A Partial List
[This is the text of a letter, with its enclosures, sent to the then-President of the then-Soviet Union in the period between Iraq's retaking of its lost province of Kuwait and the Gulf "War" (amBush). It urged the Soviet Union to stop the United States from waging an unjust war for Zionism, and also addressed internal cohesion problems in the Soviet 'Union' that, a few months after this letter was sent, resulted in the destruction of that empire. XP recommends to the present Government of the Russian Federation the points this letter makes, both about the need for Russia to serve as conscience and counterweight to the United States and about how what is now the meaningless Commonwealth of Independent States might be made a useful international grouping. It enclosed a presentation on Iraq's justification for 'invading' Kuwait as well as the items that follow the main text on this page.] [Enclosures] [Home]
January 25, 1991
The Honorable Mikhail S. Gorbachev
President
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
The Kremlin
Moscow, Russia
USSR
Re: Peace in the Middle East; Preserving the Soviet Union
Dear President Gorbachev:
(1) The world is not ready for just one superpower. British historian Lord Acton observed a century ago, "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." For forty years, the Soviet Union kept the United States honest, forcing it to deal with areas of the world it would rather ignore and pouncing upon every utterance or act of hypocrisy. Now that voice of conscience is stilled, and the rich who control the United States have free rein to abuse and even make war upon any country they may choose, on any pretext they can sell to a gullible public. That must end. The Soviet Union must, in as friendly a way as possible, appeal to the people of the United States to exercise good judgment and rein in the worst instincts of the ruling class.
George Bush has tricked the Soviet Union into complicity in an unjust embargo and now war that can be used as precedent for future such actions against, among others, the Soviet Union. "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander", so what Bush today leads the world to do in the name of Kuwait, tomorrow he can lead the world to do in the name of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. The exact same arguments that condemn Iraq in Kuwait condemn the Soviet Union in the Baltic. Bush can justify intervening in the internal affairs of the Soviet Union, by saying that the United States has never recognized Soviet annexation of the Baltics so it is not the internal affairs of the Soviet Union that are at issue at all, but the military takeover of three sovereign states, as must trigger the exact same response from the UN as did Iraq's invasion of the sovereign State of Kuwait.
It is in the Soviet Union's own, urgent self-interest to argue the case of Iraq before the world, because if 4,000 years of Iraqi history count for nothing in its claims upon Kuwait, surely 270 years of Russian history will not hold the Baltic for Moscow. If the Soviet Union will not stand up for Iraq and Palestine, who will stand up for the Soviet Union?
Kuwait was part of Iraq and its predecessor states for 4,000 years; a colony of Britain for 62 years; and a "sovereign state" for only 29 years. The merest glance at the map will show how artificial it is, and how abruptly it blocks the natural march of Iraq's southern border to the sea. At least part of northern Kuwait is alluvial soil from the heartland of Iraq, and underlying that soil are oilfields that straddle the artificial border. But none of this counts for anything. 4,000 years vs. 29 years? 29 years wins!
Never underestimate the ability of West Europeans to fixate on one historical period and forget all the rest. The case of Zionism proves the point. Ancient Canaan was occupied when the Jews decided to take over, so the Jews just stole the land from its original inhabitants by waging war and killing them. People today are led to believe God just handed it to them. Rome destroyed Judea in 70 A.D. and dispersed the Jews across the Empire. In total, then, the Jews controlled Palestine for about 1,000 years, over 1,900 years ago. Even at the height of Jewish power, there was a Palestinian state, Philistia, right alongside. So Palestine was occupied by non-Jews for thousands of years before the Jews arrived and over 1,800 years after the Jews left. But the British Empire decided that all the thousands of years of Palestinian history without the Jews counted for nothing, and Britain would, on its own nonexistent authority and in flagrant violation of its trust under a League of Nations Mandate to bring colonial peoples to self-government, give Palestine to the Jews.
