A rchive Date
[ 24-02-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/goodden.html
Join war protest? Naaah
By Herman Goodden - London Free Press
February 24, 2003
At my corner variety store, somebody's tacked up one of those community notices with detachable phone numbers to call.
Usually if you're interested in renting an apartment, buying an old fridge or hiring somebody to babysit your kids, you tear off the little stub with the number and call whoever is offering such services or goods. In this case, you're supposed to call if you want to stop the war in Iraq.
The notice says the number will get you into the switchboard at the White House - that a real person will pick up the phone, and if you let them know that you don't want this impending war to go ahead, that fact will be duly noted and passed along to somebody else.
Somehow I suspect President George W. Bush won't get paged on his way into a cabinet meeting by a receptionist who covers the mouthpiece with her hand and urgently whispers, "We've got Herman Goodden on the line from Canada and he says he needs to talk to you about this whole Iraq thing."
Still, if you want to give it a shot (and this is a call that will show up on your phone bill), the number is (202) 456-1111.
The appeal here is much the same as the one that attracted such massive crowds to antiwar protests all around the world on Valentine's Day weekend. It's an opportunity to have your say about the deeply troubling prospect of war, to stand up for what you believe to be, if not the "right" or the "good" or even the "best," then, at the very least, the "preferable" course of action.
It's a daunting question. What should the world do with a sadistic, aggressive, genocidal dictator who has shown he would rather subject his citizenry to the chronic, life-threatening shortages brought on by international sanctions than come clean about stockpiled weaponry?
The demonstrations were largest in the democracies - Great Britain, the States, Australia and Spain - whose governments most clearly support using force. My sister-in-law travelled down to London from Suffolk near England's North Sea coast, and wrote to us: "At times it was more like queuing for peace than marching. There could have been a million people there, it certainly felt like it - an awesome experience. All ages, classes, races and colours were represented and every degree of protest expressed from angry young flag-burning Palestinians to mild-mannered, elderly Women's Institute ladies with their banner saying: 'Make Scones, Not War.' "
The Chretien Liberals have expressed no coherent position on the matter - and frankly, with so little to offer militarily, what would it matter if they did?
Many fear the Americans just want to get control of Iraqi oil fields. But we've heard this argument many times before and it's never panned out.
After speedily trouncing Saddam Hussein in 1991, driving him out of Kuwait and back to Iraq, the only thing George Bush Sr. and the Americans seized control of was the international effort to put out the gushing infernos that Saddam spitefully ignited in the uncapped oil wells all along the route of his retreat. Nor was there any move by America to assert control of Central Asian oil and gas supplies following the anti-Taliban invasion of Afghanistan.
As White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer pointed out last month in response to Nelson Mandela's unworthy charge, "If this was a war for oil, the United States would be the ones saying, 'Lift the sanctions.' That way Iraq could pump oil."
So, no, I'm unconvinced by the protesters' arguments and haven't dialed that number yet.
Herman Goodden is a London freelance writer. His column appears in Monday's and Thursday's Opinion pages. It no longer appears in Sunday's A&E section. He can be e-mailed at herman.goodden@sympatico.ca. Letters to the editor should be sent to letters@lfpress.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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