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TO WAR OR NOT TO WAR
INTERVIEWS BY MICHAEL McCUSKER
The United States is at a point where the lunge toward invasion of Iraq seems
impossible to reverse. Ask people if they want war and nearly everyone will say they
are against it — until it starts.
President Bush’s insistent demand for invasion of Iraq is that Saddam Hussein is
developing "weapons of mass destruction” and that their use against the U.S. in support
of terrorism is imminent.
The Nation in its Sept. 2-9 issue posed nine pertinent questions that it said “the
country’s elite" should be asking about an invasion of Iraq. Without the more basic moral
and legal considerations about launching a unilateral invasion of a sovereign nation with
out legitimate provocation, these questions are:
1. Why should the U.S. engage in a risky and potentially calamitous invasion
of Iraq when the existing strategy of “containment” — entailing no-fly zones, sanctions,
technology restraints and the deployment of U.S. forces in surrounding areas — has
succeeded in deterring Iraqi adventurism for the past ten years and also weakened its
military capabilities?
2. Why has the Bush administration found so little international support for its
proposed policy, and what would be the consequences if the U.S. tried to act unilaterally
and without any international legal authority?
3. Is the U.S. prepared to accept significant losses of American lives — a strong
possibility in the projected intense ground fighting around Baghdad and other urban
areas?
4. Is the U. S. prepared to inflict heavy losses on Iraq’s civilian population, and
wouldn’t this make the U. S. a moral pariah in the eyes of much of the world?
5. Wouldn’t an invasion of Iraq aimed at the removal of Saddam Hussein remove
any inhibitions he might have regarding the use of chemical and biological (and possibly
nuclear) weapons, making their use more rather than less likely?
6. Are we prepared to cope with the outbreaks of anti-American protest and
violence that, in the event of a U.S. attack on Iraq, are sure to erupt through the Muslim
world, which would jeopardize pro-U.S. regimes in the region and further inflame the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis?
7. Can the fragile American economy withstand a sharp rise in oil price and other
negative economic effects that can be expected from a major war in the Middle East?
8. Even if the U.S. is successful in toppling Saddam Hussein, who will govern Iraq
afterwards?
9. Is the U.S. willing to deploy 100,000 or more American soldiers in Iraq for ten or
twenty years to defend a U.S. imposed government and prevent the break up of the
country into unstable Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite mini-states?
North coast residents not necessarily members of the national elite were asked
their opinion of going to war against Iraq.
CEDAR ST.ONGE
MARYANNE MYERS
PATRICIA LONGNECKER
I think war with Iraq is wrong. I think they should find
another way to resolve it. I think it isn’t right because it is hurting
people who haven’t done anything. That’s wrong.
(She is 9 years old and in the 4th grade.)
I’m making phone calls and writing letters like a
madwoman because I don't want to feel guilty about doing
nothing, even though I feel it’s fairly ineffectual.
But I feel compelled to get up in the middle of the night
and call the White House — the special number where you
register yes or no to war in Iraq. I would say, “rm completely
outraged if not astounded that as a population we would be
willing to cash in the most valuable commodity on the planet so
easily — and that is our power of the people to affect its govern
ment, and I wonder if we are so used to it we have forgotten how
rare and precious it is."
By and large there hasn’t been a single war since World
War 2 that we have been involved in that has accomplished
anything positive.
The older I get the more I understand the world would
be in better balance without people. Maybe this war isn’t a bad
idea We can all go down knowing we have given our lives for
the whole. Perhaps the world can survive without the insatiable
need for fossil fuel. Greed is by and large a human trait, and I’m
sure all remaining life, fauna and flora, will throw a grand wake.
JERRY FORSYTHE
I’m blown away by that Give War A Chance’ sign!
We’ve given war a chance for thousands of years and it hasn’t
worked yet
I don’t think the human condition has progressed past
the point that we are able to end war. It really boils down to
negotiation — negotiations on different levels; between people,
not nations.
A lot of dialogue is opening up and I am impressed
that we are negotiating, but we are not negotiating with Iraq.
The war has already begun. It's a war of words right
now. We haven’t started the killing yet
CECILIA DAHL
I am totally against war in Iraq. I don't need to see any
more people slaughtered on either side.
