Iraq war

"There never was a good war or a bad peace." Benjamin Franklin

What better demonstration of the futility and stupidity of trying to solve problems by making war could there be than this war. George W. Bush and Prime Minister John Howard (of Australia) were old enough to remember the equally futile Vietnam war, they should have known better.

This phase of Bush's stupid 'War Against Terrorism' has greatly increased the cause of militant Islam and provided a training ground for terrorists.

Introduction

Over a period of 15 years (1980s, early 90s?) Sadam Hussein's regime killed 400 000 Kurds in northern Iraq. The USA government seems to have found this quite acceptable at the time; Hussein was a useful ally against Iran.

In August 1990 Hussein invaded Kuwait. It seems that Hussein had expected US approval, in exchange for assured oil supplies. However, after trying tough sanctions, the USA invaded in 1991 and forced the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. The US forces convincingly demonstrated that they were greatly superior to the Iraqi army. At the time there was disagreement about whether the US should have continued and removed Hussein from power; however the US did not have permission from the UN to do more than remove the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, and they did not want to sour their relations with friendly Arab nations such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The US administration continued to consider removing Hussein's regime from power and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York, they decided that they had sufficient excuse to do so.

Although there was never any evidence of a link between the Iraqi regime and September 11th, the USA invaded Iraq in March 2003. This invasion was illegal under international law which, since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, has held that one nation must not invade another except in the case of an undisputable and immediate threat from the invaded nation. It was no more justified than was the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland in the early part of World War Two.

In May 2005, 88 members of the US Congress signed a letter to US President George W. Bush calling on him to answer questions about a secret US - UK agreement to attack Iraq. This was in response to a document that recorded talks between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair that took place in 2002. In these talks Blair "discussed the need for America to 'create' conditions to justify the war."

Who won the war?

Five years on it seems reasonable to ask this question; what answers can be given?

The Iraqi people have certainly lost the war; their country is in ruins and chaos, 650 000 Iraqis killed and two million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria. (Since writing this another estimate has been made from a poll by Opinion Research Business, 1.2 million deaths due to hostilities in Iraq since 2003. See Wikipedia.)

Civilisation has lost the war; I suspect we will never know how much damage has been done to archeological sites and how many irreplaceable relics have been lost in this land that was one of the greatest cradles of civilisation.

I've no doubt the environment has lost the war; when people are fighting wars the environment always gets little concern.

World peace has lost the war. The hatred created by this war will be coming back to haunt us for decades.

Nick Ut's famous Pulitzer prize winning photo of the little girl who had been burned by napalm bombs dropped on a Vietnamese village by US war planes. How could anyone start an unnecessary war?

Of course the USA has lost the war. They have achieved nothing other than make millions of people throughout the Arab world and the Islamic world hate and mistrust them more than ever.

Even if the war in Iraq has been lost, has anything been achieved in "The War Against Terrorism"? Surely not. Terrorism is used by desperate people who feel they have no other way of getting what they see as justice. Of course terrorism is often counter-productive. But you can't win against terrorism by using guns and bombs, it's not that simple. The Iraq war has made most Arabs and most Muslims mistrust the USA more than ever; it has made a great many people hate the USA. It has created a new generation of terrorists.

My country, Australia, has lost the war. Prime Minister Howard never had any right to involve Australia in the Iraq war; the great majority of the Australian people were against it. Australia was never a target of terrorists until Howard involved us in the US's wars of world domination. Between this war and Howards pig-headed refusal to do anything about greenhouse I suspect he will go down in history as one of the most disastrous prime ministers, and this as one of the blackest periods, in my country's history.

The only winners have been those companies that picked up all the easy money that was supposed to be spent on rebuilding Iraq. The USA failed to direct the billions of dollars to where they should have gone, instead a big part of the money went into the hands of the corrupt. No-one will ever know where literally tonnes of money went because it was handed out as cash; there is no 'paper trail', auditing was either lacking or inadequate. This money came from the sale of Iraqi oil, and should have gone to rebuilding Iraq.

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Compared to Nazis

Why a war with Iraq?

"Saddam Hussein posed a serious threat to international peace and security."

The quick collapse of the Iraqi forces in both wars showed that they were weak. Saddam had learned his lesson in the first Gulf War, following his invasion of Kuwait. He was very unlikely to pose a serious threat to any other nation; he had too much to loose. Any open-minded person would have to realise that the USA is a far greater threat to international peace and security. The USA has bombed more than 20 countries since WW2.

"Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, he has butchered his own people."

True, but how many more leaders of nations are equally despotic and barbaric; (Myanmar, China, North Korea, Chile under Pinochet, Cambodia under Pol Pot, Uganda under Amin) why single out this one? And he was known to be a blood-thirsty tyrant for decades, it had previously been quite acceptable.

"Saddam Hussein was developing 'weapons of mass destruction".

No WoMDs have been found. Indications now are that vans that were claimed by the US to be mobile chemical or biolical weapons laboratories had some other use. Also India and Pakistan recently developed nuclear weapons and there was no threatened war against them. In any case, doesn't the USA have more weapons of mass destruction than any other country on the planet? (See Who sold Saddam his weapons?);

"Iraq may be involved in international terrorism."

