A-Infos (en) DO NOT BOMB IRAQ - A Major Statement from the Committee On The Middle

[laura and jeff <WEISERLE@ACS.WOOSTER.EDU>]

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someone sent this to me today, and i thought others may find it facinating.
jeff.

> COME <mer@middleeast.org> 02/01/98 01:49pm >>>
>-            D O   N O T   B O M B   I R A Q 
>
>               A Public Statement from the 
>              COMMITTEE ON THE MIDDLE EAST
>
>        The following is a statement from the Committee On 
>     The Middle East (COME) concerning the American 
>     threats to bomb Iraq.  We urge you to circulate it 
>     as much as possible.  The International Advisory 
>     Committee of COME, including Middle East experts 
>     and professors throughout the world, is listed at 
>     the end of the Statement.  
>         Please join with us and support our efforts at 
>     this critical time.  
>         To reach COME:
>             Phone: 202 362-5266     
>             Fax: 202 362-6965
>             Email: COME@USA.NET
>             Web: http://WWW.MiddleEast.org
>
>
>          D  O     N  O  T     B  O  M  B     I  R  A  Q 
>
>   While the United States clearly has the military power to further 
>devastate and prostrate Iraq, we strongly believe that the course the 
>U.S. has chosen is not only grossly unjust, but also exceedingly 
>hypocritical and duplicitous.  We further believe that though the U.S. 
>may be able to pursue its imperial policies without substantial 
>opposition in the short term, the policies being pursued today, 
>especially the new and massive military assault being prepared against 
>Iraq, are likely to have tremendously negative historical ramifications.
>   As Middle East experts and scholars - many with close and personal 
>ties to this long troubled and misunderstood region - we feel a 
>political, a moral, and a historical responsibility to speak up in 
>clear opposition at this critical time.
>
>                Origins of Today's Imbroglio:
>
>   Throughout this century Western countries, primarily the United 
>States and Great Britain, have continually interfered in and 
>manipulated events in the Middle East. The origins of the 
>Iraq/Kuwait conflict can be found in the unilateral British decision 
>during the early years of this century to essentially cut off a 
>piece of Iraq to suit British Empire desires of that now faded era.  
>   Rather than agreeing to Arab self-determination at the end of World 
>War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Western nations conspired
>
>to divide the Arab world into a number of artificial and barely viable 
>entities; to install Arab "client regimes" throughout the region, to 
>make these regimes dependent on Western economic and military power 
>for survival; and then to impose an ongoing series of economic, 
>cultural, and political arrangements seriously detrimental to the 
>people of the area.  This is the historical legacy that we live with 
>today.
>   Throughout the 1930s and the 1940s the West further manipulated the
>affairs of the Middle East in order to control the resources of the
>region and then to create a Jewish homeland in an area long considered
>central to Arab nationalism and Muslim concerns.  Playing off one regime
>against the other and one geopolitical interest against another became a
>major preoccupation for Western politicians and their closely associated
>business interests.
>
>                  Following World War II:
>
>   After World War II, and from these policy origins, the United States
>became the main Western power in the region, supplanting the key roles
>formerly played by Britain and France.  In the 1960s Gamel Abdel Nasser
>was the target of Western condemnation for his attempt to reintegrate
>the Arab world and to pursue independent "non-aligned" policies. By the
>1970s the CIA had established close working relationships with key Arab
>client regimes from Morocco and Jordan to Saudi Arabia and Iran -
>regimes
>that even then were among the most repressive and undemocratic in the
>world - in order to further American domination and to secure an
>ever-growing supply of inexpensive oil and the resultant flow of
>petrodollars.
>   By the late 1970s the counter-reaction of the Iranian revolution was 
>met with a Western build-up of the very same Iraqi regime that is so
>condemned today in a vain attempt to use Iraq to crush the new Iranian
