Noblesse oblige
I think most people will allow that our opposition to a possible war in Iraq is invariably tinged with a grain of discomfort, gives rise to conflicting beliefs. How then do we reconcile our abhorrence for a dictatorship and the conviction that war is not the answer?
(Warning: challenge to attention span ahead.)
First, we dismantle the justifications being fed us. We know that military action in Iraq is driven primarily by corporate imperatives, a desire to gain a foothold in the Middle East and no doubt limit the power of the Euro, and is not a move to prevent some future attack of our homelands. UN and national reports on Iraq’s military capabilities attest to their limited weight, and all have been forced to admit that there are no ties to the bogeyman, Al Queda.
So I swear if I hear one more person using the attacks of September 11th to justify this war, I will scream.
If every country that’s been the victim of a terrorist attack during the past 20 years used it as an excuse for blind retaliation, most every nation on this side of the Atlantic would now be at war. We are no more or less safe than we were decades ago, and the need for vigilance is simply a reality.
When we lived in Paris, there were months on end when all of the public litter bins were sealed to prevent someone placing a bomb in them; we could not enter our children’s schools, all field trips were cancelled and soldiers patrolled the subway platforms. I was searched every time I went into a government building to give a class. Despite which, fear and paranoia did not reign – people went about their business, only slightly inconvenienced by preventative measures.
The search for global domination is no longer a priority, or even an option, for most former imperial powers – with the glaring exception of the UK (what is it with you guys and war?), most have learned their lesson, at least economically.
For anyone who still believes that intervention has some humanitarian grounds, let us recall that the current lack of food and water, electricity, sewage treatment, etc. is fully the result of economic sanctions imposed since 1990, and maintained primarily by the US and the UK.
Prior to the sanctions, Iraq had in fact built a solid welfare state, the government had invested massively in key infrastructures, schools, etc. The World Health Organization reported that 93 percent of the population had access to health care, there was a strong middle class and many came from abroad to find work there. The UN and US intelligence have both recognized that the sanctions are the cause of impending famine and epidemic:
According to Pentagon officials, that was the intention.
“Well, what were we trying to do with sanctions – help the Iraqi people out? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions.”
– Joy Gordon, Harper’s, November 2002
The situation is of our doing and can be rectified if enough pressure is brought to bear, and the citizens’ current suffering can clearly not be held up as a justification for military action.
Anyone who still believes in the legitimacy or legality of the economic sanctions and the Oil for Food programme should perhaps consider, among other things, that:
For 10 years, a third of Iraq’s export income has been collected to compensate companies and individuals claiming for losses during the invasion and occupation of Kuwait, and the Gulf war: the collection and awards are made discreetly by a UN organisation with a dubious legal basis, the UN Compensation Commission (UNCC), dominated by the US, which still believes that Iraq must pay endless reparations for Saddam Hussein’s ambitions a decade ago.
– Alain Gresh, Le Monde Diplomatique
And wonder over the hypocrisy of the United States’ recent doubling of imports from Iraq and the diversion of oil heading for Europe and Asia to solve their own fuel crisis.
The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN’s oil for food programme.
– The Observer, 26/1/03
So much for humanitarian motives.
We would be unforgivably naïve to think that any war is waged without propaganda but, just for fun, let’s recall some of the fabrications that were used to sway the public last time around:
On October 10, 1990, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill at which H&K, in coordination with California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, introduced a 15 year-old Kuwaiti girl named Nayirah. … Weeping and shaking, the girl described a horrifying scene in Kuwait City. “I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” she testified. “While I was there I saw the Iraqi soldiers coming into the hospital with guns and going into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.” Allegedly, 312 infants were removed. …
Before Congress gave the green light to go to war, seven of the main pro-war senators brought up the baby-incubator allegations as a major component of their argument for passing the resolution to unleash the bombers. …
Only later was it discovered that the testimony was untrue. Nayirah was not only a member of the Kuwaiti royal family, but also that her father, Saud Nasir al-Sabah, was Kuwait’s ambassador to the US. … they could not find that Nayirah had any connection to the hospital. Amnesty International, among those originally duped, eventually issued an embarrassing retraction.
To all this we can add calculations of the damage, and those who are already lined up with contracts for Iraq’s reconstruction and future rule.
