A case for peace

The overwhelming prospect of war with Iraq looms over the horizon these days like a heavy dark cloud before rainfall. You can almost breathe a sense of fatalistic inevitability in the air. Despite the numerous voices of dissent from within the borders of this country and from abroad, debate on the wisdom of invading Iraq has stalled and seems fruitless. Bush's tax cut was more passionately discussed than this War has been.

However, it is our duty as freethinking students and active citizens to question George W Bush's actions and motivations. Particularly when his policy on Iraq is both wrong on moral grounds and foolish from a pragmatic point of view. The course of action chosen by this administration seriously jeopardizes the long-term credibility and security of the United States.

The US is engaging in exactly the kind of behavior the world hoped it would not engage in after last year's terrorist attacks. It is also the kind of behavior that will hurt the multilateral support the US needs in its war on terrorism. Instead of cautiously fighting the roots of terrorism and building alliances and friendships throughout the world, Bush is alienating a growing number of nations and statesmen by converting his mandate to defend his country into a blank check for military coercion around the globe.

A little over a year ago, nations from every corner of the world expressed their solidarity to the United States and their willingness to cooperate in the fight against terrorism. Only a few months later, those same nations question the US in its frantic drive to go after a country that has no connection to the terrorist attacks of Sept 11.

Even the nations who have traditionally backed US policy unconditionally are now openly criticizing it. Germany recently re-elected Gerd Shroeder largely due to his overt opposition to war in Iraq. George W Bush's gravest sin is to exploit the events of Sept. 11 and play with the sense of security of his countrymen to pursue his own political agenda.

US citizens will pay the price for electing George W Bush in many ways. The prospect of war harms the US by neglecting its domestic affairs to second tier national concerns. The US economy has yet to recover fully from its latest recession and the very structure of US capitalism has been wounded by a long series of corporate scandals. However, the shadow of Bush's new war obscures such relevant issues.

In the short run, the US will lose many lives from a full-scale war, possibly even more than on Sept 11. In the long run, the US might become even more vulnerable to terrorism because the kind of unilateralist and imperialist behavior the United States is engaging in irritates and humiliates people around the world.

Furthermore, if the US does not energetically pursue a nation building effort in post-war Iraq this country will be a breeding ground for more terrorists. Will Bush leave Iraq on its own the same way it has with Afghanistan once his desire for war has been satisfied? Is this the kind of image and publicity that the United States wants to have in the rest of the world? Is this what the United States stand for?

Understanding the way terrorists think is not justifying or validating their actions. Nothing will ever justify what happened in Sept. 11. But US citizens need to know that attacking Iraq unilaterally regardless of the lack of evidence of its involvement in Sept. 11 and on its nuclear or biological arsenal will hurt the credibility of the US and its long-term security.

Rodrigo de Haro is a junior majoring in International Relations and Economics.