A rchive Date
[ 31-03-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/brodbeck.html
What the U.S. wants is power
By TOM BRODBECK - Winnipeg Sun
March 31, 2003
It's very telling how the rationale for war in Iraq has quietly moved from disarming a dangerous dictator to liberating Iraqis and bringing democracy to their land. It's crafty, really. And it's a testament to how this war is so dominated by propaganda that people have forgotten the initial argument for a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
The original reason for this war was to disarm Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The argument was that if he refused to disarm voluntarily, the world would have to do it by force.
Originally, there was no talk about liberating Iraqis and installing some new western-style democratic regime in Baghdad.
No, it was about eliminating weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
I suspect if the U.S. did try to peddle the argument at the United Nations' Security Council that it had a moral duty to invade Iraq and liberate its people by imposing a U.S. solution for local governance, the Americans would have been laughed out of the room. That's imperialism and the UN, and most of the world, would have balked ferociously at such a proposal.
You won't find anything in the Security Council's Resolution 1441 - which is supposed to be the moral license for the invasion - about a regime change, liberating the Iraqi people or installing a democratic government in Baghdad. That's just something the U.S. and the Brits have added on as a critical component of their propaganda machine.
The U.S. needed more than just disarmament as a strong, sustainable reason to invade Iraq. They needed something more robust, a rationale that would stand the test of time. They needed a justification for war that was wholesome, one that could spawn great platitudes about freedom and democracy. They needed a gimmick.
And liberating the Iraqi people of tyranny and bringing them the gift of democracy and freedom was exactly the kind of marketing scheme necessary. That's why today, you almost always hear U.S. politicians and military figures trumpet the objectives of liberation and freedom when they defend their military action.
"Liberation will soon find the Iraqi people," they pronounce. They don't talk much anymore about how they're closing in on weapons of mass destruction or how "Iraq will soon be chemical-free." That's why the military operation is called "Operation Iraqi Freedom," not "Operation Iraqi Chemical-Free."
It would be a horrible embarrassment for the U.S. if their main objective was to disarm Saddam Hussein but, after slaughtering thousands of Iraqis, they found few if any chemical weapons. It's unlikely they'll find no chemical weapons. But it is possible.
And it's one more reason the U.S. needed a well-diversified marketing portfolio on this mission. The U.S. doesn't just want to disarm Iraq. They want greater control in the region, the reasons for which are complicated, multifaceted and not always entirely clear. At the very least, there's oil in Iraq - lots of it - and there's a desire for a new order in the Persian Gulf.
Just listen to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell last week when he spoke about the U.S.'s refusal to cede control of Iraq to a United Nations coalition after the war. "We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future," Powell told a House subcommittee.
Dominating control? Wow.
If the true objective was to simply disarm Iraq, why wouldn't the U.S. go in there, take out Hussein and his Republican Guard, dispose of any weapons of mass destruction and then hand over the responsibility of humanitarian aid and governance to an impartial body such as the UN? Because they want control over the region, that's why.
The platitudes about liberation and freedom are for the masses who barely knew where Baghdad was before this thing started.
It's ear candy for the uninformed and those who believed Iraqi people would greet American soldiers in the streets with flowers and parades.
Other than the Kurds in the north, it's simply a false scenario.
And that's going to become increasingly clear in the months to come. After thousands of people die first, though.
Tom Brodbeck is the Sun's city columnist. He can be reached by e-mail at tbrodbeck@wpgsun.com
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@wpgsun.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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