Gordon McLauchlan: US aims to be world's police force

This week was late, but perhaps better than never, for Act Party leader Richard Prebble to put the case for those who would have the Government pursue the policy of Britain and Australia of full, uncritical support for the American invasion of Iraq.

Any intelligent and worldly person would have to agree that almost all Prebble's "realpolitik" points must be considered by any Government in taking up a foreign policy position - where will that decision leave us in terms of trade, international security and our influence on regional and international decision-making in future?

Trade is certainly a matter of intense self-interest to a country like ours, dependent as we are almost entirely on international commerce for economic health. There is no doubt in my mind that the United States Administration will do us no favours at all as a result of our Government's stance, especially as we are too small a market for them to need us.

The effects on future national security are unclear, but our position has certainly not been enhanced with the US, Britain and Australia.

Our influence on regional or international decision-making is waning if for no other reason than without an effective United Nations, America clearly plans to become the world's police force and court of law. For example, it is talking of trying Iraqis for war crimes but will not allow an international court to try Americans.

But what I find extraordinary is not that Prebble raised these valid issues for consideration but that nowhere in his article in the Herald on Monday does he offer a single legal or moral consideration. He doesn't say he believes the practical effects on our future outweigh the legal and ethical issues. He doesn't give them any weight at all.

This from the leader of a party which insists it is the only one with values. One wonders what sort of values.

No evidence at all existed a year ago that Iraq was a clear and imminent danger to the US, and such a threat seems even more improbable now. The American Government has now pretty well abandoned any of the many reasons it has given for war over the past few months apart from regime change.

In other words, it wanted to be seen as defending itself but can't any longer pretend that.

In the absence of the imprimatur of the UN, can the war therefore be justified legally?

In a bid to gain some spurious legality, the US and Britain made a major issue of the UN failure to uphold resolutions on Iraq. But neither has insisted on enforcing the resolutions against Israel, which has a policy much more dangerous to the future stability of the Middle East than anything Iraq has done.

So the legality of the war which is of no concern to Prebble is at best questionable.

And why Iraq, when there are many regimes around the world as bad as or worse than Saddam Hussein in their treatment of their citizens - some of them supported in the recent past by the US?

Only George Bush's particular God seems to know what makes one bloody autocrat worse than another. Which brings us to the morality.

Embedded even more deeply in the American Republican psyche than the so-called journalists in Iraq are embedded in the Pentagon's anal tract is the assumption that what they so glibly call democracy and freedom makes them automatically right about everything and that their righteousness should be exported around the world.

The US Administration has actually declared that it plans to keep its economic and military advantage over the rest of the world as an instrument of foreign policy. In other words, might will be right. That is not only deeply amoral, it is frightening.

Richard Prebble wants to follow America right or wrong. Happily, Helen Clark does not.

To appreciate how the US makes the rules to suit itself, think of the 600 unknown Al Qaeda suspects being held indefinitely in Guantanamo without any human rights, while the American Taleban, John Walker Lindh, got a lawyer (eventually) and his day in court.

Think of the suspects caught in Pakistan and Afghanistan who are taken for questioning to countries where few strictures against torture exist.

The way history has been written, war carries echoes of such words as romance, chivalry, honour, when the truth is that it is nasty, anarchic and disgusting. The unreality of it all was revealed in New York Times, which has carried stories about parents of soldiers expressing their distress that the war has taken longer than they thought and that casualties are occurring.

And if you want to know how tenuous is the grasp on reality of some people, note this exchange on last week's TV One Sunday programme from New York. Question to the mother of a Marine: "When he joined the Marine Corps did you expect it would come to this, that he would go to war?"

"No."

John Cleese could have written that.

Here's one of my favourite quotes, which I think enunciates a great truth: "Civilisation consists of the attempt to reduce violence to the ultima ratio - the last argument. This is now becoming all too clear for us, for direct action reverses the order and proclaims violence as the prima ratio, or rather the unica ratio, the sole argument. It is the standard which dispenses with all others." - Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset.

Hans Blix might agree with that.

A reminder: if you think I'm anti-American, then so are tens of millions of Americans.

Herald Feature: Iraq