KWAMCHETSI MAKOKHA / BETWEEN US
Kenya should never discover oil

Yesterday, at dawn, death began raining down on Iraqi soldiers and civilians, and on an infrastructure already pulverised by American bombs a decade earlier.

The bombs, American propaganda says, are so smart that they can identify and eliminate only three items: weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein, and his sons. That way, the world can be a safer and better place to live in.

Yet, no war represents the triumph of stupidity over tact more than this one. The Second Gulf War illustrates the painful reality – that America can damn well do as it pleases, whether the rest of the world likes it or not.

In 2001, after the September 11 attack on America, draft dodger George Walker Bush discovered the warrior and hero in himself and waged war against Afghanistan. Then, as now, he gave the Afghans an ultimatum to produce terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and hand him over for trial.

Afghanistan's spiritual leader Mullah Omar would not hear of anything like that. When America went into the mountain country, sandwiched between Iran and Pakistan, it deposed the Taliban regime, installed a new government and left without arresting or killing bin Laden or Mullah Omar.

But the bloodthirst of a superpower can be riotous. Last year, in his State of the Union address, Bush served notice on three "rogue" nations considered to have links to terrorist organisations: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Over the past year, the Bush administration has been struggling to build a case against Iraq, then finally deciding that it did not need one, launched war.

Framing Saddam

As it is, Iraq has not threatened to attack America or any other country. There has been no established link between Iraq and Osama bin Laden, or his Al Qaeda network. But framing Saddam has been much easier than hop-step-and-jump.

It started with a charge of possessing weapons of mass destruction. In the twinkling of an eye, what was a war against terror suddenly became a war to liberate Iraq from Saddam's dictatorship.

Bush, in his State of the Union address of January 29, 2001, said that hostile countries such as Iraq could supply non-state organisations with weapons of mass destruction, to use against the US: "By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States."

That is how the hunt for Osama turned into a crusade against an evil man called Saddam. In the space of two years, Saddam Hussein has become Osama bin Laden.

Most of the arguments about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction have focused on that Gulf state's capabilities, but never on its inclination to use them. The Iraqi leadership has only used weapons of mass destruction against the Iranians and Kurds – never against America or any European power. One can assume that the leadership appreciates the consequences of using such weapons against powerful enemies. No plans to use of weapons of mass destruction against foreign countries have never been discovered, and in their absence can only be presumed to be non-existent.

But it seems that the present war is being launched on the basis of unconfirmed suspicions of both weapons and intention to use them.

Back in 1998, the US ordered UN weapons inspectors to leave Iraq. At that time, it was believed that Iraq's nuclear capacity had been wholly dismantled.

Although Iraq was within three years of developing a nuclear bomb in 1991, the Gulf War destroyed all its facilities for producing material for a nuclear programme and for enriching uranium were destroyed. Uranium was being imported from Portugal, France and Italy. Facilities for enriching uranium were being built in Iraq, largely with German assistance. But Iraq has never had the capacity to enrich uranium sufficiently for a bomb and was extremely dependent on imports. If this is so, Iraq may have only been close to developing a bomb if US and European assistance had continued to the same extent as before.

Biting sanctions

Since its defeat in the war of 1991, Iraq has been living under cruel international sanctions that forbid it from importing anything useful.

The Oil-for-Food programme Iraq has been suspended, putting 16 million people in danger of starvation.

Saddam's regime has been struggling with the belief that the UN weapons inspectors are spying for the US government, which would use this information to plot its overthrow. Even with all these suspicions, the UN inspectors have so far found nothing. Bush's war against Iraq is, therefore one without the flimsiest of excuses. America's sole purpose for waging this war is to increase its wealth and control a vital part of the international oil economy.

Bush is proceeding on this war without justifiable cause or evidence. He does so without the support of the UN Security Council, thus weakening an important world body. And for his transgressions, George W Bush offers the widows and orphans of Iraq food and medicine – contingent on one condition: they must not destroy the oil fields.

America is quickly turning into an imperial power which, instead of putting vassal states under its thumb, is only interested in mopping up economic trophies. The question remains, after Saddam Hussein, who is next?

Seeing the kind of tragedy oil is about to bring to Iraq, one wishes that Kenya never discovers that resource – or President Mwai Kibaki could just as easily find himself hoarding "weapons of mass destruction".

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http://perspectivesudans.blogspot.com/
i myself would never want to be god,or even like god.Because god got all these human beings on this planet and i most certainly would not want to be responsible for them, or even have the disgrace that i made them.