PAM TILLSON
I’m against war in Iraq
JESS/ DUNKIN
I'm against war in Iraq. In the papers I read it seems
Congress and the UN are against it, and most of the American
people.
I think Bush is trying to prove something, but I don’t
know what.
(Jessi is 17 October 21.)
HEIDI MOORE
After spending a year exerting energy beyond what I
have to protest the bombing of innocent women and children in
Afghanistan, and then Palestine, a third theater (as Rumsfeld
put it) is the last thing I want. War with Iraq is an answer to a
question that Americans do not have the right to ask, given that
the U.S. holds more weapons of mass destruction than every
single country in the world combined. Given also that the Bush
administration refuses to allow weapons inspectors into U.S.
pharmaceutical plants and that Dick Cheney through Haliburton
provided Saddam Hussein with all the equipment to rebuild his
oil fields after the Gulf War. This list can and does go on and
on to demonstrate that an attack on Iraq would be an ethical
contradiction and would work against the reputation of the
American people for centuries.
What I would like to see is George Bush and friends
tried for war crimes they have committed in Afghanistan at the
International Criminal Court
The American people deserve a regime change, just not
in Iraq
ROBERT ADAMS
I don’t think a majority of Americans are any different
from the rest of the world. They don’t believe, given the facts
as Bush has stated them, that a pre-emptive attack is justified.
Deterrence worked with the Soviet Union and presumably it
would work with Iraq.
If there is a war it will be because Bush wants a war
in order to demonstrate imperial power, to continue the empire.
The price for America could be awful — a smallpox
attack for example.
-PETER MARSHALL
RON WHITE
The U.S. should surrender.
I guess my comment about a war in Iraq is that we have
not progressed beyond the 8th century England and Beowulf;
beyond the Age of Vengeance. We have to hope human nature
is such that we can get beyond this. Now is the time to do so.
The U.S. should bomb the demons out of Saddam
Hussein then give him psychotherapy.
End game: We make Iraq our 51st state (Walmart &
McDonalds), elect Tom Green governor and rename the stinking
desert My Own Private lda-ho’ At last! Gas!!!
KERRY HAWLEY
SUE SKINNER
I think a war with Iraq is very immoral. I think the United
States should step back and let the United Nations handle the
situation Bush is overstepping his bounds with his aggression.
Prime Minister Blair in England is doing the same thing. They
are being bullies on the international scene. Saddam Hussein
is a threat to the Arab states but the United Nations should
handle the situation in a peaceful resolution.
What happens if they give a war and nobody comes?
My real fear is if a war with Iraq ignites a nuclear war.
The gloves are off and our government is talking about
provoking a nuclear war. That is the new nuclear posture. That
is worrisome.
TOM DUNCAN
War is an inefficient way of solving problems. There
is no possible advantage to the United States to go to war with
Iraq.
The basic reason to go to war is to gain an advantage.
I don’t see any advantage.
NO WAR
Tired and weary
from words of war
conjured by cowards and schoolyard bullies
Love becomes a profanity
I feel victimized.
We have fitness tests for various occupations but we
don’t had fitness tests for our politicians that I know of. Power
is an aphrodisiac; how do we know they’re not riding their own
personal energy power waves?
The uniformity of expression in delivering the party line,
that’s what I see. It doesn’t matter if the opposition is denigrated
as unpatriotic. I feel a sense of inner obsession from many of
the war talkers.
There is a reasonable way somewhere but we are
looking at unreason. Who in their right mind wants war?
I feel victimized primarily because there is not equal
representation by women and men in human affairs. And so
absolute power has corrupted male nature absolutely.
CYNDYLEE
CAROLYN DUNN
PROFANITIES
Caught in the sway
of mass hysteria
Being terrorized by societies
that profess to know better
Dying and killing for God
instead of living
VALERIE LINDHOUT
COLUMBIA RIVER
MARITIME MUSEUM
1792 MARINI DRIVI, ASTORIA, ORIGON
(503) 325-2323
I am writing to express my distress at the President's
actions in promoting a war against Iraq.
I have written Senators Ron Wyden and Tom Daschle
urging them to withhold support of these war plans.
I would like to urge everyone to write letters to our
senators and anyone else who may be influential, urging them
to do all they can to prevent the war now being planned.
I believe that such a war would inflame the whole
Muslim world and be a disaster to our country as well.
-Carol B. Moore