>regime.  The result was millions of deaths coming on top of the
>terrible devastation of Lebanon, itself a country that had been severed
>from Greater Syria by Western intrigues, as had been the area of
>southern Syria, then known as Palestine.  Additionally the Israelis 
>were given the green light to invade Lebanon, further devastate the
>Palestinians, and install a puppet Lebanese government - an attempt
>which failed leading to an American and Israeli retreat but ongoing
>militarism to this day.  Meanwhile, throughout all these years Western 
>manipulation of oil supplies and pricing, coupled with arms sales 
>policies, often seriously exacerbated tensions between countries in 
>the region leading to the events of this decade.
>
>                      The Gulf Conflict:
>
>   It was precisely such American manipulations and intrigues that led 
>to the Gulf War in 1990.  Indeed, we would be remiss if we did not note
>that there is already much historical evidence that the U.S. actually
>maneuvered Iraq into the invation of Kuwait, repeatedly suggesting to
>Iraq that it would become the pivotal military state of the area in 
>coordination with the U.S.   Whether true or not the U.S. subsequently 
>did everything in its power to prevent a peaceful resolution of the 
>conflict and for the first time intervened with massive and overwhelming
>military force in the region creating today's dangerously unstable 
>quagmire.
>   The initially stated American goal was only to protect Saudi Arabia. 
>Then after the unprecedented  military build-up the goal became to expel
>Iraq from Kuwait.  Then the goal evolved to toppling  the Iraqi
>government.  And from there the Americans began to impose various
>limits
>on Iraqi sovereignty; took over much of Iraq air space; sent the CIA to
>repeatedly attempt to topple the Iraqi government; and placed a
>near-total embargo on Iraq that many - including a former Attorney 
>General of the United States - have termed near-genocidal.  The overall 
>result has been the subjugation and impoverishment of Iraq and the 
>actual death of approximately 5% of the Iraqis as the direct result 
>of American sanctions, plus the reallocation of oil quotes and 
>petrodollars to American client-states.
>   With the Clinton Administration, the U.S. began to insist on the 
>"dual containment" of both Iraq and Iran - both countries which just a 
>few years ago the U.S. was working very closely with and providing 
>considerable arms to.   With few in the press able to remember from 
>one year to the next, or to connect one historic event with another, 
>somehow Washington has come to insist on Iraqi disarmament and
>Iranian 
>strangulation.  Furthermore, these policies are being pursued even 
>while Israel and key Arab client states are receiving American weapons 
>in ever larger amounts, with Israel's weapons of mass destruction 
>making her forces 7 to 8 times stronger than all Arab armies combined.
>Furthermore still, the U.S. and Israeli strategic alliance has never 
>been closer, the U.S. has repeatedly helped Israel defy the will of 
>the international community and the United Nations, and the U.S. 
>continues to champion a disingenuous Israeli "peace process" which 
>in reality on the ground continues to dispossess the Palestinians 
>and to corral them onto reservations in their own country!
>
>                              The Future:
>
>   In a future statement we will move on to the crucial subject of what
>alternative policies the United States should be pursuing.  But at this
>critical moment we are compelled to come forward and urgently
>condemn
>the policies now being pursued by the United States and regional ally
>Israel.  We call for an immediate cessation of the economic embargo 
>against Iraq, an end to U.S.-imposed restrictions on Iraqi sovereignty 
>and airspace, and most of all immediately suspension of all plans to 
>attack Iraq using the overwhelming technological and military
>instruments 
>available to the U.S.
>   If the U.S. continues to pursue its current policies then we 
>conclude and predict it will not be unreasonable for many in the world 
>to brand the U.S. itself as a arrogant and imperialist state, and if 
>that becomes the historical paradigm it will be both understandable 
>and justifiable if others pursue whatever means are available to them 
>to oppose American domination and militarism.  Such developments could
>quite possibly lead to still more decades of conflict, warfare, and 
