(This article was written and published in February of 2003, when it was evident that George Bush would have his Iraq war, regardless.)
By all accounts it looks as if George Bush will undertake a military adventure in Iraq somewhere around March. Which country will emerge as the victor remains to be seen. There is no doubt that America will emerge, from any military conflict as the victor. What that will mean to the standing of America, internally with its own people, externally with other countries remains to be seen. Far more difficult to foresee, predict and allocate is the country that can claim moral victory.
Saddam is a difficult man to admire. There is no doubt that he has betrayed his people several times and that he has visited terror on his people, particularly the Kurds in the north of the country. His attempt in August 1990 to annex Kuwait is clear evidence that he is a dangerous man. Dangerous to his people and dangerous to his neighbors.
It is in the context of the present conflict with America, strutting on the world stage like an ego inflated “prima donna” that Saddam assumes the heroic proportions with which he is so easily associated with today. That maybe America’s biggest failure. The supposedly media savvy Americans who actually own and operate the very media which colors perceptions and thus actions, being unable to convert world opinion on so easy an issue like the moral and ethical makeup of Saddam.
Be that as it may, there is another, totally unambiguous, more horrifying and sickening drama being enacted while the world’s attention is focused on Iraq.
Israel, as can be expected is using the distraction for its own ends. To put it more succinctly, Sharon, boldened with a greater majority in the Knesset, is putting finishing touches to the process of massacre and carnage he started way back in 1982 on the 16th of September at Sabra and Shatilla.
Great magicians use sleight of hand and distract the observer from the actual moment and place whence the trick takes place. As your eye is transfixed by the movements of the left hand, the right hand will pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat. Now you see it, now you don’t.
Thus is how Sharon is acting. Sharon has assassinated (I do not use the word lightly) Ibrahim-al-Maqadma a senior leader of Hamaz recently. Israel has not only publicly accepted that they undertook the assassination but also vowed to undertake further assassinations of the sort.
Apart from such “extra judicial methods”, to use a popular phrase, Israel has also undertaken and are presently destroying homes and uprooting families (not that any Palestinian family have been allowed to take root anyway) of people whom they believe are involved the fight against them. Need I add, a just and deserved fight against Israeli occupation and hegemony.
While the world watches the rantings and ravings of Bush and his pack, Sharon uses the distraction to wreak havoc and carnage on our Palestinian brothers and sisters. The world media, in order that the world is covered in 30 minutes – including commercials and weather reports (as if you need CNN and BBC to ask you to get out of the rain) pay scant attention to the systematic destruction of a people. Their hopes and their dreams.
This, by far, is the greater tragedy of the events unfolding around the Iraqi conflict. The fact that Sharon and his cronies will, if history is any indication to go by, use the opportunity to practice his skills at killing (and he is the master of it) and devastation to deal a violent blow to the Palestinians which may even be a fatal strike against the peace process which he so abhors.
The removal of Saddam from power and relative freedom and security to the people of Iraq, as professed by America may eventually be a boon. However, make no mistake, Sharon’s use of the opportunity to continue and intensify the task he started as Defense Minister, will be the greater tragedy. The bigger shame.
Let us hope that the Belgium Supreme Court might not be the only source of fear and final reckoning (at least here on this transient world) for Sharon.
February 2003