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Dr. Donaldson began pacing again. Her hands were behind her back, and she was looking at the floor as she paced. She appeared to be getting ready for the next part of her response to Dr. Clarke.

She stopped pacing and faced the audience again. "There is a tendency when commenting about international events to try to reduce things to a black and white, good-guy and bad-guy, scenario. As such, we say that whoever happens to be designated as the current bad-guys by the ruling powers must be the cause of everything evil in the world.

"Alternatively, we tend to consider ourselves to be innocent, pure, and, entirely blameless for the evil that the bad-guys do. More often than not, we are in deep denial about the role we play in helping to set events in motion.

"We say the Iraqis could have, and should have, refrained from invading Kuwait. They had a choice, and they were wrong in the choice that they exercised.

"Moreover, we say that once in Kuwait, the Iraqis had the ability to withdraw from Kuwait. They did not, and, therefore, once again, they made the wrong choice."

She paused and looked into the eyes of different people in the audience. She did this for, maybe, ten seconds and continued on speaking.

"The Gulf War did not arise in a vacuum. There is a history behind it.

"The lives of countries and individuals consist of a chain of events. The links of these chains are not independent of one another. They have interlocking meaning.

"Conveniently, we forget about all the ways in which we helped to support Iraq militarily and economically after its invasion of Iran over unresolved issues of access to the sea and disputed borders- issues eerily similar to those surrounding Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. We forget about how our Ambassador to Iraq told the Iraqis, just days before the invasion, that the United States has no opinion in the matter of Iraq's border disputes with Kuwait.

"We forget about how, in the years leading up to the Gulf crisis, we provided Iraq with billions of dollars in loans and credits with which they, with our knowledge, built up their military capabilities. We forget about the fact that we had precise intelligence reports concerning what Iraq was doing in its programs of research, production and storage of chemical and biological weapons, and, yet, we did nothing.

"We forget about the fact that we knew all about the oppression, murders, and human rights abuses taking place in Iraq, but, nonetheless, we became Iraq's biggest trading partner just prior to the Gulf War. We chose to look the other way about all the terrible things that were going on in Iraq because American business could make a buck.

"We forget that in our great concern for the Kurdish people and the despicable way in which they were gassed, abused and forced to live in squalid conditions by the Iraqi military, we never did anything before the Gulf War, to help the Kurds to establish a homeland or to alleviate their suffering. And, we didn't do this because it would have created tensions in our relations with Turkey and pre-revolutionary Iran , each of which was serving our interests in a variety of ways.

"We forget how the Coalition leaders were so confident of their moral position vis-a-vis Iraq that they felt compelled to call upon witnesses to lie during Congressional hearings and falsely accuse the Iraqi occupiers of having bayonetted and smashed the helpless bodies of babies in incubators in a hospital in Kuwait. This is all too reminiscent of the US government's decision to lie to the American public about the fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident that helped convince Americans of the wisdom of becoming more deeply mired in Vietnam.

"We allow ourselves to forget that as a result of Kuwait's greed to sell more and more oil at prices which were favorable to western vested interests, Kuwait's actions were pounding further nails into the coffin of Iraq's already war-torn economy, with devastating effects on the Iraqi people. We forget that more than two weeks prior to the threatened invasion, Iraq had tried to bring its concerns to the attention of Kuwait and other members of the Arab League. Promises were made, but nothing was done.

"Conveniently, we forget that the United States had rejected all discussion of sanctions, negotiations, and diplomacy as means of resolving the Iraq-Kuwait invasion crisis. We, like Iraq, had choices, and we, like them, consistently made wrong choices."

She let her words sink in. While she did this, she slowly ran the fingers of right hand back and forth across her forehead, as if it helped her to concentrate.

Professor Donaldson discontinued the motion and began speaking: "We made the wrong choices because we helped construct the international environment out of which the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait arose. We made the wrong choices because the invasion crisis could have been solved, even before it arose, with little, or no, cost in human life and ecological damage. We made the wrong choices because the invasion crisis could have been solved, even after it arose, with a little bit of compassion, imagination, creativity, understanding and flexibility on the part of the Coalition leaders."

Each sentence that began with: "we made the wrong choice", was followed by a dramatic pause. Apparently, she was trying to give emphasis not only to what had just been said, but to what was to follow, as well.

In a matter-of-fact tone of voice, she said: "The Iraqis were wrong to do what they did. We were wrong to do what we did. Consequently, we have complicity in the terrible sequence of events that transpired in the Gulf."

She became a little bit more animated and emphatic when she said: "In fact, in my opinion, we have greater complicity in the tragedy of the Gulf War than does Iraq. The greater moral responsibility in any conflict always rests with the one who is in the position to avoid the greater evil. And, quite frankly, the damage inflicted by Iraq in invading Kuwait pales in comparison to the totally unnecessary damage inflicted by the Coalition forces in responding to the wrongs of Iraq.

"The exercise of force carries with it a fiduciary responsibility with respect to all those who may be affected by the sphere of influence of such an exercise. The Coalition leaders violated, in virtually every conceivable way, their fiduciary responsibilities with respect to their exercise of force in the Gulf crisis. It was excessive, disproportionate, indiscriminate and unnecessary, and, in many ways, totally ineffective as far as the stated goals of securing peace, justice and respect for International Law are concerned."

Professor Donaldson smiled, somewhat apologetically, both to Dr. Clarke and the rest of the audience, and said: I'm sorry for going on at such length. I hope I have satisfied your desire for an elaboration of my point of view."

Dr. Clarke stood again and said: "Thank you, very much, Professor Donaldson, for your detailed response. You've given us all, I'm sure, a great deal to ponder on.

"Of course, I don't necessarily agree with everything which you have stated in your analysis of the Gulf War situation. Some of these points of difference would, perhaps, be better left for another occasion.

"However, if I might be permitted to touch on just one such issue, I would question the validity of your belief that the Coalition had any choice in the course of action to be pursued with respect to Iraq. Surely, Dr Jameson, if Iraq had been allowed to swallow Kuwait whole without a lesson in table manners from the Coalition, everybody in the Gulf region would have been at risk of being next on the menu.

"Moreover, the greater Gulf area contains something like 60-70% of the known, world oil reserves. The civilized world simply could not afford to have a brutal and, quite possibly, psychopathic thug be in control of such resources, wouldn't you agree Professor?"

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