Oberlin student believes war on Iraq is a good decision

To the Editors:

Over the past few weeks the Review has run a variety of opinions about the wisdom of a war in Iraq, opinions which have been, for the most part, rather vague and non-analytical. Those who are against the war (obviously the majority) properly balk at the use of violence in the name of our country, yet avoid getting into details, at least in this forum. Those for the war, who were given the opportunity to speak out in last week’s issue, have restricted themselves to lamenting the ironic lack of diversity of opinion here at Oberlin. One Republican student even considers himself a sort of celebrity because of his position on the war, yet none of this person’s views were included in the article. In the spirit of the Review’s excellent editorial last week encouraging a real, substantive debate within our community, I humbly propose here the reasons why I think that war with Iraq is, morally, the best avenue for our country to pursue. I will structure my argument by comparing various points made by the American “liberals” (used here to mean anti-war activists) with a mixture of both facts and my own personal views.
One of the most prominent reasons given for not going to war with Iraq is that war is violent and thus no one, no matter how just the cause, deserves to die in a war. It is not surprising to encounter this argument here on Oberlin campus, since many of our parents were active in protesting the Vietnam War and many students find that now might just be our very own “Vietnam moment.” My response to this is simple: Iraq is already at war. A recent study by Iraq expert Kenneth Pollack, Director of Research at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institute, estimates that the regime of Saddam Hussein has already killed 200,000 people through torture alone. Read that sentence again if it didn’t sink in for you. This figure therefore excludes the deaths that Hussein has caused by more “conventional” means, such as the now infamous use of chemical weaponry against Iraqi Kurds and the various wars initiated by him. While most liberals agree that Hussein is “a jerk,” they seem to want to move quickly on. Why? Even more inexplicably, these are often the same liberals who express outrage at the suffering of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza; what makes the suffering of the Kurds and the Shi’as less important?
Perhaps it is the perception of this war as an economically motivated “blood for oil” war another oft heard argument that overrides the importance of ending the suffering of these peoples. Yet this point misses the point. First, a surprisingly little known fact is that the Vienna Convention (signed in 1969 by the U.S.) forbids a belligerent occupier (in this case, the U.S.) from utilizing the resources of the occupied country to its advantage: “Services may be requisitioned, but workers cannot be forced to operate against their country, and are limited to providing local needs. They cannot be used for the general benefit of the occupier’s homeland.” I’m no economics major, but it sounds to me that if anything, Iraq’s vast oilfields (now second in the world to Saudi Arabia, but vastly unexploited) would finally be bringing revenue to the Iraqi people in the form of labor, since oil is that country’s only real resource. Whether or not increased oil supply is what we need in the world (as opposed to throwing trillions of dollars at water-powered cars) is a different issue, and should be addressed right here at home in the form of Bush II’s odious energy plan. I digress, but my point is clear: the so-called “blood for oil” argument would only be valid if the U.S. were in the habit of committing war crimes and ignores who would actually benefit from the opening of Saddam’s oilfields.
Yet the liberals usually counter this by saying that President Hussein will burn his oilfields so that there will be nothing left. They fear that the United States will be faced with a calamitous situation in postwar Iraq, like the tribal warfare that followed the 2001 bombing of Afghanistan. This is one liberal argument that holds some water with me, but could lose steam (no pun intended) very quickly if this war and its aftermath are done “right.” In other words, if the United States were to use its historically unprecedented military and wealth to truly invest in postwar Iraq and create a viable, accountable democracy in the middle of the Arab world, the effect would be like a (positive) lightning bolt. What are the chances that we would do this? High, of course! Iraq’s location could not be more strategic, and the U.S. Government has taken this into account, believe me.
The Congressional hearings on plans for a postwar Iraq that I have read about in the newspaper tell the same story, too. No matter how much you dislike Bush and doubt his real intentions (I certainly do), postwar Iraq would almost certainly be a place of real opportunity where NGOs would be able to get down to work, and the effect could have a chain reaction throughout the Arab world.
In regards to this last point, I would finally like to deconstruct the liberal argument which hits me closest to home: the idea that going to war with another Arab country would foster a flurry of new recruits for Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. First of all, members of such organizations, from what we know, have only one enemy as hated as America: the corrupt Arab leadership that has been at least partially responsible for the present-day backwardness of the Arab world. Don’t take it from me, Bin Laden himself (if it’s really him) refers to the secular Hussein as an “infidel” in his latest broadcast on Al Jazeera. Additionally, all of my personal Arab friends (I lived with a Moroccan friend of mine in Rabat last summer) are for this war because they regard Hussein as an unreligious lunatic, who could very easily point his weapons of mass destruction right at them! I will not elaborate on the weapons of mass destruction issue further, since I’m pretty sure that most readers are convinced that Hussein possesses them but will never give them up.
In conclusion, the so-called moral arguments against war in Iraq, when analyzed critically, are actually immoral. Of course there are a lot of “ifs” and contingencies in the United States’ ability to oversee a productive postwar Iraq, but all of the scenarios that I can think of are superior to the status quo. I, like any independent thinker, am truly bothered by the prospect of Bush’s popularity increasing as a result of this war, yet we must remember that Bush Sr. was defeated right after winning the Gulf War of 1991, so there is hope! I also regret not being able to participate in the great demonstrations going on all over the world right now, yet as the eloquent British Prime Minister Tony Blair (who has expressed his moral conviction at the expense of his popularity) put it, “ridding the world of Saddam Hussein would be an act of humanity. It is leaving him there that is in truth inhumane.” My belief as a student of international relations ready to enter the workforce is summed up well by social theorist Kenneth Boulding, who implies that people living in New Hampshire should someday feel the same degree of responsibility to the people of Bolivia or the Philippines as they feel toward those of Nevada or Florida. Ridding the world of hideous dictatorships like that of Saddam Hussein should be the first step in that direction.

—Sam Feldman
College senior