The Morality of the Wars Against Iraq

The Gulf War 1991
One of the particular characteristics of the Gulf war was that it was unclear why it was being fought. From the very beginning, President George Bush emphasized that he did not consider this to be a war to control the Middle East oil supply, but rather a clear-cut struggle between the forces of good & evil:
This we do know: Our cause is just. Our cause is moral. Our cause is right....It is a just war. Every war is fought for reasons but a just war is fought for the right reasons, for moral, not selfish reasons....There can be no face-saving...there can never be compromise, any kind of compromise, with this kind of aggression...We are dealing with Hitler revisited. I don't believe that Adolph Hitler ever participated in anything of that nature ... This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait."
A wide variety of Americans, including many Bush supporters, saw a different set of priorities guiding the U.S. Of course it's about petroleum", said Secretary of Commerce Robert Mossbacher. Crass or not, it's oil that keeps everybody going."
Secretary of State James Baker observed, an economic recession worldwide, caused by the control of one nation--one dictator if you will--of the West's economic lifeline, will result in the loss of jobs for American citizens."
A few weeks after the invasion, a White House official explained, In terms of directional clarity, this has all been an easy call. Even a dolt* understands the principle. We need the oil. It's nice to talk about standing up for freedom, but Kuwait & Saudi Arabia are not exactly democracies, & if their principal exports were oranges, a mid-level State Department official would have issued a statement & we would have closed Washington down for August. There is nothing to waver about here."
Congressman Les Aspin, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,* wrote just after the August invasion, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait has done more to change strategic realities than any other military action of the postwar era. It's odd that some Third World dictator could do this. The reason is simple, however, it's oil. He has placed a knife beside our jugular.*"
Russell Baker, columnist for the New York Times, voiced the sentiments of many when he wrote, the big men, of course, say that oil is not the only explanation for our war footing. Saddam is said to be another Adolf Hitler...This call to serve principle & international morality is ennobling,* but if no oil were at risk, would we really be putting armies & navies into Arabia? Drop the oil from the equation & the thuggish Saddam's seizure of Kuwait would be, to the United States, just another incident in the tiresome tribal quarrels that divided the Arabs of the old Ottoman Empire...
It's hard to believe that before the Middle East & oil became synonymous, the United States would have even wasted a note of reprimand on a small-bore chieftain like Saddam for brutalizing one of the weaker tribes."
The Washington-based Middle East Report in its December 1990 issue stated, this intervention is about oil. Iraq's invasion challenged the political hierarchies that have controlled the wealth & resources of the region for most of this century...The U.S. troops are in Saudi Arabia in order to prevent the emergence of a regional power which, unlike Saudi Arabia, might choose to exploit & mobilize those resources in ways that conflict with the agenda of the U.S."
So who is right & what was that war fought for, oil or morals? Was this a just war, a principled war, or was it fought to protect the more down-to-Earth vital interests of the U.S. & its allies?

The Invasion of Iraq 2003

The principal reason given by both the US and the British Government was their absolute certainty that despite the 12 years of draconian and crippling Sanctions, Iraq was still in possession of WMD in defiance of UN resolutions. Such weapons posed and immediate and present danger to Iraq neighbors as well as to the United States. President W. G. Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rusted, Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and then Secretary of State Powell as well as the British Government Leaders all repeatedly assured the World of the certainty and righteousness of their cause.
As we all know all those assumptions were wrong and even after independent enquiries on both sides of the Atlantic found the intelligence and conclusions flawed no one has been found ultimately responsible for what amounts to a colossal intelligence failure resulting in the estimated deaths of close to 130.000 people.
Since no WMD were found the rational for the war has shifted to extolling how much better the world is without Saddam and more recently to the noble idea that Democracy is spreading throughout the Middle East.
So who is right? Why was Iraq invaded?

Did Sanctions Fail?

