By Dean Baker
t r u t h o u t Columnist
Wednesday 15 November 2006
Everyone knows about George W. Bush's unaffordable tax cuts, the big tax breaks that gave millions to millionaires and billions to billionaires, but few people are aware of the even more unaffordable tax cut from the Clinton administration. That is because President Clinton's tax cut took a somewhat different form: an over-valued dollar.
While few people recognize it, the effect of an over-valued dollar on the US economy is very similar to the effect of large tax cuts. Tax cuts reduce revenue, which leads to deficits and a growing debt, which will impose a larger interest burden on the country in the future. In the same way, an over-valued dollar leads to a trade deficit, which results in borrowing from abroad. In future years, the country will have to pay interest on the money it borrows from abroad today, leading to lower living standards in the future. In fact, the most important difference between the two is that the trade deficit is much larger, clocking in at more than $800 billion in 2006 (6.1 percent of GDP), while the budget deficit is a comparatively modest $260 billion (2.0 percent of GDP).
Clinton did not start his administration with a high dollar policy. Lloyd Bentsen, his first Treasury Secretary, deliberately allowed the dollar to weaken in the first years of the Clinton administration, with the hope of keeping the trade deficit at a manageable level. When he left office in 1994, the trade deficit was less than 1.5 percent of GDP, a level that could be sustained indefinitely.
The high dollar policy came into being under Bentsen's replacement, Robert Rubin. Rubin argued that a high dollar would help control inflation. He made it the official policy of the Clinton administration to support a high dollar.
As a short-term measure, Rubin is exactly right; a high dollar does help to control inflation by making imports available at a lower cost. This has the effect of keeping prices lower in the United States and putting US manufacturing firms at an enormous competitive disadvantage. The basic story is relatively simple - if the dollar is over-valued by 20 percent, then this is equivalent to providing a 20 percent subsidy to imports, while placing a 20 percent tariff on all goods exported from the United States. With the high dollar policy in place, it should not be a surprise that we have lost more than 3 million manufacturing jobs in the last decade.
But, it is important to realize that the feel good part of the high dollar policy is only a short-term story. Just as a tax cut can put more money in people's pockets until the interest burden starts to exceed the size of the tax cut, eventually the foreign debt builds to the point where it is no longer possible to sustain the over-valued dollar. At some point in the future, the dollar will fall, and it will hit a level that is much lower than would have been the case if we had not built up a massive foreign debt (now more than $3 trillion) during the years of the high dollar. As a result future generations will be paying much more for everything that the country imports from abroad - oil, other raw materials, manufactured goods and services. In other words, future generations will experience lower standards of living because of today's high dollar, and the impact is more than three times as large as the impact of the budget deficit.
The blame for the high dollar policy is bi-partisan. It started under Clinton-Rubin, but it has continued in the Bush years, even as the trade deficit exploded to more than twice its previous record (measured relative to the size of the economy). The Bush administration could have taken steps to bring down the value of the dollar and thereby reduce the trade deficit, but this would have meant sharp increases in import prices, which would lower living standards. This would be no more popular than tax increases - it is not surprising that Bush would not choose to go this route.
Instead, President Bush continued the high dollar policy that he inherited from Clinton, obviously hoping that its collapse occurs when someone else is sitting in the White House. For the politicians, this is a convenient pass the buck story; only the person sitting there at the time will have to take the blame when the bill from the high dollar policy comes due. But, those of us who will have to pay this bill should be clear, it was Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin who started the tab running and George W. Bush who lacked the courage to close the account.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of The Conservative Nanny State: How the Wealthy Use the Government to Stay Rich and Get Richer (www.conservativenannystate.org). He also has a blog, "Beat the Press," where he discusses the media's coverage of economic issues. You can find it at the American Prospect's web site.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/111506P.shtml
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
What Empire Does to a Culture
By Roderick T. Long
Posted on 11/13/2006
Today I wish to consider a certain argument for empire that comes not from liberty's enemies but from its friends — though on this issue misguided friends, in my opinion. I shall call it the cosmopolitan argument for empire.
According to the cosmopolitan argument for empire, there is a tendency for empires to be more tolerant and pluralistic than the more local regimes they subsume, precisely because they draw on a wider variety of cultural traditions and values. James Madison makes essentially this argument in Federalist 10 when he writes:
The smaller the society, the fewer probably will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same party; and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other. … The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.
It is from this perspective that the British Empire, for example, has been praised by some libertarians for combating oppressive practices such as human sacrifice and the caste system in its colonies. Isabel Paterson, for example, writes in God of the Machine:
As with Rome, the world accepted the British empire because it opened world channels of energy for commerce in general. … [O]n the whole England's invisible exports were law and free trade. Practically speaking, while England ruled the seas any man of any nation could go anywhere, taking his goods and money with him, in safety.[1]
And the Spencerian anarchist Wordsworth Donisthorpe likewise said that he supported the British Empire because where the Union Jack flew, free trade followed.[2]
Paterson sees virtue in the Roman Empire as well, arguing that the Carthaginian assault on Rome failed because Rome's subject allies, whom Hannibal had expected to "join the invader in throwing off the Roman yoke," remained loyal to Rome because of the benefits of Roman law.[3] And referring to the incident when the apostle Paul escaped scourging by invoking his Roman citizenship, she writes: "The crux of the affair is that a poor street preacher, of the working class, under arrest, and with enemies in high places, had only to claim his civil rights as a Roman citizen and none could deny him."[4]
In the American case, centralized power has been seen as vital to the protection of minority rights, putting an end to slavery in the 19th century and to Jim Crow in the 20th; David Bernstein has argued that the much-maligned pro-freedom-of-contract Lochner court provided valuable protection in this area by striking down racist state laws restricting freedom of contract to the detriment of African-Americans. One can likewise point to variety of other areas, from censorship to reproductive freedom to gay rights, where a federal judiciary with apparently more tolerant cultural values has acted to protect individual freedom against state and local governments with less tolerant values. Anarchist legal theorist Randy Barnett has defended a theory of constitutional jurisprudence involving the federal imposition of libertarian standards on the states.
