Lust for War

Read the New York Times these days about the new round of inspections in Iraq and you’ll likely see the U.S. government’s (not it’s people’s) stance toward war in Iraq. They desire it. They want it to happen. When asked what they would like to see happen, the answer is never that they would like to see Hussein disarmed peacefully, they respond that they want to go in and take him out. The war is no only inevitable, it’s not even seen as a last resort for these people.

In Iraq Tells the U.N. Arms Inspections Will Be Permitted, for example, we see that the Iraqi letter of acceptance of the UN resolution said that the UN “has now been transformed into a kitchen house for big power bargaining, providing cover for war, destruction, blockades and starvation to be inflicted upon peoples.” Well, isn’t it? I mean, did all of those countries that voted for the resolution do so willingly or did Washington blackmail them into it?

US Dollars Yielded Unanimous UN Vote Against Iraq on Common Dreams tells the story of the kind of influence Washington holds over the free-voting members of the UN.

“Washington made it clear the president would not be impeded from taking action on his own or with allies if the United Nations failed to act decisively.” However, Kofi Annan grovelled further that “And I would want to say that the council decision, which was unanimous, sent a powerful message that the entire international community would like to see the Security Council resolutions implemented”. This despite the fact that “it was clear … that some Security Council members would view war as justified only if Iraq flagrantly violates the new inspections regime”, whereas, as noted above the US is ready and raring to go at the slightest provocation: “The next time he’s in violation or slows things down or delays or interferes or refuses, he’s in material breach”.

It’s also quite ironic to see “[t]he United States, … repeatedly pointed to Iraq’s 11-year run of violations of U.N. mandates” when their track record is none-too-stellar in that regard either (just ask Nicaragua).

Iraq OKs Inspectors on the New York Newsday, when Iraq warns that their “dealings with the inspectors would be governed by their degree of respect for Iraqi ‘national dignity’ and willingness to operate ‘professionally and lawfully.’”, the Newsday simply ignores history and says it “…could signal future Iraqi efforts to obstruct the monitors on the grounds that they were acting improperly”. It should remind you of the spies the US placed on the last inspection team. Then there are always the claims that Iraq then threw them out.

In fact, the inspection team that time was a thin cover for US espionage, covered in some detail in Spies’ Role Debated in U.N. Inspections of Iraq from the New York Newsday. However, the inspection team was not thrown out, “the U.N. inspectors were withdrawn” just before “…U.S. and British bombers launched the Desert Fox airstrikes in December 1998”.

Plastic is carrying an article, If Weapons Inspectors Don’t Find Anything… which talks about a recent Rumsfeld interview (transcript).

In this Voice of America article, …Iraqi Air Attacks Violate UN Resolution, the U.S. magnanimously chooses to ignore what they claim is a clear violation of the recent UN resolution.

“On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called the attacks unacceptable and a violation of the U.N. resolution, but said the United States is holding back on going to the Security Council at this time.”

Remember however, that the US and Britain have been bombing and provoking for the last 10 years, so when the US claims that it hasn’t provoked Iraq and Iraq simply struck on its own, it’s not very believable. Why exactly would Saddam invite attack in this way with such a useless maneuver — all evidence indicates he’s quite a savvy politician, if nothing else. Oh, yeah, because he’s a madman. It’s far more believable that the attack was provoked in some non-official way (thanks, CIA) so as to make the US appear magnanimous.

This article was written a while ago. The verdict is in. Iraq has responded with an 11,000 page document with 40,000 pages of attachments. Let us see how the US responds.