Letter to M

Ed note: What follows is a response to a letter circulating around the campus of an American educational institution. The author of the letter was tracked down and the following submitted to him privately. He is not a kook, or worse, a member of A.N.S.W.E.R. Instead he raises arguments which are held by many and which I attempted to address one by one. The letter itself has been omitted; the response follows in its entirety.

M:

As someone whose first memories are of Palestinians blowing up airplanes on the tarmac in Jordan in 1970 (in an event known by Palestinians as Black September where tens of thousands were killed as the Palestinians attempted to overthrow the regime of King Hussein), with a degree in PoliSci and one who had a brush with the diplomatic corps, politics for me is like sports is for other men. Hence, I'm always up for a good argument.

President Gerald Ford once said, "one can disagree without being disagreeable." It's a policy that I've always attempted to follow myself since it allows one to learn from one's opponent - to keep an open mind while at the same time evaluating and critiquing one's own beliefs.

That said, let's take a look at your essay.

First, you state "we have learned that the murdering of innocents is never justifiable." While this may surprise you, Christian theologians have been wrestling with this issue for roughly 800 years and the result is the Just War Doctrine. In this doctrine, it is recognized that sometimes war is inevitable and that opponents may attempt to hide among civilians in order to protect themselves. In such instance, Just War allows that civilian casualties are morally acceptable when these conditions are met: 1. The main target of military action is another military target. Notice how for terrorists, the main target of an attack is the civilian population - since military targets are too difficult to attack. Islamists have justified these attacks by equating civilians to valid military targets, as in this quote from a Hamas communique: "...what the Zionist entity and its ally America call "innocent civilians" are called in our Brigades and our Palestinian people's lexicon settlers and usurpers of our lands. They will only receive death and displacement and if they wish to save their lives they have to pack up and leave before they regret it." Link: Hamas Communique

2. Every effort is made to minimize civilian casualties during an attack. For example, if it is possible to kill a soldier without civilians being nearby, then an attack on the same soldier when civilians are at risk cannot be justified. However in the case of Saddam Hussein, as well as Al-Qaida, and even Imperialist Japan, one cannot destroy his regime without killing civilians. There remains the slight chance of internal coup or what has been euphemistically called the "9-mm Election" in which Saddam is assassinated, but Saddam has done his best to minimize these options by purging his military and maintaining an elite and trusted Presidential Guard around him.

Finally, consider this: if we do not attack Saddam and "save" 1000 Iraqi lives in the process, then he develops a nuclear bomb and obliterates Tel Aviv, thereby killing 1,000,000 - in hindsight, wouldn't it have been better if the thousand Iraqis die?

You are in good company: there are many decent Americans who question the war on Iraq including most Senate Democrats. However also keep in mind that the anti-war movement has its nut-cases. In a recent anti-war protest in Central Park, copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were being passed around. This is an infamous forgery which paints the Jews out to be the scourge of history. Knee-jerk patriots are just as bad as anti-semitic lefties.

Your next point is that we lack the support of the international community. By this I assume you mean the United Nations. First, did you know that the majority of nations represented by that body do not have elected governments - and therefore do not reflect the will of their peoples?

When the United States takes military action, the US taxpayer is paying for it. US citizens are put into harm's way - not Chinese, French or Russian. These military actions are ordered by a democratically elected, representative government. Therefore, the actions of the government reflect the will of the American people, and these actions are paid for with the money and blood of the American citizenry.

What is the moral authority of the United Nations when the organization does not represent the will of the peoples represented there? The Saudi regime has no legitimate claim to rule Saudi Arabia. Who voted for them? The Chinese came to power using violence, and most recently have maintained their power by slaughtering 1000 un-armed people in the streets of Beijing the night of June 4, 1989. Prior to that they invaded the peaceful nation of Tibet and killed 150,000 men, women and children. What moral authority do they have? Why should we look to the UN Human Rights Committee for guidance when it is lead by representatives from China, Sudan and Syria? Did you know that the current head of the UNHCR is Libya - not exactly a poster-child from Amnesty International...

The US does not have any right to impose its will on the rest of the world because it can; we do, however, have the right to defend ourselves.

Which brings me to your next point... Imagine that you are on a desert island with a group of people, and the guy that sleeps nearby is much bigger than you. Add to that, he's beaten up people sleeping by him who have crossed him. How do you react to him? You would probably kowtow to him publicly, then privately try to arrange for someone bigger than him to clobber him before he clobbers you.

This, in a nutshell is exactly what Iraq's neighbors have been doing. Publicly, the Saudis, Kuwaitis, Jordanians, etc have all voiced their "concerns" about "unilateral action" against Iraq. Privately, they have told American diplomats to make sure that once we clobber him, make sure that he never stands up. Remember that most of Iraq's neighbors are NOT democracies. This may surprise you, but democracies are actually more powerful than dictatorships when it comes to public opinion. In a democracy, public opinion becomes policy; in a dictatorship, the only way public opinion is expressed is if it agrees with the opinion of the dictatorship. When the two are out-of-synch, the dictatorship realizes that it's sitting on a volcano. Dictatorships must then do what they can to placate public opinion to stay in power, but not to the point where they are overthrown. It makes ruling much more difficult than in a democracy. Therefore it is important for you to realize that what these regimes say publicly in support of Saddam may not agree with private sentiments voiced between governments. This is especially the case with the Saudis.