In this vein, libertarian blogger Lady Aster offers the following critique of decentralization:
I've long been skeptical about decentralisation; what I fear is that societies with premodern, traditional cultural values will impose their local prejudices ruthlessly without a check from a larger, more cosmopolitan society. I'm very glad for Lawrence vs. Texas, and terrified by South Dakota, and while I would support reduction or elimination of the state power I also believe state power is less destructive when it precisely isn't in the hands of local, traditional social authorities. Historically, tolerance has been a value nurtured by education, leisure, and urbanity and made politically necessary wherever a polity comprises a variety of constituent cultures. My experience leads me to believe that the rights of minorities, including immigrants (undocumented or otherwise) would not be better protected under decentralisation. … True, there are cases where the local society would pass better laws than the centralised state … But even so, my reading of history is that the general tendency is for cultural tolerance to flourish in urban centers. With this being the case, localism seems an idea with which I can have some anarchistic sympathy but which seems in practice a deadly threat to minorities, dissidents, and nonconformists of all types.[5]
While I sympathize with many of the concerns embodied in the cosmopolitan argument for empire, I believe the argument is mistaken. Let me explain why.
To begin with, we should be cautious in concluding that imperial centralization leads to a flourishing and cosmopolitan culture. Admittedly there are cases that might seem to support such a contention: the Roman and British Empires, France under the Bourbons, Austria-Hungary under the Habsburgs.
But the contrary cases are striking as well. Consider China, Greece, Germany, and Renaissance Italy in their respective cultural heydays. In each case the leading thinkers spent a great deal of time bemoaning the fact that their region was fragmented into many tiny states, and issued fervent calls for greater political unification; and in each case when the desired unification arrived the vigorous and dynamic cultural explosion largely fizzled out along with the competition that had arguably fueled it. In the Muslim world, too, the high point of cultural creativity and religious toleration occurred not under the Ottomans but under the rather less centralized Arab hegemonies that preceded Ottoman rule.
The protection offered by imperial centralism should also not be overestimated. The vision of the British Empire as a universal guarantor of free trade looks like a bad joke when one considers the mercantilist system of economic privilege that Britain upheld in India, for example. And in the United States the federal government presided happily over slavery for nearly a century before doing much about it, and then presided happily over the Jim Crow system for nearly another century before doing very much about that; moreover, the struggle against Jim Crow was initially waged at the grass-roots level by private citizens with relatively little federal support, and it was only after the civil rights movement had begun to take on steam that the federal government moved like the Owl of Minerva to position itself at the head of the movement.
While it's true that the federal government has been more tolerant than local jurisdictions on some issues, there are plenty of exceptions — firearms and marijuana being two obvious examples. And even when the central government is indeed a protector of more tolerant values, one problem with this sort of centralist solution is that it drives local reactionaries into nationwide politics, since reactionaries then see taking over the central government as the only available means to protect their values. And once reactionaries win at the national level, then they're in a position to impose their agenda on everybody. At least with decentralization there's somewhere to escape to.
Suppose Madison is right that a "rage … for any … improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it." All the same there are means in a centralized system whereby local oppressions can write themselves larger. Suppose Falwellville favors burning books by Darwin, while Mephistoville favors burning books by C.S. Lewis. In a centralized legislature, representatives or lobbyists from Falwellville may be willing to lend their support to burning books by C.S. Lewis in exchange for representatives or lobbyists from Mephistoville lending their support to burning books by Darwin.
Thus centralization provides a path whereby local tyrannies can gain more support nationwide than they otherwise would. And once local tyranny does succeed in establishing itself at the centralized level, one can no longer escape it simply by moving to another local district. A President Bush is much more dangerous than a Governor Bush, who in turn is much more dangerous than would be a Mayor Bush.
And it's worth remembering that what imperial central powers decide to impose on local jurisdictions, even when they are not unduly influenced by representatives of local oppression, is not always going to be a move in the direction of greater liberality; think of the Soviet treatment of Hungary in 1956 or of Czechoslovakia in 1968. And of course the same Paul who was protected by Roman law in the provinces was executed under Roman law in the capital. As Charles Johnson writes:
[U]rbanity at its best tends to help certain kinds of tolerance and pro-freedom thought flourish; but I think agrarianism at its best tends to help other kinds flourish. The best parts of the American Revolution (radical, anti-statist, directly democratic, anti-mercantilist, etc.), for example generally came out of the Massachusetts hinterland, for example, with most of the mercantilist jobbery and Law and Order conservatism coming out of the urban centers in Boston, New York, etc. What I'm inclined to say is that each form of life nurtures both its own characteristic virtues and its own characteristic vices. The agrarian tradition at its best cultivates populist skepticism towards self-appointed elites, individualist skepticism towards the arbitrary demands of others, an ethic of self-reliance, a willingness to live and let live in matters of private property, a skepticism of utopian central planning, etc. At its worst it tends to encourage parochialism, anti-intellectualism, hidebound traditionalism, "I got mine" indifference, conventional bigotry, a failure of skepticism towards traditional and supposedly "natural" authority, etc. Conversely the tradition of urbanity at its best tends to cultivate cross-cultural tolerance, respect for intellect and education, solidarity with others, intense skepticism towards traditional centers of authority, etc. But at its worst it has also cultivated predatory mercantilism, soul-killing mass politics (typically in the name of "democracy"), utopian central planning, imperial arrogance (both towards the Provinces and towards the underclass of the city itself), etc.[6]
Moreover, even when the central power's values are more liberal, the results of attempting to impose them may not be what one hopes. It's sometimes argued, for example, that the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan actually represented a liberalization — especially for women. I think there's some truth to this: the Soviets supported education, careers, and marital choice for women and didn't impose hijab.
