A Billionaire Against Bush
by
Seth Sandronsky
Dissident Voice
March 8, 2003
From
the streets to the suites. Even the super rich are being politicized by
Washington hawks.
Take billionaire
philanthropist George Soros. He criticized President Bush’s war drive against
Iraq during a talk in late Feb. at Carnegie Mellon.
Soros slammed the
president’s post-Sept. 11, 2001, foreign policy of might makes right. The Bush White House has a “visceral
aversion to international cooperation,” he said (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Feb.
28).
In Soros’ view, the
president is wrongly rejecting political solutions. They in part minimize
uncertainty in the world system.
To grow, the global economy
needs a stable political structure. Where unilateral U.S. military campaigns
continue in Colombia, Iraq and the Philippines, such stability can weaken the
system.
This trend is placing many
ordinary people in harm’s way as a Gulf War 2003 looms large. Consider this.
The oil market is uneasy. Thus
oil prices are climbing as the Bush administration moves forward with its plan
to invade and occupy Iraq.
The official reason is to
disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But the long-term U.S. aim is to eventually
flood the market with cheap Iraqi oil to break OPEC’s power to price this
nonrenewable energy.
This U.S. threat to attack
Iraq without U.N. Security Council approval is making ordinary Americans less
secure. U.S. bombs and bullets can't create democracy in Iraq or security in
America.
On that note, prices at the
gas pump are now climbing to record levels even before the president gives the
go-ahead to bomb Baghdad, home to five million human beings. The cost of energy
with a petroleum base increased 6.6 percent in January for the American people,
according to Department of Labor data.
Rising energy costs hit
small businesses and households hard. Moreover, U.S. taxpayers will also fund
the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Currently, the federal
budget deficit is projected to be just over $300 billion. This doesn’t include the Iraq war or the
president’s proposed tax-cutting.
Not that all anti-war
protesters oppose a U.S. strike against Iraq solely on economic grounds. Far
from it.
In fact, many ordinary
people are participating in the anti-war movement out of sympathy for Iraqi
civilians being targeted by U.S. war planners. Take Americans with the Iraq
Peace Team in Baghdad www.iraqpeaceteam.org.
These heroic women and men
of conscience are nonviolently resisting the Pentagon’s plan to launch “3,000
precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first 48 hours of a short air
campaign, to be followed quickly by ground operations” (New York Times, Mar.
5). Sadly, these Americans aren’t at
the top of the TV news.
They should be. Each and
every American should know about these peace keepers.
In the meantime, mass media
reported what the president recently said about anti-war protesters. He
basically dismissed them by shifting the focus to the danger the American
people face from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
No matter that U.N. weapons
inspectors are uncovering Iraqi weapons.
Echoing Soros, the New York
Times editorialized that “Whatever comes of the conflict with Iraq, the world
will have lost before any fighting begins if the Security Council is ruined as
a mechanism for unified international action (Mar. 6).
Leaders in France, Germany
and Russia want to continue U.N. weapons inspections. They oppose U.S.
aggression.
And a prominent billionaire
recently added his voice to the millions of ordinary anti-war protesters.
Together, they are urging a quick change in U.S. foreign policy.
Well, one thing is becoming
easier to see. With one of the planet’s richest men criticizing Washington’s
belligerence in world affairs, the White House’s official explanation for a
U.S. Iraq war (and other military interventions) loses some luster.
From America to Turkey and
the Vatican, the growth of protest against U.S. Iraq policy shows that a
civilizing trend is spreading as Bush’s war plans cast an ominous shadow on
ordinary people. So goes the world anti-war movement in its historic formation
as an emerging “superpower” to counter the American military threat to the
Iraqi people (New York Times, Feb. 17).
Seth Sandronsky is a member of Sacramento/Yolo Peace
Action, and an editor with Because People Matter, Sacramento's progressive
newspaper. Email: ssandron@hotmail.com