The Perfect War
Christopher Hitchens has another brilliant read in Slate today. In it, he lays out his perfect war
So, now I come at last to my ideal war. Let us start with President Bush’s speech to the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, which I recommend that you read. Contrary to innumerable sneers, he did not speak only about WMD and terrorism, important though those considerations were. He presented an argument for regime change and democracy in Iraq and said, in effect, that the international community had tolerated Saddam’s deadly system for far too long. Who could disagree with that?
History can be cruel to those who ignore facts. I suspect that peoples’ opinions will be considerably different when they view things through history’s long lens.
Here’s what should have happened. The other member states of the United Nations should have said: Mr. President, in principle you are correct. The list of flouted U.N. resolutions is disgracefully long. Law has been broken, genocide has been committed, other member-states have been invaded, and our own weapons inspectors insulted and coerced and cheated. Let us all collectively decide how to move long-suffering Iraq into the post-Saddam era. We shall need to consider how much to set aside to rebuild the Iraqi economy, how to sponsor free elections, how to recuperate the devastated areas of the marshes and Kurdistan, how to try the war criminals, and how many multinational forces to ready for this task.
In other words, they’d have to be serious about human rights. They’d have to put a higher priority on human rights than on under-the-table deals that Saddam thought was buying him immunity. We all know where their allegiance lies. The picture of their inaction was worth a million words. The French, Russians and Chinese were either cowardly, dastardly or devious or a combination of all these character flaws.
In the meantime, this is of special importance, all governments will make it unmistakably plain to Saddam Hussein that he can count on nobody to save him. All Iraqi diplomats outside the country, and all officers and officials within it, will receive the single message that it is time for them to switch sides or face the consequences. Then, when we are ready, we shall issue a unanimous ultimatum backed by the threat of overwhelming force. We call on all democratic forces in all countries to prepare to lend a hand to the Iraqi people and assist them in recovering from more than three decades of fascism and war.
It’s safe to say that there’s an entity titled the U.N. But let’s be realistic about something: The notion that there’s an organization that puts principle before self-interest is laughable. The U.N. is fast slipping into being the League of Nations, Part II. It’s a failure in terms of their Human Rights Commission and it’s worse on rallying the world’s forces in times of aggression.
In short, it’s useless because it houses diplomats instead of statesmen. The trendy thing to do is to send some over-sensitive snivelling lap dog like Dominique de Villepin instead of idealists like Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Jeane Kirkpatrick. The U.N. as an organization talks about human rights than it actually cares alot about human rights. The proof is in how they accepted bribes and kickbacks from the tyrant while they knew he wasn’t feeding his people.
Not a huge amount to ask, when you think about it. But what did the president get instead? The threat of unilateral veto from Paris, Moscow, and Beijing. Private assurances to Saddam Hussein from members of the U.N. Security Council. Pharisaic fatuities from the United Nations’ secretary-general, who had never had a single problem wheeling and dealing with Baghdad. The refusal to reappoint Rolf Ekeus, the only serious man in the U.N. inspectorate, to the job of invigilation.
The truth is that the U.N. hasn’t had a leader there in a couple decades. Instead, they’ve had perfectly nice-sounding bureaucrats that cared more about living on fat salaries and padded expense accounts than they cared about making a difference. It isn’t more complicated than that. Think of it as the home of ‘Entitlements for Rich Folks Club’. Pathetic.
Well, if everyone else is allowed to rewind the tape and replay it, so can I. We could have been living in a different world, and so could the people of Iraq, and I shall go on keeping score about this until the last phony pacifist has been strangled with the entrails of the last suicide-murderer.
Thanks Christopher, for taking this so personally. I wish we would’ve had more men like you in the U.N. at the time.
Technorati Tags: Christopher Hitchens, Iraq, UN, Oil-for-Food Scandal
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing