|
Against Bush
Benjamin Kuipers
I have been the prisoner of foreign
news for quite some time and have watched with great interest
as the American Occupation of Iraq becomes increasingly bloody.
Several months have passed since the "end of the war"
and over 110 young Americans have lost their lives. As the death
toll mounts and Americans are brought home in boxes, I wonder
how many will be sacrificed, in the words of that great proponent
of aggression and interventionism, Woodrow Wilson, for "Democracy
and Freedom" abroad in the desolate quagmire of Iraq, while
here in America the Bush Administration implements various elements
of totalitarian government.
Justification for war was explained
as "obvious" and its necessity as "immediate."
Saddam posed an imminent threat, we were assured; opposition
to the war would "aid and abet" our enemy. Then came
"shock and awe," followed closely by "bait and
switch." No WMD were found, so a new justification had
to be quickly invented to prevent that bothersome conscience
of the American people from emerging.
When it had been firmly established
that the current administration lied repeatedly and embellished
the threat Iraq posed, the Bush regime simply began spewing
propaganda in a new direction, ceasing to yelp about the imminent
Iraqi invasion and appealing to the emotions of the American
people, arguing that America had a moral obligation to give
freedom to the Iraqi people.
Now the American populace is told
that Iraq may or may not have WMD, but that really doesn't matter,
for America is spreading freedom and democracy, and in order
to do that, sometimes an administration must strong-arm the
CIA, forge documents, and lie to Congress and citizens. These
actions demonstrate the extreme rigor mortis of integrity and
principle within the Republican Party.
President Bush believes that the
safety of America depends on control of Iraq. He argues that
Saddam was able and willing to attack the United States. How
is his response any less totalitarian and tyrannical than Saddam's?
President Bush tacitly advocates world domination, however concealed
it may be beneath the all-encompassing mantle of "spreading
democracy" and "liberation." Hitler invaded and
occupied the Sudetenland, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Poland and
the Ukraine to "liberate" those peoples.
But liberation, according to the
3rd Geneva Convention, is not a valid excuse for any invasion.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal stated, "To initiate
a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it
is the supreme international crime differing only from other
war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated
evil of the whole." Another problem with aggressive wars
of "liberation" lies in the difficulty of determining
who and what is to be liberated. When does liberation become
domination, or occupation?
America's Founders believed that
any just government must be based upon the consent of the governed.
The governed of Iraq are apparently not giving their consent.
Even U.S. government-appointed cronies and leaders of the anti-Baathist
community have made passionate calls for an end to the occupation.
Consent must come freely from within a nation, within an individual;
it cannot be forced at gunpoint.
Just prior to American intervention
in WWII Charles A. Lindberg stated, "There is no danger
to the nation from without. The only danger lies from within."
Today, if ever, this is the truth. But America ignores her founders'
wisdom and "goes abroad...in search of monsters to destroy."
She should start at home.
By preemptively attacking a non-belligerent
state, the United States has violated the enduring principles
of the founders. Patriotic Americans should not support such
actions.
|
