As of May, 2003, I have decided to no longer run for this office. I am maintaining the website for several reasons, not the least of which is that the effort expended in developing the ideas was clearly worthy, and the work produced should therefore be preserved. My further reasons for no longer seeking elective office can be found in this essay - Saving America from Ourselves.
from the 2004 Presidential Campaign of Joel A. Wendt, working paper #11
The Ill-logic of the Proposed War Against Iraq
[obviously this paper is being written before War breaks out, assuming it does. It sould be read within that context]
It is the thesis of this paper that the reasons given by the Bush Administration for its proposed war on Iraq are so completely ill-logical as to prove with certainty that the Administration is lying as to its motives. This being the case, we must seek for the hidden motives.
First we will begin with the lack of logical cohesion. Here is how Bush layed out his reasoning in the 2003 State of the Union Address (We need to keep in mind that an address such as this does not represent a real coherent argument, such as one would expect to withstand rigorous criticism. In fact, politicians and administration officials routinely make comments that are not challenged for their logic and their reasonableness. We have even coined a word for this one-sided logically empty form of speech - "Spin". This is itself a confession that one is not dealing with an effort of any kind for real knowledge or truth, but as in almost all "political " speech the real point is to put the best face on ones intentions, without revealing the reality.) :
Here is the main part where Iraq is focused on in the speech: [my comments appear in brackets and in red]
"But some governments will be timid in the face of terror. And make no mistake about it: If they do not act, America will. (Applause.)
[Here is placed a reference to two ideas of the Bush Administration: 1) our right to act alone; and, 2) the doctrine of pre-emption. With regard to our right to act alone, this is always a given, so the question is what is the point of making such a big deal of it, which the Administration has done since the beginning. The only reason for making this point over and over again is to raise the Administrations needs and desires outside of any limits that might arise because we are a member of a Community of Peoples and Nations. And this we need to keep in mind, that the initiative for this point of view comes from within the Administration, from within a political group that clearly seeks to represent not the People of America, but the military-industrial complex at our expense. Were the People of America to really chose which course to take, I do not doubt that we would rather be a member of the Community of Peoples and Nations, rather than a Stranger-Outlaw.
With respect to the doctrine of pre-emption, this doctrine in its most favorable form depends upon the so-called enemy being poised to attack, and can never apply to a situation where such a Nation or People, ill-led in its own circumstances, merely contains the possibility that it might attack. Here the Bush Adminstration grasps at straws in an effort to justify what are clearly imperial ambitions. Under no circumstances are we to take what the Administration says at face value.]
"Our second goal is to prevent regimes that sponsor terror from threatening America or our friends and allies with weapons of mass destruction.
[This is a laudable goal, were it not for the fact that the greater portion of our allies and Iraq's neighbors do not feel threatened by the Iraqi Regime. The threat from Iraq is completely the invention of the Bush Administration.]
"Some of these regimes have been pretty quiet since September the 11th. But we know their true nature. North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens.
[North Korea's behavior began to be publically belligerant only after Bush made of them the new boogeyman (Russian no longer works as an "Evil Empire"), so in order to promote fear among the American People, Bush had to create other concerns, which he did with his "axis of evil" rhetoric. And, we need to remember this is rhetoric, this is speech turned to a purpose which is not the illumination of truth, but the in advance justification for later actions that would otherwise be reprehensible.]
"Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.
[This is one of those bizarre forms of rhetoric called a half-truth. Bush completely mis-states the views of the Iranian People for his own purposes. Everyone who has bothered to find out knows that the Iranian People, while clearly not overly fond of their leadership, want nothing to do with a War, or with the occupation of their lands by Americans. Neither would we, so there is nothing strange here at all, except it is just one more lie by the Adminstration in pursuit of its imperialistic goals.]
"Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror.
[People all over the world are hostile to the imperialistic tendencies coming from the sitting governments we Americans continue to elect by believing their lies. This hostility should not surprise us. As far as Iraq being a State that supports terror, the Adminstration has never made the case that this is so, and prior to the Iraqi People being picked out for the Adminstration's aggressive imperialistic tendencies, no one in the international community considered them a player in State sponsored terror. Our supposed allies the Saudis were more worrisome on this level.
"The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade.
[Ah! A real fact, one of very few.]
"This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens -- leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children.
[This is a very disputed fact. Those who have investigated it carefully believe it was the Iranians. The village in question was fought over by the two sides during their eight year war, one in which both sides used chemical weapons. In the case of this village the deaths were caused by chemical weapons of the type being used at that time by the Iranians (the Iraqis did have such weapons, but were not using them). Clearly here Bush is trying to demonize the Iraqi Regime with what is basically an outright lie to the American People, confident that few will seek the truth on their own.]
"This is a regime that agreed to international inspections -- then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.