>terrorism throughout the region and beyond.
>
>                * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>COME Advisory Committee: Arab Abdel-Hadi - Cairo; Professor Nahla
>Abdo - Carleton University (Ottawa); Professor Elmoiz Abunura -
>University of North Carolina (Ashville); Professor Jane Adas - Rutgers
>University (NJ); Oroub Alabed - World Food Program (Amman); Professor
>Faris Albermani - University of Queensland (Australia); Professor Jabbar
>Alwan, DePaul University (Chicago); Professor Alex Alland, Columbia
>University (New York); Professor Abbas Alnasrawi - University of
>Vermont
>(Burlington); Professor Michael Astour - University of Southern
>Illinois; Virginia Baron - Guilford, CT.; Professor Mohammed Benayoune -
>Sultan Qaboos University (Oman); Professor Charles Black - Emeritus
>Yale
>University Law School; Professor Francis O. Boyle, University of
>Illinois Law School (Champlain);  Mark Bruzonsky - COME Chairperson
>(Washington); Linda Brayer - Ex. Dir., Society of St. Ives (Jerusalem);
>Professor Noam Chomsky - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>(Cambridge); Ramsey Clark - Former U.S. Attorney General (New York);
>John Cooley - Author, Cyprus; Professor Mustafah Dhada - School of
>International Affairs, Clark Atlanta University; Zuhair Dibaja -
>Research Fellow, University of Helsinki; Professor Mohamed El-Hodiri -
>University of Kansas; Professor Richard Falk - Princeton University;
>Professor Ali Ahmed Farghaly - University of Michigan (Ann Arbor);
>Professor Ali Fatemi - American University (Paris); Michai Freeman -
>Berkeley; Professor S.M. Ghazanfar - University of Idaho (Chair,
>Economics Dept); Professor Kathrn Green - California State University
>(San Bernadino); Nader Hashemi - Ottawa, Canada; Professor Clement
>Henry
>- University of Texas (Austin); Professor Herbert Hill - University of
>Wisconsin (Madison); Professor Asaf Hussein - U.K.; Yudit Ilany -
>Jerusalem; Professor George Irani - Lebanese American University
>(Beirut); Tahir Jaffer - Nairobi, Kenya; David Jones - Editor, New Dawn
>Magazine, Australia; Professor Elie Katz - Sonoma State University, CA;
>Professor George Kent - University of Hawaii; Professor Ted Keller - San
>Francisco State University, Emeritus; John F. Kennedy - Attorney at Law,
>Washington; Samaneh Khader - Gruadate Student in Theology, University
>of
>Helsinki; Professor Ebrahim Khoda - University of Western Australia;
>Guida Leicester, San Francisco; Jeremy Levin - Former CNN Beirut
>Bureau
>Chief (Portland); Professor Seymour Melman - Columbia University (New
>York); Dr. Avi Melzer - Frankfurt; Professor Alan Meyers - Boston
>University; Professor Michael Mills - Vista College (Berkeley, CA);
>Kamram Mofrad - Idaho; Shahab Mushtaq - Knox College; Professor
>Minerva
>Nasser-Eddine - University of Adelaide (Australia); Professor Peter
>Pellett - University of Massachussetts (Amherst); Professor Max Pepper,
>M.D. - University of Massachusetts (Amherst); Professor Ruud Peters -
>Universiteit van Amsterdam; Professor Glenn Perry - Indiana State
>University; Professor Tanya Reinhart - Tel Aviv University; Professor
>Shalom Raz - Technion (Haifa); Professor Knut Rognes - Stavanger
>College
>(Norway); Professor Masud Salimian - Morgan State University
>(Baltimore); Professor Mohamed Salmassi - University of Massachusetts;
>Qais Saleh - Graduate Student, International University (Japan); Ali
>Saidi - J.D. candidate in international law (Berkeley, CA); Dr. Eyad
>Sarraj - Gaza, Occupied Palestine; Henry Schwarzschild - New York
>(original co-founder - deceased); Professor Herbert Schiller -
>University of California (San Diego); Peter Shaw-Smith - Journalist,
>London; David Shomar - New York; Dr. Manjra Shuaib - CapeTown
>(South
>Africa); Professor J. David Singer - University of Michigan (Ann Arbor);
>Professor Majid Tehranian - Director Toda Institute for Global Peace and
>Policy (University of Hawaii); Dr. Marlyn Tadros - Deputy Director,
>Legal Research and Resource Center for Human Rights (Cairo); Ismail
>Zayid, M.D. - Dalhousi University (CA).
>
>   COME - 202 362-5266 - Fax: 202 362-6965 - Email: COME@USA.NET
>
>
>
>
>
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	There are no hierarchies, no infinite, no such many as mass,
	there are only
	eyes in all heads
	to be looked out of

			     -charles olson, from "letter 6" (of the maximus 					poems)


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