Här följer en debattartikel på engelska om konflikten i Irak
So now the war finally has begun, or maybe it never ended in the first place. The American President George Bush Junior has decided, without the approval of the United Nations, to finish of what his father once started. This has raised a lot of questions concerning the legitimacy of the attack, and whatever the outcome of this war may be there will always be a mark of interrogation regarding this issue. But the most interesting thing is why the war started in the first place. The Americans claim that they are doing this because they want to liberate the Iraqi people from a cruel dictator, and at the same time remove a potential threat against the world. But if they were doing this only because of their humane and ethical believes, and because they only want the world to be a better and safer place to live in, they could have chosen much more grave threats to the world that they could have aimed their strengths against. Take for example The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, where Kim Jong II still remains undisturbed in power, and rules his 22 million fellow-country-men with a rod of iron. He isn’t even to be considered as a President, when his father Kim II Sung appointed himself as eternal President before he died. So Kim Jung II is only his dead father’s representative in this necrocracy. This is of course only a question of formalities, and Kim Jong II is, whatever title he might have, undisputed leader of this communist one-party state. And not only is he officially still at war with his neighbour South Korea, he also invests billion of Swedish crown’s each year in increasing his armaments. This is done at the expense of his own people, who thanks to this suffer and die out of starvation, malnutrition and insufficient medical care. Not to talk about nuclear weapons, that they in difference to Iraq, already has the necessary knowledge to create, if they haven’t already done it. And the list doesn’t end there; they have also backed out of a non-proliferation treaty in order to force the world to continue with the relief consignments, which is required to keep the population alive. This is nothing they (read he) have done because of love to the people, he is just using the world’s conscience so he can continue to invest his money in weapons instead of food. Saddam Hussein, who is no lambkin himself, doesn’t have much to compare with in that sense
But there is one thing that Saddam has in difference to his Korean brother; namely oil. If it where to be true that Bush and his henchmen only acted out their role as global morality police, they wouldn’t give a rats as about some half-baked, toothless excuse for a dictator, who doesn’t even have control over what happens inside his own borders. Instead they would turn their concentrations towards someone who actually is a real threat to both his own people and to the world. With these things in mind, you can’t help wondering what the true underlying causes might be for this war. And the only conclusion that is possible to draw out of this is that it is only a question of money. And that actually makes the whole thing a little easier to understand.
There was one other thing that I also was thinking about, namely the arguments that Bush used in order to make the European nations to join him in this campaign. The truth is probably that he couldn’t care less if he gets any help or not, because he has all the necessary means to attack Iraq on his own. But he was probably trying to look good in a foreign policy kind of a way. And in order to do so he would have needed the United Nations and the European Union on his side. And the way that he was using in order to achieve these goals was somewhat different. He tried to appeal to the European countries´ feeling of guilt, and reminded them that USA was the one nation that helped them to get ride of Adolph Hitler, and deliberated Europe from the Nazis. And because of that Europe has an obligation towards USA, and shouldn’t hesitate to join them in order to get ride of another dictator. And I agree that many European countries should feel grateful towards USA for the help that they received in those days, because it would probably have been impossible to defeat Nazi Germany without there help. But what I don’t understand is what relevance World War II possibly could have in this conflict. They also mocked Germany because they wanted to find a peaceful solution to the problem. They were actually criticising the one nation that started both of the World Wars for being to inoffensive. Shouldn’t Germany be honoured for such a standpoint?
And why would USA oppose these peaceful ambitions if there weren’t any other reasons to invade Iraq than to eliminate a threat to the world. It is also interesting to read about America’s foreign policy during the cold war. At that time neither Saddam Hussein nor Usama Bin Laden were considered to be enemies. Rather the contrary actually, because America was both educating them and providing them with arms and money. So if it weren’t for the United States, we probably never would have heard anything about neither of these individuals in the first place. I think that Bush would gain more respect if he decided to tell the truth for once. It is obvious for all that these kinds of things can’t be solved with military operations. You just have to look at the conflict between Israel and Palestine to realize that. It would actually be quite nice if this new centaury came to be remembered for its peaceful way of handling conflicts, but that will probably never happened.