Proposed War in Iraq

Don Herbison-Evans ( donherbisonevans@yahoo.com )

There appears to be a two aims in the proposed belligerence in Iraq. One appears to be the elimination of weapons of mass destruction there. The other appears to be the promotion of democracy there. Yet apparently, weapons of mass-destruction are quite safe in the hands of democracies like USA, India, Israel, and UK. Thus, achieving the second aim of promoting democracy there would make the achievement of the first aim unnecessary. There may be other ways of achieving this second aim.

A study of the nations that have spontaneously changed from autocracy to democracy over the last 50 years, such as Spain, Portugal, ex-Yugoslavia, Russia, Argentina, reveals a curious statistic: the change coincides with the number of telephones in the country exceeding the number of people. The reason may be to do with the problems of controlling and monitoring what the general populace are talking to each other about, when the number of telephones becomes too great.

Whatever the reason, the statistic certainly suggests that there may be more humane ways of promoting democracy in Iraq than having a war. For a fraction of the cost of the ordinance that would be used in a war in Iraq, we could offer finance to extend the fixed aand mobile telephone networks there, and donate fixed phones to every household, and mobile phones to every adult.

Such a procedure might even be faster than trying to get controversial resolutions through the Security Council of the United Nations.