June 5, 2002

The following is the letter to the editor written by Lt. Col. Steve Butler who was serving as vice chancellor for student affairs at the Defense Language Institute when he wrote the letter, published in The Herald on May 26.

Butler was suspended from his duties at the Monterey language school following publication of his letter, which could constitute a violation of Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Article 88 bars any commissioned officer from using "contemptuous words" about the president, Congress and various other officials. The matter, which is now attracting national attention, is under investigation by the Air Force.

The letter follows as originally published :

It's about time conservative idiots like Steve Kelly and Rod Musgrove got a dose of reality. Of course President Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism. His daddy had Saddam and he needed Osama.

His presidency was going nowhere. He wasn't elected by the American people, but placed into the Oval Office by the conservative supreme court. The economy was sliding into the usual Republican pits and he needed something on which to hang his presidency.

For them to accuse Democrats of being "sleazy" is laughable. Isn't it ironic that Kelly begins his inane babble with a reference to Monica Lewinsky? How many people died because of Monica Lewinsky? And for Musgrove to call the assertions "contemptible" is another joke. Funny how he manages to make disparaging remarks about President Clinton, as well.

Face it people, Bill Clinton was a great president. This guy is a joke. What is sleazy and contemptible is the President of the United States not telling the American people what he knows for political gain. The Democrats asking pertinent questions is their duty as public servants.

Steve Butler

August 14, 2002

The sacrifices of military members and their families should be rewarded with fair treatment and honesty from their leaders. Now their safety, job security, and retirement benefits are in jeopardy because top leaders are using deployment decisions as mere profit-making vehicles.

Thomas White, as vice chairman of Enron when it allegedly hid $500 million in losses and manipulated the California energy crisis, is secretary of the Army, even after being cited by the Senate Armed Services Committee for violating his signed ethics agreement. That means he used his position for personal gain and compromised his objectivity for military decisions.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, is now the primary recipient of the Pentagon’s rush to build anti-terrorism military bases, costing taxpayers billions. U.S. military construction units could do all of this work for considerably less. This means more money for Cheney’s friends at Halliburton and less work for military personnel.

Commander-in-chief George W. Bush has made certain that former Enron and energy executives profit from defense and homeland security contracts. His own fortune was made through Enron/WorldCom-type accounting tricks and insider trading that have bankrupted companies and robbed people of their retirement savings. The Bush administration planned to invade Afghanistan even without the tragic events of Sept. 11 because Unocal had found the Taliban too uncooperative in its attempts to build an oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Karachi.

Now Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld wants to eliminate an entire Army division, even as we are running out of reservists to backfill critical positions. The Bush team also thinks that it’s too costly for disabled veterans to earn their longevity pay in addition to retirement benefits. But it’s minimal when compared to cost-plus contracts for Halliburton.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and White are a gang of four who have ordered U.S. military members to be put in harm’s way for oil profits and that divisions be consolidated to free up money for private contractors. This administration has overseen a wrecked economy, befriended corporations that robbed their own employees, has tried to put Social Security into a losing stock market, restricted health care for veterans and deployed military members to fatten oil executives’ pockets.

It’s time for leadership the military can trust. It’s time for the gang of four to go!

M.D. Wooldridge
Würzburg, Germany

Dear Mr. Bush,

You will have to forgive me, but there is simply no way that I can honestly address you as "President," since I believe that title should be reserved for those who are elected to that office – a statement that does not apply to you. I'll explain : as the son of a World War II veteran, the brother of a Vietnam veteran, and myself being a Naval Academy graduate and former Naval officer, I have a deep and abiding respect for the ideals upon which our nation was founded and which are contained within the Constitution.

I'm not sure you've ever read or understood the Constitution, but I have. There's plenty of language in there about the proper roles of the various branches of our government that you seem not to comprehend, but the most important words are the first three, "We the People." We the People did not consent to your "leadership" of this nation, but five of your friends on the Supreme Court said that that didn't matter, so I guess we're stuck with you.

