Trigger-Happy Texans

FOR eight years, the Clinton administration gave the US one of the best governments it's ever had. The same could not, unfortunately, be said of the way in which it presided over the global political system, for it plunged the US into more confrontations in, and with, hapless countries trying desperately to cope with the task of nation-building, than any of its predecessors. Kosovo and less directly, East Timor, spring most readily to mind. In both US/nato initiatives have broken, or come close to breaking, established nation-states. This has unleashed a torrent of violence that's swept, or is threatening to sweep, civilised government away and restore the politics of murder and the rule of the gun.

By contrast, on the two occasions that cried out for a powerful, unambiguous response to the grossest violation of human rights, organised and carried out by the State, it chose to remain silent. I refer to Rwanda in 1994 and Palestine last year. In the former, not only did the US stand aside itself, but it dithered over even the quantum and timing of UN assistance till it was far too late to save the half-million 'Tutsi whom the Hutus slaughtered. In the latter, it lectured Yasser Arafat incessantly on the need to control stone-throwing Palestinian youth but did not say a word in condemnation of the man who deliberately provoked them by wading into the compound of the second holiest shrine of Islam surrounded by jackbooted Israeli troops. The reasons were disreputable, even if they are understandable: in the former the killer squads unleashed on the 'Tutsi had been trained by the French, a nato ally. In the latter, it was the special relationship with Israel that inflicted it with Nelsonian blindness.

Add to this the 70 or so economic sanctions against various countries the Clinton administration left behind, and the George W. Bush administration had a golden opportunity not only to give American foreign policy a new face, but to shift its credentials for presiding over the future of the globe away from brute force towards upholding the principles of equity and justice. Regrettably, President G.W. Bush has blown it.

The administration's very first international action has been to bomb Baghdad. What is more, it took this momentous decision long before its principal cabinet members had had the time to make themselves familiar with the compulsions and constraints under which policy had been made during the past eight years. The new administration could have been forgiven if Iraq had actually done something that threatened a neighbour, broken an international agreement, or flouted a UN-mandated sanction. Even then the action was excessive, because so long as Iraq had broken no bones it should have been warned sternly and publicly first.

But Messrs Powell and Rumsfeld had no such qualms. Presented with a statement by the appropriate military command that the number of missiles fired at American and British warplanes patrolling the 'no-fly' zone in southern Iraq had increased sharply, they decided to teach Baghdad a lesson. And they did so not by targeting an isolated Iraqi airfield or missile site, but targeting installations in and around the thickly-populated city of Baghdad.

Perhaps few Americans understand the shock this single action has created around the world. For with this one action the Bush administration has aligned itself solidly behind the singlemost shameful act of post-Nazi times.Through a combination of arrogance, insensitivity and neglect, it has managed to become a partner in the genocide of more than half a million people. What is worse, most of the victims are children. One statistic tells the entire tale: the child mortality rate had jumped in Iraq from 54 per thousand before the Gulf War to 131 per thousand in 1998. This means that around 150 children are dying every day who did not attack Kuwait or offend the sensibilities of the Americans, that is, a total of 440,000 till the end of 1999.

US and UK spokesmen, tamely echoed by the western media, have been desperately trying to push the blame for this on Saddam Hussain who, they claim, has deliberately not drawn upon his food for oil facility in order to kill his own people and make the world point an accusing finger at them. This is self-serving poppycock. Children need not only food but also safe drinking water. That requires functioning water treatment plants, and well-maintained water mains. Children also need medicines, but they need to be kept refrigerated to stay fresh. And refrigeration needs a constant source of power. Waterworks, power plants, roads and bridges have been among the main targets of the repeated bomb attacks and the machinery needed to repair them has been held up repeatedly on absurd and spiteful pretexts by the UN sanctions committee in New York.

None of this is Iraqi propaganda, for there is a growing number of films and essays by some of the world's most highly-respected journalists and film-makers, which have catalogued the horrors that Iraq has gone through. Dennis Halliday, the UN's co-ordinator of humanitarian supplies in Iraq, who resigned in September 1998 after a year in office because he could not remain a silent witness to genocide, has estimated that at least another 300,000 adults need to be added to the list of direct victims of the sanctions. And there are now three reports by the Unicef to fall back upon.

The US knows that the sanctions have now lost whatever moral force they had once possessed and are being widely flouted. It also knows—even if it does not admit it—that the bombing of Iraq does not enjoy a shred of legal sanction. The new team could have signalled a change by showing a touch of restraint before sending up its bombers. Instead it has demonstrated that since the Gulf war, it has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.