If Britain was so gungho to give the Jews a homeland, it should have carved out a piece of England for them; it would have had the right to do that. Instead, it gave away a country that did not belong to it, that was entrusted to it by the League of Nations. (This is akin to a bank president's giving away savings accounts to his favorite charities against the will of depositors.) Britain's action is even more incomprehensible when you consider that the Promised Land of the Jews is also the Holy Land of the Christians, for which West Europe fought the Crusades. In 1919 a Christian country finally, finally gained uncontested control of the Christian Holy Land -- and promptly gave it to the Jews.
Zionism was just a nutso, pie-in-the-sky idea until the British Empire adopted it and started importing hundreds of thousands of Jews into Palestine from dozens of countries, against the will of the people of Palestine as expressed in petitions and, when Britain would not listen, in riots and armed resistance. Britain, a supposed democracy that had ostensibly just fought a Great War for democracy, turned a deaf ear to the will of the people of Palestine to inflict upon the Middle East an artificial state that has been the cause of 70 years of war, and counting.
The United States sent a committee of inquiry to investigate sentiment in Palestine before Britain could consummate its plan. That group, the King-Crane Commission, strongly condemned the extreme Zionist program as contemplating dispossession of the Arabs, in violation of deeply held American principles as set forth by President Wilson, specifically Point 12 of the "Fourteen Points", Points 2-4 of the "Four Principles", and Point 2 of the "Four Ends", all summarized by Wilson as "What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind" (emphasis in original).
Point 12 of the "Fourteen Points", enunciated January 8, 1918 reads:
"The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees."
Points 2-4 of the "Four Principles", enunciated February 11, 1918 are:
"2. That peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere chattels and pawns in a game, even the great game, now forever discredited, of the Balance of Power; but that"3. Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival states; and
"4. That all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe and consequently of the world.
Point 2 of the "Four Ends", enunciated July 4, 1918, reads:
"2. The settlement of every question, whether of territory, of sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relationship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.
(Emphasis
added.)
The people of the United States don't know any of this, of course, because they don't know nor have any patience with history. But if they can be shown how viciously and unfairly the Arabs were treated by the British Empire and can be shown as well that their own history of conflict with British imperial arrogance should impel them to identify not with the oppressor and his mad plans but the Arabs ravaged by them, U.S. public opinion, already critical of Israel, could turn strongly against Zionism and the world could find a just settlement in the Middle East.
Conversely, however, if the United States is permitted to win an unjust war against Iraq and impose an unjust peace in defense of an unjust movement, Zionism, then there is no limit to what the United States and Western Europe can do to the world, the Soviet Union included.
Much Ado about Nothing. The West's astounding overreaction to a petty land dispute in the Middle East will strike the casual observer as bizarre, if he takes into account only the surface realities of our time. Where a modern man may see only a trivial squabble between insignificant Third World nations, the historical collective unconscious of Western Europe sees the beginnings of a great Moslem resurgence that could sweep to the doors of Paris and London. Twice Europe has been threatened by Moslem power, and deep in the West European heart lies the fear that it could happen again.
In the 700s, the Arabs swept up from Gibraltar to the plains of central France, less than 200 miles (about 325 kilometers) from Paris. Arab power declined, but when Europe might have thought itself secure from Moslem assault, a new Moslem empire rose to the attack. In the 1400s and early 1500s, the Ottoman Turks took the entire Balkan Peninsula and even laid siege to Vienna. It was 700 years between those two assaults. It's now 460 years since the last Moslem advance; maybe, just maybe, worries West Europe, it's time for another. Once burned, twice shy; twice burned, ever shy.
Though Bush and Mitterand may aloud compare Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler, what they really fear is Mohammed, Osman or Suleiman: a great leader who can unite the backward, quiescent Moslem world into a great war machine able to storm and overwhelm the West once more. The Moslems are to Western Europe what the Mongols of the Golden Horde are to Russia: the great danger in the collective unconscious.
We can counter these fears if we first make people aware of them, by bringing unconscious fears to the conscious mind, where they can be examined rationally. Is Saddam Hussein really of the stature and historical significance of the Prophet Mohammed, Osman I, or Suleiman the Magnificent? Is the West so weak and divided that it could once again fall prey to Moslem assault? If the answer to either of those questions is no, then people can be shown that their reaction to Iraq's takeover of Kuwait is grotesquely disproportionate to the real threat it poses to Western security.