And what has your "leadership" brought us? I could spend time discussing your performance on the environment or on our nation's economy, but those are long subjects. I'll mention, however, the irony in your promise this past weekend to "balance the budget." Mr. Bush, you were handed a balanced budget nineteen months ago, but you immediately squandered it on tax cuts and giveaways to your campaign contributors. As a result, my sons and I, and our respective generations, will be forced to waste hundreds of billions of dollars every year for the foreseeable future paying the interest on the national debt that you are running up.

What I'd really like to discuss is your performance as Commander in Chief of our nation's armed forces, which I believe has been abysmal, to the point of dereliction. As a point of reference, do you remember the USS Greenville, the submarine that collided with a Japanese fishing vessel a year and a half ago? Even though he was not personally culpable, the Commanding Officer of the Greenville – a fellow Naval Academy graduate, I might add – nevertheless accepted full responsibility for that tragic accident, because doing so is the very essence of what it means to assume command.

You should be held to at least the same standard. It has become quite clear over the past few months that you had received numerous detailed warnings, from both domestic and foreign sources, that an attack upon the U.S. was imminent, yet you did nothing to prevent it. Then, instead of accepting responsibility for the consequences of your inaction, as a true "Commander" would have done, you have in fact evaded all responsibility, to the point of blaming things on your predecessor and anyone who disagrees with you. Even worse, you have gone so far as to repeat sick jokes about "hitting the trifecta" that disgrace the memories of the 3000 innocent people who were murdered on that horrible day.

You have also completely squandered the goodwill and solidarity felt by the people of the world towards our nation after we were attacked. Because of your actions, people around the world now see the U.S. as, in the recent words of one British writer , "arrogant, hypocritical, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, and contemptuous of others." As one who has been proud to represent America when I've traveled abroad, these words sicken me, because I know that they don't represent the American people – but they do represent how you have portrayed us to the world.

Your actions have affected me personally as well. I have had the privilege of leading two delegations of American scientists and students on "science diplomacy" visits to Iran during the past three years. As a result of these and other such visits, we were making slow and painstaking, but nevertheless genuine , progress toward establishing a peaceful dialogue with the people of that country. But because of your insulting and, frankly, asinine "axis of evil" rhetoric you have managed to wreck our efforts, and render worthless all the time, energy, and resources many people on both sides have invested in trying to get this process going.

And now, of course, you are constantly beating the war drum about Iraq, even though that country has not attacked us and was not involved in last September's events, and even though you have offered nothing in the way of any hard evidence that that country poses a serious threat to us. You nevertheless seem intent on invading that country unilaterally and without provocation, apparently because, as your advisor Richard Perle put it, "the failure to take on Saddam after what [you] said would produce such a collapse of confidence in [you] that it would set back the war on terrorism."

So if I'm to take that at face value, my sons are supposed to go get killed in a war that you will start just so you can maintain some semblance of credibility after all your reckless rhetoric.

This is a family-oriented newspaper that will not print what I think about that. All I can do is humbly suggest that you go visit that black wall on the northwest corner of the Mall in Washington and read the names of the 58,000 Americans who died fighting in a war that you and Mr. Perle, among others in your administration who seem so intent on starting this new conflict, managed to wiggle out of.

If this is the kind of "leadership" we can continue to expect from you, then I fear for my sons, for our nation, and for our planet. These are all far too precious to entrust to someone who apparently has little, if any, understanding of the consequences of his words and actions and who moreover refuses to accept the responsibility for these consequences. So you'll just have to excuse this native New Mexican for not being among your fawning admirers as you make your visit to the Land of Enchantment. Perhaps some other time, if and when you ever manage to learn that this nation and planet belongs to everyone, and not just to those who pander to your worldview.

Alan Hale is an astronomer who resides in Cloudcroft. He is an alumnus of New Mexico State University and is co-discoverer of Comet Hale-Bopp.

Alan Hale's letter to the Senate opposing the confirmation of John Ashcroft and Gale Norton

Received in an email

Dear Mr. Bush :

Thank you for ignoring the Saudi's responsibility for the September 11th attacks, after all, 15 out of the 19 hijackers were Saudi's, as well as Osama. You bomb the hell out Afghanistan, yet have the Saudi Royal family to your home in Texas, while their banks are laundering the terrorist's money and making sure Al Qaeda's assets are safe.

