0.1.3 Why bother? We care about Peace!

Version 1.0 November 2016                                        Previous Version

●   Saddam Hussein thought Iraq could invade Iran and get away with it.  He didn’t: despite the USA helping Iraq with money and munitions, after about 8 years the war petered out.  Iran defended itself with child soldiers.  America tested some new weapons.  About a million died.

●   Saddam Hussein thought Iraq could invade Kuwait and get away with it.  He didn’t: the USA under President Bush (senior) led a ‘coalition of the willing’ to repel Iraq.  Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers probably died: no-one really counted.  294 Americans died: they counted.

●   The USA President Bush (junior) was looking for an excuse to invade Iraq ever since Saddam plotted to have his father assassinated.  The USA said Iraq shouldn’t acquire Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), and imposed sanctions resulting in the deaths of about 500,000 people. 

●   Saddam was gaming the UN weapons inspectors looking for WMDs.  As well as links to Al-Qaeda, the USA claimed Iraq had WMDs, despite the inspectors finding no evidence.  The USA, with another coalition, invaded Iraq, with no legal justification, destroying the ruling regime and the country.  Over 500,000 Iraqis died.  About 4,500 Americans died.  100 to 1.

●   Vladimir Putin thought Russia could invade part of Ukraine and get away with it.  He did: the USA and Europe have led sanctions against Russia, which impoverishes the Russian people, but Europe is too dependent on Russian oil and gas to apply real pressure or military threats.

●   China thinks it is regaining its natural position as one of the world’s leading nations after 100 years of Western interference and internal disruption.  It has regained Hong Kong and believes Taiwan and Tibet are integral parts of China.  China claims sovereignty over the South China Sea, despite a 2016 ruling to the contrary by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

●   The Arab Spring began in Tunisia in 2011, as a revolt against totalitarian rule.  Revolutions succeeded in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt but were quashed in Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and other states and fighting is ongoing in Libya, Syria and Yemen.  Sectarianism is rife in the Middle East, mostly Sunnis against Shiites, supported by Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively.  The newly elected, sectarian governments in both Egypt and Iraq were replaced, by the army in Egypt and an Iraqi regime arranged by the USA.  More people have died.  Millions have fled.

●   In 1994 the Hutu led Rwandan government and Hutu civilians committed mass rape and killed over 500,000 Tutsis, about 70% of the Tutsi population.  Millions of Hutus have since fled.

●   South Sudan gained independence in 2011.  It is poor but has oil.  It is split by a bloody civil war, largely between the Neur and the Dinka, killing thousands, displacing about a million. 

●   The wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are sending millions of refugees to seek refuge in Europe, especially Germany.  Frightened working class whites in poorer areas of England voted to exit the European Union, to the dismay of the Scots, and surprise in London.  European is seeing a rise in nationalism and white supremacists.  The EU may struggle to survive.  We need it to be a model of progress.  In America white men, 52% of white women, and about 1/3^rd of Hispanics (but very few African Americans) voted for Donald Trump to be President. 

●   The same wars send refugees to far off Australia.  The civil war in Sri Lanka between the majority Sinhalese (Buddhist) government and the minority Tamils (Hindu) in the north and east involved many atrocities from both sides.  The Sri Lankan army massacred about 40,000 Tamils who were in a safe zone defined by the army.  Many Tamils still feel persecuted and seek refuge elsewhere.  The Australian government puts them in offshore prisons indefinitely.

Humanity needs a better understanding of how we can avoid war and promote peace and stability between nations and within nations.