COMMENT
Quick resort to military force may be emotionally satisfying but it can be highly counterproductive to the only goals which count in the long run: getting along politically with other countries...
...But guess who gets called when suddenly somebody needs a cop...
...This, at least, puts us on familiar ground...
...The early polls reported overwhelming public support—70 per cent, 80 per cent—for the Bush Administration's course of conduct in the Middle East...
...directives should be asked about those directives they have been studiously ignoring for years—those pertaining, for example, to Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Territories...
...As another U.S...
...As a result of decisions made in Washington, there will be less oil at a higher price...
...There is no democracy to be found in the Middle East—even in Israel when it comes to the treatment of its own Arab minority or the Palestinians who live in the Occupied Territories...
...As villain-of-the-month in America's hit parade, Saddam succeeds the recently deposed Manuel Noriega, as well as such worthy predecessors as Muammar Qaddafi and the Ayatollah Khomeini...
...Iraq's aggression against Iran a decade ago had even less justification than its invasion of Kuwait this summer, but the war against Iran was aided, abetted, and applauded by the United States, which provided Saddam's forces with military intelligence and naval protection...
...troops to an overseas adventure that could prove to be as pernicious, painful, and costly as the Vietnam war...
...His invasion of Kuwait is depicted as a virtually unprecedented act of aggression...
...appalled at the monumental hypocrisy of the rhetoric emanating from the Bush Administration and dutifully relayed, with little question or analysis, by its faithful mouthpieces in the mass media...
...troops were dispatched to the Saudi desert...
...There are great dangers in such demonizing obsessions," Robert Jay Lifton pointed out in an article for Pacific News Service...
...to foreign expendable lives...
...But if he is, indeed, a new Hitler, he was our Hitler until recently...
...Have the policymakers in Washington decided, in their secret deliberations, that a pump price for gasoline of less than $2 a gallon is worth 1,000 lives but not 10,000...
...This time, George Bush didn't even bother to consult Congress before committing U.S...
...One of the fondest expressions around is that we can't be the world's policeman," General Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The New York Times...
...Over the last decade or two, governments in Japan and Western Europe have adopted tax policies that fostered gradual increases in gasoline prices...
...The United States, on the other hand, has entrusted decision-making to "the market"—with results that have left this nation particularly vulnerable...
...military action can have but one "successful" outcome: the removal of Saddam and his government...
...access to "our" oil...
...Among the Arab leaders who have chosen, freely or under duress, to align themselves with the United States, few can lay claim to moral (or political) superiority over the despised Saddam Hussein...
...In these circumstances, any major increase in the price of oil does become a substantial threat to the economy—one that can be used (and is being used) to rationalize draconian measures, including foreign military adventures...
...But another consideration ought to figure in public discussion of what's at stake here—if cowardly members of Congress and gullible members of the media ever make it possible to conduct a public discussion...
...Auto fuel efficiency has actually declined in the last few years, and there has been an increase in marginal auto and truck traffic...
...The trouble with that rationale is that there is no way of determining when the U.S...
...actions result in a shooting war in the Middle East, the impact on oil supplies and oil prices could well assume catastrophic dimensions...
...Government that went calling: It took Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney several days of earnest and intense discussions in Riyadh to persuade the Saudi rulers that they ought to extend an invitation to the United States to send in troops—an invitation that the Saudis may already be regretting...
...If, in fact, Saddam has been deterred, how can we be sure he won't attack the Saudis the day after U.S...
...Among the Republicans, Representative Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the Minority Whip, proclaimed, "There is a sense of awe at how brilliantly Bush has handled this...
...And when it comes to Saddam's violation of Kuwait's border and sovereignty, what claim can George Bush, the conqueror of Panama, make...
...State Department's latest report on human rights in Iraq, found that "the 1989 report is a seriously flawed document, marked by omission, understatement, misleading information, and minimal analysis, particularly with regard to the Kurdish issue...
...If the United States manages to extricate itself from the mess it has created without going to war, the price of oil is still unlikely to return to earlier levels...
...In their determination to draw the wrong lessons from bad experience, U.S...
...And regardless of all other factors, the oil-producing nations and the international oil companies will make sure that the price of oil continues to go up...
...One likely consequence of the Middle East intervention is the-establishment of a permanent and prominent U.S...
...Alternative energy policy, not the flexing of military muscle, will protect U.S...
...The environmental costs of delivering oil are also certain to increase...
