b) and Nike (#204, US$9b).
A total of US$397,000,000,000 in Big Business revenue, about the same size as the US Defence Budget.
These companies products are, generally, easily identified. Any consumer anywhere, with total anonymity and security can take part in the Amerikan Boycott. Suburbanites all over the world can express their concerns about the extremism emanating from Washington by altering, ever so slightly, their habits of consumption. BP instead of Mobil, Holden instead of Ford, Pepsi (or even a juice!) instead of Coke, any mum and dad burger-joint instead of Maccas and Bonds instead of Nike. There are plenty of options. What is needed is massive, sudden solidarity in sending the message.
If their sales and profits drop their shareholders will demand something be done. What are they going to do? They can’t demand we return to buying their products. Like all great companies in difficult times they must listen to their customers. If the bottom line is hurting it will be because their customers are asking their loved brands to speak for them in the corridors of power.
This can happen fast. No march permits needed, no strategies for breaking police lines, no getting arrested on the grounds of “national security”. Just millions of concerned consumers all over the world having their say.