Disarm the Warring Factions of
Iraq
{ORIGINAL—CUMBERSOME—TITLE:}
HOW A WORLD PEACE FORCE
WOULD HANDLE SITUATIONS LIKE IRAQ
BETTER THAN THE UNITED STATES AS
POLICEMAN
SYNOPSIS:
In March 2003 the United States of America took over Iraq.
This war was committed by America and its allies,
who saw themselves as policing the world.
Will the USA attempt similar actions in other countries?
If there were a functioning World Court and World
Peace Force,
then the possibility that some nations might possess illegal weapons
would be settled by a rational examination of objective, verifiable
facts
rather than by suspicions, denials, claims, & counter-claims.
Ideal methods for eliminating weapons of mass death
do not yet exist.
But we can avoid warfare committed by one nation on another
by making use of the limited methods that we do have.
Slow, methodical disarmament of nations like Iraq
by means of day-by-day
inspections
is better than massive
bombing and military occupation.
The world can achieve the same end—
disarmament—
without killing thousands of human persons.
OUTLINE:
1. A WORLD PEACE FORCE
WOULD BE
NEUTRAL AND NON-PARTISAN.
2. A WORLD PEACE FORCE WOULD BE DIRECTED
BY A NEUTRAL
COURT OF WORLD LAW.
3. CITIZENS OF ALL COUNTRIES WOULD SUPPORT
THE WORLD
COURT AND THE WORLD PEACE
FORCE.
4. SINCE WE HAVE NO FUNCTIONING WORLD COURT
OR WORLD PEACE
FORCE,
WHAT IS OUR
BEST APPROXIMATION FOR
NOW?
5. UPDATE: NO WEAPONS OF MASS DEATH
DISCOVERED AS
OF JUNE 2003.
6. FURTHER UPDATE: NOVEMBER 2005:
WHAT WAS THE
REAL REASON FOR THE
WAR ON IRAQ?
7. FURTHER UPDATE: DECEMBER 2011:
MOST AMERICAN
FIGHTERS GONE.
WHAT
WOULD THE WORLD PEACE FORCE DO?
Separate the Warring Factions of
Iraq
by James Leonard Park
If the
world had already created a World Peace Force
for the purpose of enforcing disarmament,
Iraq would have been disarmed with a minimum of force and killing.
When the United States tries to be the policeman of the world,
its first actions are to kill armies
and to destroy military equipment from a distance.
The world has experience with two
means of
disarmament:
(1) inspections with destruction of illegal weapons and
(2) warfare to destroy all military forces and equipment.
Between 1991 and 1998, international inspectors
oversaw the destruction of tons of weapons of mass death in Iraq.
These inspectors, authorized by the United Nations,
were able to oversee the destruction of far more
of the weapons then possessed by the military of Iraq
than were destroyed in the brief war in 1991
between Iraq and the Allies who joined to force Iraq out of Kuwait.
1. A WORLD PEACE FORCE
WOULD BE
NEUTRAL AND NON-PARTISAN.
When the United States acts as the policeman of the
world,
everyone knows that it is the USA that is doing the bombing, etc.
And the survivors of the people who die in any such warfare
will always blame the United States for those deaths.
A correctly-constituted World Peace Force
would have no such national identification.
The soldiers of the World Peace Force
would not be the employees of any one nation.
They would not be known as the military forces of this or that country.
The soldiers of every unit of the
World Peace Force should be drawn
from many nations.
The countries that are policed by the World Peace
Force
might still resent the fact that their illegal weapons
were discovered and destroyed,
but this resentment would be directed at the whole world
rather than any one identifiable nation or group of nations.
2. A WORLD PEACE FORCE WOULD BE
DIRECTED
BY A NEUTRAL
COURT OF WORLD LAW.
When the United States decides that another nation
is an outlaw,
there is no way for a neutral third body to evaluate this claim.
It is just the will of one nation being imposed on another.
When the United States acts as world judge and policeman,
it often tries to get support from other nations.
But if no such support is forthcoming,
the self-appointed world
enforcer is willing and able to act alone
—because he is
the biggest kid on the block.
If disarmament were handled by a World Court,
then claims and counter-claims from all sides
would be heard by a neutral panel of wise judges.
