HERE WE GO TO WAR
For the first time in the history of the state we are about to go to war with another country. We're not actually sending our troops, but vitally we are providing American soldiers with their last chance to buy beer before Saudi Arabia. Okay, seriously, refuelling aircraft is of enormous tactical importance, and military transport planes are not going through Shannon unless they're, well, transporting something military, so we are aiding in the prosecution of the operation. You think there's a real difference between that and actually joining in the shooting? Explanation on a postcard please.
Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing of course. Necessarily. It is after all a UN sanctioned operation. How it got to be still makes me wonder, but it is and as such we have good reason, even a duty, to take part. Let's be clear here though, the US gained a mandate - lets call it a franchise - from the UN not to go to war against Iraq, but to use all necessary pressure, up to and including force, to make it give up weapons of mass destruction. So far there is no proof that Iraq possesses any such weapons. The US claims to have evidence but produces none. If they do have it, what sort is it that it cannot be shown? Call me cynical, but one type of evidence clearly fits that bill: evidence obtained illegally. A possibility that leaps to mind is under torture, from the prisoners in Guantanamo bay. I certainly hope that's not true, but it would link a number of oddly random events into a logical chain. Why did the US suddenly become hostile towards Iraq, a country almost pointedly ignored for the last ten years, in the middle of an apparently unrelated war with the Taliban?
So maybe the weapons do exist, and maybe the UN inspectors will uncover sufficient evidence, and maybe the Iraqis will refuse to give them up. Then a war would be all nice and legal. (Actually it isn't clear whether the current UN resolution can justify war or whether a more explicit one is needed, but we'll cut ourselves a little slack here.) But what is sufficient evidence? That's where things get sticky. Must shiny nuclear warheads be uncovered, or will a rusty tin of mustard gas be enough? Will nothing be enough? One suspects that a mere absence of visible weapons will not satisfy the US administration, and that the only chance the Iraqis have of stopping war now is to produce proof that the weapons don't exist. As proving something doesn't exist is a logical impossibility, this isn't a very good chance.
So this leaves us in a terrible position. If the United States attacks Iraq without clear justification, we'll have gone from supporting a sanctioned operation to taking part in an illegal war. That will be a terrible loss of innocence. Our only choice would be to withdraw services from the US military immediately hostilities opened. Will the government be brave enough to take such a step?
Doubt it.