Wheels of Justice

Yesterday afternoon, we arrived in Lawrence, Kansas where we’re scheduled, today, to join the local witness against war taxes.

This morning, the Lawrence Journal World carried an AP report about U.S. Senators and Representatives who are troubled that Iraqis might experience windfall surpluses of revenue generated by rising oil prices while Americans bear the burden of paying for war in Iraq. Several lawmakers are considering proposals that would require Iraq’s government to partially fund U.S. combat operations in Iraq and also assist with reconstruction in Afghanistan.

“Next they’ll ask Iraqis to rebuild the levees in New Orleans,” murmured a fellow bus traveler, Nora Barrows Friedman, shaking her head in disbelief as she read the news.

A spate of recent news reports suggest that Iraq now has a large surplus of funds because of rising oil prices. It’s helpful to consult comments of people who’ve been paying close attention to Iraq’s energy resources. On April 11, 2008, UPI’s Energy Editor Ben Lando clarified that:

“Iraq would not make $100 billion in oil sales this year … unless the price of oil went substantially higher, like nearing $200 per barrel. And the “surplus” would be anything beyond the $50 billion 2008 budget, which at current oil prices will give it just about a $10 billion surplus.”

But, before U.S. lawmakers begin spending Iraq’s $10 billion dollar surplus, shouldn’t we ask about the “rights” of an aggressor nation that illegally invades another country. The U.S. waged an unprovoked war of choice against Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. people. Did Iraq have any “rights” after it invaded Kuwait? Under the Nuremberg principles, an aggressor nation has no rights. Period. Commenting on suggestions, within the U.S. Congress, that the U.S. impose financial obligations on Iraq, Lando writes:

“This begs the question as to whether a country can invade another country – which inherently destroys the capital, political and societal infrastructure – poorly spend both occupying and occupied funds, unilaterally create conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds, and then bind the occupied country to make reparations and take out loans from the occupying country?”

Part of our work, on the Wheels of Justice tour, is to help people empathize with and better understand what Lando summarizes as “conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds.” This bus tour began eight years ago as part of efforts to awaken U.S. people to the suffering endured by Iraqis as the U.S. waged brutal economic warfare against them by imposing sanctions that wrecked Iraq’s infrastructure, caused widespread impoverishment and directly contributed toward the deaths of over one half million children under age five. Today, the available statistics about the impact of U.S. invasion and occupation and the ensuing chaos that has engulfed many areas of Iraq speak of misery nearly unimaginable to most people in the U.S. One out of six Iraqis has been displaced from their homes. 70% of the population lacks access to potable water. A March 2007 report from Save the Children, a credible NGO, stated that 122,000 Iraqi children didn’t reach their fifth birthdays in the year 2005 alone. With the World Health Organization reporting that 1 out of 3 Iraqi children are malnourished and one out of four are afflicted with acute malnourishment, should we expect improvements in health care for Iraqi children? 55% of Iraq’s doctors have fled the country.

Who could blame people with resources for taking their families to relatively safer environs in neighboring countries? The flight of approximately 2.2 million people away from Iraq has caused a “brain drain” which severely impacts Iraq’s capacity to rebuild. Those who remain face daily shortages of electricity and fuel. Many must also endure the terror of living in a country wracked by three civil wars. (See Juan Cole’s April 13th analysis in The Boston Globe) (http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/04/13/theiraqwars/)

In the past year, there has been a fivefold increase in U.S. aerial bombardments of Iraqi neighborhoods and the number of Iraqis incarcerated in U.S. prisons in Iraq has doubled. Should Iraqis then be asked to pay for the combat expenses of their occupiers?

Perhaps news of proposals requiring Iraqis to pay for U.S. combat expenses will spur Iraqis presently aligned with U.S. forces to stop aiming their weapons against other Iraqis and to instead find common cause to use all means of nonviolent resistance to defy the U.S. occupation.

But we’ve really no right to prescribe actions that Iraqis might or might not take in response to the illegal, immoral war that has turned U.S. taxpayers into collaborators with war crimes. What the U.S. government wants from most of us, in order to continue this war, is our money. This tax day, the best prescription I can imagine for a war weary U.S. public is to draw energy from a simple, doable act. Plan now to eliminate at least $100 of spending for war from your personal budget. You can do this by planning to refuse, for one year, at least $100 of your federal income tax. It’s a small step to take which incurs a small risk. The money can be redirected to assist Iraqis with acute medical needs and also to help survivors of Hurricane Katrina whose most basic needs are still unmet. (see www.nwtrcc.org)

Hopefully, my companions and I were among many people who felt outraged, reading the morning paper, over the notion that Iraqis should pay for combat expenses of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq. But our best hope lies in awakening the U.S. public to resist payment for ongoing war against Iraq.

Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She hasn’t paid federal income tax since 1980.