XVIII
And if the war does happen, as seems certain, once the bombs start to fall there will be only one question, which is, what can we do now?
What can a global citizen do?
We might ask our boss for a leave of absence and fly to Iraq to help with humanitarian aid. We could send money for that aid too, of course.
We could also make an effort to find the Iraqi citizens who live in our area, and reach out to them to talk and share ideas. There are about 90,000 Iraqis living in the United States, according to the 2,000 U.S. Census. Find them by asking around at work, at church, or networking through friends. I did this recently and in southeastern Minnesota I found a couple of Iraqi-Americans in Rochester, and another couple of them at a restaurant in Minneapolis. At the restaurant, I chatted with the owner, and he introduced me to an Iraqi friend visiting from London, who had a brother who was executed by Saddam. This man had every reason to hate Saddam, and he does. But he’s also opposed to Bush’s plan to oust him with bombs.
The reason? “This is something for Iraqis to do for themselves, because they don’t trust the United States, and it will be a disaster.” He quoted an old Arab saying to me: “Me and my brother against my cousin; me and my cousin against the foreigner.” “In Iraq, the U.S. is the foreigner,” the man told me. “They simply are not welcome by the Iraqis, but the U.S. doesn’t understand this.” If you ask around, you’ll surely find Iraqi-Americans with strongly different opinions, but that’s just part of the process of learning about the messy, conflicted reality we face as we enter Iraq.
Whatever your profession, you could probably also find some Iraq angle to research and pursue. If a teacher, what is education like in Iraq? If a doctor, what humanitarian medical efforts are underway to relieve the disastrous health effects of the economic embargo of the past decade? As a journalist, you could find local Iraqis to interview for the local newspaper. And so on.
XIX
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Very thoughtful and balanced look at the most difficult topic of our time. I very much like your ideas on personal responsibility. Thanks!
2 - rob
Nice utopian worldview, oh citizen, so full of holes I can't address it here, I should start my own blog, I suppose. Go out and do a few of those things you suggest, and if that causes Saddam to step aside and let his people live their lives freely, and causes terrorists to stop attacking us around the world, I will say you are correct. You won't of course, and neither Saddam nor the terrorists will either. In short, great ideas on paper, not likely in real life. You may have all the benevolent goodwill in the world, but not everyone does, and those people mean harm to others like you.
3 - Eric Olsen
It may be idealistic but I don't think it's utopian. The suggestion that we all try to be good neighbors is practical and idealistic at the same time, and is something we can all do to help.
4 - Tom
Interesting analysis, and one I applaud in principle. However, it seems to me that the assumption that "this war is for oil" is necessarily a bad thing might be just a tad irrational. In other words, so it's about oil. So what? As a good friend of mine put it, "If you thought about it for a while, you might find one or two reasons to put a steady, guaranteed supply of petroleum as the second most important natural resource need in the world, but most likely, you'd have to put it right at the top of the list."
Surprisingly, the "humanitarian angle" still works admirably well even from this perspective. Not only do we liberate Iraq from a brutal dictator (which, by the way, is still a noble pursuit regardless of whether it is a primary casus belli.) but we at least partially secure the Arabian Peninsulaand all its vast oil reserves. Now when we do that, we guarantee that 1) Oil is available all over the world for direct concerns such as moving products to and from markets, thereby directly keeping world infrastructure alive, and 2) America's infrastructure is kept alive and working at a reasonable level of efficiency.
Now, the first point is self-explanatory, but the second, as self-serving (not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily) as it seems, also has a profound effect across the world. To wit: if the American economy is damaged, you can expect worldwide economic devastation. A dip in the stock market here gives brokers in London and Tokyo the cold shivers. A fluctuation in price here means people in our enormously affluent market quit buying quite so much, which means that folks in Venezuela experience untold economic hardship. People starve. Riots occur.
Now, as a global citizen, I view this little matter to be just as much a reason for action as any other. "No blood for oil?" Ha. Strategically guaranteeing that a madman can't choke off a significant part of the world's petroleum supplies, and that he can't destroy those reserves, AND that he can't indulge his expansionist tendencies to cover the Arabian Peninsula may be the most humanitarian approach we could possibly take.
Would you believe I'm not even a Republican? :)