Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publication: TheStranger.com
Date: January 21, 2003
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=5616
Dear brothers and sisters, boys
and girls, comrades and friends,
The editor of this rag [TheStranger.com]
told me of your upcoming "Potlucks for Peace" event and invited my comments,
and
at first I couldn't think of a thing
to say. For one thing, why should I address a Seattle audience (or even
suppose that I have a Seattle audience, for that matter)? I daresay that
I can claim a tenuous connection, because I have always had a good crowd
when reading at the splendid bookstores of the city, and because it was
in Seattle that I stayed when grounded on September 11, 2001, a date that
now makes some people yawn.
I had been speaking to the students
of Whitman College in Walla Walla about the crimes of Henry Kissinger and
had told them that 11 September--which was then tomorrow--was a symbolic
date. On that day in 1973, the civilian government in Chile had been drowned
in blood by an atrocious military coup. On the same day in 2001, a group
of Chilean survivors proposed to file a lawsuit against Kissinger in a
federal court in Washington, D.C. I showed a film illustrating this, made
some additional remarks, and closed by saying that the date would be long
remembered in the annals of the struggle for human rights. I got some pretty
decent applause--and this from the alma mater of Henry "Scoop" Jackson,
whose family was present. On the following morning I got a very early call
from my wife, who was three hours ahead of me. She told me to turn on the
TV, and she commented mordantly that the anti-Kissinger campaign might
have to be on hold for a while. (Oddly enough, and as recent events have
shown, she was mistaken about that.) Everyone knows what I saw when I turned
on the TV.
Now hear this. Ever since that morning,
the United States has been at war with the forces of reaction. May I please
entreat you to reread the preceding sentence? Or perhaps you will let me
restate it for emphasis. The government and people of these United States
are now at war with the forces of reaction.
This outcome was clearly not willed,
at least on the American side. And everybody with half an education seems
to know how to glibly dilute the statement. Isn't Saudi Arabia reactionary?
What about Pakistani nukes? Do we bomb Sharon for his negation of Palestinian
rights? Weren't we on Saddam's side when he was at his worst? (I am exempting
the frantic and discredited few who think or suggest that George W. Bush
fixed up the attacks to inflate the military budget and abolish the Constitution.)
But however compromised and shameful the American starting point was--and
I believe I could make this point stick with greater venom and better evidence
than most people can muster--the above point remains untouched. The United
States finds itself at war with the forces of reaction.
Do I have to demonstrate this? The
Taliban's annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women?
The massacre of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan? Or what about the latest
boast of al Qaeda--that the bomb in Bali, massacring so many Australian
holidaymakers, was a deliberate revenge for Australia's belated help in
securing independence for East Timor? (Never forget that the Muslim fundamentalists
are not against "empire." They fight proudly for the restoration of their
own lost caliphate.) To these people, the concept of a civilian casualty
is meaningless if the civilian is an unbeliever or a heretic.
Confronted with such a foe--which
gladly murders Algerians and Egyptians and Palestinians if they have any
doubts about the true faith, or if they happen to be standing in the wrong
place at the wrong time, or if they happen to be female--exactly what role
does a "peace movement" have to play? A year or so ago, the "peace movement"
was saying that Afghanistan could not even be approached without risking
the undying enmity of the Muslim world; that the Taliban could not be bombed
during Ramadan; that a humanitarian disaster would occur if the Islamic
ultra- fanatics were confronted in their own lairs. Now we have an imperfect
but recovering Afghanistan, with its population increased by almost two
million returned refugees. Have you ever seen or heard any of those smart-ass
critics and cynics make a self-criticism? Or recant?
To the contrary, the same critics
and cynics are now lining up to say, "Hands off Saddam Hussein," and to
make almost the same doom-laden predictions. The line that connects Afghanistan
to Iraq is not a straight one by any means. But the oblique connection
is ignored by the potluck peaceniks, and one can be sure (judging by their
past form) that it would be ignored even if it were as direct as the connection
between al Qaeda and the Taliban. Saddam Hussein denounced the removal
of the Sunni Muslim-murdering Slobodan Milosevic, and also denounced the
removal of the Shiite-murdering Taliban. Reactionaries have a tendency
to stick together (and I don't mean "guilt by association" here. I mean
GUILT). If the counsel of the peaceniks had been followed, Kuwait would
today be the 19th province of Iraq (and based on his own recently produced
evidence, Saddam Hussein would have acquired nuclear weapons). Moreover,
Bosnia would be a trampled and cleansed province of Greater Serbia, Kosovo
would have been emptied of most of its inhabitants, and the Taliban would
still be in power in Afghan-istan. Yet nothing seems to disturb the contented
air of moral superiority that surrounds those who intone the "peace movement."