By way of suggesting an approach the Soviet Union might take in persuading the American people to stop this war, I enclose for your review three items. The first is a summary of Iraq's 4,300-year history of association with Kuwait. The second is a graphic map and list of the many wars on planet Earth that Bush is hypocritically ignoring, to single out Iraq. The third is a graphic comparison of Iraq as robbed by Britain and the United States as it might have looked had the British Empire succeeded in disrupting the United States. They are pieces of a booklet I intended to propose the Government of Iraq issue to explain why Iraq is so adamant about staying in Kuwait. The booklet would be offered to the general public by coupon in full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers, in effect going over the head of the President and Congress to get argumentation directly into the hands of the people. Tentatively titled "OUR SIDE: The People of Iraq Appeal to the Fairness of the American People", the booklet would try to show Americans that Iraq is in the right not just on Kuwait but also on the larger issues of Zionism and Palestinian statehood. Anyone trying to alter U.S. behavior will have to use language and take an approach that evokes the American experience and prods the American conscience. Unfortunately, the war exploded before I could complete my proposal. The points the enclosed pieces make do need to be made by someone - Iraq, the Soviet Union, anyone who values peace and justice.
Note that the page that speaks to the great range of violence on this planet shows the Soviet Union as an area of incipient civil war. A major theme of the presentation was to be that there are many wars all over this planet, and it is improper to single out just one - one of the more trivial at that; a veritable "tempest in a teapot" - for special attention. Consistency would compel the United States to demand UN action in all of them, including Soviet troubles with nationalities, China's crackdown on dissenters and Tibet, and India's problems with Kashmir and the Punjab. Successful "international" (i.e., U.S.) intervention in Iraq's dispute with Kuwait would be a very dangerous precedent indeed.
(2) Converting the USSR from a Russian Empire to a cooperative Union. It is vitally important that the Soviet Union not vanish into history without a trace. Though the bad old days of zealous revolutionary agitation and military adventurism, accompanied by clumsy and heavy-handed propaganda, must not be revived, the world desperately needs a balance to the United States and West European imperial ambitions, a voice of conscience in a world whose powerless have no voice nor visibility save as objects of pity and private charity. But the Soviet Union cannot flourish without fundamental change. It might not even survive.
Thus do I suggest a radical reform: adoption of English as the language of inter-republic commerce and politics. The experience of India is instructive. Like the Soviet Union, India has many large linguistic communities, none of which would give up its own language in favor of any of the others as universal national language. All found preferable the use of a neutral outside language for intergroup communication, and English has served that role admirably, reducing regional resentments that might otherwise have led to language riots, even linguistic civil war. In the same way, the Soviet Union must wholly renounce Russification and adopt an outside language to accord each republic full dignity as partner in a Union of equals. The obvious choice of outside language is the premier language of international commerce and technology, English.
With English as Union language, any Soviet citizen who aspires to high office or professional achievement need learn only two languages: that of his republic and English. With English he will, within 20 years, be able to communicate not only with every other educated person in the Soviet Union but also with every educated person across the world. The wealth of technological information available in English would be instantly accessible, without loss of time or risk of inaccuracy of translation. And access to outside data and opinion would keep the Soviet Union honest, as the Soviet Union must keep the United States honest.
By renouncing linguistic hegemony, Russia would win allies and partners where now it has colonies, and a new spirit of cooperation rather than resentment of domination by Russia might sweep the republics. (Russia should also consider adopting the Roman alphabet for the Russian language, as to make it more accessible to outsiders and to make Western languages more accessible to Russians. A brief visit to the Soviet Union in 1984 convinced me that culturally Russia is decidedly part of the West. Its alphabet is an artificial wall separating it from its community. While a wall against the West may once have seemed advisable, modern communications and information technology have made such a wall pointless. The alphabet of the West is Roman. Other Slavic languages employ that alphabet successfully. It's time for all the nations of the Soviet Union to Romanize.)
The Russian Republic is realizing that empire is expensive and dangerous. Let the present Russian Empire now try a genuine Union of equals. Adopt English as Union language.
