European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 08, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday april 8, 1991 the stars and stripes William f. Buckley or. . Should help liberate Iraq from Saddam the slip of the Tongue by Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf has caused an enormous draft upsetting the Summit serenity of the past few weeks. We know now that there was a division of opinion on exactly when to Stop the military offensive against Saddam Hussein. Of one thing we can be absolutely confident Between loyalty to the commander in chief and loyalty to scrupulous historical accuracy Schwarzkopf will give priority to the former what gives special Force to that disruptive current of air Rushing through the Calm counsels of self satisfaction is the lurid reports we Are receiving from Iraq of which one needs merely one Sample to serve As synecdoche six Young men Are detected scribbling anti Saddam Graffiti on a Wall. They Are apprehended stripped naked and hanged in Public. It is very difficult to feel the luxurious Tranquility of Victory when that kind of thing is going on. Now George Bush and his advisers have a position that is entitled to serious appraisal. It is that the mandate of the United nations was to Force Iraq out of Kuwait and that this has been done. That is the external Point. The internal Point a i.e., the Point that moves them to tolerate Saddam v continuing atrocities is that cooperation with the rebelling forces could result in the fragmentation of the state of Iraq and a chaotic future with the kurd in the North the shiites and the sunnis political authority territorial sovereignty and on and on. On television last weekend sen. John Warner solemnly assured his listeners that it was just a matter of time before Saddam was overthrown a Datum of singular Relief to those iraqis who on that Date will not yet have been tortured or killed. It is obviously hoped by Bush that tomorrow or the Day after or by thanksgiving Saddam is overthrown. The quarrel then is Between those who feel that Only geopolitical considerations Are properly weighed and those who believe the Point arrives when geopolitical considerations Are grafted onto moral considerations to the Point where the moral Point becomes in and of itself a geopolitical Point. When at Casablanca Franklin d. Roosevelt announced the allies would Settle for Only unconditional surrender he was making a moral Point that immediately took on political life a a Point Carl Rowan that probably prolonged the War. If we had continued to insist on unconditional surrender Over Japan declining to guarantee the survival of the emperor that gesture might have Cost us an extra million . Casualties. Bush never hesitated in the months before his great Victory to pronounce Saddam Hussein to be a the general that hitlers cannot be left to run whole countries even countries whose destructive potential has been Vas try reduced. Iraq is no longer in a position to threaten Kuwait or Israel. But the government of Saddam is Well positioned to continue barbarous treatment of those iraqis whom we encouraged to Rise up against Saddam. To be indifferent to their needs when we have sitting in the area the heaviest military concentration since the invasion of Normandy strikes Many people who Arentt Given to thinking in geopolitical grids As morally insensible. On the matter of the u n mandate Resolution 686 authorizes the coalition to move against Iraq to cause it to a cease hostile or provocative actions by its forces against All member states and other parties including missile attacks and flights of combat the rebels would surely qualify As a other and the helicopters that Schwarzkopf said he had been a suck cred into permitting the iraqis to use Are certainly combat aircraft and Are being used As such to combat iraqis courageous enough to align themselves with the coalition. They Are volunteers answering the mobilization Call of George Bush. The objection that other members of the coalition would not Sanction the use of american planes to shoot Down Saddam a helicopters being used to shoot iraqi rebels is by no Means obvious. In great Britain the press is highly mobilized in opposition to inaction by the United states. The kurd do not constitute a threat to Turkey and in any event Are asking not for Independence but merely for More autonomy. Syria is Frozen in the existing situation and Israel has every reason to Hope for the Quick extinction of the neighbouring dictator who threatened to pulverize Israel Only a year ago. A a a a a the geopolitical argument in favor of withdrawal is subsumed in the moral argument in favor of from Saddam Hussein. C Universal press Syndicate iraqis shool overthrow sap Pam but Vvs would it want to see the pro-1 Rani am shiites wlm amp the turks and soviets worry about the Kurps amp our Arab friends set very nervous about democracy �,><991middle East peace cannot be won in Battle during the e almost Drunken celebrations of the easy . Military Victory Over Iraq it has been impossible to get most americans to consider the possibility that the a a Triumph was not All that it seemed to be. Americans were simply rejoicing that their sons husbands daughters did not die in the thousands. And would soon be coming Home. They had no stomach for focusing on the costs or the losses of this military but every Day now More and More americans Are facing the sober realization that what we got for $70 billion perhaps 400 casualties and serious dislocations in thousands of american families is not the bargain of the Century. It on the a a plus Side a our troops fulfilled president Bush a vow to drive the iraqis out of Kuwait. They left almost 1,000 kuwaiti Oil Wells burning an ecological disaster and a society in which a returning regime is committing atrocities comparable to those of the iraqi invaders. A our military protected a the . Vital interest of seeing that Iraq did not gain control of the huge Oil deposits of the persian Gulf area including saudi Arabia. On the negative Side a a America has fallen into a situation where in order to protect persian Gulf Oil As an Energy source for the United states Western Europe and Japan american military forces will have to stay in the Gulf area As far ahead As we can see a this is to the horror of millions of arabs. I predicted not in jest that saudi women will be wearing bikinis before the last. . Military men leave the area. A the United states failed to depose Saddam Hussein the iraqi Leader whose demo nation and comparison with Hitler made War palatable to so Many americans. Gen. Hnorman Schwarzkopf says he wanted to annihilate Saddam a elite. Republican guard but that president Bush pulled him up Short leaving Saddam with powerful forces with which to destroy rebel kurd shiite moslem and others who want to overthrow him. A the . Bombings killed at least 50,000 iraqis including untold numbers of civilians they deprived so Many iraqis of food water and Medicine that the United nations decided to partially lift its economic embargo in Hopes of averting a catastrophe of cholera and other terrible diseases. We americans have been so Happy to have our own unharmed that we Haven to cared a Damn about the agonies of innocent iraqis. A Iraq has been a Lebanon sized a turned into a political Basket Case plunged into a civil War in which the Bush administration claims arabs have been set against arabs. The soviet Union clearly sees a threat in . Moves toward a permanent military presence so close to its the West could wind up a serious loser in this despite the conventional Wisdom that this War opened a window to peace in the Middle East the fallout May be just the opposite. Israelis hardliners who have no intention of Ever giving up the West Bank Golan Heights or any other land for peace May conclude from this War that permanently placed . Forces and an israeli military with Superior technology can Rule the area forever. That would almost certainly guarantee another War within a generation especially if arms paddlers give Syria and even Iraq new Levels of High tech weapons. More and More americans arc coming to realize that while the United states and its powerful allies won the desert military Battle the real Middle East War is far from Over. We had colossal diplomatic failures that led to this War. A we must not celebrate ourselves into blindness about diplomatic and political failures that will ensure that we can never win the peace. C North America Syndicate
