2002-10-13 - 3:57 a.m.

Weapons of Mass Distraction

And now I'm going to open my big, fat mouth about something that has really been bothering me. This is probably not going to make me any new friends, but I have to say this.

It looks like we are going to war with Iraq. I think this is a bad, bad idea.

Whenever I hear some news story about how determined President Dubya is to smack Saddam, and how Congress is almost sure to let him do it, I start tearing my hair out. I find myself shouting: "Why? Why???????????"

Of course there are reasons why, good reasons why. Let me sit down and think what they might be.

First of all there is the stated reason: mean old Saddam has, or is building, weapons of mass destruction, and is planning to use them. Aside from the fact that nothing will make him use them faster than attacking him - there is real doubt that he has anything more than he had during the Gulf War ten years ago. I really haven't heard any compelling evidence that he really is a danger on this score.

A few days ago I caught a speech from Senator Edward Kennedy on CNN. I was under the impression that Kennedy was a tedious speaker, but I was greatly impressed with the speech, and the way he delivered it. I found myself agreeing strongly with a lot of what he said. If you want to read it for yourself, it is here. If you don't want to wade through it, the salient points of the speech are summarized at the top.

Something I found rather shocking, but very persuasive, was the following paragraph:

At the present time, we do face a pressing risk of [nuclear] proliferation -- from Russia�s stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. America spends only $1 billion a year to safeguard those weapons. Yet the Administration is preparing to spend between one and two hundred billion dollars on a war with Iraq.

If we are REALLY serious about nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands, we should be paying much more attention to Russia and the former Soviet republics than Saddam Hussein. Terrorists are MUCH more likely to pick up a nuke there than from Saddam, who really doesn't like Islamic fundamentalists anyway. I think the danger from that quarter really dwarfs any mischief Saddam could cook up, no matter what he has or doesn't have.

The point has been made that Saddam has been violating U.N. resolutions. Oh, no! The fact is that the United States feels perfectly free to ignore U.N. resolutions whenever it strikes their fancy, in fact some U.N. resolutions deserve to be ignored. This reeks of hypocrisy.

So I think the arguments about what weapons Saddam has are a smokescreen, a phony reason. So what are the REAL reasons for us attacking him.

The first one that occurs to me is that Iraq has lots of lovely oil, and Big Oil would love to get its hands on it. This makes good sense. Plenty of wars have been fought over resources, that wouldn't be anything special.

I also think that Bush is using this mainly manufactured "crisis" for various political ends. By making himself a "wartime president" he's making it seem unpatriotic to disagree with him. Many, many people have pointed out the coincidence that all of this bluster is occurring right before a mid-term election. It sure would be nice if the Republicans could pick up a majority in Congress - it would make the treasury that much easier to loot.

Seriously though, his "war on terror" seems to be running out of gas. Afghanistan caved in rather easily and nobody has been able to find Osama Bin Laden. That doesn't sound very newsworthy!

Bush, who stole the office of president has to keep legitimizing himself by herding the voters like frightened sheep, and this is a perfect way to do it. During the Gulf War, his father George Sr. had the highest approval rating of any present in history, and Dubya wants that same buzz for himself. Of course, Bush Sr. lost the election of 1992 in spite of this bump in his popularity curve. Because, "it's the economy, stupid."

And that's another reason for then never ending screeching about the "Iraq crisis." It keeps people distracted from the fact that the economy is in the toilet, and a bunch of Bush's corporate friends have been ripping off the U.S. with fraud on a previously undreamed-of scale. Again, I'm not the only one noticing that there has to be a new "terror alert" every time it looks like the economy is going to be the big news story again.

Shame on you, American media. You are so easy to manipulate.

The last reason I came up with is the least compelling, at least to me: Dubya has a personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Even though we kicked his ass hard during the Gulf War, Saddam survived that and lived to thumb his nose at us another day. I didn't really think this was a credible reason for Dubya to expend all this effort to crush him, then one of my comic store customers reminded me that supposedly Iraq tried assassinate Bush Sr. during a trip to Kuwait in 1993, when he was no longer president. The info on this, which is kind of murky, is here.

