Good Article Against War in Iraq
Tom Morello's War on War
Audioslave's guitarist vents his rage about the imminent war in Iraq
Tom Morello has long been known for linking furious beats to furious politics. As a founding member of Rage Against the Machine, he helped to invent a rap-metal sound that owed as much to radical commentator Noam Chomsky as to Black Sabbath. With his latest group, Audioslave, the politics are less prominent, but Morello hasn't abandoned his passions. For the past year, he has been channeling his outrage into his Web site, axisofjustice.org, which he sees as a resource center for activists and a clearinghouse for foreign and domestic news sources that provide a different story from the one spoon-fed by what he derides as the corporate-controlled U.S. media. From time to time, Morello posts his own writing -- most recently an eloquent tribute to his friend and hero, the late Joe Strummer.
Though his touring schedule has prevented him from appearing at any of the anti-war rallies in the United States, Morello still makes time to get out on the streets. In early January, he and System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian teamed up to hand out food to homeless people in Santa Monica in defiance of a local ordinance that places restrictions on food-distribution programs. "When Axis of Justice first heard of this law," Morello said, "we said, 'The first day it goes into effect, lunch is on us.' "
Morello speaks in the clear, sound-bite-ready cadence of a hardened activist. He is well-informed, and, unlike many on the left, betrays neither bitterness nor piety. But in the end, he is deeply serious -- not only in his criticism of U.S. foreign policy but also in his belief that speaking out, and fighting back, can make a difference. "If you're not speaking the truth as you see it," Morello says, "then you can't look at yourself in the mirror. These are not small matters; they are matters of life and death for thousands of people. And your or my action or inaction has some bearing on the end result." Rolling Stone recently caught up with Morello in Europe, where Audioslave are touring, and asked him to state his case against George W. Bush and his plans to wage war in Iraq.
This is a war for oil. And a whole lot more
"The broader issue is the one that's most important. The Bush administration is looking for a pretext, any pretext, to invade Iraq, in the name of controlling oil reserves and concealing Bush's horrendous domestic record. Forty million Americans live below the poverty line; 50 million are without health care, a lot of them children; corporate crime is at an all-time high -- this is the Enron presidency. And far more damage will be done to the environment in the next twelve months than during the entire Reagan administration. We wouldn't want any of those things on the front page, now, would we? Glorious stories of beheading mustachioed dictators would make far better copy -- and that's just what George W. intends to do."
The American people can see through Bush's war lust
"This is the first time in American history where an anti-war movement has been growing and strengthening prior to a war. In Vietnam, you know, it took five years of a blood-drenched war orgy before the first anti-war movements got off the ground. Now, we're already seeing a growing sentiment against this folly. I mean, any rational person would be against invading Iraq.
"Interestingly, once you travel outside of the Fox News-controlled U.S. media, the world is in total agreement with that thesis. Just the other day, we saw huge anti-war demonstrations in Britain. Tony Blair's government may fall over this. "And it's really criminal: It's a moral indictment of Bush, and his administration, to be using the memory of the victims of 9/11 to proceed with his own geopolitical and personally political agenda. It's a crime, and we should hold him accountable for it."
Opposing the war is patriotic
"People are flushing their civil liberties down the toilet. And anyone who raises his or her hand in a high school classroom to ask a question is likely to be branded unpatriotic. I think there's no more patriotic act than questioning your leaders. The thing we have to do, if we live in a democracy, is hold our leaders accountable. And we can do that by shredding the propaganda and the lies surrounding this desire to go to war."
We created Saddam Hussein
"First of all, we should make it clear that Saddam Hussein is, absolutely, every bit the evil dictator that he is portrayed as. However, he is exactly the same evil dictator now as he was when he was a U.S. ally -- when he actually did use weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, in the Iran-Iraq war and on the Kurdish people within his own borders. At that time, he was the friend of the United States, and the United States smiled and patted him on the back.
"There's a lesson to be learned here. The United States has made friends with any thug or murderous bully who would advance short-term economic or political interests around the globe. It did not matter how much you tortured your own people as long as you kissed Uncle Sam's ass. But the second that you stop following orders, then, you know, the aircraft carriers start leaving the dock. And that is a sad pattern throughout the twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy."