The evidence seems not to be forthcoming.

"Iraq was connected to al Qaeda."

Again, there is no evidence; and Osama bin Laden hates Hussein and calls him an infidel.

The USA sold Iraq many of its weapons. The USA places little importance on the UN, and ignores the UN when it suits the USA; in fact President Bush went to war against Iraq in contravention of the most fundamental rule of the UN: that no nation should invade another without either, the agreement of the Security Council, or an immediate and urgent threat.

I believe there were a number of real reasons the USA wanted a war against Iraq:

1. Iraq's oil reserves are the second biggest in the world after Saudi Arabia's, and Saudi Arabia is becoming politically unstable. The USA therefore wanted to install in Iraq a government that was sympathetic to US interests.
2. There is a very strong Jewish lobby in the USA and Iraq was seen as a danger to Israel.
3. A successful war is a vote winner. This was shown by Margaret Thatcher and the Fauklands War, and by George Bush Senior and the first Gulf War.
4. Perhaps the greatest reason was that Sadam did not allow the American dominated multinational corporations into Iraq. Following the war the US has been busy establishing economic domination over any new government in Iraq via the corporatocracy.

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Why did the Australian government want war with Iraq? I suspect that it was because our two major political parties are beholden to big business and to the multinational corporations. But it was also at least partly because Australian Governments tend to follow the US President wherever he may go; and that again is probably connected with the corporatocracy. I also suspect that it was partly because Prime Minister John Howard saw himself as one of 'the big boys' while he was associating with the American President who is the most powerful man on earth; a matter of hubris.

Related miscellanea UN weapons inspectors Australia's Prime Minister John Howard used to say that the single most compelling piece of evidence that Saddam Hussein is up to something nasty is that he will not allow UN weapons inspectors in. Mr. Howard won't allow UN inspectors into Australian prisons or detainment camps; what should the rest of the World conclude about that? But even after the weapons inspectors were allowed in and found nothing, Howard still wanted to go to war! US love affair with oil The USA is by far the biggest oil consuming nation on Earth. One quarter of all the world's oil production goes to the USA. They are hooked on big gas-guzzling cars, four-wheel drives (they call them sports utility vehicles) although most of them never go off the roads. They also like central heating for the whole of their homes, rather than energy-efficient heating of just those parts of their homes that are being used at a particular time.

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Failure to keep order

The Geneva Convention obliges an occupying force to keep order. The Coalition failed to do so. The Iraq National Museum, with its irreplaceable treasures dating back to Sumer, the oldest civilization on Earth, was looted. Two major libraries were burned on April 15^th. Other looting was widespread.

On 2003/09/25 The New Zealand News reported that:

Authorities estimate more than 10,000 artefacts are still missing from the museum, and many will be lost forever, but about 3500 have been recovered. Some have been found in Britain, the US, Italy and Jordan.

Rebuilding Iraq

Added on 2003/04/12
Saddam and his supporters seem to be beaten. No-one was surprised that the Coalition won. The question is, what now? Will the coalition, who so efficiently destroyed the Hussein regime, now help the Iraqis rebuild, or will they leave chaos behind them?

At present looting is rampant and aid agencies are unable to work because of lawlessness. Hospitals are under attack by looters and we hear of doctors having to carry weapons. Having removed all Iraqi authorities the Coalition has left a power vacuum and seams unable or unwilling to provide any form of law enforcement.

What condition will Iraq be in a year from now? A nation wracked by civil war with law only in a few major cities? (In Afghanistan Kabul is the only place with any real rule of law.) Or will it be on the road to freedom and democracy? How many Iraqis will have died as a result of the war?

It will be a year or perhaps several years before a judgement can be made on whether the war achieved anything good. We can only hope that there will have been more good done than harm.

A nation pays for a war a long time

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Even the costs of the Second World War are not yet finished; there are many shipwrecks that are only now starting to break-up and release oil that is threatening to pollute corral reefs.

If we become involved in a war with Iraq the costs will go on long after John Howard has ceased to be Prime Minister.

First Gulf War

Some 13 million cluster weapons were used in 1991. About 10% of them failed to explode imeadiately. Many of these are still present and pose a major danger to Iraqi civilians.

The new Australian flag Symbolising Australia's status as a puppet of the USA

Comments from prominent people

Retired defence chief comments

A retired defence chief has accused the Government of "madness" in pursuing war against Iraq.

Former [Australian] Chief of Defence Admiral Alan Beaumont said yesterday there was no justification for war without UN backing and little justification with it. He warned the campaign could be long and bloody and he slammed the Government for saying it would be brief with low casualties. "This is bloody mad," he said. "I don't understand how it is in the national interest to kowtow to the US." Admiral Beaumont said Australia now was fully integrated into US war plans and would be unable to back out. He had discussed the war with about 30 former top brass. "No one I know supports the Government's position, not one," he said. His predecessor as defence chief during the 1991 Gulf War, General Peter Gration, warned war without the UN could lead to breakdown of the world order.

