www.sobrans.com
December 12, 2002
The Bush administration's threat to use nuclear weapons against Iraq, though thinly veiled in circumlocutions, should tell us all we need to know about the American image in the world today. The United States, once so admired over most of the earth, is now seen as a nuclear bully. No wonder it's called "the great Satan" by Muslims and "arrogant" even by its European friends. And President Bush thinks they hate us for "our freedom, our democracy"?
The warning is supposed to deter Iraq from using weapons of mass destruction against American forces and allies, even though (1) we don't know that Iraq has such weapons, and (2) the administration has told us repeatedly that deterrence doesn't work against Iraq.
Iraq hasn't threatened the United States, in spite of Bush's raving on the subject. The United States definitely threatens Iraq. And it has forfeited the right to describe Iraq's or any other regime as "evil."
Even possessing these terrible weapons amounts to a threat to use them. But until now, most nuclear-armed states have at least been discreet about brandishing them. Bush has crossed a fateful line. He claims the right to use nukes, as well as conventional warfare, preemptively.
For decades Americans have worried about nukes falling into "the wrong hands," as if there were "right hands" for weapons of mass murder. Well, those weapons are in the wrong hands now: Bush's hands.
Washington is in an uproar about Trent Lott's offhand compliment at Strom Thurmond's birthday party, but it has taken Bush's mad-dog threat in stride. What sort of "war on terrorism" is this, which terrorizes the whole world?