...Now that it has found it expedient to demonize Saddam, however, the U.S...
...And Congress cheered...
...Looking for the peace dividend...
...official told The Times, "From the start, Powell made the argument that we needed to put United States forces into Saudi Arabia to let everyone know we had a stake in this...
...to eliminate the needless poverty, illness, and ignorance that impose such an enormous burden on suffering humanity...
...Government has taken to glorifying the feudal rulers of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which President Bush was pleased to describe in one of his recent television appearances as "moderate states...
...economy soon slips into recession, the blame will be assigned to Saddam Hussein and the rise in oil prices...
...This is the government that is now receiving not only the protection of a massive U.S...
...It just left for the Persian Gulf...
...We are appalled—appalled that once again the U.S...
...to institute a system of justice at home and abroad...
...Whatever else happens to Saddam Hussein, he'll be the fall guy for the Bush Administration's troubles for a long time to come...
...And those policymakers who now intone their solemn obligation to comply with U.N...
...military intervention in the Gulf, it ought to be held up to close scrutiny: There is a powerful likelihood that the outcome of that intervention will be in direct contradiction of its stated purpose...
...Quick resort to military force may be emotionally satisfying but it can be highly counterproductive to the only goals which count in the long run: getting along politically with other countries while safeguarding our legitimate interests.' —Robert Jay Lifton Aquarter of a century ago, when Lyndon Johnson took to Congress a fabricated confrontation in the Gulf of Tonkin and received instant approval of a resolution that constituted a blank check to wage war in Indochina, a couple of Senators—only a couple—had the decency and good sense to say No...
...It isn't ours, of 'Every time we "send in the Marines" and other U.S...
...So it becomes obvious that the U.S...
...And so we urge everyone who has a voice to raise it, as loudly as possible, against this latest exercise in ugly militarism...
...Forgive us, please...
...policymakers have decided that if surrogates won't protect this country's interests, American armed forces will...
...The price of oil has risen dramatically since early August not because of Saddam's action but because of the embargo imposed by the United States and its allies...
...military assaults on any Third World nation that dares to step out of line, whether by raising the price of resources or by instituting an economic and political order not to Washington's liking...
...appalled at our Government's willingness to shed blood—the blood of our own soldiers and of Arab soldiers and civilians—in the quest for economic and political advantage...
...According to Amnesty International, one of these moderate states—Kuwait—routinely subjected its prisoners to "beatings while blindfolded, electric shock, sexual assault, alternate dousing with cold and hot water, threats of death or deportation, and threats against relatives...
...We are denying more equal protection by sending these troops than we are enforcing through the civil-rights acts.' —from a statement by the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute 'We should not contemplate a military occupation of the Gulf region as a substitute for our diminishing military presence in Europe...
...In fact, however, the U.S...
...Certainly the United States can't rely on the word of a man it has designated as the new Hitler...
...We believe the support is thin and overstated...
...We have serious work to do—to build a more rational economy that does not depend on the squandering of exhaustible resources...
...At each stage of the current intervention, U.S...
...If the intervention in the Gulf succeeds—and it is by no means certain that it will—it is likely to serve as prelude to a new string of increasingly bloody U.S...
...Representative William Gray of Pennsylvania, the third-ranking House Democrat, made the rounds of television talk shows to voice support for the President...
...action has come first, followed by lame and halfhearted U.N...
...So far, so good," said Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri at the end of August, and the House Democratic leader's comment reflected what the Associated Press called "near unanimous Congressional backing for the military moves...
...In fact, however, it was the U.S...
...In fact, U.S...
...The war of the affluent and industrial North against the South has begun...
...If U.S...
...Or 100,000 lives but not one million...
...But if that is, in fact, the primary motive behind the U.S...
...It should be stopped before it becomes a globe-consuming conflagration...
...troops are withdrawn...
...Freed from the restraints imposed during the Cold War years by Soviet countervailing pressure—and by the fear that nonaligned nations might be pushed into the Soviet camp—American policymakers are now at liberty to indulge all of their macho fantasies and impulses...
...The Cold War is still over...
...In Vietnam it turned out to be about one to twenty...
...The resultant deterioration of roads and bridges is a significant component of our decaying urban and rural infrastructure—a condition that helps account, in turn, for our economy's lagging productivity...
...The current crisis aside, the days of cheap oil are numbered...
...we are not awed...
...But it all must begin with bringing the troops home...
...What's the proper equation for wasting lives to protect access to cheap oil...
