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Bush Isolated, Launches Terrifying AttackMillions Protest
The skies of Iraq are alight with fire and smoke. Fear is turning to panic on the streets of Baghdad. The war hawks are loose. After he failed at diplomacy, after his ultimatums to the United Nations were denied, after he bullied, bribed and argued for months, the President was left thoroughly isolated. Only after Iraq began destroying its missiles did George W. Bush announce that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to get out of Dodge. The empire struck. It was a moment of global despair. Grief and anger spread as the casualties mounted. Millions took to the streets to protest the attack, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Cape Town, South Africa, from South Carolina to Bangladesh. More than 500 protests took place in the U.S. alone on March 20, the day after the U.S. attacked. Many bore witness with black armbands and vigils. Demonstrators shut down San Francisco, students boycotted classes and peaceful civil disobedience was widespread. New York City organizers staged the biggest U.S. protest of all--a 200,000 strong antiwar demonstration on March 22. A MASSACRE, NOT A WARThe U.S. invasion of Iraq is a one-sided aggression--a massacre, not a war. The world's sole superpower, armed with unimaginable weapons, is crushing an already impoverished, weakened, defeated country--one that was in the midst of disarming. This war has little to do with weapons of mass destruction. And it has even less to do with democracy in Iraq. The attack will only encourage terrorism and will place Americans more at risk. The Iraqi people will pay the highest price for Washington's militaristic thirst for oil and power. As promised, the Pentagon perpetrated a terrifying blitzkrieg of Baghdad designed to "shock and awe." In the first 48 hours, it fired more than 3,000 bombs and cruise missiles, more than 10 times the total number used in the entire 1991 Gulf War. The bombardment rendered the entire population of Baghdad, more than 6 million frightened people, physically and emotionally exhausted. Those who survived the onslaught, that is. This unilateral war, this gun-slinging drive for "regime change," is among the most reckless actions ever taken by a U.S. president. It sets a precedent for other nations to prey on weaker countries in the name of undefined, non-existent, future "threats." It is a recipe for military escalation and global chaos. The so-called "coalition of the willing" is the United Kingdom, Spain and a ragtag collection of the coerced. It includes hardly democratic countries like Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Uzbekistan and Colombia. One-third of the "coalition" would not even admit their participation publicly. A NEW SUPERPOWERThis war stands in clear violation of the United Nations Charter and international law, as U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan warned. So it is not surprising that, at the end of the day, the U.S. had to abandon even the pretense of U.N. endorsement. The alternative would have been an even more humiliating defeat in the Security Council. Despite relentless U.S. efforts to bribe, threaten and bully the Security Council's "uncommitted six"--Chile, Mexico, Cameroon, Guinea, Angola and Pakistan--the U.S. never got the commitment of a single vote. Since when do poor countries defy a superpower? Since when do allies like France and Russia threaten the U.S. with veto? The driving force of this opposition was the sudden emergence of what the New York Times identified as the "second superpower" in the world: global public opinion. The unanimity of that worldwide opposition was brought to visible heights in the historic mobilization of Feb. 15 when 10-13 million people marched in 665 cities around the world saying no to war. By raising the domestic political price for leaders considering endorsing the U.S. war, the antiwar movement kept wavering governments honest. Unprecedented in comparable periods on the eve of war, the international mobilization against war did not collapse. Coordinated local protests, marches, civil disobedience and teach-ins after the outbreak of war demonstrated the tremendous depth and breadth of antiwar commitment around the world. As the U.S. war in Iraq emerges as the centerpiece of the Bush administration's search for power, oil and the political remapping of the Middle East, the peace movement must now take up the challenge of transforming itself into a movement against empire. The Greek scribe Tacitus, looking out at the aftermath of the Roman legions' assault in Scotland, said, "the Romans brought devastation…but they called it peace." The new empire, headquartered in Washington, threatens the same. Phyllis Bennis is author of "Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11 Crisis" and a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. |
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