The 1991 Gulf War, having already generated weapons production on a massive scale, has prepared the way for an even greater, historically unprecedented economic windfall. The April 17, 1997 issue of the Christian Science Monitor portrayed the U.S. as flexing its armor-plated muscles from Desert Storm for the purpose of gaining a giant share of the weapons market and nearly total world dominance of that marketplace.
As well as the immense economic benefits for U.S. arms merchants, Desert Thunder could prove to have considerably advantageous political fallout for President Clinton. Public distraction from his most recent scandal and the President's other alleged sexual misconduct could permit him to ride out his final years on a sound economic wave, thus, providing him with the historical legacy he has sought. And does it matter in the least to Mr. Clinton that that political capital comes largely from the blood of innocent Iraqi civilians or any other convenient economic pretense for fomenting conflict?
The Miami Herald in a February 16th article entitled, "How an Attack on Iraq Would Unfold" detailed some of the "new" advanced weapons and their functions. F-117 stealth fighters carrying advanced weaponry such as 2,000-pound laser-guided penetration bombs in concert with large inventories of smart and precision-guided weapons are standard ordinance in Uncle Sam's "peacekeeping" armada. During Operation Desert Storm only fifteen per cent of the available high-tech munitions was utilized, the Herald said. "...This time it might be much more than half. Navy officials assert that their new Tomahawk cruise missiles," the article continues, "can be given targeting instructions in minutes aboard ship, rather than in hours, as in the 1991 war. The missiles today are equipped with satellite guidance systems, which supposedly make them more accurate and able to travel greater distances.
"Other new weapons include the laser-guided GBU-28, a 4,700-pound 'bunker-buster' bomb delivered by an F-15E. It is the deepest penetrating munition in the U.S. arsenal and would be used against fortified concrete command posts. It possibly could be dropped by a B-2 [stealth] bomber departing from an air base in Missouri on a continuous flight sustained by airborne refueling. If commanders decide to use the B-2, it would be the first combat mission for the plane."
It appears that these "free world" warriors can hardly contain themselves in their rush to try out their new--and not-so-new--toys; a sorcerer's mix of uranium-core bullets, smart bombs (that are far smarter than their Desert Storm cousins) and missiles that can destroy hospitals, food processing plants, oil wells and the infrastructure of an entire nation in minutes.
All of America's capital outlay for the Gulf War has returned in a wave of immense corporate profits from the oil and dollar-soaked Arab countries seeking new and war-tested American weapons. The Iraqi war was a tremendous p.r. and advertisement campaign for U.S. armaments. What better and more efficient way could possibly be devised to promote the sale of new and advanced--not to mention staggeringly expensive--weapons than actual combat trials? If past performance is any indicator of present possibilities, then Desert Thunder can be put to multiple corporate advantage. Not only will the U.S. possibly regain control of the world's second largest oil producer, but will simultaneously generate billions of dollars in sales for its most advanced weapons systems. By the glare of a financial light that brilliant, the fifty-billion dollars per year spent in patrolling the Persian Gulf makes, to those of the military industrial complex, makes sound economic sense. As any advertising executive will confirm, however, such massive expenditures create considerable pressure to assure a substantial return of revenue. The US/UK is anxious to recommence their Iraqi war so businesses of high-tech weapons manufacturing can continue their life-giving feast from the taxpayers' bloodstreams.
In his April '97 Christian Science Monitor article entitled, "The Bazaar Way US Sells Weapons in Mideast" Scott Peterson observes:
There could be few better places for marketing weapons systems than in the Persian Gulf where organizers of the International Defense Exhibition (IDEX) gathered together 750 companies from more than fifty countries in March.[1997] Gulf states, wary of their large and militarily strong neighbors Iraq and Iran, are expected to spend $75 billion over five years on defense.
