Humankind has a capacity for peace. But, there are far more compelling factors encoded in human affairs that propel us ( yes - "us" homo sapiens ) to the killing of our own species and war.
Non-human animals kill, in large part, for reasons of the obtaining of food for survival, or in self-defence. Killing as practised by non-human animals is itself not cannibalistic, nor aggressively directed at the destruction of members of the same group ( read - "species" ). Ritualistic combat of some species has as its object, territorial safety, or spousal protection, but not lethal destruction of a member of one's own species. In our own form of ritualistic protestations, our kind - homo sapiens - took to the streets of capitals around the world in our millions and protested the impending war against Iraq. The bull - America - was asked by other members of our human tribe not to go charging into Iraq and not to apply force against the already sanctioned and savaged weaker member in that "nation tribe". Bellicose tendencies triumphed with "shock and awe", and war was unleashed against members of one's own species.
The American establishment had convinced itself that America's need to consume and gorge oil (see: www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html -- "The real reasons for the upcoming war with Iraq: a macroeconomic and geostrategic analysis of the unspoken truth" by W.C. Clark), was a more compelling causative reason for attack, than was the need for peaceful resolution. A collective portrait of America's actions towards Iraq, would show a President totally committed to war; actors within the military and intelligence communities ranging from doubtful to fully committed; contractors greedily awaiting the economic spoils of war; and, ultimately foot soldiers loyal to country and cause, motivated by reasons of their devotion to cause as may not immediately have permitted them to raise probing questions.
Reason is a very strong motivator, but reason itself can be cleverly manipulated to defy the pursuit of truth. Truth as President George W. Bush pronounced it on March 18, 2003, was "Intelligence leaves no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." Another President, former President Jimmy Carter, in an interview with a British newspaper expressed the truth in this way, "There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'." Taboo, and a ubiquitous concept of self-effacing sacrifice for the group propels soldiers (be these US troops or resistance fighters) to battle on regardless. First, taboo means both that which is sacred and that which is dangerous. "War" thus makes the perfect fit for a concept such as "taboo", as the US soldier anxiously thinks of the next bomb blast by the roadside, or the resistance fighter sacrifices his or her life as a suicide bomber - psychologically, from either side, the occupation and the resistance are the performance of sacred and dangerous duties. Second, one set of combatants in pursuit of the oil in the territorial domain of the other's soil is now placed in a predictable vicious juxtaposition of occupation versus resentments. Reason thus itself must find convincing cause for the taking of the lives of fellow homo sapiens. The appeal of duty, nation, just cause, or self-defence, all serve as useful psychological bolsters for the occupational forces, and thus fuels will for continued conflict. Similarly, an unjust occupation, quest for the control of oil resources, ill- treatment of another in that other's territory is fire for the fuel.
Homicide, as is truth, are variable concepts. Killings pursued in the cause of aggressive warfare, posit interesting guises for legitimacy and are transformed as and when circumstances dictate a need for alternative truths. Security Council compliance, transformed into the necessary search for WMDs, into a further necessary violation of the United Nations Charter to commence the war, and the noble struggle for "freedom" and "democracy" on foreign soil assists the steady march to victory. Medals will be awarded when humans are transformed into killing machines, named "soldiers", who are able to claim the greatest numbers of lives from one's own species, labelled "insurgents" or "enemy combatants".
Torture, and the breaking of taboos directed against enemy combatants, becomes tools of war approved in high places, and there is no homicide, only ritualistic, dehumanising combat procedures.
The delusions of noble causes in aggressively invading another's territory, and seeking through politically manipulative means to control that other's resources, is nothing less than barbarism, without so much as animalistic logic. The great conceptualisers who propelled the war, however, quite logically, will not permit either kith or kin to be sacrificed for the "great cause". Their sons, daughters or close relatives, under a general taboo of familial protection, will not, being close family members, be sent to the war. The Bushies, Rumsfelds, and Powells, who win battlefield medals will not be directly related to the President, or the Secretary of Defence or State, but will remain distant members of the human family.
As the carnivorous forces that instigated this war in Iraq continue along with the murderous scheme of hegemony, they bomb and shoot and kill, to save the people in Fallujah, or elsewhere in Iraq, with a perverted logic. Let it not be said that in manipulatively commencing and pursuing an unjust and unjustifiable war in Iraq, anything honourable was done in the name of humankind!
Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett www.globaljusticeonline.com ( 15th January, 2005)
( suggested site to be visited: www.ivaw.net for some veterans' views on the war in Iraq)