A base for the corruption of democracy
Scott Ritter
Tuesday 24 May 2005, 18:00 Makka Time, 15:00 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5250B0C3-847C-426F-A4DA-FDA0F35975B3.htm
Scott Ritter
Tuesday 24 May 2005, 18:00 Makka Time, 15:00 GMT
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5250B0C3-847C-426F-A4DA-FDA0F35975B3.htm
"As the honeymoon period of the much-hyped 30 January elections in Iraq comes to an end amid the explosions of car bombs and continuous US military action, the harsh reality that these elections have failed to produce a government capable of governing, let alone govern in a fashion that resembles any notion of what a democracy should look like, comes crashing home. The purple finger revolution of January 2005 has proved only one thing: that the US media is capable of building something out of nothing.
Any informed observer of Iraq could have predicted the failure of the elections to produce any viable result; Iraq as a nation state was simply too deeply fractured for a process sponsored by an illegitimate military occupier to succeed. But one doesn't need to be an expert on Iraq to have figured this out.
The simple fact is that one cannot construct something viable when the foundation one seeks to build on is a corrupt one. A corrupt foundation guarantees one thing only - that what is sought to be built will eventually collapse because of its own inherent weakness.
The United States claims to be trying to help Iraq build a functioning and viable democracy, but the foundation of any such government will by necessity be based on the nature of American involvement in Iraq. This involvement has been disingenuous, dishonest, and dishonourable from the start.
This is the main reason I have given in the past as to why America lost the war the moment we crossed the border into Iraq in March 2003. Nothing the US military did, or does, after that event matters, since the foundation the Bush administration laid for its activity was a corrupt one, based upon the lie of weapons of mass destruction, bullet-proof Iraqi connections with al-Qaida, and the falsehood of American diplomacy vis-a-vis the United Nations.
The Bush administration continues to proclaim that the war with Iraq was an inevitable result of Saddam Hussein's record of non-compliance with Iraq's UN-mandated obligation to disarm. The Bush administration continues to mock international law by claiming that UN Security Council resolution 1441, passed in November 2002, legitimised its decision to invade. But there are two problems with this line of thought. First, resolution 1441 did not authorise military action; every nation except the United States believed a second resolution was required before military action could be undertaken (even Great Britain took this stance, before Bush's loyal poodle, Tony Blair, had his Attorney General draft a new legal finding on the eve of war). Second, and most important, Iraq did not violate resolution 1441. The record is clear - Iraq permitted unfettered access to all sites required by the UN weapons inspectors, and the declaration submitted by Iraq in December 2002 (which was dismissed by Colin Powell and Condi Rice as consisting of nothing but lies) was in fact the truth.
To date not a single fact of substance contained in the Iraqi declaration has been shown false, unlike the totality of the presentation made by Colin Powell before the Security Council on 5 February 2003. There were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) left in Iraq, something the CIA reluctantly admits today. In fact, there had been no WMD in Iraq since the summer of 1991, something the Iraqis had said all along. Far from being justified by a record of Iraqi non-compliance, the decision to invade Iraq was a foregone conclusion reached by a US president we now know was willing to “fix intelligence around policy” to achieve his ends.
The elections held in the US in November 2004, and the recent elections in the UK in May 2005, underscore the sad reality that the citizens of these two great democracies have accepted the notion that the ends justify the means. The accepted notion among many Americans and British is that the US-led invasion rid the world of a tyrannical dictator, and as such should be embraced, warts and all.
This, of course, is absurd thinking, especially for citizens who claim to embrace the notion of rule by law.
The constitution of the United States of America sets forth values and ideals that define America as a nation, and Americans as a people. British law does the same for the people of the UK. Both systems espouse the inviolable notion of due process. In a people governed by the rule of law, due process is the means by which ends are achieved. This cannot be compromised if the underlying values and ideals being espoused are to remain viable.
Democracy as practiced in the United States and Great Britain is far from perfect. However, as long as democracy is practiced with an unbending adherence to the principles of the rule of law, this far from perfect system will remain among the best man has ever had. But it requires an unyielding embrace of the notion of the means achieving the ends, and a complete rejection of any notion of the ends justifying the means, ever.
In fact, any citizen of the United States or Great Britain (or any democracy governed by the rule of law, for that matter) who accepts an argument based on the ends justifying the means should think long and hard about their commitment to the country they have sworn allegiance to, since their principles are more in line with the sort of fascist and totalitarian regimes that plagued the world in the middle of the last century, and not with those espoused by United States and the UK which fought to rid the world of such blights.
Today, both the US and the UK have wavered from the principled stands taken during the second world war. Far from being liberators, both nations have the status of illegal occupiers. Far from being in the company of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, George Bush and Tony Blair are in league with Adolf Hitler when he fabricated an excuse to invade Poland in 1939, and Saddam Hussein when he violated international law and invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Both Bush and Blair claim to be trying to build a better Iraq today, a free and democratic Iraq governed by the rule of law. But the fact is, because the foundation of US-UK involvement in Iraq is not the rule of law, but rather the wanton disregard for the rule of law, Iraq has not become the desired breeding ground of democracy, but rather a breeding ground for the corruption of democracy.
The best chance for bringing a semblance of normality to Iraq where notions of liberty and justice for all might one day hold sway is for the United States and Great Britain to withdraw, completely, from that troubled land, bringing down the fatally compromised and structurally unsound perversion of democracy that is being imposed on the Iraqi people today.
