March 24, 2003 by lonbud

A Little Bit Of Soul

I spent much of the weekend soul searching after getting a scathing response to my pre-war “Moment of Truth” piece from an old and dear friend, who questioned my standing to dissent from the wisdom of our nation’s ruling cabal and averred it is I who am “smug and narrow-minded” in failing to admit the necessity of going to war in Iraq at this time.

I tried to stay away from the television and the major media’s grave and breathless reporting of the “shock and awe” coalition forces were leveling on Saddam and the Iraqi people, but I did tune in to NPR’s radio coverage of the war’s initial successes, and the inevitable setbacks and friendly fire mishaps that began to crop up by Sunday.

I tried honestly to find a reason to believe what this President has unleashed upon the world is for some better, higher purpose than can be seen at this close range.

I tried honestly to make the connection between Saddam and Hitler that so many supporters of this war claim would have colored the reality of our allowing the UN to continue the disarming of Iraq that had previously begun.

I looked long and hard at my “liberal” inclinations, looked deep into the geopolitical complexities of the interests at stake, saw the realities facing our servicemen and women on the ground in Iraq, and saw the millions of people across the globe continuing to protest this war.

I remain firmly opposed to what the United States is doing and I say here and now, win or lose, this country, this society, this economy –the world itself– will pay a terrible price for the decision George W. Bush has taken in this matter.

Ever in the quest of keeping it simple, I refer one and all once more to the Law of Karma: Every thought and every act produces infinite emanations of its fundamental characteristic. Good thoughts and good acts produce infinite emanations of goodness; bad thoughts and bad acts produce infinite emanations of badness. The effects and operation of this law are immutable and are not subject to negotiation. Draw your own conclusions.

As to the Hitler thing, this is a specious, juvenile, hysterical argument.

Saddam Hussein is to Adolph Hitler as a bit of air turbulence is to a 7.0 earthquake. Saddam, as I have admitted repeatedly, is a bad man. An evil man. And, like Hitler, he hates the Jewish people. But there the comparisons end. Where is Saddam’s Wermacht? Who is Saddam’s Irwin Rommel? Where are the concentration camps and the millions of people rounded up from their homes to be gassed and incinerated? When did Saddam roll through the equivalent of Poland or Czechoslovakia or France; when did he take on the equivalent of Russia?

And if it’s true we’re doing this now, just in time to stop him from doing the equivalent of all that, where is the nearly invincible force with which he was about to unleash this 21st Century blitzkrieg?

The playing of the Hitler card only shows a deeper desperation on the part of those ignorant enough to make the argument.

Where lies our desperation?

Among some Jews and blind supporters of Israel, the desperation lies in a profound realization that the Palestinian problem is not getting better and is not going to go away. Maybe if we can focus the world’s attention on Iraq and show how relentlessly Saddam can be crushed, Arafat and the Palestinians will disappear into the desert and stop being such a pain in the ass. Is that it? Sorry folks. Whatever comes of this war in Iraq, the Palestinian question will have to be addressed one day, and one day soon. And I daresay the extinction of the Palestinian people, despite their propensity to raise children who believe in the destruction of Israel, is not the answer.

And where is the desperation elsewhere? Why Saddam and why now?

Bush and his handlers have repeatedly hammered at the idea this is only about disarming Iraq. It’s about destroying their weapons of mass destruction, disabling their biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs, and preventing Saddam from using them to fund and arm terrorists bent on the destruction of Israel and the United States.

Despite a severe paucity of evidence that any of those things present a clear and present danger of being true, it seems most of the people supporting this war accept the proposition and count the argument as justification for doing with force what the UN weapons inspectors were slowly doing without it.

But a little bit of my research turned up at least one real reason for desperation on the part of American oil interests –surprise, surprise– and might go a long way toward answering the question of why him and why now.

I refer you to a web- based article for a much more detailed explication of the geopolitical complexities than I could manage here.

The basic situation is this: In a move that was widely ignored by mainstream media, in 2000, Saddam decided to begin accepting Eurodollars instead of US Dollars as the currency of exchange for oil transactions. Now, since Iraq’s oil exports have been severely curtailed under sanctions since the end of the first Gulf War, this change didn’t directly affect American oil interests to any outstanding degree. But that was before the US economy went South into what is now the fourth year of a bear market, and before the Dollar went into a steep decline as the Fed tried desperately to make American exports more attractive to world markets.

And it planted in the minds of other OPEC nations the idea they might do well to start selling their oil for Euros too.

The US government, as proxy for American oil interests DESPERATELY wants to prevent OPEC from adopting the Euro as the exchange currency, especially with the Dollar in freefall. Not only will rising oil prices continue to be a drag on economic recovery here, but the resulting currency exchange hit could be the knockout punch forcing American business to clean up its act and be truly competitive in the global economy, instead of relying on its previously unchallenged hegemony to line the pockets of corporate officers and directors.

I am not making this up.

So yes, it IS about the oil, Virginia. It’s about the reserves under Iraq and about securing access to them for US oil companies. It’s also about punishing Saddam for having the impudence to recognize that he gets more bang for his buck selling oil for Eurodollars than he does selling it for US Dollars. And it’s about making sure all the other OPEC nations understand clearly what could happen to their punk asses if they get the idea to switch to the Euro, too.

I did search my soul this weekend. I questioned my patriotism and everything I know and love about this great country, my country, the land that I love. And I came away ever more emboldened to speak out against this war and against this administration.

The things it stands for and the people it represents do not share my values, do not share the values of the founders of this country, or those of the authors of the Constitution.

If everyone were truly aware of what motivates the people in this administration I believe most people in America would say this government doesn’t share their values either.

The lead singer in the popular country band the Dixie Chicks is a gal from Texas who offhandedly remarked to a London audience recently about her embarrassment that George W. Bush is from Texas (which he’s NOT, but that’s another story). The corporate masters at Clear Channel, the nation’s largest media monopoly, are now seeking to ban the Dixie Chicks from the airwaves, seeking to use their corporate hegemony to punish someone for exercising her right to free speech by denying her ability to make a living at her profession.

That’s not what we do in the America I grew up in. What’s next, compulsory outerwear with yellow stars and pink triangles? No, I’ll stand with Lewis Lapham, editor of Harper’s Magazine, who has 10 questions for the Bush administration in the April issue everyone should read.

I’ll stand with the millions all over the globe who understand the horror and the idiocy of war. And I’ll pray my children will inherit a world of boundless beauty –not the wilderness I see us fighting over in Iraq.