Continuing the conversation
Downey, Arthur T.
STAFF Eclitor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Business Manager: Gregory...
...Downey's proposal...
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...There are those wee, following Saddam Hussein's deliberate humiliation of the UN arms inspectors, reflexively advocated bombing Iraq without explaining exactly what would be bombed and with what consequences...
...If attempting to wipe out Iraq's hidden arsenals or weapons-building programs could be justified, what of civilian casualties and damage to an already fragile infrastructure...
...Is it possible that, having failed to take a stand against Iraqi intransigence, the world will find itself facing not only a rearmed Iraqi military, but a plethora of thugs happy to call the bluff of all free riders...
...position with respect to all three needs to change...
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...We tend to see the Iraq situation in simple terms, and in isolation from its regional context...
...p. 6, Kemchs, Rothco...
...They are seen, not only in the Arab world, as causing human suffering that would be deemed totally unacceptable if they were imposed on people in America or Europe...
...Even worse, what of the danger of success~he release of the very chemical and biological agents that the UN inspection teams are hoping to contain...
...We tried to answer that question in our December 5, J997 editorial...
...Recurring confrontations with Saddam Hussein have brought us again to the brink of hostilities...
...Free riders are people who get the benefit of communal resources without having to pay--the company just beyond the city limits that benefits from the transportation system and schools it doesn't pay taxes to support, or the woman who sneaks on the bus without paying her fare...
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...and we try again this issue (page 5...
...There were several letters dissenting from our December editorial, among them was one from Arthur T. Downey...
...p. 15, Charlot;p 22, Punch, Rothco...
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...Something like that seems to be confronting U,S...
...still, they point to a framework larger than the narrow one that now shapes U.S...
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...What is less understandable is that those protesters never reconsidered a military approach for which sanctions were a substitute...
...9 We should depersonalize our focus on Saddam because that simplifies and distorts a very complex situation...
...Its elements include, in one subset, large quantities of horrifying weapons under the control of a ruthless and defiant dictator who has held his civilian population hostage Lo international sanctions...
...It is as if we are sitting at the table with Iraq, and ignoring the two other elephants sitting there, namely Iran and Israel...
...In fact, he sent a whole new agenda for U.S...
...This would not only make Iraq's neighbors (especially Iran and Kuwait) more secure, it might induce the Iraqi military to force a change at the top...
...p. 10, Valerry...
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...Iraq Here are three ways in which we should change our approach...
...columnist portraits, Elaine Mills...
...The three are so tightly linked that it is unwise to consider our Iraq policy without taking the other two countries into account...
...Moral free riding is not limited to one side of this debate, however...
...But in 1995 mutual hosCommonweal 6 Februan d 27, 1998...
...The task is made doubly hard by the free rider problem...
...Can they imagine that the conditions of the Iraqi people may actually get worse if Saddam is freed both of economic sanctions and the threat of armed response...
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...If we succeed, everyone benefits...
...Other components include a divided West, a United States largely alone (of all things) in backing the United Nations, and the unavoidable need for heavy doses of secrecy, ambiguity, and downright bluff in the desperate search for a diplomatic solution...
...policy...
...Iran Except perhaps for Cuba, no other nation represents such a hot button for Americans...
...If the Lnited States is ready and willing, what does any other nation have to lose...
...Comm~mr articles also are available at many libraries and research facilities on CDROM and in electronic data bases...
...We aren't sure how his plans could be carried out given the current crisis...
...hit p://www.comm onwealmagazine.org ~iRrA~p~ Free riders W est of us would rather not think our way through the many-sided political and ethical qnandary this country now confronts in Iraq...
...The problem has not gone away...
...What to do about the Middle East...
...bank...
...Then there are those who advocate a land invasion and the ousting of Hussein, but without spelling out the future uncertainties or long-range commitments that such an action would produce...
...other parts of the world...
...The recent "humanitarian" exception from the ban on oil sales should be dramatically expanded: substantial Iraqi oil sales should be permitted under UN auspices with airtight controls to assure that the funds go to alleviate hunger and disease and not to build Safldam's military...