[Again, one of those rare facts.]
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.
[Recent international polls, reveal that America is seen by 80% to be the Nation most "threatening to the peace of the world.]
"By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic."
[Here now is the most clever aspect of the whole argument. Bush paints a picture of potential danger, not actual danger, but potential. Potential danger is nothing new to the international arena. The Cold War was a conflict fought over potential danger (threat of nuclear destruction). Whole doctrines were carefully thought out, none of which involved pre-emptive attack. Why? Because it was thought that the whole situation was kept in balance by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD). They could do to us, what we could do to them, so nobody did anything to anybody. In the middle-East, America can't be reached by the Iraqi Regime's weapons (their missiles don't have the range), so we are not so much in danger if Iraq responds to our aggressive acts with weapons of mass destruction. Only the region is in danger, so it is no wonder that none of them - none of them - want this war with its grevious potential dangers being brought nearer the surface by the unwise actions of the Bush Administration.
Then there is the stuff that is not mentioned, that is not said because to face that part of the truth would change everything. It is one thing to call for a war, and another to acknowledge what a war really is. So when Bush says: "If they do not act, America will. ", he is really saying, not America, but "I will", and in addition, that he is willing to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers, and Iraqi soldiers, and women and children, AND put at risk large portions of the world for savage increases in terrorist activities all because the Iraqi Regime is not behaving the way he (and his Christian Right Administration) decides they should. Nothing is to stand in the way of the ideological goals of the Bush Adminstration, including the truth.]
Now that we understand clearly that what the Bush Administration has offered as its "spin" reasons for a War against Iraq have no real meaning, it becomes possible to ask what are the real reasons. Again, it is simply a matter of common sense. In television and film detection, what is said? "Follow the money". Love of money and power is one of the oldest motives in history for terrible crimes. Clearly something is providing the motive which is used within the circle of elite powers to justify the manipulation of ordinary people for the benefit of a few. Below you will find one consideration of what lies hidden behind the smoke and mirrors of the Administrations war talk. I can't vouch for its accuracy, I don't know enough about economic realities, nor do I have any way to get to the real facts (the purpose of a lie is to hide the truth). Until such time as political leaders, especially the Bush Administration, are more forth coming, we are going to have to depend on some degree of speculation. Perhaps some day in the future, they will stop abusing our trust.
* * *
The Real Reason for the War
01/29/03
Written by W. Clark of the Indy Times
"The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch in Nov. 2000 ( when the euro was worth around 80 cents ) , and has actually made off like a bandit considering the dollar's steady
depreciation against the euro.â ( Note: the dollar declined 15% against the euro in 2002. )
The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq - or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a puppet government in Iraq is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard and stay that way." ( While also hoping to veto any wider OPEC momentum towards the euro, especially from Iran â the 2nd largest OPEC producer who is actively discussing a switch to euros for its oil exports ) .
Furthermore, despite Saudi Arabia being our 'client state,' the Saudi regime appears increasingly weak/ threatened from massive civil unrest. Some analysts believe a 'Saudi Revolution' might be plausible in the aftermath of an unpopular U.S. invasion of Iraq ( ie. Iran circa 1979 ) . Undoubtedly, the Bush administration is acutely aware of these risks. Hence, the neo conservative framework entails a large and permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf region in a post Saddam era, just in case we need to surround and grab Saudi's oil fields in the event of a coup by an anti-western group. But first back to Iraq.
"Saddam sealed his fate when he decided to switch to the euro in late 2000 ( and later converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. to euros ) - at that point, another manufactured Gulf War become inevitable under Bush II. Only the most extreme circumstances could possibly stop that now and I strongly doubt anything can - short of Saddam getting replaced with a pliant regime."
Big Picture Perspective: Everything else aside from the reserve currency and the Saudi/Iran oil issues ( i.e. domestic political issues and international criticism ) is peripheral and of marginal consequence to this administration. Further, the dollar-euro threat is powerful enough that they'll rather risk much of the economic backlash in the short-term to stave off the long-term dollar crash of an OPEC transaction standard change from dollars to euros. All of this fits into the broader Great Game that encompasses Russia, India, China."
This information about Iraq's oil currency is censored by the U.S. media as well as the Bush administration & Federal Reserve as the truth could potentially curtail both investor and consumer confidence, reduce consumer borrowing/ spending, create political pressure to form a new energy policy that slowly weans us off middle-eastern oil, and of course stop our march towards war in Iraq. This quasi 'state secret' can be found on a Radio Free Europe article discussing Saddam's switch for his oil sales from dollars to the euros on Nov. 6, 2000.
Otherwise, the effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their ( central bank ) reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation ( think Argentina currency crisis, for example ) . You'd have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there'd surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario come home to roost. "
For more links and commentary on the War, check out this website.
