Defending the US invasion

Over the past few weeks, I have read with interest a number of Daily viewpoints concerning a potential United States war with Iraq. I count four viewpoints altogether, one in favor of war by Professor Malik Mufti, and three against by Dale Bryan, Sam Abrams, and Tana Abdul-Aziz. Since it is now three to one against a war with Iraq, I would like to offer a defense of a US invasion, and address some of the points brought up in the anti-war articles.

I start with Dale Bryan 's piece, entitled "War means killing people," which is refreshing in its honesty but does not reveal anything about the 'ostensible facts of the politics, history, and culture of the Middle East.

Ignoring this state of affairs, which seems to be a perpetual state for some, the viewpoint lists a number of reasons why the United States should refrain from war with Iraq, beginning with the banal assertion that Iraqi people will die if the United States attacks Iraq. This argument might be of some merit if the viewpoint showed the numbers of people who will be killed in a war, but merely to assert that people will die in war is hardly a convincing argument against war, unless it is against all war, in which case the viewpoint may as well assert that all wars are unjust and leave it at that.

The more useful question to ask, assuming that the only issue was the immediate number of lives lost due to the direct consequences of war, is whether ultimately the number of people who are saved by the United States ' action and a free Iraq outnumber the people who are currently dying as a result of Hussein 's brutal and repressive regime, including the sanctions which he has the power to lift at anytime, and which Mr. Bryan finds abhorrent.

The viewpoint's fatuous claim that "not once in the 20th century did an armed invasion directly lead to the establishment of democracy there" and that violence never leads to healing reveals a lack of knowledge not just about the politics and history of the Middle East, but of the world in general. In World War II, America invaded Germany and established democracy there. True, it was only after Germany invaded most of Europe, but it was an invasion nonetheless. Under the first Bush administration the United States invaded Panama, removed Noriega, and established a democratic government.

That is more than the bumbling international lawyers and bureaucrats at the United Nations (which the viewpoint seems to favor by its reference to "international law and institutional arrangements") have ever managed to do.

The United Nations is a joke; a snapshot of the world at the end of the 1940s, it neither reflects current international reality, nor does it contain the elements necessary to resolve even the most minor of disputes. The general assembly is a collection of mediocre diplomats (at best) arguing about who sits where, drafting resolutions no one reads, taking on issues no one cares about, and make decisions no one takes seriously.

These are, after all, the people who elected Libya to lead the UN 's Commission on Human Rights (other members include China, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.) The security council (which is where the real power lies, if one can say there is real power in the UN), is a paper tiger standing on its last quivering legs; its credibility in shreds. In the end, the security council will probably even approve the invasion, or else have to face the reality that its power to affect the course of world events is somewhere on the level of Andorra 's.

While Bryan 's article offers up two of the trademark pillars used by those opposing Iraq (the moral objection to war and the internationalist approach), Sam Abrams' viewpoint fills in some of the other standard arguments quite nicely, beginning with the comical, yet oft repeated line, that "unfettered weapons inspection[s]" must come first. Such inspections, the argument goes, are needed because war is such a terrible thing and any alternative is better.

But the plain truth of the matter is that inspections are a mere charade. Even when we had them we were reliant on people to tell us exactly where to look; we almost never found anything due to our own information. If inspections are re-instated under current scenarios, Saddam is likely to continue developing weapons of mass destruction with near impunity.

Perhaps this viewpoint is proposing a new type of inspections, not currently conceived. That would be wise, as current inspection plans call for weapons inspectors in the low hundreds. Iraq is 437,072 sq km. In contrast, California is 403,932.8 sq km and Massachusetts is 20,305.6 sq km. In other words, you could subtract the area of California from Iraq and still have an area the size of Massachusetts to be searched by a mere 250 to 300 UN weapons inspectors. To make the case that even Massachusetts could be searched with that many men is a stretch. To say that 250 to 300 people could effectively search an area the size of California and Massachusetts is simply ludicrous.

The other bulwark argument of the anti-war side which the viewpoint brings up, and which seems to be the main point, is that the United States is simply in this for the oil, and will not help Iraq once it is liberated. This is simply not born out by the current reality. As of today, oil is relatively cheap, and the United States has steady supplies and suppliers around the world. Opening up Iraq 's oil reserves, while it has interesting applications in allowing the United States to bring the Saudi 's to heel, will not have a significant impact on this country 's oil position. It is certainly in no way analogous to 1991, where our strategic position on oil was jeopardized.

Ultimately, war with Iraq comes down to some very basic concepts. Iraq is controlled by a brutal dictator with a hatred of the United States. That dictator is working day and night to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Saddam has been responsible for two wars in the Middle East already, and had he possessed nuclear weapons either time, the world would be a very different place today.

The United States has the technology and ability to take on Saddam in a way which will minimize casualties to both sides. We also have the chance to reform Iraq 's society. Before the Ba 'ath party took over, Iraq was on its way to modernity, the most advanced Arab country in the world. The anti-war side seems to think that it is amoral to attack or unrealistic to expect a victory that can enhance the Middle East and the world in general. The costs, they argue, are too high. The costs of inaction are higher.