Before any actions were authorized for the World Peace Force,
the Would Court would have to determine
that a violation of the law of disarmament had actually taken place.
Mere claims and suspicions would not be enough to activate the WPF.
Disputes would be fully heard before the World Court.
Evidence and testimony would be offered by all sides.
And there would be complete openness to hearing all claims
for as long as necessary to reach a wise conclusion.
The judges hearing any particular case would be completely neutral
about the issues and the countries involved.
They would also have the appearance
of being completely neutral.
For example, none of the judges would be from any nation involved.
We know that judges from a certain nation or ethnic
group
can in fact rule against their own nation
or other members of their ethnic group,
but some critics could raise doubts about the neutrality of such judges.
So, to preserve also the appearance of being neutral,
the judges would NOT be
associated with
any of the countries involved.
In practice, this means that many cases
would be settled by judges from small countries.
This makes perfectly good sense.
We only need to make sure that all judges
are fully competent to do their jobs.
When the United States tries to police the world,
it uses non-judicial means
to win other countries to its point of view.
For example, foreign aid
is often tied to
cooperating with the USA in some military matter.
If Turkey had permitted the U.S. to use its soil for a war against Iraq,
Turkey would have receive $30 billion in various forms of aid.
Paying cash turns 'justice' into a process of buying friends.
Likewise, when the U.S. wants to get support,
it uses 'diplomatic' pressure to get other nations to agree.
Such methods would never be allowed in a court of law.
All such pressure would be seen as illegitimate attempts
to influence the decision of the judges.
Courts must decide on the
basis of facts,
not give in to pressure
from any of the contending parties.
Gathering support for a political position
is a very different process than making rational arguments
based on facts that can be verified or disputed
before a panel of neutral judges.
3. CITIZENS OF ALL COUNTRIES WOULD
SUPPORT
THE WORLD
COURT AND THE WORLD PEACE
FORCE.
When well-established courts and police forces act
against criminals,
law-abiding citizens support those efforts.
Thus, the peace-loving citizens of Iraq would cooperate
with a World Peace Force disarming their country.
It is very difficult to keep military secrets from
absolutely everyone.
People closely connected with any fighters
knows where they are
and what they are doing.
And since the World Peace Force would be stationed everywhere,
citizens could easily inform the World Peace Force
where any illegal weapons were hidden.
When the USA becomes the self-appointed
policeman of the world,
then the citizens of the countries under attack resist
those efforts
because they seem to violate the sovereignty of the nation.
But law-abiding citizens everywhere
cooperate with duly authorized police forces
when these police forces are doing their duties
of locating criminals and taking them into custody
—or, if
absolutely necessary, killing them.
4. SINCE WE HAVE NO FUNCTIONING WORLD
COURT
OR WORLD PEACE
FORCE,
WHAT IS OUR
BEST APPROXIMATION FOR
NOW?
Now back to the real world.
It is meaningful and useful to imagine the ideal world we want,
even tho we know that it cannot become a reality at present.
Our projected ideal can help us to make the interim decisions
that most closely
approximate the world we hope to see.
At present we have no World Peace Force.
The best we have is an international body known as the United Nations,
which is hampered by the partisan interests of the member states.
Nevertheless, the United Nations does sometimes
succeed.
And the disarmament inspectors in Iraq were doing the best job
that could be expected under the circumstances.
They did not have the support of the surrounding
population.
The military government of Iraq was not cooperating willingly.
But the inspectors were nevertheless finding weapons
that are not supposed to be there.
And they would have disposed of more weapons
if they had been permitted to continue their work.
However, the work of the UN inspectors was
prematurely halted
by a violent war committed by the self-appointed world policeman.
Violent warfare against the military forces of Iraq
did definitely disarm that government. But at what cost?
Many people died, most of them Iraqi soldiers.
But civilians in Iraq who would have preferred to live
are now dead because the United States decided
not to allow slow
disarmament by inspectors.
The United Nations is a flawed instrument of
international peace,
but it is still the best instrument we have at present.
And the United Nations can be more effective
to the degree that it can free its decision-making process
from the partisanship so often observed in the past.
In the ideal world, the World Court would decide the
facts,
based on full testimony and evidence from all sides.