On the other hand, the Soviet treatment of women in Afghanistan has its own horror stories; but even leaving that aside, the problem with imposing liberal values by means of military force is that it tends to associate liberal values in the minds of the population with invasion and oppression. One is unlikely to be won over to the cause of women's rights when those preaching on behalf of that cause have stolen your farm, shot your brother, and blown your children's hands off with a land mine; indeed the cause of women's rights is probably in the long run set farther back by such associations. Cultural reform is generally more effective, provoking less resistance and reaction, when accomplished by seduction and osmosis rather than at bayonet-point. I fear the United States has learned little from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, since it seems bent on repeating it.
I don't mean to deny, of course, that the influence of centralised power upon local jurisdictions can sometimes have the effect of liberalising culture and protecting individual rights against local oppression. But I maintain that when empires do this, they do not do so qua empires, and so any points they earn in this respect should not be credited to empire as such. International trade and cultural exchange can have a liberalizing effect whether or not they are accompanied by military occupation; indeed, I've argued that military occupation hinders more than helps the process. If one drinks both medicine and poison, and the medicine has some good effect, one shouldn't give credit to the poison.
As for cases when centralized power genuinely protects rights by overriding local authority, the benefit it offers has nothing to do with centralization at all. What's significant in such cases is that the central power is offering legal services in competition with the local authority. And insofar as the benefit of central power lies in its role as a competitor to local authority, whatever merits it earns should go on the decentralization rather than the centralization side of the ledger — since if competition is good at the local level it's surely good at the large-scale level as well.
Centralized power may be one way to provide competition at the local level; but it's not the best way, since it does so by decreasing competition at the large-scale level. Instead, the cure for local tyranny is not less decentralization but more: if a smaller region secedes from a larger region and then practices oppression, the safest solution is not to reabsorb it into the larger region (with the risk of larger-scale oppression that brings) but to promote the secession of still smaller regions from it.
Critics of secession point to the Confederacy's practice of slavery and other political vices; but of course the Confederacy was itself a huge sprawling centralized empire. Even the member states of the Confederacy taken individually were the size of European countries. They simply didn't take decentralization far enough. The true defender of secession was Lysander Spooner, who defended not only the secession of Confederate states from the Union but also the secession of slaves, with their homesteaded plantation property, from the authority of their masters.
As Johnson points out, those concerned with the protection of cosmopolitan values have as much reason to favor decentralization as anybody else:
[O]ne kind of decentralist politics that you might endorse would be to advocate the secession of urban centers from the surrounding states and a decentralist order that's partly based on people forming a network of poleis around these urban centers. Certainly there are a number of cities (New York, San Francisco, Detroit, Austin, Atlanta …) where enough people are disgusted enough with their state governments that this kind of idea might have some real traction. After all, the power of suburban and exurban and rural counties to lord it over cities through majoritarian control of the state government is, or at least ought to be, just as much a concern for decentralists as the reverse.[7]
And Paterson inadvertently makes my point about empires not winning their points qua empires in the following passage:
There has never been a military empire, nor ever can be. It is impossible, in the nature of things. When Augustus became emperor, his first move toward consolidating the Roman dominion was to reduce the size of the army. Subsequently, when Rome included within its boundaries most of Europe, the near East, and North Africa, the task was performed with less than four hundred thousand soldiers, of whom half were auxiliaries, that is, regiments supplied by subject nations and officered by Romans. … [T]he Roman armies would have been pitifully inadequate to hold such a wide territory by pure force. … The ordinary man wished to live under Roman law. The victorious Legions were a result and not a cause.[8]
There are two things to say about this. First, the fact that Rome did not maintain its empire by force of arms alone is no proof that its rule was benign. As thinkers as diverse as Étienne de la La Boétie, David Hume, Mahatma Gandhi, Ayn Rand, and Murray Rothbard have pointed out, no government, no matter how tyrannical, maintains its power by force of arms alone. The ruled always greatly outnumber the rulers, and so government depends essentially on the acquiescence of the populace, an acquiescence it attempts to promote through patronage and propaganda.
But second, suppose that many of Rome's subjects really did accept Roman rule because they preferred its legal system to any known alternative (and I certainly grant that Roman law had many positive features). In that case, or to that extent, the Roman Empire was unnecessary. If Roman jurisprudence really was a superior product, it could have dominated the market without any need for legions, senators, consuls, emperors, praetorian guards, and all the rest of it. There was no need for a centralized administration at all.
Nor is empire of dubious value only for the subjugated. Citing not only the Roman case but also Egypt, Sparta, Japan, absolutist France, and the contemporary British Empire, Herbert Spencer documents a variety of ways in which the need to hold a subject people in bondage tends to result in restrictions on the freedom of the ruling group as well; "in proportion as liberty is diminished in the societies over which it rules," he says, "liberty is diminished within its own organization." Spencer draws the following analogy:
Here is a prisoner with hands tied and a cord round his neck… being led home by his savage conqueror, who intends to make him a slave. The one, you say, is captive and the other free? Are you quite sure the other is free? He holds one end of the cord, and unless he means to let his captive escape, he must continue to be fastened by keeping hold of the cord in such way that it cannot easily be detached. He must be himself tied to the captive while the captive is tied to him.[9]
The US Civil War, along with the period leading up to it, offers a useful illustration of Spencer's thesis. The Union was an imperial, expansionist power desperate to maintain its control over the South; but the South too was an imperial, expansionist power desperate to maintain its control over the slaves. In both cases, the need to maintain such control had a corrosive influence on both liberty and culture.
