Tackling the fundamentals
The central thrust of President Bush's vendetta against Iraq appears
to be the claim that President Hussein needs to be zapped before he
can develop/use (either, or, or both — take your pick) "weapons
of mass destruction".
In other words, the strategy of pre-emptiveness.
To any thinking person who's concerned about humanitarian and civil
rights issues, such a strategy seems almost obscene, particularly
when the advocate thereof has at his disposal weapons of such magnitude
that a pre-emptive attack has the potential of being either of the
"one hit and you're out for good" variety, or so devastating to the
environment and to innocent civilians that it has to raise
questions about the motives of the real aggressor.
To say nothing of the fact that it completely undermines the concept
of the "Rule of Law".
Well, I've been thinking long and hard about this, and keep coming back to one very central notion that has much to do with the emotional/mental maturity of our species (or lack of it!).
Through our own cleverness/foolishness (depending on your point of
view) we have chosen to develop weapons of mass destruction.
And make no mistake: the development thereof has always been a matter
of deliberate choice. We may justify/rationalise it all we please
with such arguments as "we've got to get them before they do", and
then later "we've got to have bigger/better than they've got", and
later still "we've got to have more than they've got". And all in
the name of "deterrence", a catchword that reveals nothing more than
our own fears and insecurities, and our instinctive recognition that
no matter how much we may dislike it, we're not all equal, and probably
never will be.
But, whatever the explanations, and no matter how compelling they
may be, the fact remains that we have deliberately and knowingly chosen
this path.
As a consequence of which, we now have capabilities that, for their magnitude of sheer destructive ability, plumb the very depths of the abyss of obscenity.
So, having made our choice, we also have to accept the responsibilities that go with it.
It appears that President Bush's main contention, and argument for
a pre-emptive attack against Iraq, is driven by a judgement he's made
regarding President Hussein's "fitness" to be a person to possess
a "weapons of mass destruction capability".
Now this is a problem, for questions of fitness are relative. "Fit"
by whose standards? According to what criteria?
One person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. In some
quarters it could fairly persuasively be argued that President Bush
is not a fit person to possess such a capability.
It seems to me that there is one "universal test" that could be applied,
and that would perhaps give us some degree of security and peace of
mind in this oh-so-dangerous world that we seem to have created for
ourselves.
It has to do with accepting the responsibility for the consequences
of the choices we make.
Its also a very simple test (or requirement, if you like) that is
really no more than an adaptation of a principle many of us learned
(and promptly forgot!) at our mothers' knees.
Basically it is that those who want to have the capability to wield
weapons of mass destruction against others should be prepared to accept
having those same weapons wielded against themselves!
(Remember the old saying — "Treat other people as you want them
to treat you"?)
Being a bit more specific, any nation that's not prepared to accept
at least one strike from one of these awesome weapons first is, self-evidently,
unfit to possess such a capability itself.
Clearly, any person in possession of such a capability who talks about pre-emptive military action to prevent their own nation from absorbing a first strike by weapons of mass destruction has not fully accepted the responsibilities that accompany the possession of such weapons, and is not therefore themself a fit person to have such a capability!
And is such a person truly capable of assessing the fitness of another?
Talk of "absorbing a first strike by weapons of mass destruction" may
seem somewhat gruesome and inhumane, but why don't we just stop kidding
ourselves — stop hiding behind rose-tinted spectacles.
We have chosen these weapons. We have decided to retain their ongoing
deployment. Therefore its about time we grew up and accepted the responsibilities
that go with them. If we can't face up to the realities and responsibilities
of having at our disposal such hellish technology then we should all
start campaigning for multilateral disarmament again.
Does this mean that we must of necessity render ourselves vulnerable to blackmail by any terrorist group that chooses to buy itself the latest line in weapons of mass destruction?
No, it doesn't mean that. What it does mean is that we seriously
and genuinely have to start addressing the causes of terrorism
if we are ever to free ourselves from the threat to world stability
that it represents.
Any society wherein groups within that society see no alternative
but violence to make their point is seriously flawed, and this,
not weapons of mass destruction, is where our true concerns and attention
should be focussed.
Any so-called "War on Terror" that seeks merely to out-gun and thwart its targets is simply employing the tactics of a culture of repression. In a sense, its a terrorist strategy itself. In the longer term it does nothing to address the real causes, and consequently its doomed to failure. In fact, it could be argued that its actually counter-productive in that it exacerbates the conditions that produce terrorism in the first place.
