Kenneth Chrane
"Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't."
Sun Sep 22 04:47:55 2002
208.152.73.168

  BAGHDAD, AUTUMN 2002: CITY OF DOOM
 
  By Norman Solomon
 
  BAGHDAD -- When Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz
  described the box that Washington has meticulously
  constructed for Iraq, he put it this way:
  "Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't."
 
  It would be difficult to argue the point with Aziz,
  and I didn't try. Instead, during a Sept. 14 meeting
  here in Baghdad, I joined with others in a small
  American delegation who argued that the ominous
  dynamics of recent weeks might be reversable if -- as
  a first step -- Iraq agreed to allow unrestricted
  inspections.
 
  Despite Iraq's breakthrough decision that came two
  days later to do just that, I'll be leaving Baghdad
  tonight with a scarcely mitigated sense of gloom.
  While the news from the Iraqi capital has been
  positive in recent days, the profuse signs of renewed
  acquiescence to war among top Democrats on Capitol
  Hill are all the more repulsive.
 
  Boxed in, the Iraqi government opted to accept arms
  inspectors as its least bad choice. Gauging the odds
  of averting war, Iraq chose a long shot --
  appreciably better than no chance at all, but bringing
  its own risks. Several years ago, Washington used
  UNSCOM inspectors for espionage totally unrelated to
  the U.N. team's authorized mission. This fall, new
  squads of inspectors poking around the country could
  furnish valuable data to the United States,
  heightening the effectiveness of a subsequent military
 
  attack.
 
  Aziz, a very analytical man, hardly seemed eager to
  grasp at weapons inspections as a way to stave off
  attack. Instead, he told our delegation -- which
  included Rep. Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.) and former Sen.
  James Abourezk -- that a comprehensive "formula" would
  be needed for a long-term solution.
 
  Presumably the formula would include a U.S. pledge of
  non-aggression and a lifting of sanctions. No such
  formula is in sight. Instead, the White House remains
  determined to inflict a horrendous war. Meanwhile, the
 
  Democratic Party's "leadership" in the Senate,
  pursuing some sort of craven political calculus, is
  lining up to put vast quantities of blood on its
  hands.
 
  I would like to take Tom Daschle to visit a 7-year-old
  girl, suffering from leukemia, who I saw in a Baghdad
  hospital a few days ago. He might spare a few
  senatorial moments to look at the I.V. connected to
  her wrist, the uncontrolled bleeding from her lips,
  the anguish in the dark eyes of her mother, seated on
  a bare mattress. Years of sanctions, championed by
  moralizers in Washington, have left Iraq without
  adequate chemotherapy drugs.
 
  Now we're hearing about a resolution that -- unless
  people across the United States mobilize in opposition
  -- will sail through the House and Senate to authorize
  a massive U.S. military attack on Iraq.
 
  I can hear the raspy and prophetic voice of Sen. Wayne
  Morse, who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin
  Resolution, roaring 38 years ago: "I don't know
  why we think, just because we're mighty, that we have
  the right to try to substitute might for right."
 
  After leaving Tariq Aziz's office, our delegation met
  with Sa'doun Hammadi, speaker of Iraq's National
  Assembly. "We are now a country facing the threat of
  war," he said. "We have to prepare for that."
 
  Hammadi is an elderly man. While he's now in frail
  physical health, his mind and articulation remain
  acute. If the U.S. invaders come, Hammadi said, "the
  Iraqi people will fight." As those words settled in
  the air, the gaunt old man paused and then added: "I
  will fight." And for a moment I thought that I could
  see the dimming of light in his eyes, like embers
  in a dying fire.
 
  During the current heavy dance of death, the U.S.
  government leads with every major step. And the sky
  over Baghdad seems to foreshadow new horrors;
  unfathomable and avoidable.
 
  With an all-out war on Iraq shadowing the near
  horizon, what are Americans to do if they want to
  prevent such carnage from happening in their names
  with their tax dollars? For one thing, they -- we --
  can speak up. Now. The fact that the odds are dire
  should spur us into creative action, not anesthetize
  us into further passivity. "And henceforth," Albert
  Camus wrote, "the only honorable course will be to
  stake everything on a formidable gamble: that words
  are more powerful than munitions."
 
  __________________________________
   Norman Solomon is executive director of the Institute
  for Public
  Accuracy
  (www.accuracy.org), which sponsored the U.S.
  delegation to Baghdad in
  mid-September.
 
====================================================================

"THE OVERTHROW OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, Part 17"

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• The Delphi Technique: How to Disrupt It — David, Sun Sep 22 16:36