A rchive Date
[ 18-08-2005 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/brodbeck.html
No reason for war against Iraq
By TOM BRODBECK - Winnipeg Sun
February 17, 2003
There's a widely read book that suggests "to every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven." There is a time of war. There's a time to kill. There's a time to die. And there's even a time to hate.
Wise words.
There are times when free, democratic countries which normally espouse peace must send their men and women to war. There are points in history where, in order to preserve our free and democratic way of life, we had to kill people - thousands of innocent families and children - and allow our own people to be killed in battle.
When Nazi Germany slaughtered millions of Jews and sought to take over the world, it was a time for war. When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and murdered thousands of people more than a decade ago, it was a time for war.
When members of al-Qaida flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it was - based on incontrovertible evidence that the attacks were masterminded by terrorist cells in Afghanistan - also a time for war. It was a time to kill. It was a time for war because inaction was not an option.
When a murderous dictator commits genocide and seeks to take over the world, he must be stopped. When a country invades another, it must be forced to withdraw. When terrorists attack your country the way the United States was assaulted on Sept. 11, 2001, a country must defend itself. And it did. But there is also a time of peace.
There must be solid justification for war. The belief that war should be a last resort is not a meaningless catch-phrase used to bolster the cause of war.
It's real. Dropping bombs on human beings who have little, or any, influence over the decisions or actions that led to war should be avoided at almost every cost. But not any cost. Clearly, there is no justification for war in Iraq at this time. There is no hard evidence that Iraq even has weapons of mass destruction, according to the UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix.
Blix, in his address to the Security Council last week, says his team is getting unfettered access to sites, including unannounced spot checks. They're conducting aerial surveillance and using ground radar in some cases to search for underground storage facilities. They have hired 60 more inspectors.
Unanswered questions
There are a lot of unanswered questions, though. Some chemical weapons are missing and have not been accounted for. And obviously Iraq could conceal weapons of mass destruction, and Blix would never know it. It would be very hard to believe Iraq has no chemical weapons. But that's not the point. And war against Iraq should not turn on whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
The situation in Iraq has been taken out of international context.
There are dozens of hostile countries around the world that have chemical and biological weapons which are no friends of the United States or to freedom and democracy. Many of them have no interest in disarming and could, at the drop of a hat, attack another country, including the United States.
North Korea has nuclear capability and has threatened an attack against the United States. Iran, no friend of the U.S., has chemical weapons. As does Libya and Sudan. So does China, Serbia, Pakistan and India - and many more.
Syria has the most advanced chemical weapon program in the Middle East. They may use it against Israel. Syria hasn't signed the UN's 1992 Chemical Weapons Convention, a multilateral framework that provides for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. Do we bomb Syria, too? How about North Korea? Libya?
The argument for war against Iraq is that Saddam Hussein, left unchecked, could use weapons of mass destruction against other countries, including the United States. Proponents of war say we shouldn't wait for that to happen. We should attack them first. That's intellectual pap. Under that argument, the Security Council would have to sanction military strikes against half the world.
Iraq is no more of an imminent threat to the rest of the world than dozens of other hostile countries with much stronger chemical and biological capabilities.
There is a time for war and there is a time to kill. But this isn't it.
Tom Brodbeck is the Sun's city columnist. He can be reached by e-mail at tbrodbeck@wpgsun.com Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@wpgsun.com
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