[T]o maintain the slave system, the South had to retreat from the libertarian principles of Jefferson and the revolution. Southern governments found it necessary to impose greater and greater restrictions on the civil and economic liberties of whites in order to keep blacks in subjection. Many states made it illegal for slaveowners to free their slaves; and there was soon no freedom of speech or press for whites who advocated abolition. In some cases, speaking against slavery was punishable by death.
Once secession finally came and the Confederacy was established, suppression of white freedoms grew even greater, as the central government, in the name of military necessity, extended its controls over every aspect of life. Internal passports were required for travel, traditional civil rights like habeas corpus were suspended, currency was devalued, and most sectors of the economy were nationalized. In their desperate quest to maintain their control over blacks, Southern whites found themselves compelled to establish an authoritarian political order that ended up claiming their own freedom as well. …
The North's drive to subjugate the South had an effect on the North analogous to the effect the South's drive to preserve slavery had on the South. More authority was centralized in Washington; civil liberties were routinely violated; income taxation and Federally administered conscription were introduced; and an ominous cult of national unity spread through the American consciousness. The result was a Federal government with vast new powers ….[10]
The decline in political culture on both sides is also notable. In the South, during the period leading up to the war, the prevailing ideology gradually shifts from the natural rights approach of Jefferson and Taylor, to the anti-natural-rights but still in crucial respects liberal Calhoun, to the hopelessly anti-rights, anti-liberal George Fitzhugh — each of these, not coincidentally, easier to reconcile with slavery than its predecessor. On the Northern side, as we pass from the Federalist and Whig parties to the Republican party, the commitment to mercantilist privilege remains unchanged, but the urbane Enlightenment outlook of Hamilton (whatever his faults) gives way to the fervent prohibitionism of paternalistic fanatics.
Today we face a similar dynamic, as the US government's attempt to contain the terrorist blowback resulting from its own foreign policy adventures is resulting in restrictions of freedom not only on America's alleged enemies overseas but also on American citizens, even those who support the government's policy. And yet such restrictions — from the War on Gels to the War on Habeas Corpus — are embraced, in the spirit of regarding any loss of freedom as justified if it aids, or is alleged to aid, the "War on Terror." The president is elevated in the public imagination to a godlike figure, thus enabling an increasing shift of power to the executive branch.
Movies like Black Hawk Down inflame popular passions against a vaguely conceived enemy, while television shows like 24 glorify the violation of ordinary rules of moral decency in the name of national security. The religion whose founder taught the love of one's enemies is pressed once more into the service of hate, and those who claim to follow a religious leader who was tortured to death by the state are now insouciantly defending torture. The populace is so gripped by a delusive imagination that one can substitute one enemy for another, Iraq for al-Qaeda, without their batting an eye, as the government propaganda ministers in Orwell's 1984 substituted Eastasia for Eurasia in mid-speech. This, needless to say, is not the sort of centralization that proponents of the cosmopolitan argument for empire are seeking. But it seems to be what we're getting.
Over a hundred years ago, Spencer described the political and cultural effects of centralization and imperialism — its tendency to foster what he called "regimentation," "re-barbarization," and the "militant" mode of society — and I can do no better than to quote him at length:
[L]et us note how, along with the nominal extension of constitutional freedom, there has been going on actual diminution of it. There is first the fact that the legislative functions of Parliament have been decreasing while the Ministry has been usurping them. Important measures are not now brought forward and carried by private members, but appeal is made to the government to take them up: the making of laws is gradually lapsing into the hands of the executive. And then within the executive itself the tendency is towards placing power in fewer hands. … In like manner by taking for government-purposes more and more of the time which was once available for private members; by the cutting down of debates by the closure; and now by requiring the vote for an entire department to be passed en bloc, without criticism of details; we are shown that while extension of the franchise has been seeming to increase the liberties of citizens, their liberties have been decreased by restricting the spheres of action of their representatives. All these are stages in that concentration of power which is the concomitant of Imperialism. …
The quality of a passion is in great measure the same whatever the object exciting it. Fear aroused by a mad dog is at the core like the fear produced by the raised weapon of an assassin; and the hate felt for a disgusting animal is of the same nature as the hate felt for a man very much disliked. Especially when the objects which excite the passions are imaginary, is there likely to be little difference between the state of mind produced. The cultivation of animosity towards one imaginary object, strengthening the sentiment of animosity at large, makes it easier to arouse animosity towards another imaginary object. …
I make these remarks à propos of the Salvation Army. The word is significant — Army; as are the names for the ranks, from the so-called "General," descending through brigadiers, colonels, majors, down to local sub-officers, all wearing uniforms. This system is like in idea and in sentiment to that of an actual army. Then what are the feelings appealed to? The "Official gazette of the Salvation Army" is entitled The War Cry; and the motto conspicuous on the title-page is "Blood and Fire." Doubtless it will be said that it is towards the principle of evil, personal or impersonal — towards "the devil and all his works" — that the destructive sentiments are invoked by this title and this motto. So it will be said that in a hymn, conspicuous in the number of the paper I have in hand, the like animus is displayed by the expressions which I cull from the first thirty lines: — "Made us warriors for ever, Sent us in the field to fight … We shall win with fire and blood … Stand to your arms, the foe is nigh, The powers of hell surround … The day of battle is at hand! Go forth to glorious war." These and others like them are stimuli to the fighting propensities, and the excitements of song joined with the martial processions and instrumental music cannot fail to raise high those slumbering passions which are ready to burst out even in the intercourse of ordinary life. Such appeals as there may be to the gentler sentiments which the creed inculcates, are practically lost amid these loud-voiced invocations. Out of mixed and contradictory exhortations the people who listen respond to those which are most congruous with their own natures and are little affected by the rest; so that under the nominal forms of the religion of amity there are daily exercised the feelings appropriate to the religion of enmity. And then, as before suggested, these destructive passions directed towards "the enemy," as the principle of evil is called, are easily directed towards an enemy otherwise conceived. If for wicked spirits are substituted wicked men, these are regarded with the same feelings; and when calumnies sown broadcast make it appear that certain people are wicked men, the anger and hate which have been perpetually fostered are vented upon them. …
This diffusion of military ideas, military sentiments, military organization, military discipline, has been going on everywhere. … Thus on every side we see the ideas and feelings and institutions appropriate to peaceful life, replaced by those appropriate to fighting life. The continual increases of the army, the formation of permanent camps, the institution of public military contests and military exhibitions, have conduced to this result. … Perpetual excitements of the destructive passions … have made battle and blood and fire familiar, and under the guise of fighting against evil have thrust into the background the gentler emotions ….