Our opposition seems well-substantiated, so how is it that we still feel a certain unease?
Well, first, because Saddam is a megalomaniac, somewhat reminiscent of Stalin, and is doing more harm than good to his people. Coming from a country ruled by Jacques Chirac, I am in no position to comment on the megalomania and, while I in no way support the man, I have to say that if I were being bullied the way he is, I would probably be tempted to stick out my tongue as well. Plus, I think it’s very funny that he writes awful novels and has a store of look-alikes to do his public appearances (as did Churchill, but he was drunk).
War was good business back in the 40s, but is it still? May I remind you that others are now producing goods better and cheaper than us? And they have us by the goolies if they so desire.
And… it still seems awfully fishy to me that they didn’t manage to get Saddam the last time around.
We also feel uneasy about the lives of the women, the little girls, their social status, submission to clitorectomies, the veil… We believe they should have the right to live differently, in other words, like we do. They should be allowed to embrace our enlightened set of beliefs and demand due respect.
Not only is this not a justification for war, if so, etc… more crucially, what gives us the right to believe this? Does the mere fact of controlling so much wealth and nifty gadgets endow us with a natural sense of entitlement? Noblesse oblige. Do we have some irrefutable proof that our modus operandi is superior in any way?
I don’t claim to support the Muslim view of women’s position in society, but nor do I have the right to say it’s wrong. By whose standards is it wrong?
Islam is often cited as the cause for enmity, its teachings held up as backward and misguided. Well, let’s just say once more for good luck that equating Islam and terrorism is like equating Communism and Stalinism, Christianity and the Spanish Inquisition… Islam is as full of human glory and human foible as any religion on the planet.
Even the world’s most outstanding religious wars, in Ireland and the Middle East for instance, are not remotely religious any more.
(Oh, and, speaking of Stalinism: is it not eerie how the popular slogan: “No Muslims, no terrorism” echoes Stalin’s pet phrase for justifying murder during the purges: “No man, no problem.”)
Does George Bush honestly not see the humour in asking that his fellow Americans and allies place their ‘confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history’? Aside from the sheer gall of the conviction that (a loving) God is helping to load the missiles, it is an insult to those who do believe quietly and earnestly in God, i.e. compassion, worse, it excludes the huge portion of the American population that is not Christian.
(I would be appalled but relieved to know that he had to bite his tongue to get that one out.)
So we are left with the problem of the horrific treatment of the Shi’ites and the Kurds. Is this a reason to go to war? No. If it were, we must also attack China, North Korea, Germany, France, England…
All of these countries have greater military capabilities than Iraq, but it is not in our corporate interest to invade, and we allow them to work things out for themselves, to “evolve” at their own pace. It is our duty as human beings to care, but it is not the right of any State to intervene militarily and impose self-righteous, and unsubstantiated, convictions in the name of…
This is what, ideally, the UN is for and this, and only this, is what needs to be rectified: repatriation and assistance in rebuilding their lives. That is, if we really care. And let’s just hope that we learned some lessons in (the formerly known as) Yugoslavia on how not to go about it.
I realize that it is increasingly difficult to put our faith in institutions like the UN, and we’re bruised and reduced by the knowledge that petitions and protests fall on deaf ears. What, honestly, can we do if the government has made up its mind? If the answer is: nothing, this to me is far more frightening than a wobbly old dictator in the desert.
Oh, perhaps some lovely caring billionaire could charter hundreds of planes, and fly people from around the world to the border of Iraq to form a human chain of opposition. If it happens, I’ll provide the cookies and blankets.
Why do we go into Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. and throw our weight around (and airdrop Pop-Tarts)?
Because we can. Despite what history can teach us, there will always be a nation that is convinced of its superiority and divine mandate to rule the world. We’re so predictable.
Living in the South of France, I am aware that if, as it has been allowed, nuclear weapons are used during the invasion, it is we, and not those shifting chess pieces across the sea, who will suffer the physical consequences.
The fact that the US government allows the possible use of nuclear weapons would seem to confirm that they are aware that Iraq is incapable of retaliation in kind. Either way, it’s insane. And terrifying.
The worst thing about all this is that I have no answers, and still rage against my helplessness (some people never learn). The kicker and lure about trying to understand is that there is no end to the search. Our opposition responds to very basic ethical tenets, and I admit that it hurts to know that this is a cause for derision.
