COMMENT

...What kind of toll is a ground war against Iraq (and, perhaps, Iran) likely to exact...

...The process includes no provision for public discussion and debate, let alone Congressional deliberation...

...But it is the potential human cost that appears so appalling...

...We need to come home...

...We're going to give them the most violent three to five minutes they've ever seen," says Marine Major General Royal N. Moore...

...intervention in the Persian Gulf is of a different magnitude than the recent invasions of Grenada and Panama, or the assaults directed for decades against various governments around the world that failed to meet with Washington's favor...

...war planners prepared to expend in this confrontation...

...Some, such as his Syrian rival, Hafiz al Assad, have lately been embraced by the United States as allies in the coming war against Iraq...

...He revealed plans to bomb not only Iraqi military installations, but also roads, power systems, railroads, domestic petroleum production plants, and other civilian facilities...

...officials have, indeed, made it plain that even if Saddam Hussein were to die or be deposed, that would not necessarily satisfy the United States, since his successors would still control his formidable arsenal and army...

...Should we merely stand aside, then, when Saddam Hussein or some other aggressor blithely send his troops across another country's borders...

...Michael T. Klare, whose reflections on the long-range implications of U.S...

...resolution that failed to suit its purposes—as it continues to ignore, for example, the resolutions pertaining to the territories occupied by Israel...

...The argument since World War II has been that the lightning pace of events in modern international affairs leaves no time for the niceties of the constitutional process...

...Consultations" with allies take place after the decisions have been arrived at, and then the United Nations is offered the option of pro forma ratification...

...armed forces in the Middle East continues, accompanied by bellicose chanting and banging of the war drums at home and abroad...

...Some U.S...

...mainstream media, designed to give all but unanimous support to the Administration's military intervention, stress that Saddam Hussein must have "miscalculated" the U.S...

...Let's remember that when it comes to crossing other people's borders, the United States has a less than lustrous recent history...

...Saddam Hussein to the rescue...

...A new villain will come along—will have to come along—to provide further pretext for the preservation of the U.S...

...We must surely devise new instruments of international law and peace-keeping...

...But more recently the Bush Administration has added such intangible (and, therefore, unattainable) goals as the achievement of "stability" in the Middle East...

...The United States has fought two major Asian wars, but the last time Congress met to declare war was December 8,1941...

...A new call for sacrifice requires a new threat to replace the faded Soviet menace...

...No Way Out...

...no means—but are we prepared to launch preemptive strikes against all the other nations that have or will soon have the capability to mount a nuclear attack...

...The Cop-Out Left For a variety of reasons, much of the Left has been almost as timid as the Democrats in Congress when it comes to challenging the Bush Administration's rush toward war in the Persian Gulf...

...This is not not a boast...

...ground forces in the Middle East, and all of the U.N...

...approval for the placement of U.S...

...There should be no doubt about the eagerness...

...Clearly, the Bush Administration is spoiling for a military showdown...

...land forces has been dispatched to the Saudi desert, where it awaits orders to launch an attack or to respond to whatever "provocation" will be designated as the pretext for war...

...And then he added that such a "nice list of targets" was not enough: "The cutting edge would be in downtown Baghdad...

...If war comes, it may swiftly claim thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of American lives and an even higher number of Arab casualties...

...Traxler's colleagues did not hasten to associate themselves with his stance...

...The President and his closest advisers make the decisions behind barred doors and then present them to the people of the United States (and of the world) as an accomplished fact...

...So reasons Saddam...

...troops to Saudi Arabia, the "Democratic response," delivered by Representative Richard Gephardt of Missouri, was a paean of praise and adulation...

...The initial pretext—to prevent an Iraqi invasion of Saudi Arabia—was allowed to fade away almost immediately...

...When there is an army, why not use it...

...Those aggressions were, for the United States, relatively painless violations of international norms of law and decency...

...has been coupled with a set of non-negotiable demands that can be met by nothing short of Saddam Hussein's death or abject surrender...

...forces will remain in the Gulf region for a long time to come...

...I do not believe in what we are doing...

...Solid majorities in the House and Senate stand ready, no doubt, to hand the President any blank check he requests...

...This would not be nibbling at the edges...

...The World Bank estimates that the price of oil will rise to $70 a barrel in the event of war...

...If there is any disposition toward compromise by Saddam Hussein, it has been scorned by the U. S. Government...

...Can anyone doubt that the U.S...

...If the President need not consult either the people or their representatives on such life-and-death decisions for the nation, what role is left for the people in setting the nation's course...

...military intervention appear in this issue beginning on Page 14, has written elsewhere that President Bush will be able to proclaim eventual victory over Iraq, but at an enormous price: "The economic costs will, of course, be staggering—in the hundreds of billions of dollars...