Thank you for not publicly mentioning that the Saudi's are politically and financially supporting groups like Hamas and other terror organizations. Although the Saudi's fund terror, you haven't included them in your "list of terror" nations. You have also NOT mentioned them in your "war on terror".

Thank you for causing the families who are grieving the senseless loss of their family members in the September 11th attacks to have to go after the Saudi's WITHOUT any help from your administration. You would think that the US would be first in line to go after the assets of a country who supports terrorists during a "war on terror".

Thank you for making Saddam your new boogieman. It's finally gotten through your thick heads that the constant fake terror warnings all spring and summer to get the attention away from the damage you're doing to the country was just making the public angry. Too bad your daddy didn't finish the job in Iraq when there were over 500,000 American troops in the area 10 year ago. So, Thanks for being as big a screw up as your daddy.

Thank you for telling the American public how the economy is so strong, even though the Dow Jones Average has lost 25% of it's value since you were crowned, that you've managed to lose a good percentage of the 22 million new jobs that were created after your father's recession and other economic indicators are saying that the economy is stagnant and going nowhere.

Thanks for helping to destroy a strong economy between the election, your selection and your inauguration day by down talking the strong economy so you could get your huge tax cut passed as a pay back for your wealthiest contributors.

Thanks for instructing your supporters to keep reminding the public about the last president's sex life. It helps the perverts who fixated on his sex life while he was in office to keep those images in their heads. After all, only a perverted individual would obsess about a private relationship between TWO CONSENTING ADULTS. One bad thing about it, it reminds the country that 18 short months ago, the biggest news was who the president was having sex with, rather than terror alerts, 3000 deaths, the stock market losing it's value , people's retirements vanishing, escalating violence in the middle east and all the other daily disasters that have gripped the country since your daddy's friends at the US Supreme Court gave you your job. In your first international incident, thank you for telling China that the US would never apologize for the spy plane incident, then issue a statement a few days later saying that the United States was very very very sorry for allowing it's plane to be hit by China's pilot.

Thank you, Mr. Bush, for the growing unemployment rate. When you were appointed, the country had just gone through a period when 22 million jobs were created in 8 years, you've managed to lose 11 million of them in 18 short months.

Thank you for turning the longest and strongest period of economic growth into the first recession since your daddy's recession. Since you were handed your job, $17 trillion dollars of the nation's worth of wealth has evaporated from the stock markets, America thanks you for their lost savings and retirement funds.

Thank you so much for taking your month long Texas vacation last summer (after only 6 months of work) and ignoring the terror warnings that were coming in all summer. Little things like, young Arab men in flight schools in Arizona who wanted to steer airplanes, but not fly them, a young Arab man in custody in Minnesota who wanted to fly an airplane into the World Trade Center and for ignoring reports that Osama bin Laden wanted to hijack airplanes.

As long as we're thanking you for vacations, thanks for breaking a record for the most vacation time during your first seven months of work for ANY SITTING PRESIDENT.

Thank you Mr. President for hiding the fact that your administration was warned about the terror attacks before September 11th for 8 months, so you could run around the country playing hero.

While the country was reeling from the attacks on September 11th, thank you Mr. Bush for running and hiding like a little girl. It was comforting for the nation to see Karen Hughes on TV on the afternoon of September 11th telling the country that the president was safe.

Thank you for selling your September 11th photo's so the republican party could profit from the deaths of 3000 innocent people.

Thank you for not even looking at the airport security and anti-terrorism measures that the Clinton administration had sent to the house in 96, 97, 98, 99 and 2000.

Yes, Mr. Bush, the same airport security and anti terrorism measures that the house republicans killed each and every one of those years without even bringing them up for debate because they were too busy looking into Mr.Clinton's bedroom window.

Thank you for at least implementing most of the measures that Clinton had asked for AFTER SEPTEMBER 11th.

Thank you Mr. Bush for spending the first 234 days of your presidency pushing your massive tax cut plan, and Ken Lay's Enron Energy policy that would have saved that crooked company from bankruptcy.