Anyone who is in the habit of trying to look at things from all angles has no doubt had the experience of seeing a long-held belief evaporate or, at the very least, reveal itself to be much more nuanced than originally thought.
I hold only the silly wish that all those who are yelling out their asses would shut up for a day, a week, do some reading, visit a museum, spend a day with some wise kids, start thinking outside the pack, and begin again with the weary Christian premise: Do unto others…
As Albert Camus once said: ‘The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind.’
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Comment
- Very nice.
I have declined commenting on this issue in my own blog, simply because I don’t think I’m as yet capable of expressing the nuances of my (our) ambivalence as coherently as you have done here. Or coherently at all, for that matter.
The only thing to do is to go back in time and start again. Ultimately we’ve driven ourselves to a point where there is no turning back without losing face, and while I am fine with losing face, I know that it’s something our governments cannot countenance, and will not endure.
— August C. Bourré Feb 2, 3:46pm # - Thank you, Gail.
— Justin Feb 2, 4:11pm # - I couldn’t agree with you more. I was (literally) about to write a similar piece myself.
I doubt I would have put it so eloquently, or written it so beautifully, so I’ve linked to you instead.
Goodonya!
— David Fromant Feb 2, 6:02pm # - Could You please explain to me which minority receives “horrific treatment” in todays Germany according to Your comparison? Thank You.
— Theleb K'aarna Feb 2, 9:33pm # - Some of the unease that hovers around our antiwar position may stem from our not wanting Saddam to get the chance to develop nuclear weapons. In your excellent piece you address the horror of the US nuclear threat, but not Iraq’s perfectly understandable, but nonetheless disquieting, desire to acquire the Bomb.
— Eric Feb 2, 10:25pm # - I have nothing to add to the talk of war (and given the Bushes’ addiction to secrecy, it’s possible that no historian ever will). You’ve expressed what’s knowable at present better than I would. And so the nearest thing to a rip I can offer you is a scholarly query: What other national leaders in a single major speech have combined a statement of “confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history” with a puerile boast about the number of people he’s had assassinated without evidence? I feel certain there must be another, but it’s not coming to mind.
— Ray Feb 3, 12:26am # - Theleb,
The ‘horrific’ was meant to apply to Saddam H, clumsy syntax, but I think we can agree that the treatment of ethnic and religious minorities in a great many European countries is not quite up to snuff.
And, Ray, if we started naming all the despots who claimed to be on some divine mission, well, golly, we’d be up all night.
— gail Feb 3, 10:47am # - Very Nice. Unfortunately, you are preaching to the choir. Little George, backed by his Corporate Big Brothers, will have his way in spite of the will of most Americans, just as he did in the election.
The opposition to war in this country is trivialized in the U.S. mass media as the activity of young wannabes, tired sixties radicals, or Hollywood opportunists. Meanwhile, the cameras are riveted on our President as he spouts lame gibberish justifying the war. He will have it, and there is seemingly nothing that can be done to stop him.
— Beerzie Boy Feb 3, 12:22pm # - Beerzie Boy…what stopped Carter? Oppression is not only active oppression…we are passive oppressors if we just stand and watch.
— bluecheese Feb 3, 2:58pm # - You have done an amazing job of expressing what I have been unable to put in words on my blog—something that has also kept me silent and feeling isolated for some time now. I have been aware of a sense of helplessness in the people around me when it comes to untangling the complex strands of these issues, and this frightens me a great deal.
Thank you for your anlysis and for reminding us that we need to keep speaking out and calling it as we see it!
— maria Feb 3, 4:34pm # - Damn those rejection-letter-touting magazine editors.
— Simon R. Hughes Feb 3, 6:50pm # - Blue Cheese, I have expressed myself ineptly. I did not mean to imply that we should not speak out against what I believe is a wrongheaded and immoral war, only that these words are being ignored by the people who have the power to heed them.
Of course we must keep speaking out; but we must also be honest with ourseleves and relize that we may just be braying at the moon.