The participants in the purple finger revolution will find a way to build a new government in Iraq, with a solid foundation and lasting future. Instead of interfering in this labour, the citizens of the US and the UK would do well to reflect on their own respective shortcomings, and turn their attention to shoring up the foundations of their own democracies, both of which have suffered much damage due to the ongoing debacle in Iraq.
Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, serving from 1991-1998. He is the author of Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's Intelligence Conspiracy (IB Tauris, to be published in the summer of 2005). "
Any informed observer of Iraq could have predicted the failure of the elections to produce any viable result; Iraq as a nation state was simply too deeply fractured for a process sponsored by an illegitimate military occupier to succeed. But one doesn't need to be an expert on Iraq to have figured this out.
The simple fact is that one cannot construct something viable when the foundation one seeks to build on is a corrupt one. A corrupt foundation guarantees one thing only - that what is sought to be built will eventually collapse because of its own inherent weakness.
The United States claims to be trying to help Iraq build a functioning and viable democracy, but the foundation of any such government will by necessity be based on the nature of American involvement in Iraq. This involvement has been disingenuous, dishonest, and dishonourable from the start.
This is the main reason I have given in the past as to why America lost the war the moment we crossed the border into Iraq in March 2003. Nothing the US military did, or does, after that event matters, since the foundation the Bush administration laid for its activity was a corrupt one, based upon the lie of weapons of mass destruction, bullet-proof Iraqi connections with al-Qaida, and the falsehood of American diplomacy vis-a-vis the United Nations.
The Bush administration continues to proclaim that the war with Iraq was an inevitable result of Saddam Hussein's record of non-compliance with Iraq's UN-mandated obligation to disarm. The Bush administration continues to mock international law by claiming that UN Security Council resolution 1441, passed in November 2002, legitimised its decision to invade. But there are two problems with this line of thought. First, resolution 1441 did not authorise military action; every nation except the United States believed a second resolution was required before military action could be undertaken (even Great Britain took this stance, before Bush's loyal poodle, Tony Blair, had his Attorney General draft a new legal finding on the eve of war). Second, and most important, Iraq did not violate resolution 1441. The record is clear - Iraq permitted unfettered access to all sites required by the UN weapons inspectors, and the declaration submitted by Iraq in December 2002 (which was dismissed by Colin Powell and Condi Rice as consisting of nothing but lies) was in fact the truth.
To date not a single fact of substance contained in the Iraqi declaration has been shown false, unlike the totality of the presentation made by Colin Powell before the Security Council on 5 February 2003. There were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) left in Iraq, something the CIA reluctantly admits today. In fact, there had been no WMD in Iraq since the summer of 1991, something the Iraqis had said all along. Far from being justified by a record of Iraqi non-compliance, the decision to invade Iraq was a foregone conclusion reached by a US president we now know was willing to “fix intelligence around policy” to achieve his ends.
The elections held in the US in November 2004, and the recent elections in the UK in May 2005, underscore the sad reality that the citizens of these two great democracies have accepted the notion that the ends justify the means. The accepted notion among many Americans and British is that the US-led invasion rid the world of a tyrannical dictator, and as such should be embraced, warts and all.
This, of course, is absurd thinking, especially for citizens who claim to embrace the notion of rule by law.
The constitution of the United States of America sets forth values and ideals that define America as a nation, and Americans as a people. British law does the same for the people of the UK. Both systems espouse the inviolable notion of due process. In a people governed by the rule of law, due process is the means by which ends are achieved. This cannot be compromised if the underlying values and ideals being espoused are to remain viable.
Democracy as practiced in the United States and Great Britain is far from perfect. However, as long as democracy is practiced with an unbending adherence to the principles of the rule of law, this far from perfect system will remain among the best man has ever had. But it requires an unyielding embrace of the notion of the means achieving the ends, and a complete rejection of any notion of the ends justifying the means, ever.
In fact, any citizen of the United States or Great Britain (or any democracy governed by the rule of law, for that matter) who accepts an argument based on the ends justifying the means should think long and hard about their commitment to the country they have sworn allegiance to, since their principles are more in line with the sort of fascist and totalitarian regimes that plagued the world in the middle of the last century, and not with those espoused by United States and the UK which fought to rid the world of such blights.
Today, both the US and the UK have wavered from the principled stands taken during the second world war. Far from being liberators, both nations have the status of illegal occupiers. Far from being in the company of President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill, George Bush and Tony Blair are in league with Adolf Hitler when he fabricated an excuse to invade Poland in 1939, and Saddam Hussein when he violated international law and invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Both Bush and Blair claim to be trying to build a better Iraq today, a free and democratic Iraq governed by the rule of law. But the fact is, because the foundation of US-UK involvement in Iraq is not the rule of law, but rather the wanton disregard for the rule of law, Iraq has not become the desired breeding ground of democracy, but rather a breeding ground for the corruption of democracy.
The best chance for bringing a semblance of normality to Iraq where notions of liberty and justice for all might one day hold sway is for the United States and Great Britain to withdraw, completely, from that troubled land, bringing down the fatally compromised and structurally unsound perversion of democracy that is being imposed on the Iraqi people today.
The participants in the purple finger revolution will find a way to build a new government in Iraq, with a solid foundation and lasting future. Instead of interfering in this labour, the citizens of the US and the UK would do well to reflect on their own respective shortcomings, and turn their attention to shoring up the foundations of their own democracies, both of which have suffered much damage due to the ongoing debacle in Iraq.
Scott Ritter is a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq, serving from 1991-1998. He is the author of Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of America's Intelligence Conspiracy (IB Tauris, to be published in the summer of 2005). "
