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CRIMES AGAINST IRAQ
By Giles Weaver
Only one person manipulated evidence and misled the world — and that person was Saddam Hussein.
- -- George W. Bush November 14, 2005
Now we are on the main stage. This essay isn’t called The Crime Against Iraq for nothing. If you’ve been paying attention, you now know that The Crime Against Kansas and To the Person Sitting in Darkness are also about Iraq in their own way, because the crime against Iraq is not new or original. It is an old struggle, and we are merely reliving the world’s eternal desire to conquer, destroy, and enslave -- but on a new map with new weapons and new justifications.
The critical difference is that while we can look at Kansas in 1854 and the Philippines in 1899 with a detached academic eye, the crime against Iraq is an emotional flash point. The ink used to print the names of our dead barely has time to dry before the media machine revs up its venal engine to ensure that the faithful fall into line and the dissenters are marginalized. How can any sane individual read the above quote by George W. Bush without being overwhelmed with anger? It’s a huge lie that cannot be supported by any reasonable evidence -- perfect for American circa 2005. How little we care for the truth.
The narrations for and against the invasion of Iraq are now, for all practical purposes, irrelevant.
The war’s supporters will never fully accept the occupation’s predictable, well documented, and wildly spectacular failure. They must live with the fact that they’ll believe anything.
The war’s protestors will never feel glory in their vindication; they will be shadowed by the criminalization of their dissent, and haunted by their political impotence. They must live with the fact that they will never truly believe in the institutions they rely on the most.
 The “Left” and “Right” are the armies staring across No Man’s Land at each other on the Western Front in 1917, and no matter how well or how disastrous events play out, neither side will ever concede a mile. The story of Iraq will end in a bitter stalemate followed by a suffocation of the senses.
While the debate fiddles, and behind the public relations campaign that is Iraq’s new “political process,” a civil war rages that will only intensify. In 2010 the names of American soldiers killed in Iraq will continue to be buried on the back pages of our newspapers, and you will glance at them and ask, “How did we get here again?”
The “Left” and “Right” will move back to their trenches, wallow in another round of their self -proclaimed virtues, and remain as irrelevant to meaningful public and foreign policy as ever. Enablers, con men, and thieves will continue to be the three most likely character profiles of our “representation” on Capital Hill.
 So, if a master orator like Charles Sumner can’t turn the tide in the U.S. Senate against the obvious crimes committed in Kansas in the name of slavery, and Mark Twain, one of the most gifted and renown writers in the world during his time, cannot turn public opinion about the colonial occupation of a sovereign nation from support or quiet acceptance to vocal outrage, what can we possibly offer here? The answer: nothing. If our President is willing to make “prepared remarks” which are nothing more than dishonest media bytes, and our ignorant nation laps it up like the gospel, how can we travel the pathway to the “great light?” The answer: we can’t.
All we can do is be horrified by our vicious and callous policies. All we can do is be appalled by our casual acceptance of the deaths of our own soldiers and “the enemy” – whether women, children, or the elderly. Everyone is a threat to our children now, and to kill OUR children would be a crime, right?
We know they have biological and chemical weapons... And we also have reason to believe they’re pursuing the acquisition of nuclear weapons.
- -- Dick Cheney March 17, 2002
When did the crime against Iraq begin?
 Did it begin with the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916? That was the secret understanding between colonial powers Britain and France that detailed how they would carve up the Ottoman Empire after the Great War. As a result, what is now Iraq was created, and in 1920 it became a League of Nations “mandate” under British control. The British installed a Hashemite monarchy that lasted in various forms until 1958. When the Iraqis revolted against British rule, the British attacked Iraqi villages with planes and gas. Was that the start of the crime?
Or did the crime begin in 1963, when John F. Kennedy’s CIA initiated regime change in Bagdad? The dangerous threat to the United States at the time was Abdel Karim Kassem. After the coup, the CIA elevated the minor anti-Communist Baath party to power. They celebrated by carrying out a bloody purge of their political and philosophical opponents.
Maybe the crime began when Saddam Hussein assumed power of the Baath Party in 1979, entered an American backed eight-year war with Iran, and put down Kurdish and Shiite rebellions with chemical weapons. Those were certainly crimes against Iraq. America’s response to Saddam’s chemical attacks, and the response of other major Western powers, was to continue to buy Iraqi oil and send Hussein money and weapons. Was that a crime?
 Perhaps the crime began with the crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations after Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the first Gulf War. While the sanctions, as we now know, led to the end of Hussein’s weapons programs, they also indirectly led to the deaths of up to a million Iraqi children, a consequence that Madeline Albright said was “worth it.” Maybe the Gulf War itself was a crime considering it was mainly fought to protect Saudi Arabian oil fields and protect the long-term business interests of the Bush family.
Did the crime against Iraq start after the Gulf War when the United States encouraged Kurdish and Shiite revolutions against Hussein, then abandoned them to be slaughtered?
Is the crime against Iraq the invasion and occupation by the United States in March 0f 2003?
Or maybe the entire brief history of Iraq is one continuous crime against the weak by the strong.
We do know that there have been shipments going into . . . Iraq . . . of aluminum tubes that . . . are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.
-- Condoleezza Rice September 8, 2002
Lying is a crime if a person is under oath. Ask Scooter Libby. Unfortunately, when holding scripted press conferences, making State of the Union addresses, presenting military intelligence to the United Nations, or making the rounds on government propaganda organs such as FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS, you can lie without fear of consequence. By the time one of the ten actual journalists left in America has figured out your lie, everybody else has forgotten about it. If your lie is exposed, attack the messenger. Deny. Attack! Deny. Attack! Deny! Attack!
