The French helped build Iraq's nuclear reactor,
Russia recently invaded the Chechen Republic (for oil - of course)
and China has invaded Tibet. They all have their excuses. Not
one of them however has cared to abide by any UN resolutions concerning
their particular little obscenities.
We are not surprised to learn
that these countries have billion-dollar oil contracts with Iraq.
And, not surprisingly, these same countries want to keep the United
States from sharing in the Iraqi oil trade. Increased American
power and influence is a threat to them and is the real reason
for their objections. So where were all the peace protestors when
the French were trading nuclear know-how for oil and influence,
when the Russians were killing people for oil and power, and when
the Chinese were turning Tibet into a cemetery.
At least, some argue, those countries
were doing business with Iraq and not killing its people. And
while these nations might make the hypocritical claim that they
knew nothing of what Saddam was doing with the profit-from-oil
contracts, the Kurds and the citizens of Iraq would definitely
know from direct personal experience.
And now the French are insisting
that the United Nations be in charge of rebuilding Iraq after
the war. In other words the French and others want to make a profit
out of a war they condemn the Americans for conducting.
I have no doubt whatsoever that
if any of these countries had had the backbone for it, they would
have invaded Iraq as well. Are we forgetting the French fiascos
in Viet Nam and Algeria, or more recently the Russian fiasco in
Afghanistan? Rhetoric and slick propaganda notwithstanding, these
aggressions were initiated for the sake of power and influence
in the world - case closed. And as long as the world remains a
place where power and influence are gained through war then let
us be the ones to win at it. Screw everybody else because -- history
warns us -- they would likely screw us if they could.
So long as the United Nations
continues to countenance the French, Germans, Russians and the
Chinese pretending to support peace in the world while conducting
their own campaigns of murder-for-power-and-oil, its prestige
will continue to decline.
All the high sounding moral UN
pronouncements over Iraqi intransigence did nothing to prevent
Saddam Hussein from arresting and torturing men, women and children.
It is not outside the realm of reason to imagine that the United
Nations might summon the resolve to act decisively if the French,
Germans, Russians and Chinese felt they could further their self
interest in supporting such a resolution.
Which is to say, the well of hypocrisy
in the world is apparently well enough for everybody. How can
anyone claim we are more evolved than our ancestors since leaving
the trees epochs ago. Back then, life was a life-and-death struggle
for resources. The roil over oil in Iraq suggests very little
has changed. We live by reason as long as it does not stand in
the way of narrow self-interest. And despite the protests of reason,
we continue to follow one ideal after another, one politically
correct idea after another, one fundamentalism after another.
We kill those who perform abortions because abortion is murder,
we threaten human life (medical researchers) for the sake of animal
rights, we ignore the aggressions of other nations but protest
American aggression. Reason is made into an enemy, and our ideals
become our deadly prejudices.
It is only when we lose our prejudices
that we will recognize we are all innocent and we are all guilty.
Until we accept that reality, nothing will change. The barbarians
aren't someone else, the barbarians are always us.
In the end, selective passivism
in a world full of bullies is just another self-indulgence, another
irresponsible act, another abandonment of reason.