Thank you for the tax cut that rewards middle income individuals with around a $100 dollars a year, but rewards people in Dick Cheney's income bracket over $125,000 dollars a year.

Thank you some more, for that tax cut that is using OUR social security money to pay for you giving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to your biggest contributors.

Thank you, even more, for that tax cut for your wealthiest friends that is now leading our country into deficit spending, guaranteeing that our children and grandchildren's tax dollars will be spent on paying off your debt and spending their tax money on interest on that debt.

While our country is at war, thank you so very much Mr. President for spending at least three days a week traveling around the country at taxpayer expense fundraising and campaigning for republican candidates.

Thank you Mr. Bush for relaxing clean air standards leading to more acid rain and global warming.

Thank you for bowing down to the mining industry by allowing more arsenic in our drinking water.

Thank you Mr. Bush for rewarding the Taliban with $43 million dollars in aid less than four months before September 11th.

Thank you for reversing Clinton's 1998 ban on all aid to the Taliban for harboring bin Laden. We know that the Taliban wouldn't have used any of that $43 million dollars to harm Americans, after all, we've all know how much they love the US.

Thank you Mr. Bush for your father working for the Carlyle Group, owned by Osama bin Laden's family, even after September 11th.

Thank you Mr. Bush, for the terror warnings that your administration always puts out to deflect attention away from embarrassing news that your administration is involved in.

Thank you Mr. Bush for letting Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar escape.

Thank you Mr. President for waffling on the stem cell issue, thus delaying cures for horrible diseases like : diabetes, multiple sclerosis, parkinson's disease, alzheimer's, etc, etc for years and years.

Thank you Mr. Bush for encouraging your "operatives" to keep lying and slandering the last administration.. After all, Al Gore never said that he invented the internet. He said that he helped in the creation of the World Wide Web by guaranteeing federal funds for it's research. That's quite a big difference.

September 16, 2002

They must be passing the Rolaids at the Dept. of defense ... this is the paper that the military AND their families read. Who wants to make a bet with me that John Kerry will get at LEAST 3/4 of the miltary vote in 2004

Competence, clarity, decisiveness and consistent diplomacy should be hallmarks of an American government when military members and their families are asked to prepare for war. The glaring absence of these qualities in this administration is embarrassing and frightening. I have not spoken to anyone who believes that either the commander in chief or his administration has done anything to inspire confidence in officers, soldiers or citizens.

When the president called our allies for support for an invasion of Iraq and was rebuffed, it reflected a serial mismanagement of foreign affairs by him and his subordinates. Public swaggering about going it alone without allies is merely a cover for bumbling. British Prime Minister Tony Blair had to fly to America to lend credibility because our leaders are incapable of articulating a persuasive case about why Saddam must go, even though one clearly exists.

Within a week, statements from Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell were repeatedly contradictory about a war with Iraq. Security adviser Condoleeza Rice is a sovietologist ill-equipped to advise on Middle East politics and terrorism. This administration was briefed twice in 2001 on threats from al-Qaida, but said afterward that the priority was missile defense, not terrorism. U.S. intelligence confirmed that a terrorist threat was imminent, but when 9/11 happened, our leaders acted totally surprised.

This administraion's missteps would be comic if the possible loss of soldiers' lives in an attack on Iraq were not so breathtaking. I pray that I will not see on CNN replays of "Blackhawk Down" on Baghdad streets, but the poor planning, ignored intelligence and incompetence shown thus far will certainly guarantee it.

Questions from allies about evidence, isolating and finding Saddam, inflaming the Middle East, nation-building in post-war Iraq, an exit plan, security of oil supplies and additional threats to Israel have yet to be answered by the Bush administration.

Saddam is an evil man whose weapons and ability to make them must be destroyed, but we must demand more from our leaders before we send trooops into a battle that could unleash horror and be bloody. The effort and time required for this preparation take precedence over Texas ranch vacations and political fund-raising. This pathetic level of performance to prevent terrorism and remove Saddam is a poor tribute to those who lost their lives on that horrible day last September.

May God bless our soldiers and protect them from enemies, both foreign and domestic.

