[Reader-list] War hypocrisy

[Yazad Jal]

Perhaps the best article I've read on the war uptil now.
-yazad

http://yazadjal.blogspot.com


HYPOCRISY, EVERYBODY?

SWAMINOMICS / SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR
[ SUNDAY, MARCH 30, 2003 12:00:42 AM ]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?
msid=41784296

Wars are prime time for hypocrisy. The bogus emotion and rhetoric displayed
by pro-war factions is fully matched by that of anti-war factions, and
bystanders.

The prime hypocrite, of course, is the USA. Arab TV stations have broadcast
pictures of captured American prisoners of war. US Defence Secretary
Rumsfeld claims it is a violation of the Geneva Convention to photograph or
humiliate POWs. The same day The Washington Post carried a photo of a
blindfolded Iraqi soldier held captive by US troops. Will Rumsfeld prosecute
The Post for war crimes? I doubt it.

To Rumsfeld's outrage, Iraqi soldiers have pretended to surrender and then
opened fire. Some US analysts claim this is perfidy and a war crime as
defined in the 1977 amendment to the Geneva Convention of 1949. Guess who
refused to ratify the 1977 amendment? The USA. It merrily violates the
Convention by holding Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo, yet gets moralistic
about Saddam.

The US denounces Saddam as a monster and mass murderer. Very true, but this
monster was created and armed to the teeth by the NATO powers, notably the
US and France. Indeed, the US helped Saddam produce chemical weapons and
warheads whose use finally forced Iran to accept a cease fire. As long as
Saddam was a convenient tool to combat Iran, the US smilingly ignored his
mass murders. Only when he turned against it did the US suddenly discover
all sorts of vices in its former buddy.

France has been cheered by many in India for opposing the war, yet its
hypocrisy runs as deep as America's. Force is always the last resort, it
proclaimed at the UN debate on Iraq. Why, then, is the French Army so
constantly deployed in former French colonies that some observers wonder
whether French colonialism ever ended? Remember French brutality in Algeria
and Vietnam? If force is a last resort, why did France destroy the unarmed
Greenpeace ship, Rainbow Warrior, that protested against French nuclear
explosions in the Pacific? Can it really distance itself from its Hutu pals
in the Rwanda regime that committed the greatest genocide of recent times,
killing 800,000 people of the Tutsi tribe?

Germany has protested in the UN about regime change in Iraq. Yet Germany
above all stoked the break-up of Yugoslavia, recognising different segments
as independent countries. France and other Europeans followed suit. This led
to a horrendous sectarian war that killed 200,000 people. Having lit the
fires in Yugoslavia, the Germans and French did not have the guts or will to
send in their own troops to quell the violence. Instead they twiddled their
thumbs till the US, which had strongly opposed Yugoslavia's break-up, agreed
to come in and clear the mess they had created. Regime change in Yugoslavia
killed far more people than will die in Iraq, and Germany and France cannot
escape the blame.

Russia has bombed Chechnya into a moonscape, killing thousands and violating
all civil rights. Yet it swoons at the thought of violence in Iraq. Very
selective morality here.

India says the UN should sanction any war on Iraq. Did India ask the UN
permission for its 1971 war with Pakistan? Not at all, it acted
unilaterally. It used its buddy, the Soviet Union, to veto peace moves by
the UN. Officially, India claims that Pakistan started that war through an
air attack on December 3. In fact the Pakistan Air Force was simply
responding to the intrusion of Indian troops into East Pakistan on November
21, an invasion reported by the international press but blanked out totally
by the tame Indian press.

Anti-war protesters are taking to the streets across the globe. They did not
do so when wars without US involvement produced massive slaughter in Africa,
Asia or Yugoslavia. Why was there was no political pressure on European and
US governments to stop at the outset the horrendous killing in Rwanda or
Yugoslavia? The `international peace movement' is, by and large,
anti-American. Many peaceniks protested when Bush Sr went into Iraq in 1991.
But when he withdrew, and Saddam Hussein slaughtered 50,000 Shias in
southern Iraq, they staged no protest. In theory, they oppose violence by
anybody, but they stage mass rallies only when the US gets violent.
Journalists, academics and moralists yawn with boredom if Hutus slaughter
Tutsis, but explode with outrage if the US sends in its marines.

US hypocrisy in Iraq is easily explained by narrow self-interest. Can
opposition to the war by others also be explained by narrow self-interest?
Is there really no higher morality?