WHY WE OPPOSE THIS WAR

A speech delivered on behalf of Campeace at the Cambridge Stop-the-War Coalition rally in the market square, Cambridge, on Saturday 1st February, 2003

I am speaking on behalf of Campeace, the Cambridge Campaign for Peace. Along with the 5000 people of Cambridge who have already signed our petition to Tony Blair, we utterly oppose this proposed war on Iraq. We oppose it because it is a war in the interests of the Bush administration, grotesquely dressed up as a campaign for 'justice' and 'peace'.

First, let us be clear on what it is *not* about.

It is not about Saddam Hussein's involvement in the September 11 attacks on the USA. No link has been established, although Bush tried to lie about one at first, and may resort to this tactic again.

Nor is it about 'weapons of mass destruction'. No clear and present danger to the US has been even remotely established. In the 1980s, when Iraq really did possess WMD, the US happily helped it acquire more. Valuable US allies such as Pakistan and Israel maintain arsenals of nuclear weapons, and they have been richly rewarded with aid. The US itself has more WMD than all the rest of the world put together. It has no moral problem with WMD.

Nor is it about 'the authority of the United Nations.' George Bush's declaration that he will wage war with or without the UN reveals the contempt that he has for that body.

Nor is it about 'democracy' or 'human rights'. The US backs some of Asia's most oppressive states, such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Finally, it is not a war to save the world from the might of the 'axis of evil'. Only a man desperately casting around for an excuse to wage war could suggest that North Korea, Iraq and Iran were secretly plotting to overrun the free world!

So, what then *is* this war about?

Firstly, it is about oil. American oil is running out while Iraq has vast reserves. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleeza Rice were all senior executives of oil companies, and control of Iraq promises major gains to their friends, colleagues, and party sponsors.

Secondly, fighting people like Saddam Hussein gives George Bush's America a secure sense of identity. The end of the Cold War was disconcerting to American conservatives, as they lost their organising script for world politics, the drama of a good USA versus the Soviet 'evil empire', and with it they lost the reason to keep their jobs in the military-industrial complex. New wars against the 'axis of evil' or 'international terrorism' fill that gap, and keep the arms industries rolling.

But most significantly, this war is about asserting American control in the Middle East and beyond. In September 2002 Bush published his "National Security Strategy of the United States of America". This states that pre-emptive action must be taken to prevent any state equalling US power. This is terrifying doctrine of permanent military and political supremacy, and the Iraq war is a stage in that process. George Friedman, head of pro-Bush right-wing think tank Strategic Forecasting, openly acknowledged that all the talk about WMD, UN resolutions, and Al-Qaeda links is a "bodyguard of lies". He said that America needs to stop relying on Israel and Saudi Arabia for control of the Middle East, but instead conquer Iraq, geostrategically at the heart of the Middle East, to use it to 'pressure' Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia itself. He has urged Bush to come clean, and admit that "invading Iraq is in the U.S. national interest regardless of whether Hussein has a single weapon of mass destruction... this is about strategy, not guilt or innocence."

That is why we oppose war; we do not think that American national interests are worth a single drop more of Iraqi blood!

However, we don't even think that this war really is in the interests of America. Al-Qaeda was established with US backing in the 1980s to fight the Soviet Union, but turned its sights on its old master as a response to the 1991 Gulf War: it can only gain more recruits from another. A friend recently told me that he was rejected by the military because he was short-sighted: I would have thought that that was actually a very good qualification!

 We oppose this war wholeheartedly, whether Bush is able to bribe and cajole the UN into approving a war or not; we join the churches in Britain and the US, the aid organisations, the unions, and the majority of British voters who oppose this war. We remind Tony Blair that he came to power promising an ethical foreign policy, and warn him that he may fall from power in pursuit of an unethical one.

 Last month, the world was saddened when Australians died as bush fires swept into Canberra. People asked, 'Couldn't this have been stopped?' Now, as the fire of Bush's lust for greed and power threatens to sweep into Baghdad and set the Middle East ablaze, people around the world are asking, 'Can this be stopped?' The answer is- it can be, and it must be!

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Nick Megoran