And the non-partisan World Peace Force would enforce its decisions.
And even tho it did not work in the case of Iraq,
we can learn a lesson from allowing one nation to police the world.
That nation will be hated
by all who suffer from its military
violence.
With a World Court and a World Peace Force,
we can make this planet more peaceful.
And all people can live without the threat of war.
drafted
middle March 2003; revised 3-23-2003; 3-31-2003; 4-1-2003;
6-25-2003;
4-25-2012; 5-25-2012; 9-3-2013; 9-24-2013; 12-5-2020;
5.
UPDATE: NO WEAPONS OF MASS DEATH
DISCOVERED AS
OF JUNE 2003.
The war was mercifully brief
in March 2003.
No prohibited weapons were used by Iraq.
And as of June 2003, no prohibited weapons have been found
by the forces of the United States and Great Britain,
which are now occupying Iraq.
This might show that the second war against Iraq
was completely unnecessary.
If the peaceful, non-violent procedures
for eliminating weapons of mass destruction
had been allowed to continue for another year,
thousands of people who are now dead would still be alive.
And the nation of Iraq would not be suffering the aftermath of war
and the problems of military occupation.
update added 6-13-2003; revised 5-25-2012; 9-3-2013;
6. FURTHER UPDATE: NOVEMBER 2005:
WHAT WAS THE
REAL REASON FOR THE
WAR ON IRAQ?
It has now been two and a half
years since the USA took over Iraq.
Still no weapons of mass death have been discovered in Iraq.
The best the United State as world policeman has been able to uncover
is possible plans for
restarting a nuclear weapons program
that was dismantled in 1991 as an outcome of the first gulf war.
Whenever President George W. Bush was asked
about the absence of alleged weapons of mass death,
he admitted that no such prohibited weapons were found.
But he almost always added that the world is better off
without Saddam Hussein ruling Iraq.
A terrible dictator had been removed from power.
And the evils of his reign were over.
(However, new evils were created by the occupation,
even when the occupiers did not intend to harm the people of Iraq.)
So, we might now conclude that regime change
was the real reason for the
war on Iraq.
The men in Washington who had decided (early on) to attack Iraq
used the alleged weapons of mass death as an excuse
for carrying out their policy of getting rid of a dictator they did not
like.
The USA had the military capacity to
overthrow Saddam Hussein.
That part of the task was accomplished easily and quickly.
But much more killing and dying took place
after the end of the short war needed to take over Iraq.
However, the Charter of the United Nations prohibits
interference in the internal affairs of other countries.
This is a wise policy.
Without it, we would have many more examples of foreign countries
getting involved in the civil wars within member nations.
If regime
change was the real reason behind the war
on Iraq,
it was a totally illegal war
under international law.
Only the United Nations itself has any authority
to do anything even vaguely like what the United States did in 2003
—and continued to do for many
years afterwards.
further update written November 5, 2005; revised
11-8-2006; shortened 6-12-2011;
new title created for the whole essay
8-13-2011;
revised 5-25-2012; 1-23-2015;
7. FURTHER UPDATE: DECEMBER 2011:
MOST AMERICAN
FIGHTERS GONE.
As promised,
the last of the United States fighting forces
were removed from Iraq by the end of 2011.
There had been some attempts to leave some soldiers behind,
but Iraq would not accept the standard 'status of forces' agreement
that the United States has with all other countries hosting U.S.
soldiers:
American soldiers are not subject to local or national laws.
Rather they are controlled by U.S.
military justice.
However, about 18,000 Americans still remain in Iraq,
attached to the American embassy.
They are all said to be civilians.
But some are private
security contractors.
We will see how many of these Americans continue to be killed in Iraq
because most of the people of Iraq
do not want even this vestige of
U.S. occupation.
Update December 2011 added 12-22-2011;
revised
5-25-2012; 2-6-2013; 9-23-2013; 8-16-2014; 1-23-2015; 4-17-2016; 1-10-2017; 12-5-2020;
AUTHOR:
James Park is an independent writer.
He welcomes feedback on the themes raised in this
essay,
especially resources on the Internet that expand these themes
and which might be linked from here.
Learn more about the author from his personal
website:
James
Leonard Park—Free
Library