The Alleged Benefits of This War

 

Monday  April 7, 2003

Suraya Al-Shehry, Special to Arab News

US President George W. Bush refused to discuss the costs of the war on Iraq, yet dared to announce that the benefits of that same war were incalculable! I really don’t know if the creature thinks. Anyhow, assuming that he has a mind that will at least help him read, or assuming that the crew surrounding him will explain anything he finds incomprehensible, and assuming also that the voice of an Arab woman will reach him by one means or another, I will discuss these so-called benefits.

Let us begin with the human losses.

On Friday, March 28, according to information released by the occupying forces, the number of Iraqi soldiers killed was 1,000. As I write this, a precious life is being snuffed out on Iraqi soil; a soul created by God only to be strangled by Bush and his ilk. And with complete arrogance, he comes out and talks about the alleged benefits!

Let us leave aside the topic of the soul and its right to life, for these are matters of no interest to these people, especially since they concern the Arab soul and its value, all of which are things they don’t deal with. Let us instead talk in the language they understand — the language of numbers and benefits.

Experts estimate that the costs of the current war, in comparison to the enormous expense of occupying Iraq, are relatively small. Take into consideration that the cost of the war has had a considerable impact on the American government, whose budget deficit in 2003 reached $304 billion.

Add to this the $75 billion requested of Congress in order to continue a war that has already lasted longer than expected, and consider that the government’s loan is currently $6,400 trillion. Putting all this together — and supposing that the war lasts a lot longer — the question is: What happens next? Another loan? More deficits? A crumbling economy?

Let me now talk of the humanitarian side, which seems of little interest to the decision-makers; it may be of interest to us ordinary people.

Let us leave those leaders who don’t take a step without hordes of armed guards surrounding them and ensuring their safety and the safety of their families. I am talking here of the ordinary American citizen who has become a target of hate for most people in the world. He is frightened and afraid of being tainted with the same brush as Bush — and he is right, for who will differentiate between the American administration and the American people? Is it possible that our verdicts may reach both the guilty and the innocent?

Yet what have the Americans themselves done and what are they still doing to all Arabs? All Muslims? Even an Indian Sikh, who they thought was Muslim, didn’t escape unharmed!

Do you want more benefits, George Bush, or is this enough? What is truly strange is that what I have said isn’t a military secret but merely a piecing together of information.

The media and its technology have reported, the different channels in different languages, both live media and films — all have left no room for illusions but plenty of fertile ground for those who promote lies and graze upon them.

Everyone watches, listens and reads — almost the entire world is united in acknowledging the lack of truth in the principle on which the hawkish administration built its campaign.

Yet despite all this, Bush and Blair underestimated us and still talk of those benefits and the so-called justice and freedom to come — all nicely packaged. Do they really think that we are unaware and our wills have been taken from us? Have they not seen with their own eyes what has happened to their forces and their plans? Have they not heard of Palestine in 1948? Do they suffer from amnesia?

Whatever I say will not be as eloquent as the words of one of their own. Joshua Maynard, a corporal during a press conference in Germany, where he had been sent for treatment after being wounded, said that he was bewildered and confused, that the soldiers had been told they would find no resistance or at least nothing worth mentioning.

Some openly suggested that their commanders had been less than truthful with them. They don’t understand why they are fighting a nation that seems to be clinging to its leadership.

To this I say, please don’t mix things up — these people are fighting for their land — which is the most precious thing a man can have and for which he will fight body and soul.

As for Bush and Saddam, they are not the kind of leaders that anyone would be anxious to cling to even if they were to try to promote the benefits of their goods — for in truth, they expired a long time ago and the stink is offending our noses.

— Suraya Al-Shehry is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.

Arab News Features 7 April 2003

HOME

Copyright 2014  Q Madp  www.OurWarHeroes.org