...Canada, $81...
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...There are, first, the political free riders: most of Iraq's neighbors who would be happy to be rid of the threat of Iraq's military regime, but who are unwilling to force the issue of the UN weapons inspections...
...foreign, $50...
...Then, second, there are the moral free riders who would lighten the burdens of conscience by avoiding responsibility for consequences that they leave to the future to repair...
...When free riders outnumber taxpayers or paying customers, any human enterprise is in danger of collapsing...
...Thankfully, most of these proposals have come under increasing scrutiny in recent weeks, and there should be no reader of the nation's op-ed pages who still believes that solutions of this sort are either militarily or morally risk-free...
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...Do they consider what the implications of this will be, in five to ten years, for peace, for America's understanding of its international role...
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...First, we should call for an international war crimes tribunal to charge Saddam and his leadership with crimes arising from the invasion of Kuwait...
...I believe that the U.S...
...Do they explain why the world should not anticipate, at the very least, a regional arms race with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Israel--and maybe Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Libya--preparing themselves with counter-arsenals of biological, chemical, and nuclear weaponry...
...3, 2l, Marie Tursi...
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...To succeed, wouldn't air strikes have to be not only massive but repeated, conveying a counterproductive message of either futility or coldbloodedness...
...Do they remember how irrelevant the League of Nations became after Germany and Japan successfully defied it in the 1930s...
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...Such narrowly targeted economic sanctions with little "collateral damage" to the civilian population would have a sustainable and solid moral basis...
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...There is simply no moral basis for these economic sanctions as they have been applied...
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...In 1991, there were many voices insisting that Saddam Hussein could be morally contained by economic sanctions rather than war...
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...Do those who object morally to any military action against Hussein's regime openly admit that they are kissing good-by to the future of United Nations peacemaking or arms-inspection efforts, which he has rendered a perfect joke...
...Instead of 2,000 tanks, for example, Iraq should have 500...
...Certainly all would be content to see the Iraqi problem disappear, but none want to bear the c o s t - - especially politically...
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...When Saddam Hussein managed to turn the sanctions against the poor and the powerless rather than his military machine, it was understandable that some people would call for abandoning the sanctions...
...There is considerable uncertainty about the policies of a potential successor and so Saddam's departure may not end Iraq's totalitarian regime...
...3, 7, 8, 12, 24, 26, Ross, Rolhco...
...Then there are nations like France and Russia, who look forward to a lucrative Iraqi trade, with or without biological and chemical weapons, with or without Saddam Hussein...
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...Second, while continuing to hunt for weapons of mass destruction, we should insist on substantial cuts in Iraq's huge military force...
...9 We should continue to ease the economic sanctions that have caused hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties...
...9, 18, Baloo, Rothco...
...similar reductions should be required in aircraft, artillery, and other verifiable military hardware...
...The 1979 Embassy hostage disaster remains a vivid memory...
...if we fail, we alone are responsible for the consequences...
...STAFF Eclitor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels Executive Editor: Paul Baumann Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Production Editor: Tiina Aleman Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt Business Manager: Gregory Wilpert Poetry: Rosemary Deen Design: Emil Antonucci Scree~z: Richard Alleva Media: Frank McConnell Stage: Celia Wren Cohmmists: John Garvey, Abigail McCarthy, E.J...
...9 in other respects, we should get tougher on the Iraqi regime...
...Yet the sanctions imposed in the wake of Commonweal 5 February 27, 1998 Iraq's defeat turned out to be "war by other means," as Kenneth R. Himes argued in an article (Commonweal, February 28, 1997) proposing criteria for taking their moral measure...
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...But neither would they candidly acknowledge that such a turn in policy is tantamount to abandoning the obiective of containing Hussein and his weapons programs (which turned out, according to UN inspectors, to be more lethal than was suspected at the time of the Gulf War...
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Vol. 125 • February 1998 • No. 4
