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The Kernel of Pro-War Logic: "Support Murder Over Headache"

M. Junaid Alam

Note: An analogy-free version of this article appears on today's Alternet website.

There are two outstanding facts about the war on Iraq. One is that it was based entirely on lies. This most of us already know. There were no weapons of mass destruction, not until the US dropped its own. There was no al-Qaeda movement there, not until the US deployed its soldiers to fill out the pages of Osama's script.

But the other outstanding fact about the war is more perplexing: namely, that it is still being fought. Why are we still fighting a war that is clearly based on lies? Why does a solid, unwavering 40 percent of the American public continue to support the war effort, no matter the cost in lives or money?

It is no doubt true that, for a segment of pro-war America, the presence or absence of WMD or al-Qaeda is entirely irrelevant. In the minds of these particular pretend-patriots, talk of either threat is as a mere bit of official token rationalism, thinly-veiled codeword for the barely-concealed yearning to exact "revenge" on the ubiquitous "Them" for September 11. The more collateral - read, desired - damage done, the better.

But the official face of the pro-war rationale has not yet devolved into such a hideous visage - not even if it is as "drink-sodden" as Mr. Hitchens'. The main public line of justification for the war employed by the Right is as follows: the United States liberated Iraq by removing a murderous dictator, thus freeing the people of a tyrannical menace and putting them on the path toward democracy. Conversely, the pro-war brigade maintains, anyone who is opposed to the war supports dictatorship, Saddam, mass murder, and the clubbing of baby seals worldwide.

What is the typical response to this rationale? Usually, a pathetic whimpering one: "Why, yes, dictatorship is bad, yes, Saddam is bad, yes, the people are better off, but the war was illegal and fought on false pretenses." This is a response crafted to convince a policy wonk or a UN bureaucrat, not a thinking American. It hardly addresses the pro- war argument, which attempts to make two points: one, that a desirable result brought about by dubious means nonetheless remains a good thing, and two, that a stance against the war is de facto in favor of Saddam.

The first point is plain enough. Sometimes the end can indeed justify the means. But in this case it is prudent to ask: what justifies the end? The removal of Saddam Hussein has not meant the removal of the suffering the Iraqi people endured whilst under Saddam Hussein. Outside of a tiny sliver of Baghdad, gangs, looters, rapists, mercenaries, and militias prowl the highways, the urban centers, and the hinterlands. Any semblance of real security in Iraq is, despite administration propaganda, nowhere in evidence. Under Saddam there was, at least, security to count on.

There were also basic services. Today these citizens of an oil-rich nation find themselves lining up for hours to fill their cars with petrol. The production of energy has barely reached that of pre-war levels, which is especially appalling since the latter was maintained under severe sanctions and dilapidated equipment, not the glorious free-market theology now flourishing in the country. There is little long-term prospect of improvement for either oil or energy production given the realities on the ground. Moreover, the crippled reconstruction program, twisted and contorted into abject failure by the well-documented greed of overpaid American contractors and select Iraqi cronies, means that - at least under American auspices - the country will not be able to rebuild what its "liberators" have destroyed.

Adding insult to injury, as the UN discovered six months ago, malnutrition levels of children in Iraq are about twice as high as they were in the pre-war period. Unlike in the post-Gulf War era, the government does not - and cannot - carry out its past program of distributing foodstuffs. Who would be suicidal enough to deliver them in a country where even the main road to the airport is unsafe?

But what of the Shia, those most frequent and oft-cited victims of Saddam? Have they not benefited? Not a week goes by now in which dozens, if not hundreds, of Shia are senselessly slaughtered in markets, job centers, recruitment offices, and on pilgrimage. Surely, the ex-dictator must be pleased: as he sits in his air-conditioned room eating English muffins and donning pajamas, his ethnic enemies fall in numbers that have obviously far exceeded the 168 Shiites he is currently on trial for executing. Sectarian tensions resulting from this strife have been so inflamed that the term "civil war" is no longer taboo, but rather hotly debated in the country as a full-blown possibility. Indeed, it is now possible that Iraq will be "liberated" from its own national existence.