Gun-hungry, the Middle East is the last region in the world that continues to soak up so many weapons, and there could be no better showcase for 'merchants of death' - as critics call arms dealers - than the Abu Dhabi meeting. The United States, the largest arms exporter in the world, has been pushing hard to sell its wares in the Persian Gulf and sent a high-level Pentagon delegation to the exhibition. All the missiles and artillery are on display here: tanks, ships, attack helicopters, jet fighter engines, and every conceivable weapon and munition. More than 170 American companies came to sell and check out the tough worldwide competition. And US representatives - many of them veterans who have combat-tested the goods they are selling - chuckle when they put a new spin on an old adage: 'Old soldiers never die,' they note, 'they just sell weapons systems.'
The Middle East is by far the world's largest regional arms market, accounting for more than 40 percent of total sales. The region shelled out a decade-high $22 billion of arms purchase agreements in 1993 alone, a post Gulf War jump largely driven by high-tech US prowess on the battlefield that persuaded the sheikdoms to buy American.
. . . 'The Gulf nations are such large purchasers,' says retired Lt. Gen. John Yeosack, commander of the US, British and French forces during the Gulf War, 'that they bring the market to them. The credentials of former military people are critical,' says General Yeosack, who is currently an adviser for Lockheed Martin in Bethesda, Md. 'There is a big difference between one who knows how to fly, and one who has flown in harm's way.' American defense companies, like their counterparts abroad, pepper their staffs with combat veterans.
That is clear in one corner stall of Talley Defense Systems, which advertises the 'ultimate assault weapon.' . . . Its biggest item here is a series of shoulder-fired anti-armor weapons, dubbed bunker busters. 'During the heat of battle, a warfighter's goal is not enemy incapacitation,' shouts one poster, 'it's TOTAL target destruction.' A soft-spoken retired tank colonel, Thomas Simcox, sells the system and has firsthand knowledge of its effectiveness: he fired the first generation of the weapon in 1966 in the central highlands of Vietnam. 'We don't need to be taught the language [to sell weapons] because we already speak it,' he says. 'We have simply changed one uniform for another.'
M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky in his book, World Orders Old and New, claims that, "After the Vietnam war was ended in 1975, the major policy goal of the US has been to maximize repression and suffering in the countries that were devastated by our violence. The degree of the cruelty is quite astonishing." This precedent used in Vietnam was duplicated during Desert Storm with alarming consistency. This historical repetition, as seen in Vietnam, adds substantial credibility to evidence that the manufactured anthrax crisis is, in reality, an economic situation projected as an international military emergency. The goal of American business is to sell arms and the most effective way to accomplish that is by the creation of a war in the Middle East. Simple logic: that's where the buyers are. Saddam is the perfect vehicle for the task of manufacturing a continual unsettled paranoia in the region--and, therefore, a continual market for U.S. armament. This is, in the parlance of business, an elegant situation whereby an artificial market need is first created and then quickly filled by its creators.
Professor Chomsky goes on to state, "... By refusing diplomacy, the US achieved its major goals in the Gulf. We were concerned that the incomparable energy resources of the Middle East remain under our control, and that the enormous profits they produce help support the economies of the US and its British client."
"I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized tribes. The moral effect should be good...and it would spread a lively terror."
This quotation, interestingly, is not Saddam Hussein elucidating on his policy toward the Kurds, but a revered Western leader, Winston Churchill, commenting on the British use of poison gas against the Iraqis after World War I. Is it not the human way to learn by example? The Secretary of State, sometimes referred to by political analysts as "Mad" Albright, has clearly stated that U.S. antagonism toward Iraq is not an issue of anthrax production. "Ms. Albright made clear during her visit," said the London Times in a February 6th article, "that Washington would not support the lifting of sanctions against Iraq until Saddam either introduces a democratic regime or has been replaced." It could be asked why the Iraqi leader must be forced to choose between a Western style democracy and a firing squad. Would not the forceful imposition of a democratic government blatantly violate the very principles upon which Western "lovers of freedom" tout as its foundation?