...And according to the State Department's own human-rights report for 1989, Saudi Arabia is a country where "all forms of political expression (except those favorable to the regime) are forbidden," and where arbitrary arrest, torture, and execution are commonplace...
...If, as seems more than likley, the U.S...
...removal of another country's government is the customary purpose of military intervention, and has been a consistent pattern in U.S...
...We believe that if Americans are presented with alternative perspectives, many will rally to the cause of peace...
...ratification...
...officials were soft-pedaling Saddam's horrible human-rights record until just a few months ago...
...Why Are We in the Desert...
...Like other inveterate Cold Warriors, he has been searching desperately for a rationale that would preserve the military economy and the bloated Pentagon budget...
...policy for decades—see Iran and Guatemala, Chile and Cuba, Nicaragua and Panama...
...military intervention in the Persian Gulf is that it extends and confirms a pronounced tendency toward the use of armed force whenever Washington perceives a development not to its liking anywhere in the Third World...
...It is time, once again, to march and demonstrate and agitate and organize a movement...
...The Lawyers Committee on Human Rights, in its analysis of the U.S...
...And what is the officially approved ratio of U.S...
...appalled by the eagerness of members of Congress—and especially liberal Democrats—to abdicate their constitutional responsibilities...
...He told the President that there should be a military operation, if for nothing else than to show the flag...
...Showing the flag by force of arms has also proven to be a sure-fire quick fix for a President's sliding popularity (and Bush's was sliding) and an instant diversion from such unpopular subjects as the sav-ings-and-loan scandal and the mounting evidence of U.S...
...And his chemical warfare against his own Kurdish subjects brought hardly a murmur of criticism so long as Saddam was regarded as an ally of the United States...
...Presumably, the President did not need much persuading...
...interests in the Gulf crisis.' —from a statement by the Friends Committee on National Legislation course, and it wasn't threatened by Saddam Hussein, whose economy is desperately dependent on uninterrupted oil sales...
...Even among those who see through the Bush Administration's devious doublespeak, some defend the American intervention as a step necessary to protect U.S...
...Government has studiously ignored every opportunity to develop a rational energy policy and to reduce its dependence on imported oil...
...We believe the end of the Cold War holds out a promise of a better life, a better allocation of resources, a less violent world order than many of us have seen in our entire lifetimes...
...Once Saddam has been identified as the personification of evil, it is easy to justify the most violent measures against him...
...economic decline...
...military presence in the region—a presence Washington has sought since the Shah of Iran was deposed more than a decade ago...
...he is a despot who has dealt brutally with his enemies at home and abroad...
...Is the sky the limit...
...Those Americans who want to live in a just society and on a peaceful planet—we believe there are more of us than Washington suspects—have an obligation to say No to the warmakers...
...Our Hitler Suddenly, President Saddam Hussein of Iraq has been officially certified in Washington as a "new Hitler" whose depredations must be halted at all costs...
...troops, we are sending proportionately more African-American and other youths of color, and more working-class white youth, than we are sending white middle-and upper-class youth...
...mission" has been accomplished...
...Post-Cold War Hubris What is most troubling about the U.S...
...Peace Is the Way The only official explanation offered so far (we write this at the beginning of September) for the dispatch of a U.S...
...expeditionary force but huge quantities of advanced weapons to use as it sees fit...
...asked one official...
...The possibilities of developing alternative, renewable energy sources have been virtually ignored...
...So it was with the assault on Grenada, the air raid on Libya, the invasion of Panama, and now the crisis in the Middle East...
...Whether or not the world is running out of oil, it is running out of oil that can be inexpensively extracted...
...Their operating assumptions have been that oil is a nonrenewable resource, that its use entails significant social costs, and that it will take time and careful planning to institute substantial conservation measures...
...expeditionary force to the Gulf is to prevent Saddam from invading Saudi Arabia...
...Government has resorted to military force to impose Washington's notions of how the world ought to be run...
...Or 10,000 lives but not 100,000...
...Predictably, the adventure in the Gulf fit the bill nicely: Congressional advocates of reduced military spending started heading for the hills before the first U.S...
...To be sure, Saddam is no paragon...
...More than ever before, the United States feels free to be the world's self-designated policeman, and no one should be taken in by the claim that it is merely acting as gendarme for the United Nations...
...I certainly agree that we should not go around saying that we are the world's policeman...
Vol. 54 • October 1990 • No. 10