M.D. Wooldridge
Germany

September 20, 2002

The following letter by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark has been sent to all members of the UN Security Council, with copies to the UN General Assembly. Please circulate.

September 20, 2002

Secretary General Kofi Annan
United Nations New York, NY

Dear Secretary General Annan,

George Bush will invade Iraq unless restrained by the United Nations. Other international organizations -- including the European Union, the African Union, the OAS, the Arab League, stalwart nations courageous enough to speak out against superpower aggression, international peace movements, political leadership, and public opinion within the United States -- must do their part for peace. If the United Nations, above all, fails to oppose a U.S. invasion of Iraq, it will forfeit its honor, integrity and raison d’etre.

A military attack on Iraq is obviously criminal; completely inconsistent with urgent needs of the Peoples of the United Nations; unjustifiable on any legal or moral ground; irrational in light of the known facts; out of proportion to other existing threats of war and violence; and a dangerous adventure risking continuing conflict throughout the region and far beyond for years to come. The most careful analysis must be made as to why the world is subjected to such threats of violence by its only superpower, which could so safely and importantly lead us on the road to peace, and how the UN can avoid the human tragedy of yet another major assault on Iraq and the powerful stimulus for retaliatory terrorism it would create.

1. President George Bush Came to Office Determined to Attack Iraq and Change its Government.

   George Bush is moving apace to make his war unstoppable and soon. Having stated last Friday that he did not believe Iraq would accept UN inspectors, he responded to Iraq’s prompt, unconditional acceptance by calling any reliance on it a “false hope” and promising to attack Iraq alone if the UN does not act. He is obsessed with the desire to wage war against Iraq and install his surrogates to govern Iraq by force. Days after the most bellicose address ever made before the United Nations -- an unprecedented assault on the Charter of the United Nations, the rule of law and the quest for peace -- the U.S. announced it was changing its stated targets in Iraq over the past eleven years, from retaliation for threats and attacks on U.S. aircraft which were illegally invading Iraq’s airspace on a daily basis. How serious could those threats and attacks have been if no U.S. aircraft was ever hit? Yet hundreds of people were killed in Iraq by U.S. rockets and bombs, and not just in the so called “no fly zone,” but in Baghdad itself. Now the U.S. proclaims its intentions to destroy major military facilities in Iraq in preparation for its invasion, a clear promise of aggression now. Every day there are threats and more propaganda is unleashed to overcome resistance to George Bush’s rush to war. The acceleration will continue until the tanks roll, unless nonviolent persuasion prevails.

2. George Bush Is Leading the United States and Taking the UN and All Nations Toward a Lawless World of Endless Wars.

   George Bush in his “War on Terrorism” has asserted his right to attack any country, organization or people first, without warning in his sole discretion. He and members of his administration have proclaimed the old restraints that law sought to impose on aggression by governments and repression of their people, no longer consistent with national security. Terrorism is such a danger, they say, that necessity compels the U.S. to strike first to destroy the potential for terrorist acts from abroad and to make arbitrary arrests, detentions, interrogations, controls and treatment of people abroad and within the U.S. Law has become the enemy of public safety. “Necessity is the argument of tyrants.” “Necessity never makes a good bargain.”

   Heinrich Himmler, who instructed the Nazi Gestapo “Shoot first, ask questions later, and I will protect you,” is vindicated by George Bush. Like the Germany described by Jorge Luis Borges in Deutsches Requiem, George Bush has now “proffered (the world) violence and faith in the sword,” as Nazi Germany did. And as Borges wrote, it did not matter to faith in the sword that Germany was defeated. “What matters is that violence ... now rules.” Two generations of Germans have rejected that faith. Their perseverance in the pursuit of peace will earn the respect of succeeding generations everywhere.

   The Peoples of the United Nations are threatened with the end of international law and protection for human rights by George Bush’s war on terrorism and determination to invade Iraq.

   Since George Bush proclaimed his “war on terrorism,” other countries have claimed the right to strike first. India and Pakistan brought the earth and their own people closer to nuclear conflict than at any time since October 1962 as a direct consequence of claims by the U.S. of the unrestricted right to pursue and kill terrorists, or attack nations protecting them, based on a unilateral decision without consulting the United Nations, a trial, or revealing any clear factual basis for claiming its targets are terrorists and confined to them.

