Damned if They Do, Damned if They Don’t
Is the
U.N. Doing Bush’s Dirty Work in Iraq?
by
Jerre Skog
Dissident Voice
March 3, 2003
If
they do cooperate fully with the U.N. weapons inspectors, destroy rockets that
fully operable may or may not go a few kilometers beyond the allowed 150 Km
limit, point out sites of destroyed VX and anthrax and come as clean as a sane
man can expect them to do, the Americans and Brits will still go on insisting
that there are hidden rocket factories, mobile production facilities, nukes
behind the presidential toilets, trained camel suicide-bombers or toothpaste of
mass destruction. Bush and Blair will bomb Iraq into kingdom come!
If they don’t come obviously
clean and cannot produce enough evidence of destroyed materials to satisfy the
weapons inspectors or have lost some papers proving this or that to full
satisfaction, US and UK can and will say that’s all the evidence needed and
Iraq is a threat to the world, an evil dictatorship loaded with WMDs and linked
to terrorists. Bush and Blair will bomb Iraq into kingdom come!
An unbiased look at the
facts shows that Iraq is in an impossible situation. They are damned whatever
they do and the more successful U.N. weapons inspectors are, the easier will be
the US/UK task of turning the land into ashes. For all we know a few of the inspectors
might again cooperate with US intelligence and pinpoint potential targets or
forward sensitive information. Even if nobody does, the regular missions of the
U2 spy planes and the satellite monitoring leave Iraq a country that in reality
is close to naked and defenceless compared to the forces now set to invade
it.
The Gulf War ’91 crushed a
large part of Iraq’s armed forces. That war, 12 years of sanctions and the
regular bombings by US/UK has left an Iraqi war machine that according to most
pundits is of a strength usually associated with small banana republics. In
contrast to the modern and well-equipped Israeli military with its stockpile of
WMDs, Iraq is of no importance whatsoever and poses no threat to any of its
neighbors. While the most dangerous and aggressive powers in the world are
lining or even inside its borders, posed to strike with a concentrated barrage
never seen in history, Iraq is forced to turn itself inside out, and nothing it
does seems to impress Bush or Blair or lessen the risk of being invaded. The
world has understood the message: There has to be WAR! Even Iraq can spell it
out: We’ll rape and kill you whatever you do, but if you cooperate and lie down
and remove all your clothes while we complete our preparations for the gangbang,
you can delay it a bit! What a beautiful encouragement for the Iraqis to
cooperate. They can’t possibly ‘misunderestimate’ the intentions.
With the low cunning of
vipers, the war-mongers in London and Washington can now lean back and wait for
the inspections to turn up and destroy the few remaining weapons that could,
just could, be a miniscule irritation for the attackers. The U.N. is, unless
steps are taken to prevent US and UK taking advantage of it, functioning as the
jailer who chains the torture victim to the rack and removes the few clothes
that might protect a little against the whip and the electrodes of the
torturer.
Don’t get me wrong. The
inspections have to go on. They are the best and only alternative to the lunacy
of the planned war. But parallel to the inspections, steps ought to be taken to
prevent the aggressors, US and UK benefiting from them for purpose of war. As
the inspections continue and succeed, there has to be rewards for allowing
them. Sanctions lifted and forces withdrawn. Seeing the results of raising
their offspring both Bush and Blair ought to understand by now that doing good
has to be rewarded while doing bad is punished. Not the other way round!
The U.N., the Security
Council and the world should demand that every Iraqi step towards cooperation
with U.N. be met with a corresponding concession by the powers lining its
borders, prepared to attack. Every destroyed Iraqi rocket and every documented
destruction of weapon or biological / chemical stockpile should, in all
fairness, be followed by corresponding withdrawal of US and UK forces from the
region and back to their own territory. Whether some tank battalions, a carrier
or a number of bombers can be argued and is not the main point. Such a
procedure might encourage Iraq to cooperate more fully, calm down the region
and above all be seen as just measures in the eyes of the world and all the
Moslems now witnessing imperial arrogance and blackmail.
For real justice to be done,
Israel should be forced to comply with all the U.N. resolutions it has flaunted
in the last thirty years and its big stockpile of WMDs should be destroyed.
Until that happens strict sanctions should be enforced by U.N. If US and UK
really do have to effect regime-changes or introduce democracy somewhere in the
Arab world they can start doing that in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where their
forces already are in place. So far their record in regime-change is not very
impressive so we can’t expect too much from it. But then the planned war is not
so much about regime-change or WMDs. It’s about oil and not allowing an
oil-rich nation to replace the holy dollar with the Euro for its trade and
reserves.
The U.N. must under no
circumstances be seen as the advanced force, preparing the ground for the US/UK
slaughter, the equivalent of the boys who hold the girl down while the bully
rapes her. Should that happen, then and only then has it demonstrated its
irrelevance!
Jerre Skog is a Swedish writer, musician and independent observer living in
Germany. His writings, politics and satire, can be found on www.skog.de and comments are welcome at jerre@skog.de