4/19/2004

Commentary by Steven Diamond

nhcatsteve@yahoo.com

There has been a lot of talk lately about the need to create a secret police organization to do the dirty jobs that the police, FBI, and CIA cannot, due to legal inconveniences like Americans’ civil liberties. For simplicity and economy, why not combine these efforts under a single department called the Department of Desperation, to hunt down and kill every "enemy of freedom?" The acronym might be confused with the Department of Defense, so that should be changed back to its original name, the War Department.

The American people face increasing inequality, a jobless recovery, dwindling social spending, and are ruled by the best democracy money can buy. Bush’s latest press conference makes it clear that he believes in imposing "Democracy" on the Arab world, whether or not they like it. And it certainly can be a confusing concept. Despite the completely undisputed fact that Gore got the most votes in the last election (1), he’s not president. The Bush administration seems to have similar reasoning regarding Venezuela. After the recent coup attempt that was encouraged by the White House failed, a Bush official was asked whether the administration now recognizes Mr. Chávez as Venezuela's legitimate president. The spokesman replied, "He was democratically elected, [but] Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters, however." (2)

The Iraqis have suffered without "Democracy" for so long they may hesitate to embrace it now. According to a variety of sources (3), in 1968 a CIA coup deposed the democratically elected government and put Saddam Hussein’s Ba'ath party in power. The United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War that the UN later determined were responsible for the deaths of at least 1.5 million Iraqi civilians. "The Civilized World" has betrayed the Iraqi people over and over again.

Now the U.S. stands nearly alone in its fight to "free" Iraq. Some day, we are promised that the Iraqi people will be allowed to genuinely rule themselves. Bush expects little in exchange for this service. Iraq’s oil revenues are being used to pay for the occupation (4), while the Iraqi Ministry of Health has been made "self financed," paying for hospital visits through pay-per-service fees (5). At least four large U.S. military bases will remain in Iraq permanently (6). The new Iraqi "Democracy" will be required to have friendly relations with the U.S. and Israel. The minority Kurds will in effect have broad veto powers over Iraqi policy (7). International corporations will have unlimited ownership of entire sectors of the Iraqi economy and be allowed to remove all of the profits (5). That’s the sort of freedom that the new Iraqi security forces have refused to kill other Iraqis for (8).

Right or wrong, millions of Americans believe that our own country’s real motivations for invading Iraq were for empire and oil, not to stop WMD, dictatorship, or some perceived threat to the U.S. Imagine how the Iraqis must see it, with tanks in their streets, newspapers banned (9), and many of the thousands of civilian casualties (10) shown on TV. If president Bush really believes in Democracy, he will give the Iraqi people a referendum RIGHT NOW: "Would you like the US military to stay in Iraq, or go home?" The Bush presidency has terminally squandered what little legitimacy, international support, and goodwill it had in Iraq.

(1) http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/elections/confusion.html

(2) http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Covert_Actions/USA's_Lessons_in_Democracy_for_Venezuela

(3) http://www.seacoastpeaceresponse.org/pdfs/iraqtimeline.pdf

(4) http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/iraq/1842094

(5) http://www.swans.com/library/art10/iraq/masri.html

(6) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/04/21/wirq21.xml

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/chitribts/20040323/ts_chicagotrib/14enduringbasessetiniraq&cid=2027&ncid=1473

(7) http://observer.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,1163906,00.html

(8) http://www.notinourname.net/war/iraqis-refuse-11apr04.htm

(9) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3578183.stm

(10) http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/20040413-20.html