Just the other day I discovered that a new, posthumous, collection of essays by the french philosopher Gilles Deleuze has been published, and in it I found the following essay/editorial that he co-wrote with Rene Scherer in response to the first Gulf War. If not for a few references to Kuwait and UN approval, his essay would be the most incisive, succinct and vehement analysis of the current war, and it is for this reason that I post it here. If he hadn't died some ten years ago, I can hardly imagine that his opinion would be any different.
"This was is despicable. Did the Americans really believe that they could carry out a quick and precise war with no innocent victims? (more below)
"Or did they use the UN as a screen to give themselves time to prepare and motivate public opinion for a war of extermination? Under the pretext of liberating Kuwait, then toppling Saddam Hussein (his regime and his army), the Americans are destroying a nation. Under the pretext of destroying strategic targets, they are killing civilians with mass bombardments; communications, bridges and roads are being destroyed far from the front; historical sites are menaced with destruction. The Pentagon is in command today. It is a branch of state terrorism testing its weapons. Concussion and fire bombs ignite the air and burn people deep in their shelters: they are chemical weapons ready for action.
"Our government continues to contradict its own statements and is rushing deeper into a war that it had the power to oppose. Bush has thanked us as he would a faithful servant.
"Our highest goal is to wage war well so we are given the right to participate in peace conferences.... Several journalists see themselves as soldiers for the United States and compete with enthusiastic and cynical declarations that no one asked of them.
We have seen many people who do not want this war taken from them and who consider the hope of peace a disaster. Do they truly believe that UN approval legitimizes this war? Do they really buy the identification of Saddam Hussein with Hitler? Who believes in the newfound purity of Israel, which has suddenly discovered the merits of the UN, even while it considers any peace conference that would include the Palestinians the equivalent of the horros of the Nazi's 'final solution?'
If this war is not stopped through efforts from which France is singularly absent, then not only is the servitude of the Middle East on the horizon, but so is the treat of American hegemony with no counterpart. If this war is not stopped, the complicity of Europe and, once again, a logic of socialist denial will weigh on the conscience of our own government."
Originally published March 4th 1991. Translation in
Two Regimes of Madness, published this year.
The essay speaks for itself. Reading it today drives home the degree to which this war is the farcical repetition of the ultimately tragic first Gulf War.