 It would be nice if all our representatives were required to take an oath that once they assume office they cannot lie in any situation or forum, and the consequences would be the same as any federal perjury charge. On the other hand, we demand absolutely no accountability from our homegrown tyrants – only ones that we install in foreign countries that the majority of our citizens are unable to locate on a map with the names filled in. We believe whatever we are told no matter how absurd. Does an apathetic and gullible population deserve the truth?
We know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.
- -- Dick Cheney March 17, 2003
The United States launched a pre-emptive attack on Iraq under the pretense that it possessed weapons of mass destruction. It didn’t.
So a new reason was found. We launched a pre-emptive strike on Iraq because Saddam Hussein was allied with Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network. He wasn’t.
So a new reason was found. We launched a pre-emptive strike on Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a bad dictator who committed crimes against his own people. When he committed those crimes, the United States said and did nothing.
So a new reason was found. We launched a pre-emptive strike on Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power and create a beacon of democracy and freedom that would spread across the Middle East. That seems to be the reason our “leaders” have decided to keep regardless of the fact that such a plan is simply impossible.
And here we are really starting to penetrate the depth of the crime. Nobody really knows why we launched a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Oil? Israel? PNAC? To settle an old Bush score?
 We’re so busy trying to figure out who forged the Niger uranium documents, or who outed a CIA agent, that we’re forgetting the big question – WHY? Why start a war that will cost billions of dollars and lead to the death and destruction of countless lives and property?
Perhaps our “leaders” really did think it would be a “cakewalk,” loss of American lives would be minimal, and that the national treasury would be safe for future distribution to millionaires. They believed in a fantasy that has turned into a nightmare. And we re-elected them. And we defend their lies and incompetence.
Why?
The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa . . . Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.
-- George W. Bush State of the Union Address January 28, 2003
The lies continue and the time to face unpleasant realities is long past.
- The invasion of Iraq is a disaster and will remain so.
- American troops are being killed every day and will continue to be killed and the majority of Americans do not care one bit.
- Our government is engaged in systematic rendition and torture and our Vice-President is fighting a bill to outlaw the practices. Americans don’t care one bit.
- Every day we kill innocent men, women, and children Americans don’t care one bit.
- Every day we destroy more of the country that we will have to reconstruct. Americans don’t care one bit.
- Every day millions of dollars of money borrowed from China, other foreign powers, and future American generations, are sunk into the Iraq debacle. Americans don’t care one bit.
- A terrorist haven has been created that did not exist before. Americans don’t care one bit.
- Iraq is now a spectacular recruiting device for Al Qaeda, while recruitment into America’s armed forces is falling and more difficult to achieve.
- The men and women behind this disaster continue to deny, distort, deceive, and hide behind their lies and power. Their lies are too numerous to quote, and their dismissal of human life too tragic to contemplate.
It is a shame. It is an abomination to the exalted ideals we pretend to revere. It is an anathema to human rights. It is repugnant to anyone who has faith in international law. It is a disgrace, a dishonor, a wicked and revolting embarrassment, a mortifying humiliation, and a pitiful betrayal of whatever shred of values we still can legitimately claim to hold.
It is a crime.
EPILOGUE
 If you knew all the stories of history you wouldn’t trust a soul. This is only three of them.
We often speak, these days, of “crimes against humanity.” There is now an International Criminal Court at The Hague to try such crimes. The phrase “crime against humanity” is so optimistic that I have trouble not bursting out in laughter each time I hear it. Think about what you’ve just read. Imagine all the other stories of history; especially the ones that make these three look like a walk in the park. This IS humanity. Humanity is killing and destroying and lying and not caring one bit. How can a crime be committed against that?
The goal, then, must be to enter a ‘post-humanity phase’ – to become more than human. I do not have any idea how our species will make that evolutionary leap, but I am confident that international law and peace among nations and races is the bridge that will take us there. Any action to the contrary is resistance to evolution and cannot be tolerated.
What is unique and beautiful about the very best of American culture is that we are a society whose vision is always aimed toward creating a better future. We re-invent ourselves with each generation and each passing decade. The past is old news and the present merely a stepping-stone to something bigger, greater, more wonderful than any of us could ever imagine. We believe that whatever we can imagine will be achieved. We are pre-wired to evolve into a post-humanity state, so it is not only within the realm of possibility, but absolutely expected, that the people that raced to bring the world into the nuclear age, will be the one to create a peaceful future for itself and for all of man and woman kind.
In regards to The Violent, many people I know have a streak of fatalism that creates the prism through which they see and judge events. “People and nations have been killing each other since time began and it will continue no matter what I do,” is a common irrefutable refrain. “The best policy -- through luck of birth/geography, money, power, or resourcefulness – is to avoid being swept into some arbitrary killing field at all costs. Life will go on.”
In Kansas and the Philippines life did go on. After Hiroshima, “life will go on” is not a guarantee. The invasion of Iraq, for or against, success or failure, is a marker that dashes the hopes of a new century, and one that brings the world one step closer to unleashing the atomic genie – an unthinkable fate that we can only hope, but hardly predict, we will avoid.
 In Dante’s Inferno, the violent boil in a river of blood and the tyrants lie in its deepest part. But in our world, O.J. goes free and the tyrants die in luxury. The Violent terrorize the innocent in every story of history. That is the crime against Kansas. That is the person sitting in darkness. That is the crime against Iraq. That is humanity.
What are we going to do about it?
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