   There is already a near epidemic of nations proclaiming the right to attack other nations or intensify violations of human rights of their own people on the basis of George Bush’s assertions of power in the war against terrorism. Mary Robinson, in her quietly courageous statements as her term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights ended, has spoken of the “ripple effect” U.S. claims of right to strike first and suspend fundamental human rights protection is having.

   On September 11, 2002, Colombia , whose new administration is strongly supported by the U.S., “claimed new authority to arrest suspects without warrants and declare zones under military control,” including “[N]ew powers, which also make it easier to wiretap phones and limit foreigners’ access to conflict zones ... allow security agents to enter your house or office without a warrant at any time of day because they think you’re suspicious.” These additional threats to human rights follow Post-September 11 “emergency” plans to set up a network of a million informants in a nation of forty million. See, New York Times, September 12, 2002, p. A7.

3. The United States, Not Iraq, Is the Greatest Single Threat to the Independence and Purpose of the United Nations.

   President Bush’s claim that Iraq is a threat justifying war is false. Eighty percent of Iraq’s military capacity was destroyed in 1991 according to the Pentagon. Ninety percent of materials and equipment required to manufacture weapons of mass destruction was destroyed by UN inspectors during more than eight years of inspections. Iraq was powerful, compared to most of its neighbors , in 1990. Today it is weak. One infant out of four born live in Iraq weighs less than 2 kilos, promising short lives, illness and impaired development. In 1989, fewer than one in twenty infants born live weighed less than two kilos. Any threat to peace Iraq might become is remote, far less than that of many other nations and groups and cannot justify a violent assault. An attack on Iraq will make attacks in retaliation against the U.S. and governments which support its actions far more probable for years to come.

   George Bush proclaims Iraq a threat to the authority of the United Nations while U.S.-coerced UN sanctions continue to cause the death rate of the Iraqi people to increase. Deaths caused by sanctions have been at genocidal levels for twelve years. Iraq can only plead helplessly for an end to this crime against its people. The UN role in the sanctions against Iraq compromise and stain the UN’s integrity and honor. This makes it all the more important for the UN now to resist this war.

   Inspections were used as an excuse to continue sanctions for eight years while thousands of Iraqi children and elderly died each month. Iraq is the victim of criminal sanctions that should have been lifted in 1991. For every person killed by terrorist acts in the U.S. on 9/11, five hundred people have died in Iraq from sanctions.

   It is the U.S. that threatens not merely the authority of the United Nations, but its independence, integrity and hope for effectiveness. The U.S. pays UN dues if, when and in the amount it chooses. It coerces votes of members. It coerces choices of personnel on the Secretariat. It rejoined UNESCO to gain temporary favor after 18 years of opposition to its very purposes. It places spies in UN inspection teams.

   The U.S. has renounced treaties controlling nuclear weapons and their proliferation, voted against the protocol enabling enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention, rejected the treaty banning land mines, endeavored to prevent its creation and since to cripple the International Criminal Court, and frustrated the Convention on the Child and the prohibition against using children in war. The U.S. has opposed virtually every other international effort to control and limit war, protect the environment, reduce poverty and protect health.

   George Bush cites two invasions of other countries by Iraq during the last 22 years. He ignores the many scores of U.S. invasions and assaults on other countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas during the last 220 years, and the permanent seizure of lands from Native Americans and other nations--lands like Florida, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Puerto Rico, among others, seized by force and threat.

   In the same last 22 years the U.S. has invaded, or assaulted Grenada, Nicaragua, Libya, Panama, Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and others directly, while supporting assaults and invasions elsewhere in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

   It is healthy to remember that the U.S. invaded and occupied little Grenada in 1983 after a year of threats, killing hundreds of civilians and destroying its small mental hospital, where many patients died. In a surprise attack on the sleeping and defenseless cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in April 1986, the U.S. killed hundreds of civilians and damaged four foreign embassies. It launched 21 Tomahawk cruise missiles against the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum in August 1998, destroying the source of half the medicines available to the people of Sudan. For years it has armed forces in Uganda and southern Sudan fighting the government of Sudan. The U.S. has bombed Iraq on hundreds of occasions since the Gulf War, including this week, killing hundreds of people without a casualty or damage to an attacking plane.

