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Please excuse me for sending this message to you all of a sudden.

I sincerely hope that you will forward this message to every single person that you know in whatever way possible so that people all over the world can trust each other and live their lives peacefully.

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What the war against Iraq will bring and what we should do

President Bush is about to launch the war against Iraq claiming that Iraq has been hiding the development of weapons of mass destruction. What is this war going to bring us?

The death toll from Gulf War was approximately 150 on the allied forces side. There are various estimates on the number of death of Iraq people, ranging from 100,000 to 250,000. If you think of other victims who received physical or mental injuries, the total number of the victims of Gulf War would be overwhelming. It was revealed that US military used depleted uranium ordnance in this war, and damage from the radiation will continue to arise for the long time in the future. The cost of Gulf War was 50 billion dollars, and the recovery of Kuwait required 80 billion dollars. However, these figures do not include the cost of destroyed facilities such as electric-power plants, water systems, transportations, hospitals, residences, etc. The fourteen out of the top twenty companies of the armament industry are either American or British companies. These companies manufactured battleships, aircrafts, missiles and bombs, and this modern war was broadcasted live. The construction companies from these two countries had the major roles in the recovery effort in Kuwait as well.

The possibility of attacking Iraq is being discussed because Iraq has not been cooperating with UN weapon inspectors. However, the attack against Iraq has been going on. US military announced that US aircraft was attacked from ground by Iraq in the no-fly zone and US destroyed an Iraqi air defense field. The video that was broadcasted as the proof showed that the smoke from antiaircraft fire rise from the air defense field in the direction of the attack aircraft was proceeding, and immediately after that, a high-tech bomb was launched to destroy the air defense field. It boggles my mind that they call this the proof of unlawful attack against US aircraft by Iraq within the no-fly zone. Imagine that you were a soldier on the watch after hearing that other defense fields have been under attack. If you saw an attack aircraft flying straight to you through your binoculars, would you have any other choice but opening a fire against the aircraft? In fact, the attack aircraft was flying straight toward your air defense field, so the high-tech bomb would have been launched anyway even without the anti-aircraft fire from ground. It is a stretch to claim that they launched the bomb only because they were under attack. Also, there has been a report saying that electric-power plants and water systems were being attacked continuously since Gulf War ended, which resulted in a few thousand deaths in Iraq.

What will this upcoming war bring us? If you assume the similar number of victims to Gulf War, and consider the Iraqi population of 24 million, one out of 100 Iraqi people will die and many more would suffer physical and mental injuries. There will also be numerous orphans and refugees. On the other hand, the cost of this war and military presence after the war alone is estimated to be anywhere from 50 to 200 billion dollars. We have no way of finding out how much it would cost for recovery. The big corporations might swarm around this money, which will bring an unprecedented booming economy to those countries, and the ruling party might win big on next election.

However, the true issue here is whether this war can really eliminate terrorism. If it is true, as President Bush claims, that Iraq had removed weapons of mass destruction such as biochemical weapons outside of the border, there is a possibility that these weapons might be put in use in the future. In fact, the danger of terrorism will definitely increase when “revenge” turns into “terrorism” after all Iraqi people suffer the living hell of this war.

Even though it is labeled as terrorism, why are the suicide bombings repeated in Israel? Why were financial and trade related facilities attacked overseas? These terrorists willingly lost their own lives in these attacks. Israel has invaded Palestine multiple times, and is continuing the occupation ignoring the UN resolution. Israeli army is trampling the streets of Palestine. It is lunatic that Israeli soldiers fire at the people in an ambulance that is on its way to help civilians who are injured in bombings. If these incidents were happening in your neighborhood right now, it would be naturally unsurprising for young people burning with a sense of justice to rush into action. There is no need to describe the horror and cruelty of terrorism that is aimed at average citizens. Nevertheless, is it “defending terrorists” to think that resentment against the global community that has done nothing to correct this situation, and US having the “double standard” forcing the UN inspection and attacking Iraq while doing nothing about Israeli’s nuclear weapons, are causing distrust between US/Europe and Arab countries and providing the basis for terrorism?

If this situation remains unchanged, I doubt that terrorists’ attacks using weapons of mass destruction will actually stop even after Iraq is completely destroyed. I suspect that it will fuel the hatred among people who are against the “double standard”, including Iraqi people, further worsening the problem.

Is the war really the only option left? They are about to spend at least 100 billion dollars for the war and the military deployment. If this kind of money is spent on building peace, there must be better options. Countries all over the world can invite every single Iraqi national to their countries to build friendship at the cost of 500,000 yen per person. People from all over the world can visit Iraq to help rebuild on the damage from Gulf War along with Iraqi people. It is possible to create a safe city for Palestinians by planting trees in desert even though this plan might be more expensive to implement. Many people from all over the world will gladly participate in this type of resolutions. I believe that Japan, Iraq, other Arab countries and even Israel could work together on these peaceful resolutions.

These plans will not create hundreds of thousands of victims or fuel the hatred in the world that causes the militant terror to be repeated.

I believe in creating a global community that respects each other rather than taking over other nations.

We should evoke goodwill and wisdom that each person in the global community has, and make peace reality so that we could trust each other and live our lives together. Having a history of tragic suicide attack, this is what we need to do for realizing world peace to redeem our mistakes of bringing tremendous sufferings to other nations.

This is my appeal from the bottom of my heart as a global citizen.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------