Oil Instead Of Blood
By Harley Sorensen
Special to SF Gate
Monday, August 5, 2002
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The word "war" is delusional. It's the word we use when we want to kill others and justify it.
Most killing, most murder, is done in the name of self-defense. Go to any death row and ask its inhabitants why they killed, and the most common answer you're going to get, in one form or another, is, "To protect myself."
A common version: "I had no choice. It was either me or him." (Or "her.")
Gang wars are like that. The Southside Boys have to kill a couple of the Northside Boys to keep the Northside Boys from killing them. Of course it never works. The Northside Boys strike back, to "protect" themselves.
The bloodshed between the Israelis and their Palestinian citizens is like that. Some Palestinian leaders convince weak-minded youth to blow themselves up in public places to avenge mistreatment by the Israelis and to scare them into sweetness, love and kindness. It doesn't work. The Israelis respond by instructing their young men in uniform to murder a greater number of Palestinians.
It is madness on the world's stage. Nobody wins. People die, property is destroyed. Hatreds build. The situation gets worse and worse. The chance for peaceful resolution to problems gets slimmer and slimmer.
We Americans like to think of ourselves as the greatest nation on Earth, and there is some justification for that belief. We might also be the most warlike nation on Earth, or the most murderous nation on Earth. I can't keep track of all the nations we've bombed since the end of World War II, but a few years ago I saw a list that included more than 30.
Can you image that? We've dropped bombs and killed people in every corner of the world, and always for the same reason: "To protect ourselves."
Just like the guys on death row.
Now, to judge from the sounds gurgling out of Washington, we're planning a major war against Iraq. Our justification? Same as always, "to protect ourselves."
To tell the truth, I don't blame George W. Bush for being mad at Saddam Hussein. Saddam tried to kill Bush's father. That's enough to make any good son fighting mad.
On the other hand, we Americans have killed countless fathers over the past 50 years or so -- and mothers and sons and daughters and friends and grandfathers and grandmothers and sisters and brothers. But that's a different story. We had no choice. It was either them or us.
Getting back to Bush, I understand his feelings. What I don't understand is his willingness to waste the lives of perhaps thousands of men, women and children, on both sides, in order to satisfy his anger against Saddam.
It is fair to hate Saddam, if what we've heard about him is true. But bombing and invading Iraq, as we have previously seen, does no more to Saddam than inconvenience him. If he's like other dictators, he already has his escape route planned.
Is Saddam stockpiling "weapons of mass destruction" to use against us? People who have been to Iraq, and have had access, say no. People in our government say yes. That's the same government that, when we rained death on a wedding party in Afghanistan, suggested that the 48 deaths were caused by anti-aircraft shells falling to Earth, an absolute impossibility to anyone who knows anything about ack-ack and the kind of weapons available to the Afghans.
It's possible that Saddam is up to mischief -- he's certainly capable of it -- but I prefer to believe the reports of independent outsiders rather than those of our government, which has a pretty solid record of lying to us.
Think of what an undeclared (and, by most measures, illegal) war against Iraq will do to the Iraqi people.
The Iraqis are like you and me. They get up in the morning, they eat, they work, they go to bed at night. Is it right for us to blow off their heads and arms and legs, to pulverize their homes, to cause them untold misery? Is it the fault of the Iraqi people that they are under the boot of a despotic, unelected leader?
A war against Iraq would not be a war against Saddam. It would be a war against civilians and young men and women forced to wear uniforms and fight for Saddam.
And it would be a counterproductive war. America is the 800-pound gorilla. As such, we have a choice. We can use our great strength to help and protect others, or we can use it to destroy weaker nations that get in our way.
If we continue to use our might to destroy and intimidate others, the day will come when we'll pay a price. The events of Sept. 11 might be considered a down payment. We simply cannot beat up on others indefinitely and get away with it. The pendulum swings in both directions.
I don't think there's any way we can talk our leaders out of destroying Iraq and Iraqis, but, if they feel they must take on Saddam, there is a way they can succeed with minimal casualties on both sides.
Take over Iraq's oil fields.
Take over the oil fields, but keep the flow of oil going. Sell the oil at market prices, and give away the profits where they'll do the most good.
This can accomplish several goals. First, it would minimize the cost of human life and the destruction of property. Second, it would put a stranglehold on Saddam, who needs his oil money to stay in power. Third, it would improve our relations with other nations, which would admire our restraint and resourcefulness, and would appreciate the money we'd give them.
An advanced society like our own ought to be able to resolve its problems without resorting to is most primitive instincts. If we are determined to create mayhem in Iraq, we should at least do so to good purpose.
Finally, on the subject of war, I'd like to quote our fourth president, James Madison, one of the great thinkers of the American Revolution. Here is what Madison had to say about war in 1795:
"Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
"War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
"In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war É and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
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Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist and iconoclast. His column appears Mondays.
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