It's not a Holy War agains Islam -- it's a Capitalism War against
OPEC!!!

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On (13 Feb 03) Michael Gothreau wrote to All...

 MG>  + CrossPosted in: POLITICS
 MG>  + CrossPosted in: CANACHAT
 MG>  + CrossPosted in: CANPOL
 MG>  + CrossPosted in: DEBATE
 MG>  + CrossPosted in: GODLIKE
 MG>  + CrossPosted in: POL_INC
 MG> Hello All,
 MG>
 MG> Message from the Editors of FREE INQUIRY
 MG>
 MG>
 MG>
 MG>   The Immorality of the War Against Iraq
 MG>
 MG> FREE INQUIRY magazine does not endorse political candidates nor
 MG> political parties. We recognize the wide diversity of political
 MG> viewpoints among secular humanists. We do, however, take positions
 MG> concerning two vital issues: first, we support humanist ethical
 MG> principles on grounds independent of religion; and second, we defend
 MG> the separation of church and state.
 MG>
 MG> By both these standards, we face an urgent crisis in the United States
 MG> today, for the Religious Right has virtually captured the Bush
 MG> administration. Increasingly, its moral ideology is that of
 MG> Evangelical Christianity. This is seen directly by its impact on
 MG> foreign policy, with strong overtone of self-righteous moral
 MG> indignation U.S. foreign policy is guided by the sense that we face a
 MG> battle between "good and evil." This can be read in the speeches of
 MG> Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, and others. In its extreme form, the
 MG> War on Terrorism smacks of a Holy Religious War against Islam.
 MG>
 MG> As we go to press, the War on Terrorism has morphed into an impending
 MG> war against Iraq. (War may have erupted by the time you read these
 MG> words.) President Bush has repeatedly condemned Saddam Hussein as evil
 MG> (surely he is no angel, but that is true of many world leaders). Bush
 MG> has further demanded the disarming of Iraq and the replacement of its
 MG> government with a puppet regime. We object to this war on moral
 MG> grounds.
 MG>
 MG> What especially bothers us is the crescendo of wardrum-beats
 MG> advocating, however incoherently, a preemptive first strike. This
 MG> marks a radical reversal in American foreign policy. Never before has
 MG> the U.S. struck first in the absence of an immediate threat. One might
 MG> conceivably justify preemptive war, but only when there is imminent
 MG> danger of attack by a threatening adversary. Iraq currently does not
 MG> fit into this category. Defeated in the Gulf War of 1991, its
 MG> population impoverished, its economy in shambles, constantly bombarded
 MG> by American and British aircraft, Iraq hardly poses a threat to the
 MG> safety of the United States.
 MG>
 MG> If the United States reserves the right to engage in preemptive
 MG> warfare (even nuclear), what are we to say about the confrontation
 MG> between India and Pakistan_would they or anyone else be justified in
 MG> resorting to the same pretext? We believe in a world in which there
 MG> are certain norms of established international conduct and in which
 MG> one power (in this case a hyperpower such as the United States) does
 MG> not arrogate to itself the right to dictate acceptable behavior across
 MG> the globe.
 MG>
 MG> We thoroughly approve of the administration's earlier decision (under
 MG> the influence at that time of Colin Powell, who has since become more
 MG> hawkish) that UN inspectors return to Iraq and that retaliatory
 MG> measures be taken only if explicitly authorized by the UN Security
 MG> Council. We do not see the need for war, for we believe that the best
 MG> method of resolving international conflicts is by the negotiation of
 MG> differences. We thus agree with efforts to disarm Iraq peacefully.
 MG>
 MG> Obviously, current U.S. policies threaten to undermine the entire
 MG> fabric of collective security so carefully developed by the world
 MG> community after the Second World War. As a result of our policies,
 MG> will the United Nations be rendered impotent like the League of
 MG> Nations, unable to resolve international conflicts? If so, this could
 MG> have tragic implications for the future of humankind.
 MG>
 MG> Indeed, the Bush administration's recent policy choices, such as its
 MG> refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty or to accept the jurisdiction of the
 MG> World Court, illustrates an increasingly unilateral chauvinistic
 MG> character.
 MG>
 MG> Mr. Bush expresses his reasons for war in high-flown rhetoric about
 MG> defending ourselves from the weapons of mass destruction of Saddam
 MG> Hussein. Interestingly, his speeches are drafted by Evangelical
 MG> speechwriters (such as Michael Gerson), and they express a dismaying
 MG> level of religious imagery. They convert the Presidency into a bully
 MG> pulpit for God, which simultaneously masks underlying imperialist
 MG> economic ambitions while it suggests divine sanction for American
 MG> policy. We wonder whether the real motive in all this is oil, for Iraq
 MG> has the second-largest oil reserves in the world; and we suspect that
 MG> the underlying goal of the United States and Britain is to replace the
 MG> Iraqi oil contracts bestowed upon France and Russia with new ones
 MG> benefiting themselves.
 MG>
 MG> There is one measure the president has recommended which we thoroughly
 MG> support: the decision to provide economic assistance to African and
 MG> Caribbean countries suffering high rates of AIDS. Some 15 million
 MG> Africans have already died from the disease, and there are an
 MG> estimated three million new cases a year. There is a desperate need
 MG> for medicines; and the president is to be applauded for proposing
 MG> financial assistance to purchase them.
 MG>
 MG> Will his administration also undertake the preventive measures that
 MG> Africans so desperately need, namely, contraceptive education and the
 MG> free distribution of condoms to the millions who cannot afford them?
 MG> Or will the administration's dominant theological-moral position cause
 MG> such assistance to be choked off, as it was in the past, in the name
 MG> of a "higher" religious morality, which instead urges
abstinence and
 MG> offers no promise of reducing AIDS transmission? The first measure
 MG> that the administration adopted upon Bush's inauguration was to cut
 MG> off all contraceptive aid for the developing world, fearing that it
 MG> might lead to abortion. In this area as in others the foreign policy
 MG> of the United States suffers from its being dominated by a
 MG> theologically driven conception of morality, and this has had dire
 MG> consequences for the entire world.
 MG>
 MG> Parenthetically, we wish to express our approval of the uprisings
 MG> among students and other dissidents in Iran, and especially to commend
 MG> the views of Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed Shah, who
 MG> courageously demands democracy, human rights, and a secular state in a
 MG> future Iran. Iran has suffered a religious Inquisition at the hands of
 MG> the Ayatollahs; and it is encouraging that there are today genuine
 MG> calls for secular democracy. Were that to take root in Iran, what an
 MG> enormous difference it could make in the Middle East.
 MG>
 MG> Paul Kurtz, Editor-in-Chief
 MG> Tom Flynn, Editor
 MG> Norm Allen, Deputy Editor
 MG> Tim Madigan, Chair, Editorial Board
 MG>
 MG>
 MG>
 MG> " the Religious Right has virtually captured the Bush
administration"
 MG>
 MG> "We object to this war on moral grounds"
 MG>
 MG> "a preemptive first strike" "marks a radical
reversal in American
 MG> foreign policy"
 MG>
 MG> ====
 MG>
 MG>
 MG>
 MG> --- DevilPoint  6.66
 MG> 31
 MG> 342/5


--- PPoint 1.76