November 12, 2003 Opinions the other press © Put Down the Baseball Bat So | Can Beat You Properly Macdonald Stainsby OP Columnist Iraq was attacked in March, 2003, after they followed the American-led order to eliminate their most dangerous weapons. Now, Iran and North Korea are being told to dismember their own plans for build- ing weapons that are strong enough to deter most invading forces. Small wonder, then, that neither Iran nor North Korea is tremendously eager to hand over their right to defend themselves. Basically, as far as North Korea and Iran see things, the scenario is this. There used to be three countries on the so-called “axis of evil,” along with Iraq. Now, American threats involve demands that Iran and North Korea renounce their rights to weapons of mass destruction. Who on this planet has a hard time understanding what this means? Can you blame the countries that don't play along? At the end of the Gulf War, Iraq was ordered by the UN to account for and destroy all of their weapons of mass destruction. The most comprehensive ver- ification mission in history was set up, and the sovereignty of Iraq was decimated, and essentially wiped out. The sanctions that Iraq went under can hardly be over- estimated: all food, school books, and water filtration systems were not allowed in—all in a country that had just been devastated by one of the most inhumane aerial slaughters in history. Well, the UN appointed “verification missions,” who were to lead the sanctions regime against Iraq. According to UNICEF, over 1.5 mil- lion people died—mostly children—due to a lack of the most basic goods. Aside from people inside the US administration, no one tried to blame these deaths on any- one or anything but these crippling sanc- tions. Yet, the sanctions “worked”—if you can call it that. that these sanctions would remain. And these same weapons of mass destruction sanctions were to provide the excuse to invade their country, destroy their inde- pendence, and colonize both their politi- cal institutions and (of course) their oil. The UN weapons inspectors were allowed in more than six months before the US By 1998, the invaded the people who There used to be country. were working They found for the UN in . nothing, and their inspec- th ree coun tries not a single tions, were try- ing to tell the world that the sanctions had already com- pleted their mission. The basic goal—to force Saddam Hussein’s gov- ernment to surrender their weapons of mass destruction—had already long since been achieved. The inspectors were no longer there to help disarm the govern- ment, but to provoke it, and provide an excuse to isolate Iraq, and not let the country back into the world family—in particular, to sell their oil on the global market. And since Iraq had destroyed a few of their weapons without help—thus destroying the proof (a form of guilty until proven innocent)—Iraq was to find on the so-called “axis of evil,” along with Iraq anthrax mol- ecule has been found since the Americans took over the ground in Iraq. They have now announced their plans to switch the weapons finders’ mission over to a mission of trying to stop the Iraqi people who are now fighting for their independence (“terrorists’—much like Thomas Jefferson). The lessons of this haven't been at all lost on the leaders of North Korea or Iran. What lessons did the “axis of evil” coun- tries draw from the start of the war? KCNA, the communist states official news agency, released a statement very quickly after the Americans illegally invaded Iraq. “The DPRK would have already met the same miserable fate as Iraq, had it compromised its revolutionary principle, and accepted the demand raised by the imperialists and its followers for ‘nuclear inspection,’ and disarmament.”! Rhetoric aside, that essentially means Iraq handed a bully every means it had of defending itself, and then got beaten up by the same bully once it was disarmed. We will not let the bully take away our few weapons before they come and attack us too. Gee, I wonder what would make the North Koreans think the US attacks weak, small countries after those countries disarm themselves and allow in the inspectors. Perhaps they are simply para- noid. Recently, the third “evil” country has been threatened. This is Iran, who the Americans had better relations with before the recent bombing and occupation of Iran’s neighbour. Iran is now told that they are not allowed weapons either. Iranian cleric Ahmad Janati replied, “If we sign the additional protocol [to allow weapons inspectors, such as in Iraq], they can inspect anywhere they want. One day it could be the Majlis [parliament], and the next day the office of the supreme leader [Ayat Allah Ali Khamenei] [...] Iranians will stand firm against the crimi- nal and conspiring US and will not accept http://www.otherpress.ca this humiliation.”? The war of terror seems to want to expand their victims, and this seems to prompt weak countries to take a rather distrustful view of the US, so more weapons are being sought than ever before. So much for the “safer” world. When I went to high school, I wasn’t the big, strong kid, surprising though that might seem. I remember this one big, ugly kid who decided that he would pick on me and several others, as often as he could. That is, he would harass us, forcing “deals” on us, such as, “tomorrow bring the following amount of money, or the following pieces of your body will stop functioning.” That kind of “deal.” When the “negotiation” went badly, I would often find different routes home from school. One of the best things to come out of being threatened was for us to learn how to come up with the best coping strategies possible. One of those strategies was to watch how things went when the bully was attacking someone else. There were a lot of other kids who got harassed by this guy. One of those kids was once told he should meet the bully after school, where they could talk about how to resolve their problems. He went, and this kid had his nose broken, while the bully did his work. When the same bully asked me to go, I didn’t show up. I wasn’t going to play his game and get my nose busted. And neither should North Korea, Iran or any other smaller country that wants to avoid having a war of annihilation and depleted uranium (a weapon of mass destruction loaded with radiation poison- ing used on Iraq) imposed on them. Once a bully figures out how to use such tricks as part of a set up, they will go back to the well until the water runs dry. There’s one main problem, however. Our modern bully is stronger than all the faculty, police, and self-help management pro- grams put together. His friends are the governments of Britain, Australia, and to a lesser extent, Canada. The only thing that can stop him is when people of good conscience—particularly from the bully’s family—ally with all of the bully’s victims to say, “get out of our playground.” Or, in this case, “get off our planet.” Macdonald Stainsby is a freelance writer, social justice activist and can be reached at: mstainsby@resist.ca 2 Page 11