February 18, 2003
Kamloops Daily News



The United States will not go to war with Iraq.  Instead,
the U.S.  will invade Iraq.   War is what happens when there
is hostility between two countries.  It has been 12 years
since Iraq was hostile to any country, and that was Kuwait
not the U.S.

Osama bin Laden is not in Iraq.  The hated  al Qaeda are not
there, despite efforts by US Secretary of State Colin Powell
to put them there.

Oil is in Iraq.  The middle east, including Iraq, has 65% of
the world’s oil and gas reserves.  The U.S. wants to control
oil at its source and ensure that its gluttonous appetite is
satisfied.   And pretenders to the title of superpower, like
Europe, China and Japan will have to ask the U.S. for energy.

If it was wrong for Iraq to invade Kuwait in its oil-grab,
then its equally wrong for the U.S. to invade Iraq for the
same reason. 

Beyond energy control, the U.S. will invade Iraq because
they can.   It’s a demonstration of imperial will.

The invasion is supported by some Americans "who believe
that the United States must seize the opportunity for global
domination, even if it means becoming the ‘American imperialists’ 
that our enemies always claimed we were ... Rome did not stoop 
to containment; it conquered. And so should we,"  writes Jay 
Bookman, editor for the Atlanta-Journal Constitution 
(September 29,2002).

The removal Saddam Hussein is also a personal issue for the
Bush administration that goes back decades.  U.S. Defence
Secretary Donald Rusmfeld was Ronald Reagan's special envoy
there in 1983.

Back then, Saddam Hussein was a friend of the U.S.  The U.S. 
provided Iraq with weapons and spy photos in its chemical
war against Iran.  It provided Iraq with anthrax.  Rumsfeld
is now part of a grey flock of American hawks that have been
hankering for war since the 1990's.

Bush’s crude attempt to justify his aggression is after the
fact.  It’s after the failed attempt to destroy the
terrorist al Qaeda in Afghanistan.  It’s after the failure
to dislodge Saddam Hussein from power by starving Iraqis for
12 years.  Bush is looking for excuses to justify his
actions.

There is "continuing effort on the part of the
administration to release more evidence or more intelligence
data that's to make the case, to build the case as a lawyer
might build the case.  So in some respects, I think the
intelligence data is being driven to support conclusions," 
says Charles Pena, Director of Defense Policy Studies at the
Kato Institute

Bush will make a showy display of building international
consensus for his invasion by asking his friends to join
him.  But friends beware. The U.S. is friendly as long as
you give your undying allegiance to president Bush’s
imperial goals.

France learned that sad lesson after France’s President
Jacques Chirac told the U.S. that they couldn’t support the
invasion. Only a year and a half ago, the French embraced
America's agony of September 11.  The French newspaper Le
Monde expressed that country’s sentiment on its front page
with "We Are All Americans".

Bush wants unquestioning devotion not sentiment.  Yesterday’s
friends are today’s enemies.  It makes no difference that
France doubts the wisdom of  invading Iraq.  France can be
dumped at a moments notice.

American Jed Babbin was candid in his assessment of the lack
of French support for the invasion of Iraq.  "Well, going to
war without France is like going deer hunting without an
accordion. You get to leave a lot of useless noisy baggage
behind,"  said the former U.S. Deputy Undersecretary of
Defense.  

One political problem for Bush is that most American people
do not see themselves as imperialists.  For them, the
superiority of the U.S. is not its ability to crush little
countries.   For most Americans, the strength of that great
nation is the democratic principles on which the U.S. was
founded.  They would rather export freedom than bombs.

Peace is a compelling argument.   If Iraqis won over by
freedom and  democracy, then they will likely to get rid of 
Saddam Hussein themselves.

If Bush crushes Iraq,  the message to Iraqis will be that
tyrants are the same all over the world, regardless of
whether they are in the U.S. or Iraq.

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