Before the first Gulf War of 1991 and since then until the invasion on March of 2003 Iraq was under very stringent and all encompassing sanctions.
The sanctions imposed on Iraq by the U.N. were unique in the history of such economic weapons in the 20th century. They cut off virtually all of Iraq's trade & financial dealings with the outside World, & had a cohesion & possible longevity never before seen. And yet, just 4 months after they were imposed, the U.S. declared them to be a failure & lobbied the U.N. Security Council to authorize the use of military force in what is now called the Gulf War. Many people who opposed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, asked if the sanctions had been given more time, could they have forced Iraq to withdraw?" & did the U.S. really want to give sanctions time to work?"
Kimberly Elliot & Jeffrey Schott, researchers at the Institute for International Economics, have documented a history of sanctions. Writing in the Washington Post, they maintain that a review of 115 cases since 1914 shows that success was achieved forty times when economic sanctions were threatened or imposed on individual countries. Historically, when the sanctioning country or group accounted for half or more of the target's trade, the sanctions had a 50% chance of achieving their goals. In the average successful sanctions case, the boycotters* accounted for 28% of the target's trade, far below the Iraq situation. These comparisons strongly suggest that, given time, the U.N. economic boycott could have achieved by peaceful nonviolent means what President George Bush & his advisors decided to win by force, death & destruction.
According to Elliot & Schott, the sanctions imposed on Iraq were among the strongest & most complete ever imposed against any country. It was almost a textbook case of how sanctions could work. There was international cooperation on a scale never seen before. The boycott had three to four times greater coverage than the average in all previous sanctions cases. Iraq was far more vulnerable to economic coercion than target states in other sanctions actions. It was geographically isolated, with virtually no coastline, & dependent on one product, oil, for 90% of its export revenue. Without oil exports, Iraq was losing $100 million a day in hard currency, & without hard currency, it couldn't import because it was essentially bankrupt.
Added to this was the unprecedented financial reimbursement to smaller nations who suffered due to the loss of trade with Iraq, & the extensive naval & air blockade.* Many experts predicted that Iraq would have been forced to give in by the Summer of 1991.
A former U.N. diplomat, who declined to be identified, said, this was a case of the strongest application of sanctions in the 20th century. There had never been a situation like it, where the entire World was acting in solidarity against a single pariah* state. Over the period of a year or a year-&-a-half we could have done sufficient damage to the Iraqi economy, given the absolute solidarity of the World, that we would have driven Saddam into a negotiating position to get out of Kuwait without losing so many thousands of lives."
CIA director William Webster also felt that sanctions could have worked, had they been given more time. Webster told the American Congress that the sanctions had succeeded in cutting Iraq's exports by 97%, & its imports by 90%, & that they had been surprisingly effective.

After the end of the hostilities Iraq remained under draconian sanctions and was forced to pay exorbitant reparation to Kuwait. The UN supervised teams proceeded to dismantle its weapon programs. With its infrastructure in total ruin and isolated from the world the Iraqi standard of living rapidly deteriorated and it is estimated that close to 500.000 people, mostly children, died from causes directly related and caused by the sanctions. The United States continually opposed the lifting of sanctions and their effectiveness was such that the UN Humanitarian Aid representative resigned calling the sanctions and their effect Genocide.

In retrospect we now know with certainty the following:
• The Sanctions succeed in destroying what was left of the Iraqi infrastructure.
• Hundreds of thousands die as a result.
• The UN inspectors accomplished their mission and all weapons and programs of WMD was destroyed.
• Iraq posed no military threat, and had no connection to the September 11th Terror attack in New York.
• Sanctions were not successful in producing the Regime Change wanted by the US

Did the U.S. Want Sanctions and the UN inspectors program to Work?

There are those who say that the U.S. gave only lip service to the idea of sanctions. Admiral William Crowe, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman during the Reagan & Bush administrations, said, I don't think the President ever wanted sanctions. I think the argument to continue them was more intellectual than serious."
Elisabeth Drew, White House reporter for The New Yorker, is convinced that sanctions became just a box to check off on the road to war. From my talking to White House officials, it certainly looked to me as if some policy-makers felt all along that it would come to war, & maybe that was the best thing in order to stop this man now, so that he wouldn't become a menace in the future. The steps that the administration took before the war, the diplomacy & sanctions, were so they could say, `We tried these things.' But they didn't really expect them to work."

