The Wall Street Journal and
Its ‘Weapons of Mass Distortion’
By M.P. Prabhakaran
The attack leveled by The Wall Street Journal’s June 2 editorial against the opponents of Gulf War II is deplorable. The editorial, entitled “Weapons of Mass Distortion,” says: “To the critics of U.S. policy in Iraq, the only thing worse than going to war with Saddam Hussein is the fact that we won.”
Does The Journal mean that all those who are opposed to the war are supporters of Saddam Hussein? Does it mean that they would be dancing on the streets now if Saddam had won the war? To equate opposition to the war, which was fought in violation of international law, with support to the enemy is to apply puerile logic to one’s thinking. Shamelessly, President Bush and the sycophantic coterie that pushed him into making the decision to go to war have been resorting to that tactic to silence the critics. Very often, they even stoop to the level of challenging the critics’ patriotism. In writing an editorial like this, The Journal is only reaffirming its solidarity with them. What else can one expect from a paper whose undeclared motto is: The Republican Right Can Do No Wrong?
There is no disputing that, as a result of the war, “a tyrant and his psychopath sons have been deposed … mass graves have been uncovered … [and] torture chambers have been exposed….” One can lengthen the list by adding: the statues of Saddam that stood at street corners of Baghdad, striking fear in most Iraqis, have been felled and carted away by the allied forces. His Baath Party that misruled Iraq for over 35 years has disintegrated. His demoralized army, which had been waiting for the most opportune moment to desert, has done so at the sound of the first gunshot from allied forces. But all these do not constitute actual victory in the war. At best, they can be called collateral gains. The actual victory can be proclaimed only when its declared mission is accomplished. The mission, which the president and his trusted lieutenants repeated times without number, is to save the world, especially America, from the grave danger posed by the weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they said Saddam possessed. Until those weapons are found and destroyed, no victory can be claimed.
Manipulation of Intelligence
Eighty-eight days have elapsed (at the time of writing this, June 15) since thousands of the allied troops began combing the length and breadth of Iraq for WMD. None has so far been found. The exhausted, frustrated searchers have already begun to say that they are running out of places to search. The Journal should bear in mind that the critics are “not trying to make a war crime out of the fact that the allies haven't yet found caches of weapons of mass destruction.” They are trying to determine whether the President and his men genuinely believed that Saddam had WMD when they told the world he had or whether they manipulated intelligence data to rush to that conclusion. Evidence has been piling up to prove that the latter is the case. Some of the intelligence officials who had provided such data have since come forward and said that they had challenged the administration’s conclusion with regard to Iraq’s illegal weapons even before the president and the warmongers around him announced it to the world. They have added credence to the critics’ contention that Bush and his men manipulated intelligence data to whip up support for the war. They were determined to go to war at any cost.
That they are capable of finagling becomes apparent from what Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main advocates of the war, said in his interview to Vanity Fair magazine which The Journal editorial quotes: “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.”
No nation, let alone the leader of the free world, should go to war against another simply because a small coterie within the government was able to settle on an “issue that everyone could agree on.” Moreover, later reports have said that it took a good deal of coaxing and cajolery, and even browbeating, on the part of the dogs of war to get “everyone” to agree on the issue. If the threat from Saddam’s WMD was that imminent, what was the need for such tactics? Wolfowitz and his ilk are certainly aware that war means deaths and destruction. Or could it be that deaths and destruction did not matter much to them as long as they happened to heathens? As their evangelical friends would say, heathens are doomed to hellfire anyway? The editorial that “morally vindicated” the supporters of the war does bring such a thought to mind.
Probability, Not Certainty, Took the Nation to War?
It says elsewhere: “That Saddam had biological or chemical weapons was a probability that everyone assumed to be true, even those who were against the war.” But was it on a probability hunch that Bush took the nation to war? Or was it on firm belief that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction? The Journal may want to ponder over the question.
Also, that Saddam had such weapons and used them against his enemies once upon a time doesn't justify our going to war against him now. We had, and still have, such weapons in our arsenal. And we are the only democracy in the history of the world which used such weapons on civilian population The victims of atomic bombs that we dropped on Japan toward the end of World War II and of napalm bombs we used during the Vietnam War are still around to vouch for it. What will be our reaction if other nations talk about punishing us for our using those weapons in the past?
The war in Iraq may be officially over. But it is too early to claim victory in it, as the editorial does, while battles are still being fought in various parts of Iraq. The allied troops are coming under attack almost daily by the remnants of Iraqi troops and civilians, resulting in deaths and injuries on both sides. Looting and vandalizing of property, both public and private, are too widespread for our forces to control. Iraq, at the moment, is a land of lawlessness. One can say that the tyranny of Saddam’s days has been replaced by anarchy under American occupation. To declare victory in such circumstances is to deploy “Weapons of Mass Distortion” on the public. In other words, it is The Wall Street Journal that should be accused of using such weapons, not the critics of Gulf War II. Nonetheless, the paper deserves praise for turning out a good phrase.
[The article was first published on June 15, 2003. It had to be recreated and uploaded again on July 6, 2003
because of a problem caused by our web-hosting company.]
[Readers are invited to comment. Write to letters@eastwestinquirer.com]
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Readers' Response
India Should Not Do Dirty Work for Bush
To gloss over his blunder in invading Iraq and to save further "precious American lives" from being lost, Mr Bush is now planning to rope in Indian troops to do the dirty work for him in Iraq. India should give serious thought to all the economic and political ramifications, before bowing to superpower pressure and committing its troops to police Iraq.
Colin de Souza, Bangalore, India
June 18, 2003
Holes in WSJ's Argument
I read the WSJ rebuttal with relish. Good show. These days, I feel more and more disgusted when I read WSJ and, often, even The New York Times (William Safire, in particular).
The rebuttal makes some very powerful points exposing the holes in WSJ's argument. This paper and the neocons who control the Bush administration are so off-the-wall that even genuine conservatives (such as Justin Raimondo) are coming down hard on them.
Suresh Shottam, New York, New York, U.S.A.
June 18, 2003