By Bill Henderson
http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2005%20Opinion%20Editorials/June/4o/Iraq%20and%20World%20War%20Three%20By%20Bill%20Henderson.htm
Al-Jazeerah, June 4, 2005
(Al-Jazeerah) - There is now abundant evidence that the Bush Administration committed a crime in attacking Iraq. Some commentators are labeling this self-interested aggression as 'the crime of the century' because Iraq represents a significant step towards a future world war too frightening to think about.
The recently leaked British memo of a Labour cabinet meeting in July 02 in the run-up to war cements together existing evidence that Bush was already firmly on the path to war even though "the {WMD} case was thin" and ""the desire for regime change is not a legal basis for military action".
Blair government ministers and civil servants just returned from Washington reported that: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD [weapons of mass destruction]."
And the key statement: "But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy". [Emphasis added.]
President Bush, Vice-President Cheney and other war minded members of the Bush Administration greatly exaggerated Saddam Hussein's threat to America in a campaign of lies and deceit to facilitate a war that they wanted for sinister reasons; a war that was illegal under international and US law. Regime change was going to happen; the war was already being planned. WMDs and ties to terrorism were only a convenient excuse.
There were many temptations for seizing Iraq:
to facilitate more complete control of the oil rich Middle East for short and middle term reasons, and possibly as a preemptive move in a peak oil endgame;
to transfer the present oil-flow protecting US military bases to Iraq from Saudi Arabia;
to also help protect American ally Israel with military bases bordering Syria and Iran;
to introduce proactive nation-building in the hostile Middle East for both American financial and Israel security interests;
as a demonstration of American military power - shock and awe against a admittedly hostile regime - for political and economic deterrence;
and also for a variety of personal, domestic political, and military-industrial reasons.
These were tempting motivations for an easily win-able war of aggression.
There is incriminating evidence of premeditation: documents written or signed by members of Bush's cabinet in the 90's and before 9/11 advocating regime change in Iraq. but there is a much bigger, scarier dimension to events in Iraq:
These documents - including the Wolfowitz-Libby foreign policy paper from 1992, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) geo-strategic policy papers - advocated war in Iraq as part of a much wider and incredibly provocative use of American military might to secure needed resources for Americans and to prevent the development of any future threat to American control, the development of China as a world power being the most obvious and most deliberated example.
Americans should understand that the real story making sense of Iraq is that the United States under the Bush Administration is remarkably similar to Germany under the Nazis at the end of the 30's in the run up to the last world war:
both had used their military might to seize control of other nations in their own self-interest; both were engaging in a military build up in preparation for further imperial adventures; and both Nazi Germany and Bush Administration America were committed to a radical unilateralism leading to increasing conflict.
Of course, there are dissimilarities too and Bush is certainly not Hitler, but it is arguable that government in the US has been captured by the Far Right and, more to the point, that the Bush Administration's commitment to aggression and a militarization of foreign policy will just as certainly lead to future conflict.
Americans should be aware that Bush Administration action in Iraq has made our world a much more dangerous place with possible trip wires for a nuclear World War Three located in Iran, in the South China Sea, and in Central Asia where new US military bases on the border of still powerfully nuclear armed Russia are part of the new Great Game for oil.
Iraq was a challenging signal to Russia and China - the US will use its military might to control the globe in American interest. The international rule of law and multilateral institutions and cooperation are beside the point in this new American realpolitik.
Iraq isn't just another minor American adventure like Panama or Grenada - although this must be the average American's perception given the dearth of commentary in the nation's editorial pages and considering the non-debate on this incredibly important subject in Washington.
Iraq is Czechoslovakia and Munich all over again on the road to catastrophe.
Impeachment is highly improbable, but a crime was most certainly committed. Polls suggest that more than half of all Americans question American policy in Iraq. Most Americans respect the rule of law and will understand the increasing danger from illegal war.
And one of the main lessons from Watergate - maybe this generation's Deep Throat is about to emerge with incriminating insider information? - is the potential for snowballing anger in a deceived general public.
If a critical mass of protest and coverage was organized so that the truth was impossible to ignore, perhaps it is possible to get off this path leading to the brink of a final world war.
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