Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

A war for Christmas

As we browse through catalogues and shop for gifts for friends and family for Christmas, Hans Blix and his team of UN Weapons Inspectors are browsing through factories, bunkers and palaces, shopping for Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruct

As we browse through catalogues and shop for gifts for friends and family for Christmas, Hans Blix and his team of UN Weapons Inspectors are browsing through factories, bunkers and palaces, shopping for Saddam’s supposed weapons of mass destruction.

I find myself losing sleep over this whole Iraq thing, searching the newsstands and the Internet for alternative new stories, and periodically writing angry letters to those angry right-wing warhawk columnists from the National Post. I’m distressed that I can’t trust the mainstream media to provide an alternate voice, or to find the truth in all the rhetoric. I’m learning you can’t trust the big media conglomerates because they’re corporate and corporations are in favour of this war – cheaper oil, media, because it’s corporate, and corporations are in favour of this war – a conquered Iraq means cheaper oil, a boost for the economy, and a surge of advertising revenue as the public tunes in for the latest war stories, as reported by a general with political aspirations, and reporters who aren’t allowed anywhere near where the action is taking place.

Whatever the weapons inspectors find or the Iraqi’s admit, I don’t believe anything will turn the war machine around.

The U.S. is already actively discrediting the inspectors, inspections and Iraqi co-operation, and admit they have Saddam in a Catch-22 situation. If the Iraqi’s admit to illegal weapons programs, then they are acting in contravention of a UN resolution and the U.S. will attack. If Iraq does not admit to a weapons program, then the U.S. will claim they’re lying – based on intelligence documents that we’ll never be allowed to see or have verified – and attack.

It’s a frustrating situation.

It’s not that I don’t believe Saddam Hussein is evil, or that the world is better off without him. I just don’t believe that the forces that are assembling to remove him have the purest intentions either – George W. Bush is no humanitarian, he’s an oil man, like most of the warhawks in his inner circle.

Is Hussein linked to the terrorist group al Qaeda? Nobody has been able to prove that connection, and although the CIA has said there is no apparent connection, they have since changed their tune to a more moderate "maybe" under a director who is a political appointee. The only proof we have is the hearsay of Iraqi dissidents who would say anything to get Hussein out of power, and themselves set up in his place.

Yes, Iraq and al Qaeda are Middle Eastern and Muslim, but the similarities stop there. They are so completely and fundamentally at odds with one another socially, religiously and politically that its unlikely they would see eye to eye over anything.

Is it about weapons of mass destruction? UN investigators were in Iraq from the end of the Gulf War until they withdrew in 1998, just before Clinton unleashed the biggest bombing campaigning since the war ended. They found and destroyed most of Saddam’s arsenal, according to inspectors.

Besides, there’s a difference between having the weapons and using them offensively – Iraq knows they would be destroyed if they attempted to use them. Saddam may be a lot of things, but he isn’t suicidal. In fact, most of the atrocities attributed to him stem from his desperation to survive.

Is it about the violation of UN imposed laws?

No, because Israel, North Korea, and countless other nations – including the U.S. – are guilty of this in one way or another.

Is it about Saddam’s human rights abuses? The U.S. and Britain are quick to point out that Hussein used chemical weapons against Iran and his own people. They neglect to mention that they supplied Iraq with these weapons in secret during the Iran-Iraq war, or that the U.S. and the world ignored the use of gas on his own people when it happened.

So what is it all about?

It’s about a trillion dollar oil industry and the second-largest reserves in the world, next to Saudi Arabia. It’s about flexing Western muscle in an area that has gotten out of their control. It has diverted America’s attention from fairly serious corporate and political scandals, and put an end to the Democrats, at least for now. It’s about revenge, political hegemony on the world stage, military supremacy, and the emergence of a new world order where even the UN is made to kowtow to Western imperialism and politics.

Where’s the proof of this?

Take North Korea, for example. Under leader Kim Jung-il, over a million people were allowed to starve to death, and more have been tortured and executed. North Korea has been in numerous conflicts with South Korea and Japan, recently releasing kidnapped Japanese citizens who have been forced to teach language and customs to train North Korean spies. Furthermore, they have admitted to having at least one nuclear bomb, and countless other so-called weapons of mass destruction.

So why aren’t 500,000 American troops camped out in their part of the world right now? Is it because North Korea doesn’t have any oil?

If you’re going to make a point of policing the world, you should at least police it equally.

Suddenly all I want for Christmas this year is world peace. I want the public to start questioning authority on this whole Iraq situation and to start reading alternative publications to get the stories the mainstream media has ignored. Most of all, I want our world leaders to stop lying to us.

Everything I’ve said in this column came from the alternative and even the mainstream media, which still has a few independent voices. All of it can be substantiated. Still, you should always consider the source.

www.michaelmoore.com – Michael Moore, the writer of Stupid White Men, and creator of Bowling for Columbine, has been following this issue closely. Check out the links in his Must Read column. Also, you should check out the Bowling for Columbine Web site ( www.bowlingforcolumbine.com ) to read links to "Operation Oily Residue."

www.thenation.com – For 137 years, The Nation has been providing an alternative voice in the U.S. media. There’s no profit motive here, as the paper has run at a loss for every one of those years.

www.alternet.org – AlterNet.org was created by the Independent Media Institute, and is a collection of alternative voices. It’s also a catch-all for many alternative publications, reprinting stories that appeared elsewhere.

www.commondreams.org – Incredible alternetive journalists like Antonia Zerbisias of the Toronto Star and Arianna Huffington, contribute to Common Dreams. So do famous folks like Green Party leader Ralph Nader and actor/director Robert Redford. Literate, and thought-provoking, you’ll visit this site again and again.

Another good publication to check out is The Yellow Times (www.yellowtimes.org) which takes the mainstream media to task for missing or misreporting stories – for being too yellow to dig deeper for the truth and challenge the status quo.

www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/11/18/index.html?x – This cartoon in Salon.com, an enlightened online magazine that’s worth reading too, sums up my frustrations with the rhetoric on Iraq quite nicely.

www.washingtonpost.com – Although this newspaper is as mainstream as they come, it is swimming upstream in that columnists and articles are generally more balanced, and skeptical, than you’ll find in most other publications.

Peace on earth, and goodwill to all men.