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The human toll of a U.S. war on Iraq will be enormous.
The massive bombing campaign that Washington is planning will kill tens of thousands of Iraqis — whether they be soldiers or civilians.
During the 1991 Gulf War, more tons of bombs were dropped on Iraq faster than at any time in the history of war. The air war deliberately targeted Iraq's civilian infrastructure, knocking out the country's power grid in the first raids, for example.
While CNN beamed images of "smart bombs" surgically hitting their targets, on the ground, civilians and Iraqi army conscripts bore the brunt of the assault. One "smart bomb" attack on February 13, for example, targeted the Amiriya bomb shelter in Baghdad. Two missiles destroyed the shelter and incinerated some 400 civilian victims.
This time, no one can even guess how many Iraqis will die in a ground war if rumors of a planned assault on Baghdad — complete with block-by-block urban warfare — are true. And of course, the Bush administration is ready to put the lives of tens of thousands of American soldiers at risk.
The Texas oil men who run the White House want to get their hands on Iraq's oil.
The Bush administration may talk about weapons of mass destruction, but it has another aim in mind — gaining control of Iraq's vast oil resources. Well, we all know that, and some of us even think it will be beneficial for our country, which, of course, it will not. It will only inflict terrible devastations and deaths, and will make America a symbol of aggression and cruelty in the eyes of the world community.
A war against Iraq will only stoke violence and hatred.
Since the September 11 attacks in the U.S., the Bush administration has claimed that its "war on terror" is about bringing those responsible to justice. But the Washington war drive against Iraq has exposed this as a sham.
In Afghanistan — after U.S. bombs killed thousands of people with no connection whatsoever to Osama bin Laden — the Taliban government has been replaced by the warlords of the Northern Alliance, who have only added to the violence and oppression that Afghans, especially Afghan women, suffer.
Since then, the Bush administration has stepped up its collaboration with state-sponsored terrorism carried out by a host of murderous regimes around the world — from Russia to the Philippines to Colombia.
Bush's "war on terrorism" has only increased the suffering and desperation of people across the globe — and only stoked more violence and hatred.
Bush's war drive has been accompanied by a witch-hunt against Arabs and Muslims.
Guilty until proven innocent. That's the U.S. government's assumption about Arabs and Muslims across the U.S. since September 11.
As many as 2,000 people were detained in the investigation into hijackings — and subjected to harassment and racist violence — for no other "crime" than having the wrong skin color. Many were deported for minor visa violations, even when investigations proved that they had no connection at all to "terrorism."
Now the Immigration and Naturalization Service is requiring men from various Middle Eastern, Asian and African countries to register. In December, when men from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria showed up to register in Los Angeles, up to one-quarter of them were detained.
Not a single person rounded up by John Ashcroft's witch-hunters has been accused of having a direct connection to the September 11 attacks. They are scapegoats — the victims at home of the Bush administration's wars abroad.
The war drive against Iraq has strengthened Bush's hand to push his right-wing agenda at home.
At every turn, the Bush administration has used vague threats of "terrorism" and its war drive abroad to silence critics at home.
The "foreign threat" has been used to justify massive increases in military spending — even though the U.S. spends more on its military than Russia, China, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Brazil, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Iran, Israel, Taiwan, Canada and many more combined. That's money that could be helping the many victims of the economic crisis. Instead, it's being thrown down the Pentagon rathole.
Meanwhile, Republicans and Democrats in Congress joined together to pass the USA PATRIOT Act, which shreds fundamental civil liberties. This law has given John Ashcroft the power, among other things, to classify normal acts of political protest as "domestic terrorism."
"Under the definition, groups such as the World Trade Organization protesters who engage in minor vandalism…or protesters at Vieques, Puerto Rico, who damage a fence would be deemed terrorist organizations," according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
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