Where to now?

March 24th, 2003 | by aobaoill |

How is it, I wonder, that the US is hitting UK helicopters, Syrian civilians, and Iran, yet we keep hearing of smart bombs so accurate that no Iraqi civilians are being killed? Well, maybe the last part isn’t true. The Iraq Body Count project is currently counting between 135 and 209 civilian deaths.
Of course, it is true that this is at the low end of estimates prior to the war commencing, and I for one hope that casualties are kept to a minimum. I have heard those (a small minority, it must be stressed) who hope for carnage in order to prove their anti-war argument, but I am not among them. Although it is true that a quick, easy campaign might encourage neo-imperial moves by the Americans, we must not fall into the trap of following their approach of seeing civilian deaths as ‘collatoral damage’ towards achieving strategic goals.
We must continue to highlight the hypocrisy of the US/UK position, and the many reasons for opposing their actions. In terms of hypocrisy, we can point, for example, to Blair’s opposition to a democratic House of Lords, and the questionable meaning of the stated aim of bringing ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ to the Iraqis. Will the Iraqis be allowed to put a government in place if it does not fit the image chosen by the US? Will they be allowed to shape their society as they wish, rather than as wished by those American corporations already bidding for contracts to run their schools and shape their educational curriculums?

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