Even if terrorism was the real cause for this war, it would be a mistake to believe it can be destroyed through this kind of military action because ⎯ and most experts assert this ⎯ terrorism is not the expression of a centralized and hierarchical power which plans its actions, but it rather has its own characteristics, developing itself in a myriad of different places and through a sort of pulverized power which cannot be fought through a conventional war with weel-defined targets but, and this is my opinion, through a carefully and patiently organized police operation.
I would like to go back to the economical reasons for a while.
After the Gulf War of 1991, the oil price rose from 15 $ the barrel to 42 $, generating an extra-profit of about 60 thousand million dollars. Who was to gain advantage from this situation ― apart from the Arab countries where the oil fields are ― if not the seven American oil companies (Shell, Tamoil, Esso etc.) in whose hands lies the oil trade with the Middle East?
The United States are lately having problems with some of their major oil providers, namely Saudi Arabia and Venezuela; here a social revolt has moreover broken out, in the last three months, because of the disastrous life conditions of the population. The US are then looking for an alternative oil provider in the middle-east area. This can explain why they decided to attack Iraq even without the UN Safety Council’s permission and can also explain why the US said they were engaging this war to free the Iraqi population from tyranny but there are other countries under dictatorship ― as for example Burma ― which they simply do not care of.
The conditions of Iraqi population are disastrous indeed, and not only because they are under a tyrannical dictator, but also because of the terrible situation caused by the economic embargo imposed on Iraq by the UN in 1991.
Every year 300.000 children die by hunger because of the poverty brought about by the embargo, and this war will not but make this situation worse. The UNICEF makes known that more than one million Iraqi children suffer from malnutrition and that a great number of them will not be able to survive this war.
The UNICEF has gone into action to help the Iraqi population, and children in particular, by sending them medicines, tablets for water purification, therapeutic milk and other life-saving material, but, nonetheless, as the General Director Carol Bellamy said, “A lot of children will die in this war. It is a fact. The question is how many children we will be able to rescue”. The UNICEF representative for Iraq, Carel De Rooy, has added that Iraqi children are made more vulnerable not only by malnutrition but also by the spreading of diseases and the difficulty to have drinking water.
Considering all this situation, it seems quite clear to me that this war must end immediately (it did not have to begin at all, really), and that all the money which is being spent to buy weapons and other military staff should be used to help this population ― which is made up of children for the 50% ― go out of their terrible poverty.
I know this may sound like utopia but it is exactly what i think.