US rogue rage a green light for monsters
March 23 2003
...Some supporters of this war acknowledge the contradictions in the US stance and concede that George Bush and his circle are unlikely champions of human rights. They recognise, too, that the American consumption of Iraqi oil - on average almost 880,000 barrels a day, according to The New York Times - vastly exceeds that of any other country, giving it a commercial interest in securing control of that oil which is proportionately greater than that of any other country, including the ever-maligned France. And they are frankly sceptical of the notion that a two-year US military occupation of Iraq can lay the foundations of a new, democratic Middle East. Yet they support the war anyway because it means there will be one less monster in the world. They like to call this the humanitarian case for war.
The problem with this is not only that plenty of other monsters will survive and may even prosper, if it suits the superpower. It is that accepting the notion of preventive war means collapsing the distinction between a war fought for a just cause, such as defence against the threat of imminent attack, and war fought for a perceived strategic imperative, such as the belief that someone might pose a threat in future. To collapse that distinction is to say that might is right, and that it is all right to behave as rogue states behave.
I don't find the prospect of a world shaped by such a doctrine more appealing than the prospect of a world with one less monster in it. The Bush doctrine, and the unashamed assertion of American empire on which it rests, will not make the world safer, for Americans or anyone else. While pretending with weasel words that they are merely enforcing the UN's resolutions, the superpower and its compliant allies such as Australia have abandoned the attempt to build an international order based on law and embraced one built on force. The monsters of the world couldn't have asked for a stronger act of legitimation.
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