Double standards and
preventive warfare?
To the Editor:
Re 'Bush's team targets Hussein' (2/10/02), the
administration seems to embrace an ill-conceived policy of 'Wage war to avoid
war'. No link of Hussein to terrorism is provided, and
Hussein's only transgression is alleged to be the fact that he does
not allow foreign weapons inspectors in his country. The U.S. does not open its
weapons programs for inspection either, so how is something we do routinely
supposed to be reason enough to attack another country? How are we to justify
bombings that are likely to cause the death of thousands of
innocent civilians? Perhaps we are to look to Anatole France for an
explanation: "A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion
is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not
haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays
without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the
syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an
abundant source of gain." I sincerely hope our people are smarter than to
think that countries can be divided in those 'good' and those 'evil', smart
enough to avoid our ruin. It took a civil war for America to accept that black
people deserve the same rights as white people; let us hope it does not take
another war to accept that the right to live should not be conferred by
the color of a passport.
Alex Bäcker