4. Why Has George Bush Decided The U.S. Must Attack Iraq Now?

   There is no rational basis to believe Iraq is a threat to the United States or any other country. The reason to attack Iraq must be found elsewhere.

   As governor of Texas, George Bush presided over scores of executions, more than any governor in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976 (after a hiatus from 1967). He revealed the same zeal he has shown for “regime change” for Iraq when he oversaw the executions of minors, women, retarded persons and aliens whose rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of notification of their arrest to a foreign mission of their nationality were violated. The Supreme Court of the U.S. held that executions of a mentally retarded person constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the U.S. Constitution. George Bush addresses the United Nations with these same values and willfulness.

   His motives may include to save a failing Presidency which has converted a healthy economy and treasury surplus into multi-trillion dollar losses; to fulfill the dream, which will become a nightmare, of a new world order to serve special interests in the U.S.; to settle a family grudge against Iraq; to weaken the Arab nation, one people at a time; to strike a Muslim nation to weaken Islam; to protect Israel, or make its position more dominant in the region; to secure control of Iraq’s oil to enrich U.S. interests, further dominate oil in the region and control oil prices. Aggression against Iraq for any of these purposes is criminal and a violation of a great many international conventions and laws including the General Assembly Resolution on the Definition of Aggression of December 14, 1974.

   Prior regime changes by the U.S. brought to power among a long list of tyrants, such leaders as the Shah of Iran, Mobutu in the Congo, Pinochet in Chile, all replacing democratically elected heads of government. 5. A Rational Policy Intended to Reduce the Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction in The Middle East Must Include Israel.

   A UN or U.S. policy of selecting enemies of the U.S. for attack is criminal and can only heighten hatred, division, terrorism and lead to war. The U.S. gives Israel far more aid per capita than the total per capita income of sub Sahara Africans from all sources. U.S.-coerced sanctions have reduced per capita income for the people of Iraq by 75% since 1989. Per capita income in Israel over the past decade has been approximately 12 times the per capita income of Palestinians.

   Israel increased its decades-long attacks on the Palestinian people, using George Bush’s proclamation of war on terrorism as an excuse, to indiscriminately destroy cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza and seize more land in violation of international law and repeated Security Council and General Assembly resolutions.

   Israel has a stockpile of hundreds of nuclear warheads derived from the United States, sophisticated rockets capable of accurate delivery at distances of several thousand kilometers , and contracts with the U.S. for joint development of more sophisticated rocketry and other arms with the U.S.

   Possession of weapons of mass destruction by a single nation in a region with a history of hostility promotes a race for proliferation and war. The UN must act to reduce and eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, not submit to demands to punish areas of evil and enemies of the superpower that possesses the majority of all such weapons and capacity for their delivery.

   Israel has violated and ignored more UN Resolutions for forty years than any other nation. It has done so with impunity.

   The violation of Security Council resolutions cannot be the basis for a UN-approved assault on any nation, or people, in a time of peace, or the absence of a threat of imminent attack, but comparable efforts to enforce Security Council resolutions must be made against all nations who violate them.

5. The Choice Is War Or Peace.

   The UN and the U.S. must seek peace, not war. An attack on Iraq may open a Pandora’s box that will condemn the world to decades of spreading violence. Peace is not only possible; it is essential, considering the heights to which science and technology have raised the human art of planetary and self-destruction.

   If George Bush is permitted to attack Iraq with or without the approval of the UN, he will become Public Enemy Number One -- and the UN itself worse than useless, an accomplice in the wars it was created to end. The Peoples of the World then will have to find some way to begin again if they hope to end the scourge of war.

   This is a defining moment for the United Nations. Will it stand strong, independent and true to its Charter, international law and the reasons for its being, or will it submit to the coercion of a superpower leading us toward a lawless world and condone war against the cradle of civilization?

   Do not let this happen.

Sincerely,

Ramsey Clark