World Citizen Update

The Iraqi people did not "lose" their sovereignty because of the US attack and occupation. Saddam Hussein, as dictator, had prevented their exercise of it long before the US invasion.. The United States government, therefore, did not "gain" sovereignty over the Iraqi people by invading Iraq. One nation invading another for whatever reason does not "gain" sovereignty over that nation's people by default.

The United States government, therefore, cannot "turn over sovereignty" to the Iraqi people on June 30th. It never possessed it.

Sovereignty derives from the people, not an occupying state power nor an oppressive regime. The U.S. Constitution, ironically, enshrines and confirms that inalienable principle in its opening words: "We, the people? " Once composed, the founders had to take the document to the sovereign people for ratification.

In short, governments come from people, not vice versa.

The Bush administration is merely the executive branch of a national government. Therefore it possesses no sovereignthy to "turn over" or "relinquish." Indeed, the United States citizenry despite the congressional vote of October 11, 2002.had no direct role in the Bush's administration decision to go to war with Iraq in the first place. Polls revealed that upwards of 70% of the public were opposed. Moreover, in that Bush's mandate as President is, as well, contraversial with only 24% of the electorate having turned out to vote in the 2000 presidential election and the Supreme Court finally assuring his presidency by its 5-4 vote to halt the recounting of the Florida electoral ballots, his claim to represent Iraqi's "sovereignty" is at best a blatant subterfuge and at worst an inexcusable confession of ignorance of its meaning.

Thus the June 30th alleged "turnover" of sovereignty by the Bush administration is a fraud and a tacit admission of its guilt in starting the war in the first place. Moreover, in its awkward attempt to smooth over its incredibly inept foreign adventure, it now spins the "deadline" by assuring both the Iraqi and American people that it will "build the largest US embassy in the world" in Baghdad as if that diplomatic white elephant - which will cost the US taxpayer another $40b - will somehow guarantee a "peaceful transition." No adult Iraqi can fail to see through the scam and feel increasingly hostile.

U.S. politicians have recently been comparing Iraq with Vietnam but for the wrong reasons. The comparison is valid but only in terms of the fundamental principle of sovereignty itself. The Vietnamese did not "lose" their sovereignty during the Vietnam war despite the US invasion and benighted attempt to conquer that nation by force. Recognizing belatedly that the Vietnamese people, however divided between North and South, were and still sovereign, resolutely defending their home soil against "foreignors," the United States had to shamefacedly resign its fraudulent mission - after terrible losses of innocent both male and female lives - and flee in disgrace and undignified chaos.

Emery Reves, in Anatomy of Peace*, spelled out succinctly how to "make" peace:

"Just as there is one and only one cause for wars between men on this earth, so history shows that peace - not peace in an absolute and Utopian sense, but concrete peace between given social groups which had previously been at war - has always been established in one way and only one: by setting up some sovereign power over and above the clashing social units, integrating the warring units into a higher sovereignty." (Emphasis added)

The conclusion is clear and self-evident. The Iraqi people do not live on the moon. And like everyone else, they are born of human wombs and die as humans, however they nominally, religiously and relatively divide themselves. And they live together in our common global "village" with us. We welcome them as such. Indeed, whatever happens in Iraq on a daily, even hourly basis is instantaneously transmitted to the entire Earth's human population via satellites above all our heads..

Writers of a national Iraqi constitution, while necessarily defining the housekeeping requirement of local civic power, are thus obliged in this century to acknowledge intrinsically the global citizenship already extant and mandated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 21(3) which provides the sanction for such an inclusion:

"The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage or by equivalent free voting procedures."

The mandate is clear: humanity is the ultimate sovereign on planet Earth.

The term "cradle of civilization" identifying this ancient land peopled by today's humans can be defended only by bold and wise exercise of their innate sovereignty in a new constitutional framework as world citizens together with whatever lower levels they themselves choose. In today's anarchic national world community this recognition of interdependence would mirror that human "civilization" already united in our century by technology, communications, travel, etc. thus justifying the prophetic words of unity of humanity's sages from time immemorial.

Garry Davis

*Harper & Brothers, (1945)