4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 16, 2003 OP/ED UI~e £cltija D40i 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LOUIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ Editorial Page Editors Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE Bashar Assad is dangerous. His judgment is impaired." -Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, in an interview with the Yedioth Ahronoth daily. A SAM BUTLER Ti w So(-PBOX 0 Pun" RS" If this be treason IKASHIF SHEIKH FROI T"HE WASTEBIN OF HisTORY hief weapons inspector Hans Blix is convinced the United Nations was taken for a ride, according to an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais, because the White House was never really that concerned with Iraq's alleged weapons threat. From the forged evi- dence and still-unsubstantiated claims desper- ately used to garner world support, Blix says it's evident that this war was planned long in advance. That an illegal weapons site has yet to be uncovered has long since faded from the head- lines. Now Baghdad is lawless after a power vacuum has left the city in the hands of enraged looters who have robbed or sacked businesses and government offices, stopping only when- there's nothing left to steal. In a Pentagon brief- ing, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld joked how "freedom's untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." Mr. Rumsfeld: No one is laughing. Iraqis remain suspicious as to why most areas of Baghdad were unguarded by the Amer- icans while the Oil Ministry and many of Iraq's oil fields have long since been heavily fortified. One angry resident vented at The Washington Post: "Is it because they just want our oil?" I wish it were that simple. But then again, liberations seldom are. Rumsfeld still wonders what went wrong between himself and Saddam back in 1983, Iraq's first meeting with a top-ranking Ameri- can official in six years, when he presented the dictator with a gift of golden cowboy spurs. As the Middle East envoy acting on behalf of George Shultz, then secretary of state under Ronald Reagan and former president of Bechtel Corp., Rumsfeld spent a year wooing Saddam as he massacred Iranian soldiers with nerve gas. Memos show he never condemned Iraq's use of U.S.-provided chemical weapons for fear of harming what turned out to be his real agenda - selling a $2 billion oil pipeline across Iraq to Jordan, built by Bechtel. The proposal failed and relations with Iraq again turned sour. History underwent a vast revision by the Bush administration and all memory of Rumsfeld's courting of Saddam was erased, so that 20 years later they were able to dupe the United States into believing that the current war had nothing to do with oil. Bechtel, former supplier of chemical weapons technology to Saddam, is one of three American corporations with a $1 billion stake in "rebuilding" Iraq's oil industry. Vice Presi- dent Dick Cheney's Halliburton is another. The substantial pension he continues to receive from the oft-troubled company raised concern when Halliburton received a no-bid contract in Iraq worth up to $7 billion, and an investigation into the matter is pending. Crooks of the same feather flock together, or so goes the proverb. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Pentagon advisor Dick Perle (also pending investigation for illegal conflicts of interest related to this war) are among administration officials who have tapped international crimi- nal Ahmed Chalabi for a leadership post in Iraq, to the chagrin of the Arab world. Sen- tenced in absentia by Jordan for his role in the collapse of Petra Bank in 1990, Chalabi cost shareholders over $500 million as he fled pros- ecution in a car trunk. Chalabi now heads the Iraqi National Con- gress that is sponsored by an odd blend of self- interests including the Pentagon and White House, neoconservative hawks and pro-Israel lobbies, all of whom feel the INC is most fit to lead Iraq. But it is the motives of this cabal that make the INC the worst candidate as it pushes for a pro-Western puppet government that will eagerly accede to American hegemony, right- wing Israeli demands and oil exploitation over a true democracy, which has always been least of their concerns. As the media parades the same images of children kissing soldiers, 12 people are killed and 100 injured when coalition troops open fire on angry protesters. While the world decides whether it's liberation or imperialism, a group of 20,000 Shiite Iraqis chant "No America, no Saddam" outside a meeting where the United States is to seal Iraq's fate. This is not freedom - it's just another occu- pation. Saddam is gone, but liberation will come only when the Bush administration and its cronies stop exploiting this human ideal as a front for their own dishonest agenda. If this war is treason, then these hawks have certainly made the most of it. Under the facade of self-righteousness and religious authority, the White House and its neocon ilk are account- able for exploiting Sept. 11 to push initiatives that should never have flown: tax cuts for the wealthy, two PATRIOT Acts, two wars, a nation-building failure, profiteering in Iraq and dominance of the Arab world - all as the economy suffers, international coalitions are torn, anti-American sentiment rages, and the blood money flows freely through Washington. And they'll be long gone while we're still suffering the blowback. Brace yourselves. S A Sheikh can be reached at ksheikh@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 'Anti-anti-war individuals' should consider following before demanding apologies TO THE DAILY: In Monday's Daily, David Kaplan requested an apology from all anti-war protesters (War protesters, naysayers on Bush admin. should