...How much confidence do we have in the leaders of Pakistan or India, Israel or South Africa...

...military intervention represents our Government's determination to tell the world that we will kill, if necessary—and send our young people to be killed—in order to protect U.S...

...Truman agreed, and helped launch the witch hunts and spy scares, the loyalty programs and anti-Soviet hysterics that ushered in the national-security state...

...Somehow, we must marshal the strength and the will to stop it in its tracks...

...The military showdown in the Middle East, on the other hand, can entail tremendous costs and grievous consequences for all those involved—not least the oil-dependent nations (including the United States) '[George Bush] has shown that he, no less than Saddam, prefers military means to political solutions...

...bombing raids are certain to claim a brutal price in lives and economic resources, they are not likely to prove decisive...

...Government so eager to commit America's war machine to the Persian Gulf...

...But the issues here involve principle, not heroics...

...Given the sorry record of costly failures when one nation attempts to impose its will on another by force of arms, why is the U.S...

...But though U.S...

...By the same token, the U.S...

...Now that would be a New World Order worth talking about...

...Though Dugan was swiftly disciplined for his indiscretion, no one within the Government bothered to dispute the accuracy of his disclosures...

...Among those who have access to the Administration's war plans, the only real disagreement seems to be over when the bloodshed will begin...

...Ask the Syrians or the Israelis about their experiences in Lebanon, or the Soviets about their Afghan adventure, or the Vietnamese about their meddling in Cambodia...

...There has been—and is—ample time to engage the Congress in the process of going to war...

...When President Bush took to the airwaves in mid-September to discuss his decision—he acknowledged it was his decision, taken unilaterally— to dispatch U.S...

...Saddam is by no means the only villain to wield power in this world...

...But as David McReynolds of the War Resisters League recently pointed out, "All interventions are not only wrong in a clear moral sense, they are almost never effective, no matter how persuasive the rationale...

...In the process, the United States made a major turn to the Right-infringing civil liberties, curtailing domestic programs, shifting the tax burden from the rich to the poor, enhancing corporate power, becoming a society propelled by greed and shallow egocentrism...

...military intervention in this case is to open the way for an interminable series of interventions elsewhere, on grounds that may be more or less specious than the case against Saddam...

...military intervention...

...If the U.S...

...hegemony over such resources...

...When it comes to the threat of mass annihilation, the United States lacks the moral force to pull rank on Saddam Hussein's Iraq—or on any other nation...

...There is, first of all, the indisputable fact that Saddam Hussein is a despot at home and an aggressor abroad—not the sort of figure one can readily transform into a hero...

...The war planners' favorite scenario for a Persian Gulf war is obviously a series of "surgical air strikes" that will bring Iraq's Saddam Hussein to his knees in short order—he himself is targeted for swift destruction, according to General Dugan— forestalling the necessity of a bloody and protracted ground war...

...These potentially catastrophic consequences have received only the most glib and superficial consideration in the barrage of propaganda emanating from the Administration and its media claque...

...Discreet silence—or fervent approval—has been, in fact, the operating mode for all but a handful of Congressional Democrats...

...I don't see it in the national interest and I'm compelled to raise my hand and say I dissent...

...The juggernaut must keep rolling...

...Because of that prospect, the U.S...

...Air Force chief of staff...

...What if Israel enters the fray or is drawn into it, setting off a regionwide conflagration...

...And there is now widespread speculation, energetically fueled by official sources, that U.S...

...But the Persian Gulf crisis, entering its third month as this issue goes to press, leaves no room for such alibis...

...Representative Robert Traxler of Michigan was bold enough to disagree, recording himself as "unalterably opposed" to the Persian Gulf intervention because it would divert funds from urgent domestic needs...

...This is just the way it's going to be...

...response when he dispatched his troops into Kuwait...

...some experts predict it may soar to $100 a barrel, with devastating impact on the U.S...

...As Richard J. Bar-net observes in his recent book, The Rockets' Red Glare: When America Goes to War, "For almost every one of the forty-five years since the end of World War II, Presidents have ordered American soldiers into battle somewhere...

...And how much confidence do we, or the rest of the world, have in the five H-bomb powers that have held the world in thrall for decades...

...Government's conduct and rhetoric in the Persian Gulf suggest still another, larger set of motives for the current intervention: We are witnessing a determined attempt to preserve the motivation, discipline, and sense of priorities that prevailed during more than four decades of Cold War...

...empire...

...We have serious economic problems that deserve our full attention and resources.' —Represenative Robert Traxler, Michigan Democrat...

...But most importantly, let's assert our confidence that the way to challenge the values of militarism and aggression is to refrain from practicing militarism and aggression...