On the subject of assassination plots, either executed or participated in by the United States, William Blum in his book Killing Hope makes some startling observations. "The US bombing of Iraq June 26, 1993, in retaliation for an alleged Iraqi plot to assassinate former president George Bush, 'was essential,' said President Clinton, 'to send a message to those who engage in state-sponsored terrorism . . . and to affirm the expectation of civilized behavior among nations.'" By President Clinton's own words, the U.S. is not a civilized nation since it appears to occupy first place in the category of state-sponsored terrorism. Blum lists no less than thirty-three separate assassination, or planned assassination, attempts by the U.S. government between 1949 and 1991. Several individuals have had multiple attempts made upon their lives and, in some organizations, a number of people are still on a hit list. That list, contains (not surprisingly) Saddam Hussein.
Could one not reasonably ask why the United States is so privileged as to be exempt from all the standards of the civilized decency it so loudly proclaims, that it can carry out systematic assassination attempts on leaders of other countries without international reprisal while, at the same time, justify the bombing of a nation of men, women and children--and merely for the reason that it was only suspected that they had plotted to assassinate a U.S. leader? Does the term "gross hypocrisy" at all come to mind?
Another question presents itself as to the size of Saddam's arsenal of chemical and biological warfare (CBW) agents. UNICEF reports, "More than 4,500 children under the age of 5 are dying each month [in Iraq] from hunger and disease ... 960,000 are chronically malnourished, a rise of 72 percent since 1991. Last year, 134,000 children died due to malnutrition and a shortage of medicine." How can 5% of the nation be dead from starvation and lack of adequate medical supplies, yet, Saddam's arsenal continues to grow in leaps and bounds? How can a country be forbidden even the basics of life in imports, yet, swell in military strength sufficient to be a threat to the whole world? Even Lt. Gen. Thomas Kelly, the man who directed the Pentagon's Desert Storm operation, claimed that the U.S. had so thoroughly destroyed Saddam's military might as to have utterly deprived him of the ability to project its power outside of Iraq. If Gen. Kelly is being truthful, then a logical question would beg itself: why the continued oppression of a people so completely subjugated?
The International Herald Tribune, February 17th, just prior to the beginning of the Winter Olympics revealed that the bombing of Iraq would not take place during the week of the Olympics, the President's visit to his daughter at Stanford or during a presidential tour of five African nations. The glaring military incompatibility in this is the timing. These vacations occur during the critical darkness of a new moon--the prime window of opportunity during which attack aircraft, especially stealth bombers and fighters, are nearly invisible. The tongue-in-cheek article entitled, "So, When Can We Fit In a War?" appeared to be a subtle but obvious media push for getting on with it.
If the danger presented by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction is so clear and present, why wait for the Olympics? Which is more important--the lives of all those of the world that are "threatened" or a few gold, silver or bronze medals? Could not Chelsea forego her father's company long enough for a small matter like a just war to make the world safer for democracy? So, what if Saddam should strike during the Olympics? Why wait if the situation warrants daily updates of an armada that is larger than the 1991 Gulf War force? It seems that the President can announce one day that the strike is only days or hours away due to the urgency of the threat, then take a vacation at that same critical moment. Wouldn't these announcements present themselves as windows of opportunity for Iraq since the press has proclaimed to the entire world that America will wait until after its season of entertainment?
It might be noted here that the last great world empire, as with all others preceding it, just prior to its demise, placed inordinate emphasis upon self-indulgence and entertainment. The Romans had become rich and complacent in their world dominance--a situation the Huns could not ignore.
"IN A TIME OF UNIVERSAL DECEIT - TELLING THE TRUTH IS A REVOLUTIONARY ACT" --George Orwell
Daily, the television, radio and Internet abound with all the horrors of CBW. Israel is now notifying its citizens to surrender gas masks from dead relatives so they can be fitted to the living. The Pentagon is gearing up for a six-year inoculation drive for all the armed forces. Russia, however, has upped the ante by adding a new twist to the anthrax dilemma. They have mutated the anthrax bacterium so the current inoculations will not work on the new strain. A February 13th Associated Press report states, ". . .it is conceivable that the current American vaccine would not be effective against this genetically engineered new organism that is not really anthrax anymore." Since Iraq and Russia are allies, the unspoken hint is the Russians may covertly provide a few spores to Iraq. Maybe a third strain will make its appearance just when round two in the anthrax vaccination frenzy is completed. This, however, takes on the same color as does the primary purpose for creating the Gulf crisis in the first place--corporate profits. Now the pharmaceutical giants can take their turn as the financial IV permanently inserted into the taxpayers' veins. The Mobius strip, this endless loop of taxation and profligate spending, however, is not at all unplanned. The masterful geniuses of globalism have well designed that, in the end, there should only be the poor, the military and the rich. It may soon be accurately said, "Welcome to the New World Order."