Just as in the days leading to the Gulf War, the United States pursued a policy of intransigence and confrontation in the days leading to the final invasion of Iraq in 2003. Although the UN inspectors had been in the country doing their job and had asked for more time to finalize their search the US declare unilaterally that time was up and presented the Iraqis with an impossible ultimatum.

Why did the United States wanted to resolve both crisis by force
Many theories have been advanced. Noam Chomsky believes that the U.S. wanted to show its military muscle to the World:
The industrial World, the West, they want the Third World held under control, & these guys (the U.S.) will be their enforcers, they'll be the Mafia. And of course, you've got to show that force is the way things run, not diplomacy, we're not good at that.
The important thing is the lesson. It's not enough to reverse the aggression, its not enough to reach a political settlement. What has to be done is to show that it is done by force. That's what is important. One, because force is the way to rule the World, that's what we're good at. Two, because the Third World has to be taught a lesson. You act independently & you're really going to suffer. It's not just that you're going to go back to where you were, but you're really going to suffer, & others better remember that."
An editorial in the Jan.11, 1991 issue of The Middle East International speculated that the U.S. was seeking to reestablish its own preeminence in the World. If the economic squeeze on Iraq were allowed to work, the post-Cold War `New World Order' might have been a peaceful one in which America would be a second-rate power behind Europe & Japan, with its vast military capabilities largely irrelevant, & the necessary conversion of military industries, causing great economic pains.
On the other hand, a successful military solution might establish the primacy* of military power over economic power, & the U.S. could occupy a position of unchallenged predominance."
The Nation magazine developed this idea further. In the real World of the 1990's, those who defended the oil fort will have the de facto control of an Arabian treasure beyond the dreams of Aladdin....Any country that succeeds in dominating the region would probably exercise plenary power over the price of oil....As a source of supply, Middle Eastern oil is far more important to Europe & Japan than it is to the U.S. Precisely because of this, the Americans' unique ability to project power within the region confers enormous leverage in its negotiations with the Allies over, for example, American commercial access to Western Europe or Japan."
One church leader with extensive contacts in the Middle East said that Christian & Muslim religious leaders in the region believed the U.S. wanted the war. In their eyes, The U.S. viewed military action as its best chance of maintaining influence over the Middle East & its massive oil reserves. The U.S. actually feared a diplomatic solution to the Middle East conflict because it would mean some less hawkish European countries might end up with more influence in the region."
Many other Middle East observers, including Iraqi exiles opposed to Saddam, speculated that America was intent on not only forcing Iraq out of Kuwait, but also permanently destroying its ability to threaten its main ally in the region, Israel. The Israelis stated repeatedly throughout the crisis that a diplomatic solution to the problem was what they feared most, as it would leave Iraq free to fight another day. They consistently voiced their view that the only acceptable outcome was if Iraq was destroyed militarily.
As the Gulf war progressed, it became clear that this was indeed the hidden agenda" of the Western Allies, to use the liberation of Kuwait as a cover to destroy Iraq both militarily & economically, so that it would cease to be of any importance in the region. Martin Woolacott, writing in the Associated Press, commented, The hidden agenda--destroying Saddam & wiping out Iraq's war potential--is not, of course, remotely a secret from Arab members of the coalition, or from countries like Iran & Jordan. It never has been."

All unfinished objectives left over from the Gulf War were taken care by the invasion of Iraq in early 2003. Again the United States adopted a belligerent and intransigent position that prevented any peaceful resolution. Recent revelations have now confirmed that intelligence “was fixed to corroborate military action” and that many months in advance the decision to go to war had already been taken by President G. W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The future of the Middle East

