No new Gulf War!
By Allen Myers
US President Bill Clinton, reported Prime Minister John Howard, was "very grateful" for the Australian government's backing as the US prepares an attack on Iraq. US presidents were similarly grateful the last time an Australian government sent ground troops into battle overseas — during the Vietnam War.
The new Gulf War being prepared is not likely to last as long as the Vietnam War, but it is no more worthy of support. Like the Vietnam War, it is a colonial war, an attempt to shore up US imperial domination of the Middle East.
This, of course, did not stop "opposition" leader Kim Beazley from immediately endorsing Howard's commitment of troops; the Labor Party is just as loyal to the imperialist order as the Liberals are. But elsewhere there was immediate opposition to the government's decision.
"Australia should not, in any circumstances, agree to support a military strike against Iraq", WA Greens Senator Dee Margetts said on February 9, the day before the cabinet decision. "This is not a decision by the United Nations. This is a blatant attempt to protect US and British commercial interests."
"The US threat is a naked aggression that does not deserve any international support. It is being backed by a gang of the world's wealthiest and most powerful governments, including those of Britain and Germany and now Australia," said Democratic Socialist national spokesperson Peter Boyle.
"The excuse that the Iraqi government may be hiding some weapons of mass destruction is utterly hypocritical coming from the US government, which owns the world's biggest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
"Weapons of mass destruction are also held by some of the closest allies of the US in the region, including the governments of Israel and Pakistan."
Bishop Kevin Manning, chair of the Australian Catholic Social Justice Council, said Australia should stay out of the new war. "Respect for life demands that Australia refuse to support a military attack on Iraq. Once again we must say no to war. It is not too late ... negotiation has not yet been exhausted."
The Anglican archbishop of Adelaide, Ian George, called the government's decision "premature", saying there was still time for negotiation.
The general secretary of the Australian Arab Association, Dr Anice Morsy, said "We should stay out of it. America wants to control the oil, but what is our interest?"
"Everyone is in favour of a more democratic government in Iraq", said Aladdin Chawshin, president of the Iraqi-Australian Cultural Association. "The concern is for the people: they are the ones who will suffer."
Yasser Nasser, the president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, had written to Howard, urging him not to join the US attack on Iraq.
Dr Susan Wateham, national president of the Medical Association for Prevention of War (Australia), called participation in the US attack "both hypocritical and dangerous".
"In 1920 the British used mustard gas against the Kurds", Wateham pointed out. "The US used nuclear weapons twice in World War II, and still insists on the right to use these weapons again. In addition, the US produced anthrax bombs during World War II. And yet we do not see any UN inspection teams in the UK, the US, Israel or any other nuclear weapon state."
Wateham also condemned the hypocrisy of using Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with UN resolutions as justification for war. "Israel has defied UN resolutions which call on it to withdraw from the occupied territories, and yet it continues to receive not threats but military aid from the US ... Would the US accept another nation enforcing military action against Israel for its defiance of the UN?"
In the United States as well, opposition is growing. A statement issued by the War Resisters League, the 50,000-strong Peace Action, Pax Christi, the American Friends Service Committee, the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Boston-based Center for Campus Organizing opposed military action and demanded "an end to the six-year-old sanctions that have killed hundreds of thousands" in Iraq.
The groups said they "are united by their belief that bombing will make the situation worse; that the sanctions are ravaging the Iraqi people without diminishing Saddam Hussein's power; and that no nation should possess weapons of mass destruction".
Mass demonstrations are scheduled on February 17 in New York, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles, sponsored by the National Emergency Coalition to Stop the War Against Iraq.
The complete hypocrisy and inhumanity of the US (and Australian government) position has been widely commented on and condemned. In a letter to the Guardian Weekly, left-wing British Labour MP Tony Benn wrote:
"One of the factors which has altered world opinion has been the horrific human toll arising from the sanctions, which have cost the lives of at least half a million Iraqi children; another million are believed to be starving, according to UN estimates ...
"We would do well to look back on the history of the West's relations with Iraq. Few people are aware that Britain actually used chemical weapons against Iraq in the 1920s, and, as recently as 10 years ago, the United States was supplying anthrax to that country."
At the time Benn refers to, the United States was supporting Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran. He changed from an ally to an "Iraqi Hitler" not because of anything he had done but because of changes in the US government's perceptions of its own interests.
Two circumstances in particular have demonstrated that the issue of inspections is merely a pretext seized on by the US in order to justify its aggression.
One is that the Iraqi government has offered the United Nations Security Council complete access to the disputed sites. The offer has simply been dismissed by the US government.
The second was revealed in a dispatch to the British Guardian by Ed Vulliamy (reprinted in the Sydney Morning Herald on February 13). Vulliamy reported from Washington that the US government is in the process of adopting legislation which will allow it to prevent inspection of its own compliance with the international convention against chemical weapons.
"The legislation allows the president to pick and choose inspectors and to deny access to personnel from other countries without giving reasons, with no legal redress against the decision", Vulliamy reported.
Even though the legislation has not yet been formally adopted, the US has already rejected inspectors from Cuba and Iran.
Amy Smithson, who has been campaigning for US ratification of the convention, commented, "We are in violation of the treaty, and it so ironic that we are about to engage in hostilities against Iraq over the matter of weapons inspections, because Saddam Hussein has registered the same exceptions as we have done".
It is hardly surprising that the US has had considerable difficulty in drumming up even token support, even from usually reliable allies and clients. In the Arab world in particular, only the governments of Kuwait and Bahrain have so far dared to endorse US action.
Clinton's "gratitude<>70> to Howard is proportional to the international isolation the US is feeling. This makes the Australian government decision all the more criminal, in that it may well encourage Clinton to ignore the international opposition and proceed with the planned slaughter.<>><>41559MS>n<>255D>