The nightmare scenario created by the media on behalf of the Pentagon uses visual aids with consummate skill. First place in a series of examples was the melodramatic sack of sugar presented by Defense Secretary William Cohen in the November '97 televised press conference.
The Washington Post, December 14th, commenting on the Secretary's presentation said, "...Cohen held up a five-pound bag of sugar on national television last month to dramatize how, with an equivalent amount of anthrax, Iraq could eliminate at least half the population of Washington." In the same article the Post quoted, "Pentagon officials and specialists in the field [say] they are not inventing a new threat or exaggerating its urgency." So, claiming no exaggeration, they uncategorically claim that Saddam could destroy "half the population of Washington, D.C." No mention is made, however, of the method of delivery. Are the Secretary's comments, separated from other essential facts, designed to convey ideas that so greatly exaggerate the truth as to be factually incorrect?
The November 30th issue of The Los Angeles Times seems to increase the urgency of the situation as it comments that ". . . for some diseases, like anthrax, inhaling a few thousand bacteria, which could take up less area than the period at the end of this sentence, could be fatal" thus appearing to lend considerable credibility to Mr. Cohen's sack of sugar.
"Porton Down, the chemical and biological defense agency in Wiltshire," says The London Times, doing their part in escalating the hysteria over anthrax, "produced a dossier on the relative toxicity of Saddam's weapons, including a warning that if he were to achieve a 100 per cent efficient delivery system, one teaspoonful of anthrax could kill 100 million people." The London Times, Feb. 17, 1998.
In this progression of media frenzy the public has been led to swallow larger and larger accounts of the effect of the tiny anthrax spore. From five pounds destroying a city to a teaspoonful killing 100 million people, one could wonder what will be the next logical layover on this trail of seemingly engineered confusion.
The clue to the deception in this media blitz is found in The London Times article where it claims that the horrendous effects of anthrax were dependent upon a "100 per cent efficient delivery system." Carrying that to its logical conclusion, given the other reports claiming that a single anthrax spore entering the lungs will cause death, then a 100 per cent efficient delivery (which is absolutely unattainable) would kill every man, woman and child on the planet with only that aforementioned teaspoonful--that is, provided that it would be possible to insert one spore into the lungs of all the earth's human population. Such are the logical errors that the media routinely present as fact.
Referring to the stability and deliverability of anthrax, the Washington Post casually mentioned at the end of its December article that, "For all the worry about the potential of germ attack, defense officials and civilian specialists say making and delivering a biological weapon is not easy. Microscopic anthrax spores, for instance, require a high degree of technical sophistication to separate and collect and then disseminate using some kind of aerosol system. 'These organisms are not invincible,' said Kyle Olson, a bioterrorism expert with Research Planning, Inc. in Washington. 'Many die in sunlight, lose potency in oxygen environments or are susceptible to chlorine. They are in many cases rather fragile and require care in handling.'"
This is further corroborated by an Australian biologist, an UNSCOM inspector, who was quoted in the New York Times, February 26th that, "A pilotless plane spraying 200 pounds of anthrax near a large city might kill up to a million people -- if the winds were right, if no rain fell, if the nozzles did not get clogged, if the particles were the right size, if the population had no vaccinations, and so on.. . . 'if it was workable.'"
Would Saddam then release the biological agent from slow-flying aircraft as some reports predict or would he need to administer it via personalized aerosol sprays? Assuming that what Secretary Cohen said is true, the question could also be asked is it even remotely realistic? From the foregoing it would seem an easier task to convince one's enemy to cooperate by committing mass suicide.