Cordially,
L. Craig Schoonmaker
Chairman
Expansionist Party of the United States
Enclosures: "The Historical Basis for Our Claim to Kuwait"
Map and table
of organized violence, 1990
Comparison
maps of Iraq and U.S. as disrupted by the British Empire
cc: [On original letter]
Government of Iraq
Soviet Ambassador to the United Nations; Ambassador to
the United States
The Honorable Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian
Republic
Indian Mission to the UN
UN Mission of the People's Republic of China
The press
Postscript to Soviet Ambassadors: If you think this letter worth earlier attention than international mails would allow, you might fax it, with its enclosures, to the Kremlin. Otherwise it may not arrive for more than two weeks.
VIOLENT CONFLICT ON PLANET EARTH, 1990
A Partial List
Shooting Wars
Afghanistan* (anti-Communist holy war)
Angola* (insurrection against Marxist government)
Cambodia ("Kampuchea") (Communist/anti-Communist civil war)
El Salvador* (Marxist insurrection)
Ethiopia (Marxist, Coptic government against Moslem Eritrea)
Kuwait-Iraq (land dispute)
Liberia (power struggle)
Mozambique* (insurrection against Marxist government)
The Philippines* (New People's Army: Communist insurrection)
Sri Lanka ("Ceylon") (separatist Tamil Tigers fighting for own state)
The Sudan (Moslem north against animist/Christian south)
Organized Terrorist Campaigns
Colombia* (narcoterrorism)
Northern Ireland (IRA anti-colonial violence, in British Isles and abroad)
Peru ("Shining Path" Communist guerrillas)
South Africa (African National Congress bombings; Inkatha v. ANC mob violence)
Violent Government Repression of Popular Movements for Democracy
Albania
Burma ("Myanmar")
Mainland China
Violence between Religious Communities
India (Hindus v. Moslems and Sikhs; religiously motivated separatist movements in Kashmir and Punjab)
Israel* (Jews v. Moslems)
Lebanon (Maronite Christians, Shiites, Druzes all fighting; Syria and Israel intervening)
Northern Ireland (Catholics v. Protestants)
The Philippines (Mindanao Moslem separatists v. Catholic majority)
Violence against/among Ethnic Groups (specified)
Bulgaria (Turks)
India (Untouchables)
Iraq (Kurds)
New Caledonia (Melanesians)
Romania (Hungarians)
South Africa (Zulus, Xhosas, whites)
Spain (Basques)
Soviet Union (Armenians, Azeris, Uzbeks, Romanians, others)
Yugoslavia (Croatians, Albanians, Serbs)
Sporadic Violence, Various Causes
Chad (power struggle)
France (Corsican separatism)
Guatemala (Amerindian peasant movement, government repression)
Haiti (power struggle, government repression)
Mainland China (suppression of Tibetan-nationalist separatism)
Somalia (power struggle)
South Korea (attacks, agitation from North Korea)*
Rwanda and Burundi (tribalism)
Turkey (Armenian separatism, terrorism against diplomats abroad)
____________________
* U.S. involved, backing one side or another.
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Look at the two maps above. Note that before Iraq reannexed Kuwait, the march of Iraq's southern border to the sea was blocked by Kuwait, whose artificial border forced a sharp veer northward and made Iraq practically landlocked. By contrast, see how the border today marks a regular course from northwest to southeast.
Perhaps a comparison to your own geography will give you a better understanding of how we saw the old border imposed by imperial Britain. On the left, below, we show what the mainland United States might look like if the British Empire, which wanted desperately to see the United States break up in the Civil War, had intervened to help local forces "win independence" for a diminished Confederacy comprising Georgia and the Carolinas (as would have made a "country" about the same size relative to the United States as Kuwait was to Iraq). It looks odd, incomplete, doesn't it? That's how we saw our country without Kuwait.
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If a map of the U.S. that includes Georgia and the Carolinas looks better to you, a map of Iraq that includes Kuwait looks better to us. Maybe to you too.
You were lucky. The British Empire did not in fact succeed in breaking up the U.S. and carving an unnatural little country out of your southeast. It did succeed in carving Kuwait out of our southeast when Iraq was weak. Iraq is weak no more, so will no longer let the dead hand of the British Empire define our borders.