Bush to Saddam: Get out of Town!

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Bush to Saddam: Get out of Town!

Not long after the events of 9/11, President Bush called for the capture of Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.” Last night, like the Texas gunslinger he is, Bush ordered Saddam Hussein and his sons to get out of town in 48 hours – or else! Word is that, while most Iraqis who can are deserting Baghdad for safer quarters, Saddam and his sons are staying put.

In a speech laden with hypocrisy, lies and half truths, Bush proclaimed that all diplomatic efforts had failed and essentially assigned the UN, France, China, Russia, Germany, Cameroon, Angola and anyone else who opposed his maniacal moves against Saddam to the dung heap of irrelevance.

Tony Blair, meanwhile, was consigning himself to a similar residence, as he vainly tried to persuade a recalcitrant Parliament that Saddam was an unreconstructed liar. He carefully outlined the history of inspections and their subsequent failures, and then, like Bush and his henchmen, railed against Saddam for attacking his neighbors.

What goes unsaid in all this, of course, is that both Britain and the United States backed Saddam in his war with Iran, fearing lest the Islamic revolution would spread farther than the borders of the former Persia. We are the ones who supplied Saddam with his weapons of mass destruction. We are the ones who gave Saddam biological weapons of all sorts. And we are the ones who winked and nodded our approval when Saddam first proposed his invasion of Kuwait.

But now, though there is no evidence whatsoever that Saddam had anything to do with the attacks of 9/11, or that he has any intention of being so idiotic as to use weapons of mass destruction anywhere, to say nothing of against his neighbors, he has become the whipping boy, the pariah, because he, unfortunately, represents a fixed target for the world domination cabal of Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle.

What is even more ironic is that we were probably on the right track when we aided Saddam in his war with Iran. In fact, Iraq has the potential to become just as much a religious hotbed of Islamic activity as Iran was and is. It is a country made up of Sunni and Shiite Muslims, both at odds with each other for generations, and Kurds, who want nothing to do with their southern citizenry. Indeed, what Iraq needs to maintain its stability is a strong secular leader who can keep religiosity out of the government and keep the fighting religious reactionaries at bay. And Saddam and his Baath party, like Tito in Yugoslavia, have been able to do just that.

It is interesting to note that Iran is the latest country to urge democracy on Iraq. Yet what kind of democracy are we talking about? Islamic democracy, such as we have in Iran? Undoubtedly this is what the Iranians have in mind, and they would like nothing better than to see Saddam go and have their feuding religious cohorts take over the government – democratically, of course.

But more than anything it is the hypocrisy of the administration’s stance that makes an embarrassment of Bush whenever he sounds off about Iraq, its alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, and its unwillingness to abide by treaties and UN resolutions. All of this blather coming from the mouth of a man who has unilaterally withdrawn the United States from all sorts of treaties and agreements – from Kyoto to arms control – and which has backed Israel in its scoffing at UN resolutions, represents nothing less than pretentious, hypocritical hot air. If Saddam is looking for a resolution- breaking role model, he couldn’t do much better than George W. Bush – who, by the way, is sitting on more weapons of mass destruction than Saddam could ever fathom in his wildest dreams.

In his speech last night, Bush referred to Saddam and his cohorts as “thugs and killers.” And well they might be. But whatever they are, they have succeeded in turning this administration into a mirror image of themselves. Sadly, we have turned our backs on the rest of the world, burned our bridges behind us, and have headed off into the wild West, guns blazing, to make the world safe for democracy, or what we conceive of as democracy, and, of course, for oil.

The Arabs think we’re cowboys. The French and Germans think we’re mad. And what the Russians and Chinese think is anyone’s guess. Only the small African states seem to be at ease with their decision to oppose the mighty Bush war machine. And their reaction to his displeasure is: “What’s he going to do? Bomb us?”

What I’m wondering is if anyone cares what the North Koreans are thinking.

March 18, 2003