As documented in the book, A Higher Form of Killing - The Secret Story of Chemical and Biological Warfare by Harris and Paxman, following Hitler's invasion of Europe, England and the United States began collaboration to stop Germany with an anthrax assault on a massive scale. The plan called for a 2,700-plane bomber squadron laden with 40,000 five-hundred pound bombs to perform a high altitude aerial release over six key German cities. Each 500-pound bomb would subsequently release one-hundred and six, four-pound bomblets containing anthrax spores. The bombs were designed to burst in midair, scattering the spores over as wide an area as possible. It would have taken the U.S. about eight months to produce the 4,250,000, four-pound bombs. Official estimates placed the potential death toll in German lives from inhalation of the spores at about three million. Another three million, they claimed, would die from continued exposure.
"Doing the numbers"--two superpowers in concerted effort for eight months combining all available national resources would have been able to mount a biological assault capable of killing not one-hundred million but six million people. Assuming Harris and Paxman's figures, taken from war records are accurate, the amount of anthrax and the delivery system required to kill 100 million people would be astronomical. Does any thinking informed person truly believe that Iraq could possibly, after seven years of devastating sanctions, possess the resources to accomplish the biological equivalent of the Manhattan Project?
What manner of delivery system would Saddam employ for such a venture, assuming the absurd, that he actually possess the requisite quantity of the agent? "Richard Butler, the head of the UN teams, has said that his inspectors destroyed 817 out of 819 Scuds that Saddam bought from the Soviet Union, but he was not satisfied that Baghdad had disarmed itself of the two Scud versions made in Iraq." London Times, Feb. 12, 1998.
The CIA File: 970613_092596_ui_txt_0001.txt called Iraqi Chemical Warfare Data [for the period covering the Gulf War] claims, "There is no proof that Iraq has mated chemical warheads to its missile assets (Scuds, etc.)."
Daily intelligence reports detailed by aerial photographs and minute examinations of the country of Iraq keep the U.S. Intel community apprised of Iraqi military strength. One such report says that "the intelligence source said Saddam now had 23 divisions, totaling about 400,000 troops and 2,200 tanks - about the level of the early 1980s" London Times, Feb. 1, 1998, "Cameras Spy on Saddam's Fortress Palaces".
The UNSCOM inspectors, commenting in the New York Times concerning Iraqi anthrax delivery capabilities, authoritatively state that, "...the agricultural sprayers, he [UNSCOM inspector Barton] said, have disappeared. None have been turned over to inspectors, and their whereabouts and status are unknown -- whether lost or destroyed or ready to fly into action. Are they a threat? Even if they exist, hidden by the Iraqi military, their effective use is clouded by huge uncertainties, inspectors said." NYT, Feb. 2, 1998
The scenario of an Iraqi threat now presents itself as two possibly unarmed Scud missiles, a military force that has been bombed into the 80's, and unknown slow-flying crop dusters. Against this terrifying threat the United States has assembled the largest military force since the Gulf War.
According to Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark in a video produced by his organization, the International Action Center (IAC) entitled "Genocide by Sanctions", and presented to the UN Security Council, the U.S. is spending $50,000,000,000 a year patrolling the Persian Gulf! Could this be analogous to threatening a one-winged, de-beaked mosquito with hundred-pound cannon balls?
In the infamous interview between Lesley Stahl and Madeline Albright on CBS's 60 Minutes, Stahl compares the death toll of Hiroshima to the deaths by sanction of Iraqi children. Albright, without a hint of remorse, frankly stated, "we think the price is worth it." The unspoken question imposed by Lesley Stahl to Albright is, Who is paying? Who is selling what? Who are the "we" that for whom the Secretary was speaking when she said, "we think the price is worth it"? What are the gains "we" can expect to receive from the death of 5% of an entire nation? It can be clearly observed as to who is paying. Iraq has paid dearly. It can also be known who are the beneficiaries by the obscene profits of U.S. arms manufacturers.
The Toronto Sun recently outlined the history involved in this dilemma. In concert with Ramsey Clark's production, the two clearly document Iraqi rule by British policies to the end that the United States and Great Britain could share control of 95% of that nation's petroleum assets. During the Faisal puppet monarchy established by Britain everything was under full Western control. First, young King Faisal II and his family were assassinated during General Abdul Karim Qassim's coup on July 14, 1958. Then, following a string of murders supposedly instigated and planned by the CIA, a "promising, young Ba'ath party enforcer, Saddam Hussein," was installed into power. However, rather than continuing in subjugation to his Western masters, Saddam did the unthinkable--he nationalized Iraqi oil production.