RSL national president, retired Major General Peter Phillips said: "Without UN backing we shouldn't be going."

John Valder, former federal president of the Australian Liberal Party

Messrs Bush, Blair and Howard: this world of ours used not to be too bad a place. But in a few months you three have managed to divide and frighten not just your own people but the whole world as well -- including the UN -- and in the process jeopardised everyone else's economies.

Just look at what's already happened to the world price of oil and stock markets in almost every country. For God's sake, stop before you three provocateurs wreck everything. Just lock yourselves up of a while. Yours in Despair.

General Peter Gration

Gration states that Iraq cassualties of the first Gulf war were higher than most people know, he said:

"They sustained between 50,000 and 120,000 military deaths, with perhaps up to three times that number wounded. Direct civilian deaths numbered between 3,500 and 15,000 with a further 110,000 dying later from war related causes including economic collapse, infrastructure damage and the collapse of the health system. In the decade since 1991, the combined effects of the war and the subsequent sanctions have impacted heavily on the health of the Iraqi people, which remains poor. A new conflict would hit hard, as the baseline is far lower than in 1991."

A shorter and very informative PDF version of the Medact report can be downloaded from Medact_Iraq_report. (Medact is a health professionals organisation challenging barriers to health. "We highlight the health impacts of violent conflict, poverty and environmental degradation, and with others act to eradicate them.")

Air Marshal Ray Funnell

Chemical weapons

Incapacitating chemicals kill as well as incapacitate. In a hostile situation it is impossible to get the dosages right: too much chemical and death results rather than incapacity. Remember the gas that the Russians used when Chechen rebels held 700 hostages in a theatre in Moscow; it resulted in the death of more than 100 hostages.

An artical in The Scientific American of Feb 2003 (Storm before the calm: Can knockout gasses really be nonlethal?) stated that it may never be possible to use chemical incapacitating agents safely.

What Australians want

Representative bodies

• Adelaide City Council (Adelaide is the capital and by far the largest city in the state of South Australia)
• The South Australian Government
• The NSW Local Government Association (New South Wales is the most populous state in Australia)

Polls

ABC on-line polls about Feb. 10th:
"Do you believe there is a case for war against Iraq?" - 25 212 votes were counted; yes 11%, no 89%.
"Should Australia take part in a war against Iraq?" - 58 108 votes; yes 10%, no 90%.

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Rallies

• Adelaide - 100 000
• Brisbane - 100 000
• Melbourne - 150 000
• Sydney - 200 000

What effect is the Iraq war likely to have on terrorism?

The after effect is bound to be hatred and a desire for revenge. The 'War on Terrorism' will cause an increase in terrorism.

A letter from the 2003/02/22 issue of The Australian is instructive:

The protest by so many people in Western countries against the proposed bombing of Iraqi civilians has been met with surprise and joy by Muslim newspapers worldwide, as a quick survey of the web shows. Far from helping Saddam Hussein, as John Howard claims, this display of human solidarity is the best counter to the hate-mongers and religious fanatics on all sides. The only person who wants a war more than George W. Bush is Osama bin Laden (remember him?) He will have fewer recruits among the disaffected because of the millions of marchers who showed their concern for humanity, regardless of creed. Bob Haworth, Armidal, NSW

Effects on recruiting

Update

"The cause of falling recruitment numbers and low morale in the Australian army must be identified and rectified."

"With the failure of a $500 million recruitment drive, other avenues must be explored to maintain numbers in military service."

"Join Australia's military forces and help the good old USA in its unjustified, immoral and illegal wars for global dominance and control over the World's petroleum supplies. Do a stint in Iraq, the Vietnam of the twenty-first century. Help John Howard in his glorious quest to be George W. Bush's right hand man."

Saudi Arabia is becoming unstable

Proven oil reserves: the six biggest nations

In spite of Saudi Arabia's oil wealth poverty has recently started becoming apparent. The ruling family, which imposes a medieval style of monarchy on the country, is terribly corrupt and greedy. Serious political instability is a distinct possibility in the not-to-distant future. If the current Saudi Arabian Government is overthrown and is replaced by a fundamentalist Islamic government, as in Iran, it is quite possible that they might get together with the other Muslim nations and place an oil embargo on the USA.

Who are the war criminals?

A quote from Sydney Morning Herald, 26 February 2003

International law recognises two bases for the use of force. The first, enshrined in article 51 of the United Nations charter, allows force to be used in self-defence. The attack must be actual or imminent.

The second basis is when the UN Security Council authorises the use of force as a collective response to the use or threat of force. However, the Security Council is itself bound by the terms of the UN charter and can only authorise the use of force if there is evidence that there is an actual threat to the peace (in this case, by Iraq) and that this threat cannot be averted by any means short of force (such as negotiation, further weapons inspections etc).

Members of the "coalition of the willing", including Australia, have never presented any persuasive arguments that an invasion of Iraq was justified under international law.

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