Two years after the invasion of Iraq the Middle East is still awash with problems and uncertainty. Iraq is still shaken by uncontrollable violence. The Coalition of the Willing is slowly fading as individual nations pull out of the quagmire. One after the other the pivotal events that the Allies thought will turn the tide in their fight with insurgents have come and are gone with little effect. The optimism of the fall of Baghdad , the killing of Saddam‘s sons, the capture of Saddam himself, remember the “we got him”?, the turn over of sovereignty in June 2004, the conquest of Fallujah, the January 2005 elections are but a faint memory. Today, three months after the elections the new Government still does not have a full functioning cabinet and violence is out of control and Terrorist have embarked in a bloodshedding campaign against their own people.
Despite the eloquent rhetoric Democracy is not really spreading throughout the Middle East and elections under occupation both in Iraq and Afghanistan certainly do not reflect true Democracy. Virtually everyone agrees that a key element for stability in the region is a lasting solution to the Palestinian question. The Road Map process has been resuscitated after Arafart ‘s death but the big problems still remain such as the future of Jerusalem, the Palestinian’s right to return, the threat of terrorism from Palestinians militants, the expansion of Israeli settlements, the dismantling of the wall.
On other fronts, unfortunately not just figuratively speaking, conflicts seem to loom closer by actions and words. The US has reaffirmed its sanctions against Syria and labeled such a country as an “extraordinary threat to the US” by its alleged support for terrorism, alleged efforts to destabilize neighboring Iraq, pursuing of WMD, and acquisitions of missiles. Further to East, Iran maintains its position in the Axis of Evil by not bowing down to International pressure in their Nuclear Research. Some believe that a military strike against Iran is on the table either by Israeli forces, in the process of acquiring Bunker Busting weapons from the US, or by US forces in the region.

By all indications peace is not really being nurtured in the Middle East and current conditions are a breeding ground to more terrifying wars. Wars that will bring misery and death to thousands as well as the ominous economic ripple effect of escalating oil prices.

Honestly speaking current approach to world problems will only bring more disasters. Promoting Democracy and extolling the virtues of Corporate Globalization by all means including bombing and invading people or opposing such ideas by distorted and perverted religious and political ideas as well as the use of terrorism is a recipe for disaster.

How then can we avoid such an abyss?
Arnold Toynbee, the famous historian, expressed this point perfectly when he said, “By forcing on mankind more and more lethal weapons, and at the same time making the world more and more interdependent economically, technology has brought mankind to such a degree of distress that we are ripe for the deifying of any new Caesar who might succeed in giving the world unity and peace.”
Former secretary of NATO, Paul Spaak, added, “We do not want another committee; we have too many already. What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the allegiance of all people and to lift us out of the morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man, be he God or the Devil, and we will receive him.”

Does any current world leader fit such a description? Not really! Actually today’s leaders are either unwilling or incapable of finding solutions and keep repeating their favorite mantras.

Ironically these leaders with all their hatred towards each other and opposing positions have a lot in common. The question is what do Osama bin Lade,Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, President Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Blair etc, have in common?
They are all extremist and ideologically driven leaders whose judgment is impaired by their preconceived ideas and interests as well as their polarizing positions. They also share in their disregard for human life as their actions have caused death and injury to hundreds of thousands the world over.

From all that the scriptures indicate, it looks like a special man is indeed coming. A man who will rise to power by peace, by flattery and clever deceit. Endued with a supernatural craft, and wisdom, this man will use cleaver political maneuvers to temporally solve today’s pressing military, political and economic problems, and will be instrumental in a remarkable Peace Pact between the conflicting ideologies and religions in the World. Of course, only in desperation would nations ever sign such and agreement. Only under desperate and last resort circumstances would for example Israel and the Arabs agree to share Jerusalem, or competing economies and alliances would agree to share dwindling oil resources.

Conclusion

The Middle East is the focal point through which the future of the whole world has to be viewed. Mesopotamia as the cradle of Civilization continues to play is part by hosting the origins of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic Religions. Besides these cultural and moral contributions the Middle East also holds the worlds greatest oil reserves. All these factors together tie the world inextricably to the events in those lands. Fortunately we do not have be ignorant of important events that will affect our lives regardless of where we live. The Holy Scriptures, in particular the Bible cover these current events and those soon coming with detailed information and this knowledge will give us faith to face the future with trust and confidence. We do not need to be in confusion and in darkness, wondering what is going to happen like the many, “whose hearts are failing them for fear” Luke 21:26, we can know exactly what is going to happen. We may not like it and it may even look pretty bad, but we know the happy ending.
Are you prepared? Do you know what to do? What sort of spiritual, mental, emotional and even physical and practical preparation can you take?
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