apologize for folly of ways, 04/14/03). Because the war in Iraq is going well for the United States and many Iraqi people are happy about it, he believes the protesters have been proven wrong and should express remorse for doubting the wisdom of the administration. For the ben- efit of Kaplan and other anti-anti-war indi- viduals, I hereby present several reasons why anti-war protesters should not apolo- gize. First, there is absolutely nothing unpa- triotic about expressing your disagreement with the president. It is popular in some circles to say that peace activists should keep quiet because people have fought and died to give them the right to be peace activists. The idea, apparently, is that mil- lions should have died so that their coun- trymen would not be free to oppose the government when they disagree with its actions on moral grounds. War is not a football game. Expressing disapproval when you disagree with a war does not constitute a lack of team spirit, and cloaking yourself in the team colors does not put you on the right side. I have yet to meet a peace activist who did not support our troops, and part of that support is the desire to keep them out of dangerous situations when war is not called for. Second, winning the battle for Iraq does not mean winning the war on terrorism. I hope President Bush is right and the Iraqi people do end up far better off for our intervention. The same goes for Afghanistan. But al-Qaida and its potential recruits are less likely to see the United States as the savior of the Iraqi people than to see us as an imperialist aggressor attack- ing Islam for oil. If we want to stop terror- ism, we would do well to avoid engaging in the sorts of activities that help al-Qaida find new recruits. Third, we are sending messages to other leaders in the Middle East that we would rather not send. Examples: develop your nuclear weapons quickly so the United nalization for making money for the oil company executives that have always been close to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. In other words, the fact that the Iraqi people are happy right now does not mean this is not about oil (though it might not be). Fifth, no one should ever apologize for stating considered opinions on matters of national importance. Welcome to the democratic process. I say my piece, you say yours, and if everything is working right, the people in Washington pay atten- tion and act accordingly. If we declare it morally wrong to honestly misapprehend the outcome of the government's actions, dissent becomes much more difficult, and our democracy becomes a sham. Incidentally, I have not participated in peace protests, and I do not consider myself an activist. I am simply fed up with the view that supporting war is always patriotic and supporting peace is treason. Thank you for letting me say my piece. JAMES GRANTS Rackham U.S.-led war in Iraq violates international law To THE DAILY: With regard to David Kaplan's letter about war protesters: An apology from the war protesters? Why would anyone apologize for a politi- cal view? I am a war protester, and proud of it. I protest because I believe that at this point in human existence we can peacefully work things out, and if we can't, then the world should be behind the force that removes dictators from power. The world I am of course alluding to is the United Nations. It is a representative of world opinion with virtually every state around the world has an equal vote, and therefore an input in world affairs. But we don't like to talk about world opinion here. If you study any international politics you'll quickly begin to realize there is no such thing as an objective view of the world from a state's perspective. In the system in place for their own self interests with complete disregard to the well-being of others. But Kaplan probably has not studied up on his international politics But these things probably matter little to most people, because we ousted the bad guy, right? Well, we did it while breaking international law. If you go and check out the U.N. Charter, Article 2, sub-section 4, you'll read the following: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Pur- poses of the United Nations." That means that a UN member nation cannot use force to force a regime change in another state. So what we have said to the world is that the rules apply, but only when we want them to. We stand up for liberty and justice and can't even follow the rules that we have agreed to when we signed the U.N. Charter? Where is the lib- erty and justice for all in that? One final note: Will Arab states be friendly to us because we just invaded another Arab state? That's pretty out there. Go check out what's going on with Israel and Palestine these days and you'll see how much the other Arab countries like Israel. We're doing the same thing. EMILY GALOPIN Engineering sophomore Naysayer on Bush admin. apologizes for folly of ways TO THE DAILY: How do I feel about protests now? Well they must have been a bad idea, now that we've liberated Iraq. I mean since we found all of Saddam's nuclear weapons that were pointed at U.S. cities, confiscat- ed his caches of chemical and biological weapons, I feel much safer. Seeing Sad- dam and Osama led off to U.S. firing squads reminded me what this war was all about, making the world safe for contrac- tors from Halliburton to rebuild a country that we just dropped a few billion dollars worth of bombs onto. I think the only thing left to do now is to send a nice letters to the hundreds of millions of people living under other brutal dictatorships, I'm sure we'll get around to violating the national sovereignty soon. I don't know why anyone protested in the first place - look at what a good job we I THE BOONDOCKS AARON MCGRUDER