Technically, we would be expanding an already existing war
"There has been a nonstop war against the Iraqi people since 1991. Since the beginning of this year alone, there have been thirty to forty bombings on Iraqi soil by American warplanes. On January 8th, we bombed ten different sites. And that barely appeared on the front pages of newspapers in the United States. But worse than that is the economic embargo, which, according to UNICEF, has taken the lives of as many as 500,000 children. Now, those kids are not al Qaeda; they are not Taliban. These are Iraqi kids who, due to the lack of food or medical care, have perished because of United States policy. That seems like an unforgivable war crime and something people should be throwing barricades up in the streets about. What the hell are our tax dollars doing going toward killing kids halfway around the globe?"
A war would help terrorists
"The actions that Bush is threatening will do two things: They will destabilize an already very volatile region of the planet and increase terrorism around the globe. There's no greater guarantee to making our lives less safe than to economically and politically try to control countries in the Middle East. I mean, it's like setting up terrorist recruitment centers."
It won't stop with Iraq
"The dream of the Bush administration is to install a puppet government in Iraq that will kowtow to U.S. interests. Iraq has the second-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. Controlling that oil will give us leverage over other countries dependent on Iraqi oil. It's a huge poker chip. You can just feel Bush's frustration, that he just can't get this war going. They're like drooling dogs looking at a steak. But they haven't been untethered. Why? Because the rest of the world knows what they're up to. We've been on tour in, like, four or five countries so far -- one of the things that's been obvious to us over here is that people are much more afraid of George W. Bush than of Saddam Hussein. All over Europe there's this belief that our government has gone out of its mind."
The American people will pay in the end
"Clearly, there is no credible reason to wage war and inflict tremendous civilian casualties, in the name of some empty canister shells -- which is all the inspectors have found so far. The aim of practical politics, and of this war on Iraq, is to keep the public alarmed. The Bush administration is carrying out an assault against the general population, and future generations, in the interests of narrow sectors of wealth and power. And Saddam Hussein's just the latest one in a long series of hobgoblins."
Audioslave's guitarist vents his rage about the imminent war in Iraq
Tom Morello has long been known for linking furious beats to furious politics. As a founding member of Rage Against the Machine, he helped to invent a rap-metal sound that owed as much to radical commentator Noam Chomsky as to Black Sabbath. With his latest group, Audioslave, the politics are less prominent, but Morello hasn't abandoned his passions. For the past year, he has been channeling his outrage into his Web site, axisofjustice.org, which he sees as a resource center for activists and a clearinghouse for foreign and domestic news sources that provide a different story from the one spoon-fed by what he derides as the corporate-controlled U.S. media. From time to time, Morello posts his own writing -- most recently an eloquent tribute to his friend and hero, the late Joe Strummer.
Though his touring schedule has prevented him from appearing at any of the anti-war rallies in the United States, Morello still makes time to get out on the streets. In early January, he and System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian teamed up to hand out food to homeless people in Santa Monica in defiance of a local ordinance that places restrictions on food-distribution programs. "When Axis of Justice first heard of this law," Morello said, "we said, 'The first day it goes into effect, lunch is on us.' "
Morello speaks in the clear, sound-bite-ready cadence of a hardened activist. He is well-informed, and, unlike many on the left, betrays neither bitterness nor piety. But in the end, he is deeply serious -- not only in his criticism of U.S. foreign policy but also in his belief that speaking out, and fighting back, can make a difference. "If you're not speaking the truth as you see it," Morello says, "then you can't look at yourself in the mirror. These are not small matters; they are matters of life and death for thousands of people. And your or my action or inaction has some bearing on the end result." Rolling Stone recently caught up with Morello in Europe, where Audioslave are touring, and asked him to state his case against George W. Bush and his plans to wage war in Iraq.
This is a war for oil. And a whole lot more
"The broader issue is the one that's most important. The Bush administration is looking for a pretext, any pretext, to invade Iraq, in the name of controlling oil reserves and concealing Bush's horrendous domestic record. Forty million Americans live below the poverty line; 50 million are without health care, a lot of them children; corporate crime is at an all-time high -- this is the Enron presidency. And far more damage will be done to the environment in the next twelve months than during the entire Reagan administration. We wouldn't want any of those things on the front page, now, would we? Glorious stories of beheading mustachioed dictators would make far better copy -- and that's just what George W. intends to do."