...How many Middle Eastern lives, how many American lives are the U.S...

...Others are aligned with Washington in various parts of the world...

...But a "victory" over Saddam will hardly meet the need or end the process...

...At a recent background briefing for journalists, an executive of a leading military contracting firm observed, "What we really need is a goddamn Middle East war...

...The lessons of the past—of even the very recent past—have been brushed aside with bland assurances that the Persian Gulf is, after all, quite different from Indochina...

...President Bush's school-yard bully talk—"This is not a threat...

...But the juggernaut is not the force that will bring those instruments into being...

...If I want to hurt you, it would be at home, not out in the woods someplace...

...But what calculations have been made in Washington...

...The President needs only to intone the magical mystery words national security and the Loyal Opposition snaps to attention, salutes smartly, lies down, rolls over, and plays dead—a nice parlor trick but a shameful affront to the democratic process...

...So it is in the current Persian Gulf imbroglio...

...Government were to renounce its nuclear arsenal now that the Cold War has ended, it would be in a powerful position to press for worldwide elimination of nuclear terrorism...

...Congress, always eager to abandon its responsibilities, enacted the War Powers Act as a feeble half-way step toward after-the-fact accountability by the Executive...

...Presidents treat national-security policy as a commodity to be sold rather than as a set of inescapably controversial ideas to be debated and understood.' —Richard J. Barnet in 'The Rockets' Red Glare: When America Goes to War The Loyal Opposition Any national-security crisis seems to bring out the worst in the Democratic Party, which instantly scrambles to render itself indistinguishable from the Republicans...

...so reasons Bush.' —David McReyndolds in Fellowship magazine whose sources of petroleum are terribly vulnerable to destruction by sabotage or war...

...But the oil in this instance has a symbolic role that may be far more significant than its practical value: It represents the kind of Third World resource we are determined to continue extracting on our terms...

...Then came the demand for immediate and total Iraqi withdrawal from Kuwait...

...economy...

...A murmur of dissent, uttered sotto wee, was confined to the suggestion that Bush ought to try harder to elicit funds from Germany, Japan, and other "allies" to underwrite the costs of the Middle East adventure...

...Obviously, protecting "our" oil is a factor-though the oil fields of the entire Persian Gulf region have, in fact, been placed in acute jeopardy by the U.S...

...Today, those notable gains for the Right are threatened by the end of the Cold War and the possibility of abolishing the garrison state—unless it becomes possible once again to scare the hell out of the American people and persuade them to abandon all their hopes and aspirations for a better life...

...The U.S...

...That is why such an enormous contingent of U.S...

...But they should be compelled to enter into public discourse on the issues, and to go on record with a vote even if—as seems more than likely—it eventually comes back to haunt them...

...It is hard to imagine any outcome of the scenarios being considered in Washington that will not entail a massive human bloodbath...

...Many came to power with U.S...

...Governmment would cheerfully ignore any U.N...

...Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican Senator from Michigan who played an instrumental role in forging the "bipartisan foreign policy" of the United States after World War II, told President Truman that the only way to gear the country up for the massive military expenditures that the Cold War would require was to "scare the hell out of the American people...

...Still, it would make good political sense to demand a Congressional debate—and an up or down vote on the declaration of war demanded by the U.S...

...Since early August, there has been a steady escalation in the rationales for U.S...

...There has been no U.N...

...Can we trust someone like Saddam Hussein to possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons...

...If it occurred to any of the Democrats that there was something humiliating about casting the United States in the role of mercenary for its more affluent competitors, they maintained a discreet silence...

...How many soldiers and how many civilians...

...For blurting out the nation's course to a couple of journalists, General Michael J. Dugan was relieved in September of his duties as U.S...

...There is, among America's elites, genuine regret that the Cold War has ended and alarm at the possible consequences of its end...

...resolutions pertaining to the current crisis have come as after-the-fact endorsements of decisions made in the closed circles of the Bush Administration...

...Some peace activists have allowed themselves to be persuaded by the Administration's claims of United Nations involvement in the crusade against Saddam, but those claims are a pretense and a sham...

...Let's be mindful of the fact that in this particular case, the borders are arbitrary lines drawn in the 1920s by the British Foreign Office...

...To lend support, or even our tacit acquiescence, to U.S...

...Constitution...

...connivance, and most (including Saddam) have been propped up by our Government when that suited its purposes...

...The ponderous analyses in the U.S...

...No negotiations," Bush has repeatedly asserted, adding that the United States will not "yield one inch...

...The pattern is all too familiar...

...intervention...

...And as usual, the Democrats in Congress are ready to go along for the ride...