Qualifications for Weapons Possession?

Author: Ryan Hisner

Throughout all the debate about the war with Iraq, there is one simple, and to me pertinent, question that is never discussed. Why should the United States, the most flagrant violator of international law and the greatest source of terror in the world, have exclusive rights to weapons of mass destruction (WMD)?
Time and again the United States has flouted U.N. laws, illegally invaded other countries, given aid to the most blatant civil rights violators in the world and overthrown democratically elected governments, yet we deny the right of North Korea, Iraq and others to possess WMD. Studies have shown that U.S. aid is strongly correlated to the extent of human rights abuses in recipient countries. The more human rights abuses, the more aid they receive. The correlation is independent of need.
Examples abound. Columbia, the worst human rights violator in the western hemisphere, also receives the most aid. The aid is used by the government to support paramilitary groups that commit some of the greatest atrocities in the world. Each year they drive hundreds of thousands from their homes, slaughter peasants and murder leaders of the opposing political party, actions typical of a U.S.-supported "democracy." The United States even supplied them with biological and chemical weapons to be used against peasant farmers, wreaking ecological havoc and contaminating the water supply.
Turkey, another leading recipient of U.S. aid, consistently tortures and massacres Kurdish populations. Turkey even went into northern Iraq to devastate the Kurdish population there, something Saddam Hussein, who had temporarily fallen out of U.S. favor, was forbidden to do. Over 80 percent of the Turkish military equipment used to carry out these was American. Human rights groups in Turkey have also reported rampant use of torture in Turkish prisons, primarily in "anti-terror" prisons. For such pillage, Turkey was praised by U.S. newspapers, citing its tough "counter-terrorism" efforts.
The list of U.S.-sponsored terror goes on and on: Kosovo, where NATO bombings were undertaken with the intention of escalating the violence and undermining incipient democracies in Kosovo and Serbia; East Timor, where Indonesia has used U.S. arms to butcher hundreds of thousands; Israel, which has relentlessly terrorized and intimidated neighbor countries; Libya, which the United States attacked for no plausible reason; and Iraq, where Saddam used U.S. biological and chemical weapons against Iran. This list is far from complete.
How can the United States, the only country ever to have used a nuclear bomb, the leading violator of U.N. law and the cause of unspeakable terror around the world claim any more right to WMD than any other country? I believe that all countries should eliminate their WMD, but for that to happen the United States would have to agree to eliminate its own program, an unlikely event.
Furthermore, it is generally agreed upon that sub-state terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda are not only the biggest threat to U.S. security, but also the hardest to eliminate. I think the Bush administration's strategy of eliminating WMD through force and quashing terrorism through invasion and violence is unlikely to succeed. An invasion of Iraq will only escalate the hostilities that exist between the Middle East and the United States, and as long as such hostilities exist, terrorist organizations will exist. We could continue raining bombs throughout the Middle East and maybe temporarily contain the terror threat, but at what costs? No doubt many thousands would die, both American and Middle Eastern. Feelings toward the United States would only grow more antagonistic, and terrorist groups would pop up all over, wanting vengeance for lost kith and kin. And eventually, the terrorists would acquire WMD anyway.
I think a more viable solution would be to improve relations with the Middle East, redress past injustices, agree to weapons reduction and begin working toward a long-term solution to terrorism.

Ryan Hisner is a first-year from Decatur, Ind.