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Editor Matthew Rothschild comments on
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March 20, 2003
Bush's Shameful War
George Bush bears responsibility for the horrors he is
ordering up, and for the horrors that may flow from his
decision to wage war.
It was not comforting to hear the President say in his
speech last night that "this will not be a campaign of half
measures," and that he was going to apply "decisive
force."
I shudder to think what that means.
And my heart goes out to the five million innocent people
in Baghdad, who are facing an onslaught from the mightiest
military ever to array itself on the face of the
Earth.
I can only imagine the terror they are feeling right
now.
Think what 3,000 missiles hitting Chicago would be
like.
Babies, mothers and fathers, grandparents, brothers and
sisters-all will be killed in this unnecessary, this unjust,
this illegal war. And U.S. soldiers, too, will give their
lives.
And for what?
In part, for oil. Did you notice in his speech on Monday
how Bush said, right off the bat, that Saddam better not touch
the oil fields?
And then, last night, Bush says flatly, "We have no
ambition in Iraq."
Who is he kidding?
Our economy is addicted to oil; we're the biggest guzzlers
in the world. Bush should stop acting like America doesn't
know where the oil is. Even the most inebriated alcoholic can
locate the liquor store.
This war is also about Bush settling a family score.
Getting rid of Saddam has been on his personal to-do list
since day one. He's wanted, as they say, to "finish the job"
his father left incomplete, and to get back at Saddam for
trying to kill his daddy.
And Iraq is the test case for the new U.S. strategic
doctrine, the warped brainchild of Paul Wolfowitz, Dick
Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, which says the U.S. has the right
to preventively attack any country it perceives as a distant
threat. This is a brazen repudiation of international
law.
(In the White House report to Congress on March 19
justifying this war, the Administration strained credulity by
saying, "U.S. action is consistent with the U.N. Charter." In
fact, as Kofi Annan has suggested, it's a blatant violation of
the Charter. Article 2 of the Charter states that "all members
shall refrain in their international relations from the threat
or use of force against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state." To trump that, the Administration
cited Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which is the right of
self-defense. But that article speaks of self-defense only "if
an armed attack occurs" against the country invoking the
right. And while international legal scholars have allowed the
self-defense claim if an attack is exceedingly imminent,
neither the U.N. Charter nor international law permits a
so-called war of choice like this one.)
Finally, this war is about messianic militarism. Bush views
himself as world liberator and deliverer from evil. He
believes, with God on his shoulder and a B-2 bomber with angel
wings in the skies, he can set right the wrongs of mankind.
Such is the height of his self-delusion.
Last night, Bush talked about "the peace of a troubled
world."
He's the one disturbing that peace, and he's doing so in a
truly criminal and dangerous way.
-- Matthew Rothschild