— Beerzie Boy Feb 4, 11:46am # - Um, while I couldn’t agree more with your general argument, “the lives of the women, the little girls, their social status, submission to clitorectomies, the veil” is a complete red herring. You’re thinking of some composite of Egypt, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc. Iraq has for a long time been in the forefront of the Arab world in terms of women’s liberation. Don’t forget that the Ba’ath is a secular party; it’s true that the secularism has been under wraps lately as Saddam tries desperately to position himself as an Islamic Leader for maximum support from other Arabs, but let’s not get carried away. Saddam is evil enough without turning him into an Afghan warlord.
— language hat Feb 4, 12:22pm # - I would note only that God is not in other words the same as compassion. Being much more, to try and limit Him as such is naive. God is indeed merciful, but His justice is just as profound.
— Jason Wall Feb 4, 10:50pm # - do we really need many arguments to oppose this war?
I think it should be the other way around.
— egoexmachina Feb 5, 9:21am # - You mentioned raging against your helplessness… Imagine those of us here in the US raging out in peace rallies and then listening to the Shrub exhort his fellow citizens to follow his lead. My frustration increases as it seems no one with the ability/power to reverse this trend toward invading Iraq is listening to us saying, “STOP IT. WE DON‘T WANT THIS...”
There are those of us here that know the US is a nation internationally despised, but as its citizens, we’re trying to guide our elected leaders toward a better path in the world.
Many of us (I speak for the group of friends and colleagues I gather with) would rather the US be known for and be a champion of the easing of human suffering rather than the cause of it.
— roggey Feb 5, 11:41am # - I don’t think anyone with a whiff of wisdom believes that there is widespread support for the war in the US. I think rather that Iraq has become emblematic (after Central America, the Philippines, Iran etc. to use only American examples; I could tell you tales of what France is still doing in Africa that would) of the demise of democracy, and serves as a smack to the face for all of us in the Western World who want to believe they have a voice in the governance of their home, and suddenly feel very foolish and nave.
Did anyone ever read that piece in Harpers years ago about the company whose task it was to sell Democracy to countries emerging from a dictatorship? It was written by a man whod quit the team because he was appalled that his colleagues would not admit to any weakness in the system, or take the golden opportunity to examine ways of rectifying the downward spiral; Democracy was merely being sold as a product. It was brilliant and chilling, and bah. None of us are exempt.
— gail Feb 5, 2:45pm # - I just wanted to note one objection. It is often cited that Bush’s motivations for going to war are ones concerning oil. David Frum refutes that allegation, pointing out that going to war will undoubtedly damage the oil industry.
I would also point out that pacifism only works if all parties play. If any one part refuses, pacifism becomes a recipe for disaster. War isn’t a pretty thing, but becomes necessary when dealing with men who refuse to abide by the rules. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t France have the chance to stop Hitler early on when he started breaking treaties just before WWII? If dictators are not stopped early, then they will have to be stopped late. Which would you prefer?
— Jason Wall Feb 6, 11:16am # - There is always a choice, and the future is not certain, no matter how clear things may look in retrospect.
To Jason’s point that dictators are better stopped early than late, who will stop the Shrub?
— Suzanne Feb 6, 11:52am # - Heres something: continual coinage of silly names for the ruling parties (e.g. Dubya, Shrub) while intended to undermine their credibility, also serves to lighten the weight of the issue. I wonder if its not an ultimately detrimental protective reflex, a vain attempt to reassure ourselves that things cant possibly have got so out of hand.
— gail Feb 6, 3:19pm # - Actually Jason my old friend David Frumbibblywumbum (sorry darling) is rather flexible in his thoughts on the oil issue:
If successful, this campaign will bring new freedom and new stability to the most vicious and violent quadrant of the earth—and new prosperity to us all, by securing the world’s largest pool of oil.
— Dean Feb 6, 3:40pm # - “I would also point out that pacifism only works if all parties play. If any one part refuses, pacifism becomes a recipe for disaster. War isnt a pretty thing, but becomes necessary when dealing with men who refuse to abide by the rules. Jason Wall 6 February, 4:16pm”
Certainly, we’re not naive enough to believe that sitting and doing nothing will work in clearing up the international tension and toppling a dictator, but there has to be many efforts better suited to do such work rather than all out blasting away and harming civilians.
To be clear about it, no war isn’t pretty but neither is it worth damaging human beings, destroying lives and homes of persons who have no say in how their country is to be overrun. In addition to what’s been done to them by their own leader.
