I am writing in reply to Sean Kirby’s editorial in the September 16 issue of The Varsity (Everything is at stake this time for U.S. election). I am responding because I feel Mr. Kirby’s stance to be uninformed and dangerous.
Kirby says that since 9/11 he has been a “single issue voter” where “winning the war on terrorism has to come first.” He has fallen for the same rhetoric and fear-mongering that this administration is banking the entire nation will succumb to. Let’s start with “The War on Terrorism.” This is much like “The War on Drugs,” i.e. something intangible that elicits emotion and is used to push through unpopular policies such as the restriction of civil liberties. There appears to be no clear track record of action that actually demonstrates an improvement in the area of drug abuse or terrorism.
Let’s look at the word “terrorism” itself – another ill-defined, intangible concept. What are the connotations of the word “terrorism”? In the eyes of the perpetrator, the act is heroic; from the eyes of the victim the act is terror. Just one look at Israel and Palestine will serve to underline this.
Kirby has also fallen for the scapegoat that “Al Qaeda and its ilk hate the West for its religious tolerance, its social liberalism, its inclusion of women and gays, its ethnic diversity.” Kirby believes that the Twin Towers were brought down because of “the things we’ve done right, not what we’ve done wrong.”
This is ludicrous. Of course hard-line fundamentalist hate Western culture, and they may even use that in their own propaganda campaign to recruit new terrorists. They have always hated the West, but that was not enough to declare jihad until now. It is important here to examine the U.S. record and agenda in the Middle East region. In point of fact, the peace process has been initiated numerous times, but the U.S. and Israel have either vetoed or been absent (which is the equivalent of a veto) from U.N. resolutions. In the case of Iraq, Saddam Hussein was a U.S.-installed and -supported tyrant. The sanctions brought against Iraq by the U.N. only served to solidify Hussein’s power and hurt the people of Iraq, who had no choice but to depend on their terrible leader to survive. Don’t the “squabbling critics on the left” have a right to demand “why”?
My biggest problem with Kirby’s article, however, lies in one single sentence. Kirby wishes a continuation of the “Bush revolution in foreign policy that began after September 11: preemptive warfare, selective regard for international institutions, and the radical democratization of the Middle East.” Let’s look carefully at these three desires of his.
First: Preemptive warfare. This is, quite possibly, the most dangerous idea in modern history. Preemptive warfare only suits those with the power and ability to execute this vision. It constitutes a complete disregard for the international rules and laws that are set up to protect those who are unable to defend themselves (let alone lead a preemptive attack).
The criterion here is self-defense; a preemptive war is justified on the grounds of the existence of a perceived threat. If this is the case, why then did the U.S. choose to attack Iraq and not North Korea? Iraq posed no imminent threat to the security of the U.S. and its people, while North Korea flagrantly possesses the famous weapons of mass destruction the Bush administration lied about in Iraq. North Korea doesn’t have the political, strategic, or economic value to the U.S. that Iraq does. Hence, deceit and manipulation of facts took place to justify an invasion that was going to take place anyway.
Following the preemptive war, a recent Time magazine poll indicated that eighty per cent of European respondents considered the U.S. to be the single biggest threat to world security. On those grounds, wouldn’t it be justified if any other country decided to take the preemptive war strategy and attack the U.S.? In fact, because the Iraq war was based on lies to begin with, what is to prevent anyone from attacking anyone to get what they want? This is an extremely dangerous precedent to set.
Second: Selective disregard for international institutions. This just makes preemptive war easier. Why would a country bother justifying its invasion if it has decided not to comply with international law in the first place? Doesn’t anybody realize that international rules are set through experience of World War One, Two, Vietnam, Rwanda, to protect the greater good? Obviously only those with wealth and power will be able to “selectively disregard” international organizations.
Third: Radical democratization of the Middle East. Who are we to impose democracy on anyone? In North America, a place that is ostensibly a flourishing democracy, the stratification of wealth is at an all time high, and social programs are being cut at an accelerated rate while the upper crust get major tax cuts. Kirby warns that terrorists are driven by a fanatical desire to “impose a theocratic empire on the whole of the Muslim world. Isn’t that what your “conservative evangelical Christian from Texas” is doing, except replacing the God of Islam with the God of Late Capitalism?
I agree with Kirby that we are facing what will surely be the most important election of our collective lifetime. But unlike him, I believe that a “greater engagement with institutions like the UN, and certainly and end to the policy of unilateral preemptive war” is a starting point.
