Statement on War in Iraq
"War is a respectable term for hooliganism practiced on a mass or national scale. " —Mohandas Gandhi
March 20, 2003, marks one of the darkest days in U.S. and world history. As this statement is written, bombs fall on
Baghdad, and U.S. and British troops, in violation of international law and world opinion, have crossed the borders of
Iraq.
The War Resisters League does not support the regime of Saddam Hussein (nor do we support the regime of George Bush and
the tiny cabal of the Supreme Court who put him in the White House and the others who advise him of his every move).
When Saddam invaded Iran, we opposed that action. The U.S. government supported Iraq in that war, providing it with
chemical and biological weapons, some of which it used—with tacit U.S. consent—because this country feared Iran and its
Islamic revolution. That terrible war took nearly a million Iraqi and Iranian lives.
Now, in his turn, Saddam has earned U.S. wrath, and the Bush administration has declared war on Iraq, allegedly to
liberate it from his regime. But every principle of democracy holds that regime change, whether in Iraq or in the United
States, is the task of the people of that country, and not of any foreign power.
We would not support this war no matter what its rationale. As pacifists we support no war and find no war meets the
standard of justice. We believe in the concept of Gandhian nonviolence to resist injustice, even to resist a military
attack. In any war civilians are killed. Even if the only casualties are among the military, those casualties are almost
always from among either conscript troops (as is the case with Iraq) or virtually conscripted troops, conscripts out of
economic need, as most of the U.S. forces are. But in fact there are civilian casualties in every war, more than ever in
modern warfare, where the weapons of mass destruction, no matter how “smart” they are meant to be, are blind in their
ability to choose between civilians and military. In the U.S. attack on Afghanistan, despite the “smart” bombs, more
civilians died than were in killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.
As to Iraq, hundreds of thousands—most of them children—have already died as a result of the U.S. and British sanctions,
which have lasted more than ten years. This prolonged silent violence, approved by every administration (including Bill
Clinton’s) since 1991, is as violent as any of the actions Saddam has taken.
This war, however, is an act of naked aggression so blatant that the United States was unable even to get a U.N.
resolution to support it. (In any case, the United States chooses which U.N. resolutions to enforce. Israel has defied
U.N. resolutions for decades and daily kills Palestinian civilians—now a U.S. peace activist, Rachel Corrie, has been
added to those dead—yet it can count on U.S. military and economic support and is in no danger of a U.S. attack to
enforce the U.N. resolutions.) Thus, the U.S. and British attack on Iraq is in violation of the Charter of the United
Nations. As a war of aggression, it is also in violation of every other body of international law including the
standards of the Nuremberg Tribunal. If we believe that every nation should be subject to the same international
standards, then we must acknowledge that George Bush, every member of his cabinet, and all their leading military
officers should face trial for the crime of planning and launching this attack. Finally, the attack is simply in
violation of every standard of human decency.
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War Resisters League 339 Lafayette St. New York, NY 10012 212-228-0450 www.warresisters.org wrl@igc.org