>Councils of war ignore a citizenry left vulnerable to barrage of
>propaganda : Opinion Michael Kinsley
>Michael Kinsley
>
>Prime Minister Tony Blair in London last week announced his conviction
that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, is ready to use
them  against other nations, and soon will have nukes as well. In
Washington, a  reporter asked President Bush why Blair offered no new
evidence. Bush  answered, "To protect sources."

>  That's a good joke on journalists. Much of what our leaders know
about  Iraq's military capacities and intentions can't be revealed. So
how is a  citizen of a democracy supposed to decide the most important
question any  nation must decide: Should we go to war? The government
answer is "Don't  worry your pretty little heads about it." Last month
the White House  issued a formal statement of the administration's
national security  policy, and it is full of rhetoric about democracy.
Yet that policy itself  is being imposed entirely without benefit of
democracy.

>  Add it up. You may not agree that the Bush family actually stole
the  presidency for George W., but you cannot deny that the other guy
got more  votes. Once installed as president, Bush asserted (as they
all do) the  right to start any war he wants, with or without
congressional approval.  You may not agree that this is
unconstitutional, but you cannot deny that  it makes any discussion of
the pros and cons outside of the White House  pointless. Finally, it's
clear that Bush will copy his father's innovation  of rigorously
controlling what journalists covering the war can see and  report. You
may not agree that the purpose is to protect official  propaganda and
lies, but you cannot   deny that such will be the effect. The absence
of democracy is especially  disturbing in combination with Bush's
doctrine of "preemption" - attacking  other countries that might attack
us, rather than waiting for them to do  so.

> If future wars are to be chosen a la carte, that's an ominous power
to  put in one person's hands. And if the timing is optional, then
the  argument that there isn't time in the nuclear age for 18th-
century  niceties like a congressional declaration of war seems
especially lame.  But let's pretend we actually do have some role in
deciding whether our  nation goes to war. We aren't capable of
answering the actual questions at  hand: Is Saddam Hussein an imminent
threat to our national and personal  security, and is a war to remove
him from power the only way to end that  threat? So we must do with a
surrogate question: Based on information we  do have and issues we are
capable of judging, should we trust the leaders  urging war upon us?

>  The Bush administration campaign for war on Iraq has been an
extravaganza  of disingenuousness. Two concepts - "terrorism" and
"weapons of mass  destruction" - are drained of whatever intellectual
validity they may have  had and put to work bridging huge gaps in
evidence and logic.  Knocking off Hussein became a top priority shortly
after 9/11. It was part  of the "war on terror," though the connection
between the events of 9/11  and Hussein's depredations was never
explained. According to the State  Department's annual survey, the most
enthusiastic state sponsor of  terrorism is Iran - an enemy of Iraq
we're now trying to patch things up  with. The administration pounced
on suggestions that 9/11 hijacker Mohamed  Atta had met with Iraqi
agents in   Prague, then dropped the allegation when it turned out to
be made up.  Iraq's use of poison gas in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s
is one example  always offered to prove Iraq's ability and willingness
to use "weapons of  mass destruction."

> The other is the gassing of a Kurdish town called  Halabja in 1988.
The fact that these episodes happened years ago does not  diminish
their horror, but it does raise the question of why now, years  later,
they are suddenly a casus belli. America's attitude was very  different
while these horrors were actually going on. There is controversy  over
whether the United States supplied ingredients for the gas, or
merely  supplied helicopters and other useful equipment, or did nothing
more than  smother the odd U.N. resolution. But there is no question
that we knew all  about it and looked the other way. The administration
of the time   included some of the same people as the current
administration.  The fatuous hypocrisy of the Bush case for war is no
reason to let Saddam  Hussein drop a nuclear bomb on your head.

> Iraq may be an imminent menace  to the United States even though
George W. Bush says it is. You would  think that, if honest
andpersuasive arguments were available, the  administration would offer
them. But maybe not. 

>The Guardian Weekly 3-10-2002