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領域II - (1)　平和構築に向けた知の展開

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Capter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | fn.

　　Let us assume, however, that the only motive behind the US/UK war on Iraq that started March 20 2003 (Baghdad time) was human security, the protection of the Iraqi people against the Hussein-Ba'ath-Sunni regime. By May 1 the secular, state-capitalist, Ba'ath regime had been demolished and the power was in the hands of the USA/CPA-Coalition Provisional Authority. Nine months after the war started Saddam Hussein was a POW. Freedom? A success story?

　　Within the simplistic logic of Hussein-in-power vs Hussein-not-in-power, yes. But that logic hides two important questions:(25)

A: What were the total cost-benefits of the regime change? and,
B: Were there less costly alternative methods of regime change?
The argument is not against regime change, nor against regime change from the outside = intervention. The basic assumption of humanitarian intervention for human security logic is accepted. States are not sovereign. Humans are. Not only states need security. Humans do.

　　There is a rider, however, that one day may become significant. One day human security against violence by one's own government might also be interpreted to include the economic violence of shifting acquisitive power so much upwards in society that the bottom X% of the population is left with insufficient means to cover basic needs, even to the point of excessive morbidity and premature mortality.

　　This usually comes as structural violence due to unintended action, sustained by acts of omission. But it could also come as acts of commission, as direct violence, as war on the poor rather than as war on poverty, but by economic, not by military/secret police means. One day, later than some hope but earlier than some fear, economic violence may be included in the definition of genocide and become a reason to intervene to bring about regime change for human security.

　　The term "security" is often used in connection with the war in Iraq, early 2004, still in its second guerrilla phase. If "security" is defined, more traditionally, as low/zero probability of becoming a victim of violence, then Iraq certainly is a "security problem". A violent attack tends to trigger violent resistance, and battlefields, regardless of type of violence or who attacked, tend to be a security problem for all concerned, "them or us", military or civilian.

　　Of the 28 countries that had sent troops to Iraq as of December 8 2003, according to the Foreign Ministry of Japan,(26) 10 were listed as engaged in "security", under "main activities". The countries are United States, Britain, Albania, Bulgaria, El Salvador, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Ukraine. Since the security discourse tends to see the solution to violence in terms of counter-violence, "security" is essentially a euphemism for "combat". The outcome is uncertain, given Iraqi deep culture with a very long time perspective and courage, dignity and honor as or more important than winning.(27)

　　To assess the "cost-benefits in Iraqi human terms", since the humanitarian intervention was for their human security, we shall use basic human needs, BHN, as a benchmark. The possible justification of the intervention would depend on the outcome of comparing
Benefits: BHN level with intervention-BHN level without intervention
Costs: BHN costs of the intervention.

　　This comparison could then be carried out on an annual basis after March 20 2003 as some BHN benefits might be long term. However, in that case one might also have to adjust upwards the benefits without intervention, with the costs of deep UN inspection certifying the absence of weapons of mass destruction, a human rights regime, and the benefits of sanctions lifted. Most regime atrocities were in the past.(28)

　　The following is only indicative of ways of thinking, using the four BHN classews above. Data are very limited indeed.
[1] Survival. With security in the narrow sense of "risk of getting killed" reduced by the intervention, it stands to reason that Pentagon refuses to publish data about Iraqi, military or civilian, casualties, killed or wounded. There is talk about 10-15,000(29) so far, high for an intervention even in our era. The US casualties have passed 500, and are also made invisible because media are not given access to the body return if not in bags, in coffins; nor to burials. The ratio is indicative of the strategy of terrorism, state or privatized: keep the ratio of victims/perpetrators high by making the perpetrators unavailable for retaliation. Ratios in the 20-30 range are low relative to 3,000-3,100:19=158-163(30) for the 9/11 terrorist act, however.
　　 If we expand the definition of the "war in Iraq" to cover the US/UK air raids in the periods after the First Iraq war in 1991 the number of victims, but not of the perpetrators, would increasemaking for higher ratios. And the war continues.
[2] Well-being. Destruction of housing and infrastructure brought about by battle, of orchards and farmland as reprisals against farmers suspected of cooperation with the resistance, unemployment rates cited as 70% in some regions and overcrowded hospitals are indicative of serious declines in the supply of such basic needs satisfiers as food, clothes, shelter, health care and education. That decline, relative to the high level of basic needs satisfaction in the oil-rich Ba'ath welfare state, had a pre-history in the war with Iran 1980-88, the First Iraq war and the economic sanctions and air raids thereafter. There are some benefits from the lifting of sanctions, however.
[3] Freedom. Consider this:(31)
On September 19 2003, Bremer enacted the now infamous Order 39. It announced that 200 Iraqi state companies would be privatized; decreed that foreign firms can retain 100% ownership of Iraqi banks, mines and factories; and allowed these firms to move 100% of their profits out of Iraq. The Economist declared the new rules a "capitalist dream".
The removal of a public sector, however inefficient, may have on the well-being, may benefit the top 30% but not the bottom 70%. Contravening the Geneva conventions, this is the kind of decision that can only be taken by the Iraqis themselves, not be imposed. This is well-prepared autocracy(32), not freedom. And the same tendency is witnessed in the postponement of direct elections, using the model (like the loya jirga in Afghanistan) of handpicked delegates to an assembly., not direct elections.
[4] Identity. Muslim Iraq was attacked by two Protestant permanent Security Council members opposed by the other three, one secular/Catholic, one secular/Orthodox and one Confucian. The attack started on one of the holiest sites of shia Islam, Karbala, even on the day, spring solstice 2003, when Hussein ibn Ali, Mohammed's grandson, was decapitated in the Sunni-Shia battle and became shia Islam's martyr.(33) The US command even referred to their attack as "decapitation", based on a hint as to where Saddam Husein, the head of Iraq, might be hiding.

　　In the wake of the US military came Christian fundamentalist missionaries(34) to convert, and political missionaries to impose a separation between church and state, the sacred and the secular, contrary to the Islamic faith that they are inseparable. There may be a road to democracy via the mosque and the ulema, but that was not the road traveled by the USA. Nor by Saddam Hussein.

　　No identity benefit, only heavy identity costs imposed by the intervention. General conclusion: neither security, nor human. 　NEXT >>

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Capter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | fn.

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