System, regulation, uniformity, compulsion — these words are being made familiar in discussions on social questions. Everywhere has arisen an unquestioned assumption that all things should be arranged after a definite plan. … Though we have not reached a state like that boasted of by a French minister who said — "Now all the children in France are saying the same lesson," yet if we compare our present state with our state before board-schools were set up, we see a movement towards a like ideal. We have a "Code" to which managers and teachers must conform; and we have inspectors who see that the conceptions of the central authority are carried out. …
So long as the passion for mastery overrides all others the slavery that goes along with Imperialism will be tolerated. Among men who do not pride themselves on the possession of purely human traits, but on the possession of traits which they have in common with brutes, and in whose mouths "bull-dog courage" is equivalent to manhood — among people who take their point of honour from the prize-ring, in which the combatant submits to pain, injury, and risk of death, in the determination to prove himself "the better man," no deterrent considerations like the above will have any weight. So long as they continue to conquer other peoples and to hold them in subjection, they will readily merge their personal liberties in the power of the State, and hereafter as heretofore accept the slavery that goes along with Imperialism.[11]
Spencer's message remains all too appropriate to our present era, and it suggests — as a glance at the present occupant of the White House should likewise suggest — that imperial ambitions and the centralization of power are no recipe for the triumph of urbane, cosmopolitan values over small-minded reactionary oppression.
Once again, the cure for local tyranny is not less decentralization but more. First, break up empires into states, states into counties, counties into wards, wards into townships, townships into neighborhoods, and so on down to the level of the sovereign individual. Second, decouple jurisdiction and legal association from geography; if I live in Mississippi but prefer Massachusetts law, or vice versa, I should be free to sign up with the system I prefer without having to physically relocate. Maximize competition, and we thereby minimize the opportunities for oppression.
The truest security for liberal, cosmopolitan values lies not in empire but in secession and anarchy.
Roderick T. Long is a senior fellow of the Mises Institute and editor of the Journal of Libertarian Studies. He is a professor of philosophy at Auburn University and runs the Molinari Institute and Molinari Society. See his website: Praxeology.net. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.
This talk was delivered on October 27, 2006, at "Imperialism: Enemy of Freedom," the Mises Institute Supporter's Summit. It is available in MP3 audio from Mises Media.
Notes
[1] Isabel Paterson, God of the Machine (New Brunswick NJ: Transaction, 1993), p. 121.
[2] See Wordworth Donisthorpe, Individualism: A System of Politics (London: Macmillan, 1889)and Down the Stream of Civilization (London: G. Newnes, 1898).
[3] Paterson, pp. 9–10.
[4] Ibid., p. 25.
[5] "two notes on conservatism and cosmopolitanism," Lady Aster's Blog.
[6] Charles Johnson, comment on "The Conservative Mind," March 27, 2006.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Paterson, p. 31.
[9] Herbert Spencer, Facts and Comments (New York: D. Appleton, 1902), ch. 24; also online.
[10] Roderick T. Long, "The Nature of Law, Part IV: The Basis of Natural Law," Formulations 4, no. 2 (Winter 1997); also online.
[11] Spencer, chs. 24–26.
“Death Squads” : The Documentary
(Update)
This is the Channel 4 documentary “The Death Squads”, screened about a week ago.
Night after night death squads rampage through Iraq killing civilians. ‘The Death Squads’, the last film of the Iraq season, reveals that these organised killings are linked to the Iraqi government and to politicians who want to turn Iraq into a Shia state aligned to Iran.
More worrying is that many of these Iraqis politicians, who are behind the “Death Squads”, are received by the western countries and introduced to the public as heroes of freedom and champions of democracy.
You Tube trailer is here
The full documentary is here
I hope Channel 4 Can forgive me for showing this excellent documentary to the public, but it can saves many, many lives, and can be used later as a legal evidence to prosecute those who are responsible of these acts.
——-Update———
Iraqi police involved in kidnapping 150 office employees
Adding more information about “Scores seized from Baghdad office”
According to Al-Arabiya
Iraqi eyewitnesses said that police officers were observing what happens when the gunmen checked the identity cards of the staff and then took the Sunnis and went.
High-education minister Al-Ojaili said:
What happened is significant security flaw, the area is crowded with police checkpoints either the police or the army, .He added, “I myself asked the ministers of interior and defense to ensure the protection of the Ministry of Education and Iraqi universities.
————End update———–
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 3:21 pm and is filed under IRAQ, USA, MEDIA, MIDDLE EAST.
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2006/11/14/death-squads-the-documentary/
This is the Channel 4 documentary “The Death Squads”, screened about a week ago.
Night after night death squads rampage through Iraq killing civilians. ‘The Death Squads’, the last film of the Iraq season, reveals that these organised killings are linked to the Iraqi government and to politicians who want to turn Iraq into a Shia state aligned to Iran.
More worrying is that many of these Iraqis politicians, who are behind the “Death Squads”, are received by the western countries and introduced to the public as heroes of freedom and champions of democracy.