You should also consider the threat posed to the region by a stable and democratic Iraq. Such a nation would contribute to uprisings in its neighbors because it would serve as a model for democracy in a very undemocratic part of the world. Keep in mind that 50 years ago, east and southeast Asia were some of the most despot-ridden regions of the world - and Japan was the only nation that was democratic. Today democracy is flourishing there, thanks in part to the Japanese model. The leaders of Iraq's neighbors aren't stupid: they can't be and remain long in power. So a democratic Iraq could cause them significant problems down the road, and they know this.

Regarding Israel. Israel did indeed attack the Osirak Nuclear Facility in 1981. It's worth mentioning that the facility was being built with considerable funding from France and Italy. The Israelis were condemned by the UN including the USA. The more you study Iraq, the more you see the complicity of the French. In fact one diplomat recently said that the French will have much soul-searching to do when Saddam is overthrown and the truth about its support of him comes out.

Today Israel would indeed attack Iraq if it felt it Saddam was close to having nuclear weapons. However, airstrikes would not threaten his currently capability because he's become expert at hiding these facilities in places that are impossible to bomb. Remember that he's had several wars and skirmishes since 1981 and become adept at securing his "toys". Israel does not have a large ground-force available to attack such facilities, nor could it move such a force through the "hostile" territory of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Arab States - but the USA does have such a force and the bases to support it.

You are indeed correct about Osama Bin-Laden (OBL) and Saddam - both have entirely different agendas. However you forget that the Middle East is the place where "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" adage originates. I can think of countless examples where opposing ideologies worked together to defeat a common foe: Hamas was initially supported by Israel as a counter-balance to the PLO. Israel was initially supported by the French as a counter-balance to the Anglo-American alliance in the Middle East. Israel supported Islamic Iran with arms to resupply and maintain American-made weapons used in Iran's fight with Iraq. In short the Middle East is like "Survivor" with heavy weaponry and without Jeff Probst. It is a mess, has always been a mess, and most likely will be a mess for generations to come. While the Bush administration is trying to discover ties between OBL and Saddam, so far they are tenuous. But Saddam doesn't have to don a white kaffiye and marry a 12 year old in order to threaten the USA.

There are plenty of reasons for those in the Middle East to hate us. Many of these are entirely fictional (most of the so-called Arab Street gets its information from imams at the mosque - not exactly the most unbiased of news sources. Even al-Jazeera lost its relationship to CNN when CNN discovered that it refused to show video of a Palestinian funeral in which the "corpse" fell off his bier, jumped back into the casket, and laid down). Bombing Iraq isn't going to make things worse; things are as bad as they can be all ready.

As far as the weapons, it doesn't matter. There are more arms dealers in the Middle East than doctors, so yes, the weapons will end up on the street; if they don't, the terrorist-minded will simply buy others. In the end we aren't going to win this through arms control; we'll win it by a combination of carrots and sticks: the carrot of a brighter future for the Iraqis and the stick of bombing the beejeesuz out of anyone that dares attack our cities.

As for Vietnam. Vietnam Vietnam Vietnam... Every possible conflict in the past 27 years conjures up that ghost. Before you talk about Vietnam as a mistake, you should be aware of what the mistakes were that lead to "Vietnam". The first mistake was allowing the French to buck the trend of de-colonization by attempting to keep Indochina as a colony. Ho Chi Minh was a communist, but was not anti-American until we started supporting the French. We supported them because we were allied with them (at the time) in NATO, they were a democracy, and they were annoying as all hell. The second mistake was an ideological one: the belief in the Domino Theory - that if one state became communist, neighboring states would. This turned out to be a very simplistic view of international politics. The third mistake was electing Nixon in 1968. Nixon prolonged the war, passing up a chance to settle it on relatively favorable terms in 1969. The final mistake was a group of leaders lead by General Westmoreland and Henry Kissinger who thought Truth was a relative commodity.

If you think Vietnam was a mistake, spit at your TV whenever Henry makes an appearance. Satan has a special place in Hell reserved for him.

Finally, the mistake at this time is to think that the people and policymakers think as rationally as you do. They don't. People are NOT the same everywhere, and there are people in this world who hate you not because they are uneducated: they hate you for what you are: an infidel. You are not a real person to the Islamic fundamentalists who want to destroy you. In their eyes only those who believe like them are really people. It makes it a lot easier to kill innnocent men, women and children to have such a view. Even though you oppose the war, you have much more in common with President Bush and Sec of State Colin Powell than you do with Osama Bin Laden or any Wahabi cleric.

I hate being hated too, but there's nothing that we can do to stop that hate but protect ourselves by moving those who hate us into graves. It's brutal, but history is not written in crayon - it's written in blood - and better that blood be from our enemies than from our sons and daughters.

Regards

Niccolo Machiavelli