The Bush Putsch for War


by Peggy Lee Kennedy

As President Bush drives on with his media campaign for war on Iraq, the opposition that we hear on mainstream media is that Bush must win the hearts of the UN or the US Congress and substantiate the “imminent danger” of Iraq’s ownership or development of weapons of mass destruction.

But this is only to ask, “Hey, why not war?” and if someone does not come up with a good enough reason, “why not” then we are just going to have to bomb the hell out of Iraq. So I ask you, my Venetian family, “Why not peace?”

I listened to the Bush plea to the United Nations on 12-Sep-02 and read his “Decade of Deception and Defiance” support papers. It is a great campaign, no doubt. Although, I am a bit scared by Bush’s use of the word my when he talks about our nation. (Does he own it? Did anyone else notice that word choice?)

OK, Saddam Hussein is by no means a good guy, but our good oil’ boy Bush is looking pretty power hungry to me.

Really now, how many other world powers own weapons of mass destruction? China and Israel do. They are both scary and both have some pretty big human rights issues going on. Except maybe they are not looking so bad on American television, maybe they are not Muslim, and maybe they do not sit on a big puddle of oil like Iraq. Oil interests are a definite con to my non-mass media campaign to ask “prove to us Why not peace?” The need to make the oil industry richer by means of our country’s ravenous consumption is not a good enough reason to stop peace.

Do we believe that we are just fighting a war on terrorism, freeing and protecting those oppressed Middle Eastern women, getting food and medical supplies to the poor starving Third-World peoples, and creating freedom through democracy in an otherwise corrupt area of the world? Look, I am scared of terrorists, but maybe we should look a bit closer at the current situation in Afghanistan before we go bomb another country.

What about the new democracy in Afghanistan and those liberated Muslim women? RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) states that fundamentalism itself is the problem, not just Bin Laden and the Taliban. In the 11-Sept-02 RAWA statement regarding the anniversary of the September 11 tragedy, they claim that warlordism, opium cultivation, and the extreme oppression of women are still very much present in Afghanistan. The implications are that different local fundamentalist factions, such as our allies the Northern Alliance (well known for their human rights abuses against women), are running different regions of the country. So maybe the Afghan women are not merrily skipping off to school or work in their mini-skirts with their make-up on after all.

On a more conservative note, the director of CARE in Afghanistan was interviewed on BBC’s Hardtalk with Tim Sebastian on 12-Sept-02 and it appears that there are considerably more returning refugees than expected, increasing lawlessness, questionable regional controls, and decreasing safe zones. Furthermore, last month Bush vetoed an additional request for aid meant to rebuild and provide aid for refugees.

Hey, we bombed the hell out of those people and blamed them for the Taliban and Bin Laden and 9-11 all in the name of what? Was it preserving our homeland from terrorists or just some good oil’ boy revenge? We did not catch Bin Laden or stop fundamentalist terrorism in the region and it turns my stomach when Bush tells us how we are going to help someone, give them food, freedom, democracy, and all (y’all).

What about the cost of making a democracy? Rebuilding a country takes money and infrastructure. If we are not doing a good job at rebuilding the devastation and installing a democratic run government in Afghanistan, how will we be doing it for Iraq? We are talking bombing oil refineries, water systems, transportation systems, hospitals, and homes. What makes us think not? Oh, guess we are so dumb we believe that we will just miss the nice people with our bombs and not hurt them? In fact, we will be creating a refugee situation, killing, maiming, widowing, orphaning, starving, and probably some more things we here in the land of the fat cannot even imagine. And our media will not show it to us. Maybe my friends in New Zealand can fill me in later.

So who will rebuild Iraq? What democratic government will run Iraq after we bomb the hell out of them? Will we be stopping fundamentalist terrorism? And how about that crafty Saddam Hussein? Think we will catch him?

If Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, well so do we. And so do Israel and China. I don’t trust them. And by the way, we are the ones that just bombed a whole country. Maybe the UN should be thinking about protecting the world from another world war instead of helping that oil’ boy Bush start one. That is a concept: the UN working for world peace.

An old friend of my mother used to say, “Which side are you on?” Well Venice, I choose peace.

Article References:

The White House, President George W Bush
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/print/20020912-1.html

RAWA, recent reports from Afghanistan
http://rawa.fancymarketing.net/recent2.htm

BBC News UK, Hardtalk, Afghanistan: Agencies concerned for the future
Director CARE Afghanistan Interview Aired Thursday, 12 September 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/2253278.stm

BBC News UK, Hardtalk, Iraq: Arabs seek diplomatic solution
More about the problem of Fundamentalism: Edward Said Interview Aired Thursday, 11 September 2002

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/2251569.stm

Posted: Tue - October 1, 2002 at 06:47 PM          

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