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2003-03-23|1:03 a.m.

I just finished finals.

And one of the terms for my US and Latin American Relations class was �FMLN.� It has been haunting me.

FMLN- The Farabundo Mart� National Liberation Front launched its armed struggle against the El Salvadorian government forces on January 10, 1981. They quickly conquered territory in eastern and northern El Salvador. The guerrillas then tried to bring the economy to a standstill by destroying bridges and coffee plantations, cutting down power lines, and killing livestock. The military responded by attacking villages and murdering the inhabitants. The most infamous of these attacks was in El Mozote in Moraz�n district, where 900 people, including children, were massacred. Over 300,000 people fled the country. In 1982, the leader of the extreme right ARENA party, Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, set up death squads to eliminate suspected leftists and trade union members. They murdered thousands of people. The United States, fearing a repeat of the communist takeover in neighboring Nicaragua, staunchly backed El Salvador's government and the military. It pumped a staggering 6 billion dollars into the country to bolster the government. In 1989, the FMLN launched a major offensive on the capital, San Salvador, but it failed. This prompted both the government and the rebels to begin peace negotiations, under United Nations mediation. An agreement was reached on January 16, 1992 which provided for military and political reforms. The 12-year civil war claimed the lives of 75,000 people.

1989. Somehow I grew up learning a clean history where bad things like native genocide and slavery were a thing of the past. Bad things happened long before 1981 when I entered the world. But, 1989. Shit. That was less than 15 years ago! By the time I was 8 years old, 75,000 people in just this one country had perished from the earth fighting for their own freedom, no thanks to the country I was born in.

In the time that I have been studying political science, I have learned one thing: the United States of America has done a lot of really shitty things to people to secure �our way of life.� We have repeatedly funded/befriended criminals and right-wing dictators until that plan backfires and we have to bomb a bunch of innocent people for their own good. Luckily, in the case above, although it took the death of over 75,000 people, eventually the UN stepped in and the US didn�t have to clean up their mess. And no one likes when the US cleans up its mess becuase it always involves bombs an empty promises.

So, thanks UN for being there.

I am beginning to wonder at what point we are going to figure out that this plan we�ve got going basically sucks. It pisses people off, costs a lot of money, and destroys untold lives.

******

Saddam is a bad guy. Simple as that. About a year ago I read this pretty extensive biographical article in Atlantic Monthly about him. No matter how 3-demensional he got through the extra facts I learned (he writes romance!), one thing never changed: Saddam is a bad man.

You don�t have to hear it from me though. People on the news and in newspapers are fond of these following facts:

-Saddam has bombs and palaces while his people are starving.

-Saddam �killed his own people� (the Kurds).

-Saddam is responsible for a million deaths (in the Iran-Iraq war).

Ok, these facts are all true I suppose. But let�s just look at the whole picture.

Saddam has bombs and palaces while his people are starving:

According to that lovely little weekly magazine that most of us grew up with in school, Scholastic News:

�The government provides all citizens with free medical care, education, and other benefits. Iraqi women, unlike women in many Muslim countries, can hold jobs, own land, and inherit property.� And that is about Iraq. Because it certainly couldn�t be about the US. As I said in a few entries back, there are over 40 million people in the US without healthcare. And if it upsets anyone that Saddam is building his military and neglecting healthcare, they need to take a look at home. With 40 million people without healthcare, we sure do have A LOT of nice shiny bombs.

Saddam �killed his own people� (the Kurds).

Maybe it�s just because I am part Native American, but when Americans start getting all righteous about genocide, my ears start ringing. In the Native American genocide a lot of people died and the exact numbers are still argued about. But it is safe to say it was in the millions. An ugly part of history we quickly forget. Because in fact, they did get ALL those casinos. We must be even by this point now, right? As many as 371 treaties were drafted by the US government with the Native Americans and only 370 of them we didn't honor. Yeah, it must really piss us off that Iraq doesn�t follow resolutions. Only we are allowed to break legal documents and get away with it.

Saddam is responsible for a million deaths (in the Iran-Iraq war).

We�ve been in a few wars ourselves. And that site has only the US soldiers that died. Two million Vietnamese were killed in the Vietnam War.

Oh, and I should say for good measure that Tibet's occupation has caused the death of 1 million; 2 million were killed in the Sudanese civil war; 1 million killed in the Angola civil war; 65,000 killed in the Algerian civil conflict; 40,000 killed in the Nagorno-Karabakh civil conflict; 750,000 killed in Rwanda... all events we�ve done nothing about.

And you don�t want me to even get started about the Palestinian issue (that is a whole entry, coming soon, in itself).

Saddam is a bad guy.

Yeah, good thing being the most powerful democracy in the world makes us saints.

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add a comment(2)
satatma - 2003-03-23 14:01:35
running the risk of sounding incredibly ignorant, i am going to attempt to address this one. i have to say this: i don't feel that this conflict (war) is completely wrong. i honestly do not think that saddam hussein is a swell guy that actually does nice things for the iraqi people. do you? and regardless of our own foreign policy vices, i don't go through life believing that our elected officials are all inherently ill-intentioned. how can you capture the truth melissa? it doesn't exist on one side or the other...
Special K - 2003-03-24 15:45:48
I think framing the whole war debate around the question of if Saddam is a "bad man" or not misses the point. If the US policy is to go around knocking off "bad" people, then we've got a long list of people ahead of us: most of sub-Saharan Africa, some of our "allies" in the mid-east, several places in Asia (I'm looking at you Myanmar and North Korea). This begs several questions: 1) Why does the US get to be the only country that defines what "bad" or "evil" is; 2) Does the fact that we can't help everyone mean that we cannot help anyone; 3) what are the repurcussions (short- and long-term) of such a policy. #1 is problematic, as it presumes that the US has some level of moral superiority, but those that live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. I think this is sort of Melissa's point. One of Kant's criteria for a moral rule is universalizability (sp?), so if the US isn't ready to hold itself to the same priciple, it shouldn't claim to base policy on a moral stance. This makes #2 important. If we can't help everyone in the world that is suffering, whom should we help? Given the amount of people in the US who live in poverty and without health care, etc. I think it should be clear that, to some degree, we should be helping our own people. I also think we should be engaged in the world and help others, but by more effective, less destructive, and less costly means than lobbing $1-million-a-piece Tomahawk Land-attack Cruise Missles. Which leads to question #3. Given the way the US has steamrolled through the concerns of the rest of the world, it's actions are likely to create more resentment, more extremism, and more instability. THree things that will likely lead to more "evil" leaders and more suffering for the masses. All while decreasing the security of the American people. The Cold War and post-cold war era are interesting because states did not balance against the most powerful nation in the world. This was the case because the US embedded itself in international institutions that constrained others. The other countries agreed to this because the US agreed to follow the rules as well. The Bush administration has now made clear that it considers the US as "above the law," so now no one else has an incentive to play by the rules any more. If the US were morally perfect, maybe other countries would trust us to do things properly. Unfortunately, we aren't; and they can't.