AUT: Re: questions

["Paul Bowman" <paulbowman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Nate Holdren" <nateholdren@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 31, 2003 3:36 PM
Subject: AUT: questions


<snip>
>
> Second- Another justification Bush etc have tried using is a supposed link
> between the Iraqi government and Al Qaida. I know very little about middle
> east politics, but I was under the impression that Al Qaida were/are
hostile
> to Iraq's government and its ruling party for religious reasons or some
such
> thing. Can anyone give me a brief explanation of this? And would anyone
with
> more knowledge of this area care to make some informed speculation on the
> impact war would have on future relations between the Iraqi government and
> Al Qaida? My guess is that the threat of complete destruction would make
> Iraq's government more willing to consider having a relationship with Al
> Qaida.
<snip>
This is topical as just tonight I watched the International Ambassor for the
War (a.k.a Tony Blair) lay out his justification in a 3 step cumulative
argument to which he argued any sane person must reply yes at each stage. As
I recall it (within the limits of being half asleep) it went like this:

Are the international terrorists such as Al Qa'ida a threat to the safety of
civilians in the West?
Would they be willing to use weapons of mass destruction such as Saddam
could develop if left to his own devices, against such "soft" civilian
targets?
Can we trust Saddam not to give these waepons to said fanatics?

Within the provisos of obvious double standards and alternative motivations
for the annexation of Iraq (c.f.
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/bookman/2002/092902.html and
http://www.newamericancentury.org/publicationsreports.htm ) we could say yes
to the first 2 questions easily enough. The non sequiteur is the jump from
2. to 3. Whatever we may think politically and morally of the Hussein
regime, we must examin whether it is unpredictable in the sense of acting in
ways that do not follow their percieved interest. Vicious as he is, Saddam
shares with Bush Jr. the history of always having acted in his own
self-interest as far as we can reasonably speculate. So the question of
whether we trust Saddam not to give WOMD to Al Qa'ida is similar to whether
we can trust the Bushbaby not to give the same to them. In Bush's case it is
not because we do not belive he does not have the means or that he is not
heartless or amoral enogh to do it, rather that we are confident it is not
in his self-percieved interest to do it. So the same question has to be
raised about Saddam giving NBC weapons to Al Qa'ida - what does he gain by
it? Does he have anything to lose by it?

Taking the second first - yes, obviously, he could be found out and then the
repercussions would be bad for him. After all the Nazis had no intention
that any record of the Wannsee Conference should survive, yet for all their
strongly-motivated intent, one did. So there is a "cost", a risk in such an
action.

What is to be gained? Good question. How would Saddam gain financially,
politically or militarily in having Al Q make slaughter in the West? Maybe
I've missed something but I can't see anything. The revenge of a madman? As
above, if madman labels someone that no longer has care about what the
consequences of his actions may be to himself, I don't think that label fits
him. Evil bastard, yes. Madman, reckless to the effects of his actions on
his own future? No. That opinion is formed not just from observation, but
from an idea of how the composition of Iraqi state/military power in the
last 3 decades must have promoted those who, despite whatever ego-inspired
sadism and paranoia, retained a Stalin-like ruthless self-seeking
pragmatism. After all, what guarantee would Saddam have that Al Q wouldn't
use whatever weapons or aid he gave them to overthrow him and take power in
Iraq themselves. Ask yourself this, if Usama is alive then what would he
prefer - a hundred massacres in the West or control of Iraq - an arab
country neighbouring Saudi with the second largest oil reserves in the war?
The latter, clearly. If, even with a no illusions view of his capacity for
evil, we trust Bush Jr. not to give Al Q WMOD - because it's not in his
interest to do so - then we can trust Saddam for the same reason. We lived
through the Cold War without dying in a nuclear holocaust because, in the
final analysis, nuclear war was not in anybody's interest - in the end we
recognised this by being more afraid of armageddon happening by mistake
rather than by design. Despite the dominant ideology, our society is run by
accepting that most people will not use the ordinary everyday objects under
their control as a weapon. You can kill people with cars, quite a few if
you're that way minded and don't mind dying yourself. Yet no-one is trying
to ban cars and no-one has a second thought that every day hundreds of
millions of people get behind the wheel of a potential weapon - we just
accept that it is not in their self-interest other than to use it in order
to get from A to B without killing anyone. Killing is easy, murder is rare,
there's a reason for that and its not the death penalty. The answer to the
conundrum is "Why would Saddam give WMOD to Al Qa'idi - what would he gain
by it.". I accept that this is not the easiest message to sell against the
background of alienation, racism and projected belief in "absolute evil" -
i.e. people "not like us" doing evil things because they are (inhumanly)
evil. But it's the truth as far as I can make it out (through a monitor
glass darkly...)



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