It’s a moot point we’re willing to keep shouting about (peace not war), since it’s not “if” we invade, but “when” we invade…
Again, I am one of many that feel if we’re the most powerful country on the planet, we should be able to be champions in relieving human suffering. By peaceful means…
My apologies, Gail. I’ll shut up now.
— roggey Feb 7, 12:40pm # - I’m a little naive… whose the Shrub?
I’m also a little unclear how the condition the Iraqi’s are in now is going to be any better if we do nothing. Personally, I’ve not been terribly impressed with the UN so far. Sure, it works great when it suits people to play nice, but when it doesn’t, the principled ones are left holding the price tag.
If the only reason for going to war was to free the Iraqi people, I’d probably agree with you that it would be foolish. But though its greatly debated, Bush says he has evidence of other dangers.
Yeah, yeah… I know people like to point out that the evidence he has shown the world to this point isn’t the strongest, and it suffers from the fact that he won’t reveal his sources for some of it. But there are reasonable explanations for why he would refuse to do so that do not point to selfish gain. And it would be foolish to think that he has shown everything he knows.
— Jason Wall Feb 8, 12:06am # - Very well done, indeed. There is a…well, almost “relaxed” – let us say “conscientiously reflective” – tone to your analysis which might well be emulated by the various bellicose and righteous pundits in our media stream. Your humanism and humour live unostentatiously along side your outrage and fierce rationalsm. It is important to maintain a…sustaining dialogue of reflection, let’s say, in the face of the frantic playground survival tactics so evident in the “justification of the inevitable” arguments which spill shakily from the pens and mouths of so many of us as war draws near.
Of course, the war is always with us; though we in the affluent West have so successfully separated ourselves from its corporeal manifestations that we often fight – or mirror – our battles for sustenance and survival on an almost purely psychological or, at least, “symbolic” level. Our starvation is spiritual; our borders internalized. We have become strangers to action. Our moral striving is reduced to artifice.
And here’s my question: why are we, all of us, so attracted to war? Even the pacifists among us – the religious; the humanists; the exiles; the survivors; the artists; the intellectuals; the meek – have not yet been able to corner ourselves with this essential dilemma and walk away enlightened. It often seems to me that those of us who strive, with all sincerity, to manifest peace in our words and deeds, do not give adequate reverence to the mysterious siren song of war which sings within the human breast. Until we work to grapple more earnestly, and more respectfully, with our own seemingly intrinsic desire to sometimes move closer to the flames of combat, I think we may never be able to bestow truly the gift of peace unto each other. Is “peace” always the answer we seek? Will it unerringly satisfy the dark and unknowing part of us which craves deep meaning?
I intuit, quite subjectively, that the concept of “meaning” has much to do with it. In the face of our mortality; in the face of pain and loss and the sheer vertigo of lives enmeshed in arbitrariness and incomprehensible change; in the face of cruelty which seems inflicted upon us by our very brothers and sisters – does it not make “sense” to wish to be invested in a battle which is bigger than us, purer than us, simpler than us, stronger than us? To fight for a cause, to die for a cause – an ideal, a hope, a vengeance, a dream: is this something we crave with all our subterranean being in face of our shaky faith in life? Does not a “righteous” war sometimes give shape and substance to our doughy and tearful lives? Is the peaceful transcendence of our moral yearning that far removed from the martyr’s trajectory of sacrifice and concordance?
I sometimes find myself with such thoughts both lofty and pitiful. How well do we really understand what war means to us? Until we understand ourselves better, with less cant and less fear, we will not solve the riddle of war. Thank you for providing such a thoughtful and compassionate analysis – it allowed me, at least, to think and feel a little more fully.
— m o julien Feb 9, 2:47am # - I dont claim to support the Muslim view of womens position in society, but nor do I have the right to say its wrong. By whose standards is it wrong?
If it is a choice to do something then you might have a case but most women in the Middle-East have little choice in the way they behave or the lifestyle they wish to lead.
Not giving women the freedom to choose the constraints, or lack thereof, they live with is wrong. Especially when basic freedoms are so common in the West they are taken for granted.
— Clemft Feb 10, 10:27am # - “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” – James 4:1-3
— Jason Wall Feb 11, 3:57pm #
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