According to Clark's International Action Center production, the country began to climb out of poverty, building up a sound geographic and economic infrastructure. Women were afforded greater rights than in conservative Muslim countries and hunger was virtually eliminated. The video, contrasting scenes taken during King Faisal's reign, with the country as it appeared just prior to Desert Storm, clearly portrays the changes in Iraq's economic status. But the America/British stranglehold on the oil had been broken up by nationalization which began the US/UK alliance attempting to regain control by enforcement of compliance with UN sanctions--to return Iraq, as it were, to its colonial slavery of 50's.
"The US also reinforced its dominant position, and taught the lesson that the world is to be ruled by force," says Noam Chomsky in World Orders Old and New. "Those goals having been achieved, Washington proceeded to maintain 'stability,' barring any threat of democratic change in the Gulf tyrannies and lending tacit support to Saddam Hussein as he crushed the popular uprising of the Shi'ites in the South, a few miles from U.S. lines, and then the Kurds in the North.
"But the Bush administration," Chomsky continues, "has not yet succeeded in achieving what its spokesman at the New York Times, chief diplomatic correspondent Thomas Friedman calls 'the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein.' This, Friedman writes, 'would be a return to the happy days when Saddam's iron fist...held Iraq together, much to the satisfaction of the American allies Turkey and Saudi Arabia,' not to speak of the boss in Washington."
According to Chomsky, the war is not an argument over a five-pound sack of anthrax, but a vendetta against Saddam Hussein because he stands in the way of US/UK oil racketeering--bleeding his country of its petroleum. While he ruled, as the U.S. dictated, he was in their favor. Now that he refuses to bow at the feet of American demands, Vice President Gore declares he should be declared a war criminal. It does not take close scrutiny by other nations to read their own fate into the Iraqi picture should they refuse to bow to U.S. foreign policy.
On September 11, 1990, in a public appearance, President George Bush hinted at this when he stated, "Our involvement in the Gulf is not transitory. It predated Saddam Hussein's aggression and will survive it. Long after all our troops come home there will be a lasting role for the United States in assisting the nations of the Persian Gulf." What assistance, one may ask, is needed in a region that controls the largest percentage of oil reserves in the world? The assistance Bush commented on is the presence of the U.S. in oil exportation controls hidden under the guise of "peace keeping."
The question here arises, would we reduce to radioactive dust an entire nation over what appears to be largely or totally imaginary weapons for which no substantial documentation yet exists?
In a Larry King interview with Ambassador and Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz the following conversation took place:
King: "Why do the Americans want to keep the sanctions?"
Aziz: "That is their policy, ask them. I think they are making profits from them, but I do not want to make accusations against them."
King: "Financial profits?"
Aziz: "Yes.
King: "Like how?"
Aziz: "Who's selling oil instead of Iraq? Iraq had a share in the oil market. That share was stopped by the sanctions. Who's selling that?"
King: "Who?"
Aziz: "You know very well that Arabia jumped from five million barrels to eight million barrels a day. [The] three million, Iraqi share has been added to the share of Arabia."
King: "And we would take them [Iraq] to a war front to protect Saudi Arabia making more money?"
Aziz: "No! You are sharing that money. Everyone knows that."
While the world looks on with relief at the apparent accord reached between Saddam Hussein and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, what really transpired is far less publicized. The February 25th edition of the New York Times reports that the U.S. Secretary of State and Kofi Annan met in private to work out in writing the details of what should be presented to Saddam. The Times says: "Together, the two aides [Albright and national security adviser Samuel Berger] developed the U.S. red lines for the mission. During one meeting at the White House, the president made clear that the administration would support Annan's trip -- but only to do Washington's bidding."