Okay, let me summarize. Bush wants to topple Saddam from power because:

1) Saddam may have weapons of mass destruction (but probably doesn't)

2) Saddam has lots of oil for us to grab

3) It sure is screwing with the Democrats' election plans

4) It is distracting the American people from their crappy economy

5) Dubya hates Saddam's guts and wants to get even

I think this last one is just a sweetener, not a real reason, but it certainly makes the whole package more attractive. Notice that I'm giving Dubya credit for having enough brains to not make cheesy revenge his primary motivator. Maybe this is a mistake on my part.

I also think that reasons 2 through 4 are scummy reasons to start a war, putting petty political concerns ahead of your country's best interests. In fact it rather sounds like a seven-letter word beginning with "T", but let's not go there, shall we?

That being said, I don't think that ANY of those reasons is good enough to justify starting a war over. The number of problems involved in attacking Saddam and actually removing him from power are just staggering. On top of that, the fallout of removing him may make us sorry we ever thought up the idea.

There was a REASON why we didn't take him out during the Gulf War - without Saddam Iraq would likely fall apart, and split into pieces. One of those pieces would be an independent Kurdistan, and that would not at all please our major ally Turkey, which has a significant Kurdish minority in its eastern provinces. In fact, if a Greater Kurdistan is formed, Turkey might well LOSE some of is eastern territories. However, right now we are not hearing a peep out of Turkey because for all intents and purposes, they are bankrupt. We have hold of their purse strings, so they have to shut up and let us do what we want to do. It's not making them love us, and it's not making the Turkish government any more popular with the Turkish people.

Iraq falling apart would also greatly please Iran, who is not exactly a friend of ours either. In fact, I would think they would be much more willing to aid and harbor terrorists than Saddam. And there is that little matter of kidnapping 200 odd Americans in the late 1970s.

The fact is, war is a crap shoot. You really cannot predict what will happen, and what the long term consequences will be. There are some things you can predict though: this will almost certainly piss off many of our allies, and it will definitely infuriate the Islamic militants that hate us and provide them with plenty of grist for their anti-American mill.

And the final point - none of those crappy reasons I listed are worth a single American life. People seem to be forgetting that the end result of all this cheerleading is going to be a bunch of American sons and daughters coming home in bags and boxes.

Okay, that I think is all I have to say on the subject. I think those are all the points that were buzzing around in my head.

By the way, the impetus for this rant was something I read on Slate a couple of days ago, and you can read it >here.

I really cannot believe this guy. He thinks that we should attack Iraq, but can't tell us why! What is he, an idiot? Before you commit to a war you should have damned good reasons and make sure that the result is in your country's best interests.

I felt the room spinning while I read that piece. This guy ADMITS that all the talk about the weapons Saddam has is probably bullshit, then gives an even MORE moronic reason for attacking him: the thing that makes the Middle East the fact that Saddam is a destabilizing presence in the Middle East.

While I might see that he has a point about lack of money partially being the problem in that part of the world, there is a certain circular problem with it, like "which came first, the chicken or the egg?" The region won't be more stable until people start investing in it, but nobody will invest in it while it is so unstable. All that aside, I don't think that Saddam is REMOTELY the biggest problem the Middle East has. What about the Israelis and Palestinians, constantly at each others' throats?? THAT seems pretty destabilizing to me! In fact, until recently Saddam has been rather quiet. And what about Libya? They seem a lot more willing to play patty cake with terrorists than Saddam does.

It's plain this guy needs a really good kick in the head. He wants to attack Iraq because he doesn't like them, and he thinks it would be fun. The reasons he's coming up with are just window dressing. I wonder how much fun it would be for him if he was one of the people going into the cloud of poison gas with a rifle in his hands? Bet that would make him come up with some better reasons in a hurry - for us not to go!

Then there was this piece.

Basically, we should give Bush the option to attack Iraq because we trust him more than the United Nations. While I may or may not trust Dubya more than I trust the U.N., I wouldn't let either one of them borrow my car. C'mon people! This is an example of a classical logical fallacy: tying an issue to an unrelated topic that you can easily prove. Whether I trust The U.N. more or less than George W. Bush is irrelevant - I don't think Bush (or ANY president) should have the sort of blank check for action that the Iraq resolution entails.

What makes this essay even cheesier is the stupid metaphor involving the guy's uncle and a gun. Hello? Even though you may know your uncle better than you know the cops, you still shouldn't arm him! He sounds like a nut!

And this is what passes for Conservative thought? Pitiful.

And that's enough political ranting for one day. Let the flaming begin.