Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death’s construction
-- Black Sabbath
I HAD an argument with a friend last month over the now-academic
war in Iraq.
The United States, she argued, has become, to borrow Ederic Eder’s
term, Shaider (although she used it a full month before Ederic did),
and it was America’s duty to go down and make an example of
the bad guys -- that's what she called those in power in Iraq.
To those of you who aren't familiar with Philippine or Japanese TV
fare in the 80's, Shaider is an intergalactic cop who tracks down
intergalactic criminals (but naturally!) disguised as an ordinary
Japanese. The show was a big hit in the mid-80's and heralded the
age of Tagalog-dubbed Japanese kiddie fare.
I immediately chided my friend for being so vulnerable to American
media pressure. Perhaps I was wrong in stereotyping her, but I thought
that someone who almost graduated with honors from the University
from the College of Mass Communication would know a thing or two about
propaganda and media manipulation.
What was shocking to me was that a left-leaning feminist in college
not too long ago could be echoing the same rhetoric that comes out
of the mouths of Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush, with what seemed
to me more conviction than what Tony Blair showed at the House of
Commons much later on. After all, she argued, she had made a rational
decision, one based on what she had seen, heard, and felt as a Filipino
living in New York with a newborn baby boy.
At the time, her main point was that the threat of war from the international
community on Iraq would be enough to cause Saddam to disarm and American
troops to withdraw. I wonder if she’d realized that world support
for any American military initiative had diminished the experiment
that was Afghanistan.
Saddam Hussein won’t bow down to international pressure for
him to resign. It didn’t work on Fidel Castro, it won’t
work on Saddam Hussein.
Speaking of Fidel Castro, I wonder if the United States will then
turn its guns on Cuba, to liberate the many Cubans that suffer under
Castro’s regime. All the evidence they need is in the sheer
number of boat people that try to make it to Miami. Does anyone remember
Elian Gonzalez? I don’t think so.
I also wonder if the United States will also train its guns on Malaysia’s
Mahathir Mohammad, leader of Southeast Asia’s most prosperous
Islamic state and one of neo-imperialism’s staunchest critics
for being an affront to democracy with his treatment of political
opposition. Take what happened to Former Deputy Anwar Ibrahim, for
instance.
I’m being sarcastic here, in case some of you don’t get
it.
Alas, my shock turned into disgust when yet another Filipino living
overseas, Winda Lagumbay Petilla, decided to use her mailing list
to show her support for the war.
When I first signed on the list, Petilla would sprinkle her mailing
list with clippings compiled from Philippine news sources. I hypothesize
these clippings are for Filipinos living overseas, for them to keep
a pulse on how people think and feel back home. I imagine these clippings
are a lifeline for our diaspora hungry for anything and everything
Filipino.
Today, these clippings from home are a mere memory. In their stead
are rabid pro-war articles that indict the UN and Canada for their
inaction against Saddam Hussein. The articles are grand masterpieces
of rhetoric that justify the war as a humanitarian gesture, that paint
British and American soldiers as forces of liberty and freedom. They
constantly cite references to Iraqi atrocities, and to the UN’s
failure to protect against genocidal actions in Cambodia and Kosovo.
I wonder if Winda realizes that what we protest is not the removal
of Saddam, but how he is removed. By betraying America’s legal
principle that the end never justifies the means, America’s
leaders and their lapdogs destroy any and all moral foundations on
which it acts. That he has oppressed his people as a traitor to humanity
is obvious and does not need to be restated, but military action by
a country to overthrow him brings that country down to Saddam’s
level, that of savagery, lawlessness, and unaccountability.
How can a society that deplores its citizens taking the law into
their own hands condone a similar act, this time albeit in global
terms? That’s why the Wild West was wild, and that’s why
it’s an often glossed-over part of American history.
As for UN inaction on the suffering of millions under Idi Amin and
Cambodia, these criticisms are unfounded. The United Nations is an
international body. To interfere with the internal affairs of state
of a nation is to violate its charter and its mandate to respect the
sovereignity of all nations. That’s why it could do nothing
in the cases of Cambodia under Pol Pot and Uganda under Idi Amin.
That’s why it can do nothing today to indict Pakistanis for
their history of honor killings and their resulting violence against
women.
The hands of the United Nations are tied, and for good reason. It’s
called dignity. It’s called self-determination. It’s called
sovereignty.
I imagine that if the UN was to involve itself in the internal affairs
of state as long as it merits humanitarian concern, it would’ve
met violent opposition in the late 1960’s as African Americans
were still treated as subhuman beings.
As for the United Nations having any teeth, it might as well be teethless
when the teeth themselves decide they can do better than the body
itself.
I would’ve chided Winda as well for flaunting these weak arguments
for war when it came to me that these people are not the victims of
an extensive propaganda campaign, but are instead caught in a cultural
system that believes in the power of arms in the act of self-defense
that just happens to have enough arms to do what it wants.
It seems to me that this censorship of any anti-war sentiment comes
as a kneejerk reaction to the events of September 11, a reaction that
has and continues to be stoked by an American press that likes to
milk anything for what its worth, as long as it attracts viewers.
It sells, and continues to sell, so why stop it?
That’s when it hit me: Americans want to go along with this
because somehow, they can’t see themselves in the wrong when
so many believe it is right. America has always been a land that believes
in its inherent goodness. That’s why everything that has come
out in support of the war carries the same theme: the war is America’s
ultimate symbol for its respect for humanity; it is nothing but action
to protect the innocent and the oppressed; that this is a decisive
action that will strike at the heart of terror.
Appeals to the universal good: it should be a fallacy in Latin. Argumentum
ad propagandum.
I wonder if these supporters of war realize that they are only feeding
kindling to the flame, that they stoke the fires of hatred among a
people that has grown fiercely independent and protective of its own
traditions, that they sow the seeds of the very terror they commit
themselves to stop.
It is most infuriating when, after incidents like September 11, when
it happens again (this I believe), people will once more ask: Why
us? Why do you hate us so?
People often ask me why I continue to rail against military intervention
in Iraq. I tell them it is this: when that day of reckoning comes,
when the seeds of terror have borne fruit and more and more innocent
lives are lost in an orgy of vengeance upon insult, I can stand with
my head held up high and say: I told you so.
They say, "What's the use? That's the way things are now and
there's nothing we can do about it."
I say we cannot afford to ignore the small issues in this conflict
just because things are the way they are and because we are powerless
to make any change. To do so is to ignore the minority and to personally
violate the principles of freedom and respect by which we define our
nation, if not ourselves.
My friend with whom I argued last month and I have since kissed and
made up (so to speak), but we refuse to talk about the war, at least
to each other. Enough lives have been ruined.
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