Continuing on, the Times writes, "If the secretary general went to Baghdad, won Iraqi agreement and then Iraq reneged, the United States would be able to make a stronger case with its allies for military action. Sitting in Annan's townhouse over lunch, Albright laid out the 'red lines.'" It appears that the whole deal was orchestrated to gain international approval for the bombing. The eventual bombing of Iraq is the goal since it is so necessary for national financial interests.
"But picking up the theme of the administration's 'red lines,'" the Times continues, [Clinton] also warned that the United States was poised to strike if the accord collapsed 'at a time, place and manner of our choosing.'"
The U.S. now holds the bombsights more firmly than ever before on Iraqi citizens. All Saddam needs to do is fail to follow the UN-brokered agreement explicitly and the heavens will rain with deadlier fire than in any previous or recent history. The world will then applaud the death of the wicked man who failed to comply with US/UK/UN demands. The press will herald the great victory for the world as the possibly two remaining scuds, a crop duster or two and a million people vaporize in a radioactive cloud.
The press, perfectly occupying their assigned role announced, "The first major cracks in the Iraqi peace deal opened yesterday when Baghdad suggested that it would not grant United Nations arms inspectors unlimited access to sensitive sites after all....They came as American officials and politicians pointed to a serious divergence in the deal from the original intentions of President Clinton and Tony Blair, particularly over the composition of the weapons inspections teams. . .." The press, seemingly eager for a Middle East war states that "Any restriction would be clearly unacceptable to the United States and Britain, and would set Iraq back firmly on a course for military confrontation." The Electronic Telegraph, 2/26/98, Issue 1007.
A war, obviously good for weapons manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, governmental control and military expansion is also nothing if not a marvelous vehicle to sell copy, be it print or broadcast.
In some form of convoluted logic, Chief Arms Inspector Richard Butler "is reported to have said, that he suffered, 'abuse and denigration of UNSCOM and its (contacts) professional officers' by the Iraqis." In the same publication is stated, "The British ambassador, Sir John Weston, said, he 'did not see how the Security Council can acquiesce in such a situation while wishing to retain any credibility.'" The Washington Post, Jan. 24, 1998.
In the same vein, Senator James Baker said on CNN February 18th that, the "greater downside [of not bombing Iraq] if we walk away ... [is] we can't make these threats and walk away." TRANSLATION: We will look bad if we don't kill Iraqi men, women and children because they resist us. Of course, the sad part is that Baker is correct. The American people would consider it of greater consequence to lose some pride than to avoid more killing. Iraqis must now face annihilation so the U.S. will not be embarrassed before the international community! This is strangely reminiscent of a statement uttered 2,000 years ago by the Jewish high priest Caiaphas when considering the crucifixion of Jesus that it is "better that one man should die than a whole nation should perish." In a twisted juxtaposition of the righteous with the wicked, the question could be asked, is it better for a whole nation to perish than for one man who has been caught with his pants down to be caught with them down again and denied his "legacy" in history?
On NBC's Today the Secretary of State quipped, "If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future." What Secretary Albright could have said is, "We will do what we want because we are bigger and stronger. Other nations and their desires are of no consequence to us. We do what we want and if other nations resist we will force them. If they refuse to be forced, we will annihilate them--all the time maintaining a pretense of humanitarianism."
Daniel the prophet spoke of this power when he wrote, "he shall magnify himself in his heart and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand."Daniel 8:25.
God has recorded the arrogance of this nation and has declared its certain doom, "Be not deceived for God is not mocked, for whatsoever a man soweth THAT shall he also reap." Galatians 6:7.
Considering all that has gone before, the U.S. might well consider this last statement. The glory of victory will only be seen from Western eyes. Others will be watching and these watchers are not so easily impressed.
"'An attack on Iraq is considered an attack on the Arabs, all of them', said Essam Abdel-Meguid, a 33-year-old vendor in Cairo, where the voice in support of a strike is rarely if ever heard. In many ways, the opposition to a U.S. attack has united the Arab world's fractured body politic . . .. 'If America attacks, the doomsday will take place,' said Al-Jumhuriya, an Iraqi government newspaper." Cairo, Egypt, (AP) Feb. 16, 1998.
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Written 3/05/98