War is not necessary

RUTH MESSINGER

The question of the moment is whether the United States should launch an immediate unilateral military action outside the sanction of the United Nations. Many of us who answer "no" agree that Saddam should be ousted because of the threat he poses to international peace and because of his abhorrent treatment of the Iraqi people.

Why then oppose this war?

I speak out with respect for the observation of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel that "in a free society, where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty; all are responsible.'' I couple this with the statement he and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made when they opposed the war in Vietnam that there are times we cannot stand silent because we think our government is doing something egregiously wrong.

The Bush plan would set a new and dangerous standard for future war making - the right of the United States to launch a preemptive war when not under direct attack. To do this without the support of the United Nations, at a time when an alternative strategy for forcing disarmament is still being pursued and is reported to be making progress, is foolhardy.

To proceed with a war effort would severely damage our relationships with many of our long-term allies. It would spread precisely that anti-American sentiment that led to the terrorism of Sept. 11.

There is, further, the direct question of how the launching of such a war would affect Israel. It seems highly likely that Saddam would respond with a full-scale attack on our strongest Middle East ally.

There is scant evidence of U.S. government planning for this war or its aftermath. There is no clear Bush argument to the American people that tells them why their resources and their lives will be invested in this effort.

It is not clear that we have a plan for how we would hope to change the government in Iraq. Or an estimate of how long that will take.

It is surely the case that U.S. military action in Iraq would risk the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians. There will most likely be millions of refugees. Why invite such a consequence before every other avenue has been fully explored?

Here, of course, Jewish teaching is clear - that we should seek to protect every possible life; this is the obverse of what will happen in Iraq.

The simplest estimate for the first several months of the war is that it will cost us $200 billion, more than we now spend on health care, education, job training, housing and environmental protection for our own citizens - a sure prescription, as King warned, for spiritual death.

If we truly cared about stability in the Middle East, we would continue to work the U.N. Security Council, reaffirming a commitment to the rule of law, engaging the participation of other nations whose help would be essential to the rebuilding of Iraq.

For all these reasons war must be our last choice and it must be pursued only when it is necessary - which it is not now.

Ruth Messinger is the president and executive director of the American Jewish World Service. She is a former borough president of Manhattan, N.Y.

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