There are at least three well-established
reasons to favor what is euphemistically termed "regime change" in Iraq.
The first is the flouting by Saddam Hussein of every known law on genocide
and human rights, which is why the Senate--at the urging of Bill Clinton--passed
the Iraq Liberation Act unanimously before George W. Bush had even been
nominated. The second is the persistent effort by Saddam's dictatorship
to acquire the weapons of genocide: an effort which can and should be thwarted
and which was condemned by the United Nations before George W. Bush was
even governor of Texas. The third is the continuous involvement by the
Iraqi secret police in the international underworld of terror and destabilization.
I could write a separate essay on the evidence for this; at the moment
I'll just say that it's extremely rash for anybody to discount the evidence
that we already possess. (And I shall add that any "peace movement" that
even pretends to care for human rights will be very shaken by what will
be uncovered when the Saddam Hussein regime falls. Prisons, mass graves,
weapon sites... just you wait.)
None of these things on their own
need necessarily make a case for an intervention, but taken together--and
taken with the permanent threat posed by Saddam Hussein to the oilfields
of the region--they add up fairly convincingly. Have you, or your friends,
recently employed the slogan "No War for Oil"? If so, did you listen to
what you were saying? Do you mean that oil isn't worth fighting for, or
that oil resources aren't worth protecting? Do you recall that Saddam Hussein
ignited the oilfields of Kuwait when he was in retreat, and flooded the
local waterways with fire and pollution? (Should I patronize the potluckistas,
and ask them to look up the pictures of poisoned birds and marine animals
from that year?) Are you indifferent to the possibility that such a man
might be able to irradiate the oilfields next time? OF COURSE it's about
oil, stupid.
To say that he might also do all
these terrible things if attacked or threatened is to miss the point. Last
time he did this, or massacred the Iraqi and Kurdish populations, he was
withdrawing his forces under an international guarantee. The Iraqi and
Kurdish peoples are now, by every measure we have or know, determined to
be rid of him. And the hope, which is perhaps a slim one but very much
sturdier than other hopes, is that the next Iraqi regime will be better
and safer, not just from our point of view but from the points of view
of the Iraqi and Kurdish peoples. The sanctions policy, which was probably
always hopeless, is now quite indefensible. If lifted, it would only have
allowed Saddam's oligarchy to re-equip. But once imposed, it was immoral
and punitive without the objective of regime change. Choose. By the way,
and while we are choosing, if you really don't want war, you should call
for the lifting of the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq. These
have been war measures since 1991.
What would the lifting of the no-fly
zones mean for the people who live under them? I recently sat down with
my old friend Dr. Barham Salih, who is the elected prime minister of one
sector of Iraqi Kurdistan. Neither he nor his electorate could be mentioned
if it were not for the no-fly zones imposed--as a result of democratic
protest in the West--at the end of the last Gulf War. In his area of Iraq,
"regime change" has already occurred. There are dozens of newspapers, numerous
radio and TV channels, satellite dishes, Internet cafes. Four female judges
have been appointed. Almost half the students at the University of Sulaimaniya
are women. And a pro al Qaeda group, recently transferred from Afghanistan,
is trying to assassinate the Kurdish leadership and nearly killed my dear
friend Barham just the other day.... Now, why would this gang want to make
that particular murder its first priority?
Before you face that question, consider
this. Dr. Salih has been through some tough moments in his time. Most of
the massacres and betrayals of the Kurdish people of Iraq took place with
American support or connivance. But the Kurds have pressed ahead with regime
change in any case. Surely a "peace movement" with any principles should
be demanding that the United States not abandon them again. I like to think
I could picture a mass picket in Seattle, offering solidarity with Kurdistan
against a government of fascistic repression, and opposing any attempt
to sell out the Kurds for reasons of realpolitik. Instead, there is a self-satisfied
isolationism to be found, which seems to desire mainly a quiet life for
Americans. The option of that quiet life disappeared a while back, and
it's only coincidence that for me it vanished in Seattle. The United States
is now at war with the forces of reaction, and nobody is entitled to view
this battle as a spectator. The Union under Lincoln wasn't wholeheartedly
against slavery. The USA under Roosevelt had its own selfish agenda even
while combating Hitler and Hirohito. The hot-and- cold war against Stalinism
wasn't exactly free of blemish and stain. How much this latest crisis turns
into an even tougher war with reaction, at home or abroad, could depend
partly upon those who currently think that it is either possible or desirable
to remain neutral. I say "could," even though the chance has already been
shamefully missed. But a mere potluck abstention will be remembered only
with pity and scorn.
(Christopher Hitchens is a columnist
for Vanity Fair and the I. F. Stone Fellow at the University of California,
Berkeley. His most recent book is Why Orwell Matters.)