You Tube trailer is here
The full documentary is here
I hope Channel 4 Can forgive me for showing this excellent documentary to the public, but it can saves many, many lives, and can be used later as a legal evidence to prosecute those who are responsible of these acts.
——-Update———
Iraqi police involved in kidnapping 150 office employees
Adding more information about “Scores seized from Baghdad office”
According to Al-Arabiya
Iraqi eyewitnesses said that police officers were observing what happens when the gunmen checked the identity cards of the staff and then took the Sunnis and went.
High-education minister Al-Ojaili said:
What happened is significant security flaw, the area is crowded with police checkpoints either the police or the army, .He added, “I myself asked the ministers of interior and defense to ensure the protection of the Ministry of Education and Iraqi universities.
————End update———–
This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 3:21 pm and is filed under IRAQ, USA, MEDIA, MIDDLE EAST.
http://www.roadstoiraq.com/2006/11/14/death-squads-the-documentary/
Is the U.S. willing to pay the price?
By Gwynne Dyer
Independant(Nov 15, 2006)
"Stand back! No, farther back, or you'll be swept away by the shock and awe! We're going to show you the full might and majesty of American military power. We're going to ... INVADE IRAQ!!!"
It's a bit like one of those back yard scenes where the hapless dad lights the enormous firecracker and stands back -- and after a long wait, it just goes fzzzt. The full panoply of U.S. power was unleashed upon Iraq, and the results have been profoundly unimpressive. This doesn't just mean that the United States loses in Iraq. It means that its leverage elsewhere is severely diminished as well. But very few people in Washington seem to understand that yet.
American voters have spoken, Congress has changed hands, and secretary of defence Don Rumsfeld has been put out to pasture at last, but there is still no plan for getting the United States out of the Iraq quagmire. Certainly not from the Democrats, who are all over the map on the issue.
Senator Hillary Clinton, the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, doesn't want a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate last time, wants a firm deadline for withdrawal. Senator Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks dividing Iraq in three is the answer. And Congressman John Murtha, who will control the House committee that authorizes the cash for the war, wants an immediate pullout. So no plan there.
There is no Republican plan yet, either, but it is the job of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel co-chaired by James Baker, former secretary of state during Bush senior's presidency and long-serving confidant of the Bush family, to come up with one.
Its recommendations will be acted on, too, because the new secretary of defence will be Robert Gates, another close friend of the family and a member of the Iraq Study Group. Thanks to various "accidental" leaks, we even know broadly what the ISG will recommend.
It will urge a gradual reduction of U.S. troops, with the last combat forces to be out of Iraq in 18 months or so, well before the 2008 elections. And it will tell President Bush to seek cover for this process by talking to Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria.
This will be very unwelcome advice for Bush, whose spokesperson Tony Snow was only two weeks ago warning those two countries to leave Lebanon alone: "We are ... concerned by mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government ... We're making it clear ... that there ought to be hands off the Lebanese government ..." But Bush will like it even less when he learns the price that Syria and Iran want for helping.
The problem is that the United States is demonstrating every day in Iraq just how ineffective its military power is. It looked so impressive before it was unleashed that the Iranian government secretly offered Washington a general settlement of all the differences between the two countries, very much on the U.S.'s terms, just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The cocky neo-cons rejected that offer out of hand -- and now leading Iranians just smile when warned that the U.S. might strike them, too. They know that the U.S. armed forces now regard an attack on Iran with such distaste that the Joint Chiefs of Staff might even resign rather than obey such an order.
So Iran's price for co-operation would be high: an end to the 27-year U.S. trade embargo, full diplomatic relations with Washington, a U.S. commitment not to try to overthrow the Iranian regime -- and acceptance of Iran's legal right to develop civil nuclear power under no more than the normal safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Would that mean that Iran becomes a "threshold" nuclear weapons power, able to build actual bombs on very short notice? Yes it would. Pay up or shut up.
And Syria's price? An end to the United Nations investigation into the Damascus regime's role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, U.S. acceptance of a larger role for Hezbollah in the Lebanese government, a U.S. commitment not to try to overthrow the Syrian regime -- and really serious U.S. pressure on Israel to negotiate the return to Syria of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for the past 39 years.
Don't want to pay that price? Then find your own way out of Iraq.
The Bush administration will probably balk at paying these prices, which means that the notion of Syria and Iran assisting in a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is just a fantasy.
Besides, it is not at all clear that either Tehran or Damascus could deliver on any promises they made about Iraq. It's too far gone in blood and chaos for the usual tools of influence to deliver predictable, reliable results.
Rumsfeld used to have a framed cartoon on his office wall showing him driving in an open car filled with childlike journalists eagerly asking "When do we get to the quagmire, Daddy?" Well, we're there now, Rummy. And the United States will probably have to find its own way out.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=251c56e12bbdde76&pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1163544614496
Independant(Nov 15, 2006)
"Stand back! No, farther back, or you'll be swept away by the shock and awe! We're going to show you the full might and majesty of American military power. We're going to ... INVADE IRAQ!!!"
It's a bit like one of those back yard scenes where the hapless dad lights the enormous firecracker and stands back -- and after a long wait, it just goes fzzzt. The full panoply of U.S. power was unleashed upon Iraq, and the results have been profoundly unimpressive. This doesn't just mean that the United States loses in Iraq. It means that its leverage elsewhere is severely diminished as well. But very few people in Washington seem to understand that yet.
American voters have spoken, Congress has changed hands, and secretary of defence Don Rumsfeld has been put out to pasture at last, but there is still no plan for getting the United States out of the Iraq quagmire. Certainly not from the Democrats, who are all over the map on the issue.
Senator Hillary Clinton, the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, doesn't want a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate last time, wants a firm deadline for withdrawal. Senator Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thinks dividing Iraq in three is the answer. And Congressman John Murtha, who will control the House committee that authorizes the cash for the war, wants an immediate pullout. So no plan there.
