COLUMN: Threats only lead to more feas
America appears to be marching inexorably toward war with Iraq, without considered discussion of our responsibilities as a nation, or of the repercussions this action might hold for the future.
War is a grave course of action that deserves a more open and more informed debate than our nation has yet heard. By contrast, the Bush administration appears so bent on war that it is willing to play on Americans’ fear of a nuclear terrorist attack and loathing of Saddam Hussein to obscure the lack of factual justification for a first strike, to avoid a frank discussion of the economic and political ramifications of such an act, and to railroad a frightened nation to a perhaps unjustified war.
The administration’s rationale for a preemptive strike on Iraq offers no evidence of Iraq’s ability or intent to threaten the United States, but instead relies on supposition: that Iraq might be able to produce a nuclear bomb in the near future, that such a weapon might be passed on to terrorists, who could then use it against Americans. Though the thought of a nuclear-armed Iraq under Saddam Hussein is indeed frightening, Americans have been offered no evidence Iraq is a danger to our country. Saddam Hussein has never directly threatened America.
There is no evidence on the table of an alliance between Hussein and terrorists. On Sept. 10, Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, complained from the floor of the House of Representatives that “the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism, much less to the attacks on the United States last year.”
He further noted that according to former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro, “there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq’s links to terrorism.”
That a country which has not threatened us, and which does not presently have the capacity to harm us, might one day develop such a capacity and intent, is not a justification for a preemptive attack. The threshold for war must be higher than this. If we act, it must be because there is a clear and present danger, not simply because we fear that one may arise.
This is not merely a moral imperative, but a geopolitical one as well. For what nation, including our own, might not be considered a threat to another, given such a low burden of proof? The United States must not establish as policy, tenets for war that might be abused by presidents or foreign powers.
In an article in the New York Times on Sept. 19, Christopher Maquis reports that a recent accusation by Daniel W. Fisk, the deputy assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, “marks the second time this year that a State Department official has portrayed Cuba as a national security threat without releasing any evidence.” “Last spring, Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton accused Cuba of developing biological weapons,” an accusation Cuba vehemently denies.
Cuba lies only 200 miles from the millions of Americans who live in southern Florida. Fidel Castro’s disdain for the United States is no secret. Given the low evidentiary threshold of the Bush administration’s policy of preventative attack, might Cuba invite such a strike?
Paul said 1994 Senate hearings revealed that “the United States knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war… including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village.” America continued to provide Saddam Hussein military support long after his atrocities became known. Could Iran have used such aid as a pretext for a preemptive attack on the United States?
If the United States establishes as policy the idea that nation states have an inherent right to defend themselves by “preventative” attacks on other states without presenting evidence of a clear and present danger, or even expressed threat, without the concurrence of the international community, or even the majority of its close allies, and that each nation alone has the right to make such a determination, where will this policy lead us and the world?
America cannot hope, nor should it desire, to forevermore be able to dictate its will to the world. The Age of America will one day pass. As Americans, we can only hope we will fashion a world such that it will be governed by the principles by which we would like to live.
In the midst of the Great Depression, and before the growing shadow of Nazi Germany, Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.” This thought seems particularly relevant today, when the government uses our fear of a nuclear Sept. 11, rather than facts, to persuade Americans to wage war on another peoples. And given the current stance of our government, I am afraid.
Albert Reichert is a third-year master’s student in irrigation engineering. Comments can be sent to him at albert@cc.usu.edu