[IMC Bombay] squeak up (against Saddam, not the war)
u ma
onebrowncookie at hotmail.com
Mon, 31 Mar 2003 01:03:25 +0000
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<P align=center>..Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;<BR>the best lack all conviction, while the worst<BR>are full of passionate intensity.. </P>
<P align=center> <B>(The Second Coming, W.B. Yeats, 1921)</P></B> ___________________________<BR><BR><BR>
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<P><STRONG><U>SPEAKING FROM THE SIDELINES: The Humanitarian Case For War.</U></STRONG></P>
<P>Nicoolo Machiavelli once wrote, that there is no avoiding bloodshed. That it can only be postponed, to the advantage of others.</P>
<P>I consider myself a fairly well informed progressive liberal. And I often flirt with the idea of pacifism as a viable solution for solving international conflict. So I am quite suprised, when I find myself firmly supporting rich, white capitalist American war hawks when it comes to the current military action againt the Hussein regime in Iraq.</P>
<P>I suppose I could spell out all my reasons for supporting a war against a dictator who has remained in power for over 20 years, and crushed his opponents with ruthless, heartless force. But I don't have to. Conventional media have only been too happy to hash out for us( ad nauseum) the political pros and cons of driving up to Hussein's gates in Baghdad with a motorcade of heavy duty tanks.</P>
<P>What remains then are the humanitarian reasons for going into a Just War. And yes, there is a such thing as a Just War.</P>
<P>Of course, thousands of children will die in Iraq, when bombers fly overhead that country.Men and women will starve. Homes will be lost and refugees will flood neighbouring nations in droves.Western governments will open their wallets and throw pennies worth of humanitarian food aid at them.</P>
<P>But there are always costs for taking Action. What we, as global citizens, should ask ourselves is how high a price we are willing to pay for the consequences of Inaction. And how long the world is willing to ignore the distress of an entire population, as a regime holds its' nation and its' resources hostage? </P>
<P>I am tired of people automatically assuming that my faith in a left-of-centre political philosophy, must mean that I am opposed to this war. I am tired of hypocritical Anti War protesters. I am tired of them whining: long after the barn doors have been opened, and the horses gone. If these protesters really cared about peace and the Iraqi people, they would ask for Saddam Hussein to surrender and save his people the trauma of war and the UN sanctions they have been under for the last 12 years.</P>
<P>The price of one man in exile or dead, isnt too much to ask, in exchange for the lives of thousands of Iraqis. </P>
<P>What I then find really surprising is that these energetic displays of protest, including teary eyed pleas by celebrities worldwide and loud banner rattling by upper middle class academics, were mostly invisible when Saddam Hussein systematically used chemical weapons to suppress the Kurds in northern Iraq. Or when he used mustard gas in the war against Iran. We didn’t see human shields flying into Baghdad or hip college students flooding Mumbai streets, when this man razed down entire towns in Southern Iraq, to quell a Shia’a rebellion against his government. </P>
<P>But now Anti War protesters hold earnest shiny-faced meetings in major cities world wide, where they ramble on about oil and blood money in the morning, and return to their homes with running water and bomb-free alleyways at night. They don't have any suggestions other than they dont want War. </P>
<P>So how should a man like Saddam Hussein, with strong imperialist ambitions be declawed? They don't know.They don't have any viable solutions to deal with him. But they are still sure that they don't want War. Well, Saddam does. Which is why he has spent most of the his country's resources for the last 30 years, buying chemical weapons from France and Russia. </P>
<P>War is rarely justified, but it was, in the 1930's in Germany.And it is now.</P>
<P>Of course, only the very naïve can be persuaded by Bush’s speechwriters who insist that the US government’s war plans are motivated purely by the suffering of Iraqi citizens (and not by the world’s second largest oil reserves and potential US-Arab business contracts once the war is over). And it is even more difficult to believe that neo conservative ideologues like Donald Rumsfeld or Richard Pearle have suddenly awakened to the cruelties perpetrated by a government that has been in place for over 20 years.</P>
<P>As far as popularity contests go, Bush wouldn’t do much better than Hussein on the polls either. But Anti-Bush sentiments does not equal an Anti-war agenda. And while a lot of what the US government wants us to believe is propanganda, not all of it is untrue. </P>
<P>In international politics, bloody means are often justified by the ends they achieve. And so while the world’s sole surviving super cop may not have the best of intentions, what is ultimately important about this course of action, is that Saddam Hussein will be removed from power and the Iraqi people freed, so that they can determine their own fate once again. Neighboring countries will be able rest a little easier, and a resounding message will be sent to rogue governments worldwide, who insist on pursuing agressive military programs that reach beyond their borders.</P>
<P>So,I am going to take a stand and say out loud, that : Yes, inspite of my overwhelming sense of guilt that I, like the rest, am nothing more than an armchair provocateur, I believe in this War and its' legitimacy; I believe that it is a course of action that has been overdue for more than 10 years.</P>
<P>I am sorry that India has'nt stepped up to the plate, and made at least a verbal stand against a regime that has such a pathetic human rights record. I am sorry that most of the world, and thererfore the United Nations, prefers to sit on the sidelines and let two nations play Russian Roulette with a country headed by a madman. </P>
<P>And, I hope I speak for more people than myself, when I say I would rather live in a world propped up by a tenuous American wrought global peace, than in one with no possibility of peace at all.</P>
<P>Goodwill,</P>
<P>Uma Ramesh.</P></DIV><BR><BR>
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