The American people can see through Bush's war lust
"This is the first time in American history where an anti-war movement has been growing and strengthening prior to a war. In Vietnam, you know, it took five years of a blood-drenched war orgy before the first anti-war movements got off the ground. Now, we're already seeing a growing sentiment against this folly. I mean, any rational person would be against invading Iraq.
"Interestingly, once you travel outside of the Fox News-controlled U.S. media, the world is in total agreement with that thesis. Just the other day, we saw huge anti-war demonstrations in Britain. Tony Blair's government may fall over this. "And it's really criminal: It's a moral indictment of Bush, and his administration, to be using the memory of the victims of 9/11 to proceed with his own geopolitical and personally political agenda. It's a crime, and we should hold him accountable for it."
Opposing the war is patriotic
"People are flushing their civil liberties down the toilet. And anyone who raises his or her hand in a high school classroom to ask a question is likely to be branded unpatriotic. I think there's no more patriotic act than questioning your leaders. The thing we have to do, if we live in a democracy, is hold our leaders accountable. And we can do that by shredding the propaganda and the lies surrounding this desire to go to war."
We created Saddam Hussein
"First of all, we should make it clear that Saddam Hussein is, absolutely, every bit the evil dictator that he is portrayed as. However, he is exactly the same evil dictator now as he was when he was a U.S. ally -- when he actually did use weapons of mass destruction, chemical weapons, in the Iran-Iraq war and on the Kurdish people within his own borders. At that time, he was the friend of the United States, and the United States smiled and patted him on the back.
"There's a lesson to be learned here. The United States has made friends with any thug or murderous bully who would advance short-term economic or political interests around the globe. It did not matter how much you tortured your own people as long as you kissed Uncle Sam's ass. But the second that you stop following orders, then, you know, the aircraft carriers start leaving the dock. And that is a sad pattern throughout the twentieth-century U.S. foreign policy."
Technically, we would be expanding an already existing war
"There has been a nonstop war against the Iraqi people since 1991. Since the beginning of this year alone, there have been thirty to forty bombings on Iraqi soil by American warplanes. On January 8th, we bombed ten different sites. And that barely appeared on the front pages of newspapers in the United States. But worse than that is the economic embargo, which, according to UNICEF, has taken the lives of as many as 500,000 children. Now, those kids are not al Qaeda; they are not Taliban. These are Iraqi kids who, due to the lack of food or medical care, have perished because of United States policy. That seems like an unforgivable war crime and something people should be throwing barricades up in the streets about. What the hell are our tax dollars doing going toward killing kids halfway around the globe?"
A war would help terrorists
"The actions that Bush is threatening will do two things: They will destabilize an already very volatile region of the planet and increase terrorism around the globe. There's no greater guarantee to making our lives less safe than to economically and politically try to control countries in the Middle East. I mean, it's like setting up terrorist recruitment centers."
It won't stop with Iraq
"The dream of the Bush administration is to install a puppet government in Iraq that will kowtow to U.S. interests. Iraq has the second-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world. Controlling that oil will give us leverage over other countries dependent on Iraqi oil. It's a huge poker chip. You can just feel Bush's frustration, that he just can't get this war going. They're like drooling dogs looking at a steak. But they haven't been untethered. Why? Because the rest of the world knows what they're up to. We've been on tour in, like, four or five countries so far -- one of the things that's been obvious to us over here is that people are much more afraid of George W. Bush than of Saddam Hussein. All over Europe there's this belief that our government has gone out of its mind."
The American people will pay in the end
"Clearly, there is no credible reason to wage war and inflict tremendous civilian casualties, in the name of some empty canister shells -- which is all the inspectors have found so far. The aim of practical politics, and of this war on Iraq, is to keep the public alarmed. The Bush administration is carrying out an assault against the general population, and future generations, in the interests of narrow sectors of wealth and power. And Saddam Hussein's just the latest one in a long series of hobgoblins."