There is no Republican plan yet, either, but it is the job of the Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel co-chaired by James Baker, former secretary of state during Bush senior's presidency and long-serving confidant of the Bush family, to come up with one.
Its recommendations will be acted on, too, because the new secretary of defence will be Robert Gates, another close friend of the family and a member of the Iraq Study Group. Thanks to various "accidental" leaks, we even know broadly what the ISG will recommend.
It will urge a gradual reduction of U.S. troops, with the last combat forces to be out of Iraq in 18 months or so, well before the 2008 elections. And it will tell President Bush to seek cover for this process by talking to Iraq's neighbours, Iran and Syria.
This will be very unwelcome advice for Bush, whose spokesperson Tony Snow was only two weeks ago warning those two countries to leave Lebanon alone: "We are ... concerned by mounting evidence that the Syrian and Iranian governments, Hezbollah and their Lebanese allies are preparing plans to topple Lebanon's democratically elected government ... We're making it clear ... that there ought to be hands off the Lebanese government ..." But Bush will like it even less when he learns the price that Syria and Iran want for helping.
The problem is that the United States is demonstrating every day in Iraq just how ineffective its military power is. It looked so impressive before it was unleashed that the Iranian government secretly offered Washington a general settlement of all the differences between the two countries, very much on the U.S.'s terms, just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
The cocky neo-cons rejected that offer out of hand -- and now leading Iranians just smile when warned that the U.S. might strike them, too. They know that the U.S. armed forces now regard an attack on Iran with such distaste that the Joint Chiefs of Staff might even resign rather than obey such an order.
So Iran's price for co-operation would be high: an end to the 27-year U.S. trade embargo, full diplomatic relations with Washington, a U.S. commitment not to try to overthrow the Iranian regime -- and acceptance of Iran's legal right to develop civil nuclear power under no more than the normal safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Would that mean that Iran becomes a "threshold" nuclear weapons power, able to build actual bombs on very short notice? Yes it would. Pay up or shut up.
And Syria's price? An end to the United Nations investigation into the Damascus regime's role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, U.S. acceptance of a larger role for Hezbollah in the Lebanese government, a U.S. commitment not to try to overthrow the Syrian regime -- and really serious U.S. pressure on Israel to negotiate the return to Syria of the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for the past 39 years.
Don't want to pay that price? Then find your own way out of Iraq.
The Bush administration will probably balk at paying these prices, which means that the notion of Syria and Iran assisting in a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is just a fantasy.
Besides, it is not at all clear that either Tehran or Damascus could deliver on any promises they made about Iraq. It's too far gone in blood and chaos for the usual tools of influence to deliver predictable, reliable results.
Rumsfeld used to have a framed cartoon on his office wall showing him driving in an open car filled with childlike journalists eagerly asking "When do we get to the quagmire, Daddy?" Well, we're there now, Rummy. And the United States will probably have to find its own way out.
Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.
http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?GXHC_gx_session_id_=251c56e12bbdde76&pagename=hamilton/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1163544614496
“The truth here is plain for anyone with eyes to see it”
At 2.30 yesterday morning, Israeli forces entered ‘Ein Beit El Ma refugee camp just North of Nablus city center, randomly shooting teargas and live ammunition into the camp as they entered. During the invasion, five people were lightly injured, including a 14-year old girl who was shot in the leg while standing in her hallway.
Continued:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/11/15/alein-invasion/
Continued:
http://www.palsolidarity.org/main/2006/11/15/alein-invasion/
The Only Way Out Of Iraq
Nov 14, 2006
By Mirza A. Beg
mab64@yahoo.com
The mid-term congressional elections gave a thrashing to the Republican congress, because it failed its primary duty of oversight of the executive branch gone amuck. The electorate should have sent this message to Bush two years ago. Unfortunately most Americans are against the Bush policy in Iraq, not because it is wrong, but because it is not succeeding. Unless we understand; the invasion of Iraq was not only unwise but also immoral based on lies, we cannot formulate a well thought out exit strategy.
In the throes of mid-term congressional elections with his approval ratings in the tank, Bush junked the inane phrase, “Stay the course”, to the dust heap of slogans, such as “Shock and awe”, that awed Americans and shocked the world in its inane cruelty; and the fascistic phrase “If you are not with us you are against us”, that left no choice to thoughtful decent people, but to be morally against us. Remember the abuses heaped on France and Germany. Finally the reality dawned. Two days after an unequivocal support for Rumsfeld, Bush dumped him.
It is time to revisit our options in Iraq. Not that it is a mystery, exactly three years ago in November 2003, I wrote “There are only five options for the US in Iraq and none of them are good.”
“1- The military should be patient in response to the attacks because the guerrillas vanish in the population and innocent people are hurt. This frustrates the soldiers and strengthens the guerrillas garnering support from successes. “
“2- Draconian response to flush out the guerrillas and intimidate civilians into cooperation, engendering greater hatred for the US. Helping the US means inviting attacks. Iraqi policemen helping the occupation are considered collaborators targeted by the guerrillas.”
“3- Fast Iraqification, similar to Vietnamization. New recruits will inevitably attract infiltrators to sabotage the effort. This will help the US to cut and run rather than leaving a stable democratic Iraq.”
“4- Troops from other countries. No Islamic government will cooperate. US policy is seen as anti-Muslim. Europeans stung by the Bush deceit oppose the occupation, even the Spaniards are withdrawing. No country wants to send its citizens to be killed in a war it opposed.”
“5- Get the UN involved. UN will take part only if the US yields the civilian authority and still foots the bill. This will be open-ended, complete reversal of the Bush policy, full of long-term uncertainty.”
The first option was never tried. It is too late now. To the Neocon bullies, there was no substitute for a quick victory based on intimidation. Though individual commanders tried in local piecemeal efforts, but were stymied by the bullies of, “If you are not with us you are against us”, crowd. Thus, all Iraqis with any feeling of dignity were lumped as enemies, and eventually they became enemies.