Last but not least, let us not forget the cheery fate meted to about 100,000 Iraqi civilians who have been freed only from their limbs and lives. That is the figure determined by a thorough peer-reviewed study conducted by the British medical journal Lancet last December, indicating the number of innocent Iraqis killed as a result of the war. Unsurprisingly, the warmongers have tried to discredit these statistics, but the facts of the case are clearly arrayed against them.

Thus the picture is clear: life in this supposed zone of "liberation" makes the seventh level of hell look like a towering utopian vista. Therefore, there is no need for puerile abstract formulas about "ends justifying means." The end does not even justify itself - let alone the means. With Saddam in power, many Iraqis died and suffered. Without Saddam in power, more Iraqis are still dying and suffering. Therefore, the real issue goes beyond Saddam.

This leads us on a collision-course with the pro-war argument's second point - that opposing the war is tantamount to defending Saddam. The charge is, if nothing else, a very clever bit of theoretical legerdemain.

The thick fog of the charge can be cleared once we reframe the issue, away from Saddam and toward the fate of the actual Iraqi people. The US armed Saddam with conventional, chemical, and biological agents and diplomatic cover to make war on Iran, Iraqi Shiites, and Iraqi Kurds before Gulf War I. All that is well-documented, well-known, and a part of Senate records. So when Saddam was in power serving US interests, the US had no problem with his atrocities. Now, when Saddam does not serve US interests, the US has a problem with Saddam - but is busily carrying on its own atrocities against the same victims Saddam chose: ordinary Iraqis. Thus, for thirty years, the United States has caused harm and violence to ordinary Iraqis. The only difference now is that the middleman has been removed.

Meanwhile, the leftist anti-war movement consistently opposed Saddam when he was an ally of the US, opposed US support for Saddam throughout the 1980s, and now, opposes the US role in Iraq. Why? Because of one constant principle: a defense of the Iraqi people's right to peace and person, a defense against both murder-by-proxy imperialism a la Hussein and murder-by-proximity colonialism a la Bush. In light of these realities, the Right's attempt to Saddamize us is beyond ludicrous. It calls to mind the following story: let us suppose a man brings his headache-ridden brother to the doctor to "liberate" him from his headache. The doctor examines the brother, takes out a hammer, and then bashes in the brother's head. Aghast, the man starts screaming at the doctor, exclaiming, "What have you done to my brother!" The doctor calmly responds, "Well, I got rid of the headache, didn't I?"

The defenders of war in America fit almost precisely the role of our story's doctor. They claim to act in the name of the proverbial victim but have succeeded only in causing his death. Those protesting this outcome are then bizarrely depicted as supporting headaches because they oppose murder - that is, they are depicted as supporting Saddam because they oppose the destruction of Iraq.

There is a reason I noted our friends on the Right almost precisely fit the role of our story's doctor: saying anything more would be too harsh on the latter. For in this case, our "doctor" installed, financed, and armed the "headache" of Saddam Hussein for decades, and then used the existence of this headache as an excuse to further assault the actual victim once it suited the doctor's new interests.

I hope the reader at this point does not herself feel assaulted by an over-elaborate analogy. The goal here is only to show, on theoretical and moral grounds, that the lie underlying all lies in the Iraq war is indefensible. And if this has been done through drawn-out means, it is not without reason.

For too long, too many of us have done too little. We have not been sharp enough, strong enough, or confident enough to attack the Right with ruthless conviction and courage. This applies doubly to centrist Democrats, liberals, and dabblers who shy away from powerful arguments against the warmongers' rationales and instead resort to esoteric legalese or mere whining. When it comes to facing the Right, we must stop curtseying and tipping before its spears and start curtly sharpening the tips of our own spears. This is the only way to push the Right off center stage and place the betterment of humanity back on the agenda.

If you found this piece useful, please keep us alive by making a donation to our second anniversary fund drive .

M. Junaid Alam, 22, is a Northeastern University journalism student and co-editor of the leftist youth journal, Left Hook (http://www.lefthook.org). He can be reached at alam@lefthook.org.