Preventive attack

Washington is in a bind. Faced with an unconventional threat, it wants to implement an uncon-ventional strategy: a "preventive" strike that the Americans hope will finally get rid of Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.

"Sometimes the consequences of not acting can be more terrible than choosing to act, even if the act is war." That’s from US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, writing about "the memory and message of Sept. 11" — a two-page statement released by the US Department of Defense Monday in Washington. He did not refer directly to Iraq or Saddam, but we get the message.

The Americans can only wish the world would heed its warning. But that’s not the way things work in this global village. There’s a message going around on the Internet, showing a checklist of the requirements for the US war on Iraq: missiles, warplanes, ships, tanks, guns, troops. Every item has a check beside it except one: the motive.

Washington insists Saddam has developed weapons of mass destruction and could unleash them anytime. Saddam of course is calling the United States and its ally Britain a bunch of liars. We won’t know who’s telling the truth until the Americans (or one of the US media giants) present incontrovertible proof, or until another major terrorist attack is launched and is linked to Baghdad. In the absence of proof or a clear motive, Uncle Sam can’t just tell the world, "Trust me." Sorry, George W. Bush, only Tony Blair is with you on this one.

Unlike in the first Gulf War, other Arab nations aren’t lining up this time behind the United States. China, Russia and Western Europe (except Britain) are staying out. Moderate Muslims who agree that Saddam is insane nevertheless fear a US attack could ignite a conflagration in the Middle East. Some suspect that Bush simply wants to shore up his ratings and launch a war of distraction from the corporate scandals that could engulf him.

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Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is also in a bind. Among the first to express support for the US-led war on terror last year, she knows she has to tread carefully this time. She knows full well that there are 1.5 million Filipinos working in the Middle East, and she knows much of our oil comes from that part of the world. She can’t risk Arab ire by declaring all-out support for any attack on Iraq.

Of course we won’t contribute combat troops to any war effort – our 1987 "Freedom Constitution" prohibits that. But even allowing Philippine facilities to be used by American troops could be risky. We could end up seeing Arab nations following the lead of Malaysia, kicking out Filipinos en masse.

The Americans can still win the support of some Arab countries. Getting Saudi Arabia’s nod would be victory enough for Washington, although I don’t see how this could happen when the man in charge of diplomatic initiatives, Secretary of State Colin Powell, is cool to an attack at this time. But if ever Washington gets enough Arab countries on board, you can be sure President Arroyo will declare support for the war.

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One year after the terror attacks in New York and Washington, life seems to have normalized enough that we consider people like Bush and Rumsfeld paranoid warmongers. The greatest threat I felt on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11 came in the form of warnings about a virus that was supposed to be launched in cyberspace starting yesterday. So no e-mail for me for at least three days.

Our biggest worry in the Philippines a year after 9/11 is the possible return of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos from abroad. We have no jobs for them, and worse, the government can’t afford to lose their remittances. A war in Iraq could compound our problems.

Preventive attack? If Israel followed this policy, Ariel Sharon would wipe out every Palestinian from the face of the Earth.

We have to admit though that terrorists thrive on complacency, on the human need to dispel terror by returning to business as usual as quickly as possible. And even if the return to normalcy isn’t quick enough, why, these terrorists are a patient lot. There was an eight-year hiatus between the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the second one that leveled it. We know about the years spent by al-Qaeda’s "sleepers" leading workaday lives, until they were tapped for a twisted type of martyrdom.

Even after watching a thousand reruns of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, however, many people who felt America’s pain during 9/11 still can’t summon up the rage or the urgency to endorse a preventive strike on Iraq.

We would probably applaud if we saw Saddam lying stiff and nearly drained of blood in something like a carabao cart, a la Faisal Marohombsar. But Saddam is likely to use his people – including children, old people and women – as human shields in case of an attack. Even with the new defense technology that allows for surgical strikes, the human toll or collateral damage could be horrific.

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US officials have warned that another attack on the scale of 9/11 is likely. Even if this happened, however, the attack would still have to be linked directly to Saddam. If Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were held responsible, they would also have to be linked directly to the Iraqi strongman.

A year after 9/11, Washington still isn’t sure if Bin Laden is alive. Al-Qaeda has been weakened, but the Americans themselves admit that the terrorist network remains intact. The Americans still haven’t found out who was responsible for the anthrax attacks. There are noises in the intelligence community about another major terrorist attack in the offing. Rumsfeld and his fellow hawks have reason to worry.

But the world still has to digest the notion of a preventive war. If others were to follow Washington’s lead, a preventive attack could be easily abused, and could lead to an abyss deeper and darker than the one created by terrorism.