The second option was tried with fanfare. The celebrated destruction of Faluja and many smaller cities, while the world watched in horror; dropping of thousand pound bombs in densely populated areas; killing of more than a hundred thousand innocent civilians; the horrible pictures from Abu Graib became the poster of Bush doctrine on torture. Most Iraqis, happy at the tyrant’s downfall, slowly realized that though under brutal Saddam, there was no political liberty at least the streets were safe. If they kept quiet, they could have a reasonably good lively-hood. Now the living is a nightmare, and Bush keeps trumpeting that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that all the killing is done there to keep us safe here. Iraqis are listening intently; they realize that Iraqi lives are expendable in Bush doctrine.
The third option of Iraqification similar to Vietnamization has been in the works for about two years. According to the Pentagon more than two hundred thousand have been recruited in the Iraqi military. Most have joined because there is no other livelihood. Many Iraqis, viscerally against the US occupation have infiltrated the new military. That is why they are not trusted by the US command in Iraq, and can not perform independently. There is no way that Iraqis will like or trust us, after more than three years of horror that Bush has wrought on Iraqis, in our name.
The last two options are effectively a defeat of the Bush doctrine and by extension, the defeat of the mindless naked power that the rest of the world considers to be neo-Imperialism. But these are the only feasible courses to get out of an unending carnage. The neighboring countries have a natural interest in a stable Iraq. They can be persuaded to help stabilize Iraq under the aegis of the UN, only if convinced that the US will bear the enormous open ended expenses, but will not interfere in their decision making councils. It sounds expensive and a defeat of Bush doctrine, given the bravado and self delusion of Bush and his coterie, but the alternative is endless war that fuels terrorism.
Almost as many American soldiers have been killed in Iraq as the victims of 9/11. According to a prestigious study about 600,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, thanks to Bush and his mandate from “God”, through the powerful Armageddon seeking wing of the Christian right. Millions of Iraqis have been displaced because of the resulting civil war. To the Pentagon under Bush, the Iraqi lives do not matter. The quibbling over how many innocent Iraqis died, by those who do not even care to count the Iraqi dead is obnoxious.
It is time to learn from our recent history. Defeat of an immoral policy is better than following the corrupt policies to endless wars. Had we not been defeated in Vietnam, we would still be “winning”, the mirage of victory, perpetually just around the corner, 12 to 18 months away. These were the lies; we were fed adnauseam by the administrations then and now. Contrary to the dire predictions of doom of American prestige, the defeat in Vietnam liberated us and the Vietnamese to find new and better life to grow, prosper and even become friends.
The failure is evident to all who can reason. As predicted our bungling leader has not only landed the sole super power in an un-winnable quagmire in Iraq, but now even Afghanistan is on the skids, spiraling towards chaos.
Another slogan that ensnared the Americans, “Failure is not an option”, needs to be sent to the junk-yard of Fascism. It simply means, “Victory at any cost”. This should be an anathema in a moral, democracy. We need to stand up for our morals and values and say, “hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost through a policy that kills innocent civilians and creates more terrorists is too high a price to pay. No, we will not be a part of that immoral, mindless travesty.”
By Mirza A. Beg
mab64@yahoo.com
The mid-term congressional elections gave a thrashing to the Republican congress, because it failed its primary duty of oversight of the executive branch gone amuck. The electorate should have sent this message to Bush two years ago. Unfortunately most Americans are against the Bush policy in Iraq, not because it is wrong, but because it is not succeeding. Unless we understand; the invasion of Iraq was not only unwise but also immoral based on lies, we cannot formulate a well thought out exit strategy.
In the throes of mid-term congressional elections with his approval ratings in the tank, Bush junked the inane phrase, “Stay the course”, to the dust heap of slogans, such as “Shock and awe”, that awed Americans and shocked the world in its inane cruelty; and the fascistic phrase “If you are not with us you are against us”, that left no choice to thoughtful decent people, but to be morally against us. Remember the abuses heaped on France and Germany. Finally the reality dawned. Two days after an unequivocal support for Rumsfeld, Bush dumped him.
It is time to revisit our options in Iraq. Not that it is a mystery, exactly three years ago in November 2003, I wrote “There are only five options for the US in Iraq and none of them are good.”
“1- The military should be patient in response to the attacks because the guerrillas vanish in the population and innocent people are hurt. This frustrates the soldiers and strengthens the guerrillas garnering support from successes. “
“2- Draconian response to flush out the guerrillas and intimidate civilians into cooperation, engendering greater hatred for the US. Helping the US means inviting attacks. Iraqi policemen helping the occupation are considered collaborators targeted by the guerrillas.”
“3- Fast Iraqification, similar to Vietnamization. New recruits will inevitably attract infiltrators to sabotage the effort. This will help the US to cut and run rather than leaving a stable democratic Iraq.”
“4- Troops from other countries. No Islamic government will cooperate. US policy is seen as anti-Muslim. Europeans stung by the Bush deceit oppose the occupation, even the Spaniards are withdrawing. No country wants to send its citizens to be killed in a war it opposed.”
“5- Get the UN involved. UN will take part only if the US yields the civilian authority and still foots the bill. This will be open-ended, complete reversal of the Bush policy, full of long-term uncertainty.”
The first option was never tried. It is too late now. To the Neocon bullies, there was no substitute for a quick victory based on intimidation. Though individual commanders tried in local piecemeal efforts, but were stymied by the bullies of, “If you are not with us you are against us”, crowd. Thus, all Iraqis with any feeling of dignity were lumped as enemies, and eventually they became enemies.
The second option was tried with fanfare. The celebrated destruction of Faluja and many smaller cities, while the world watched in horror; dropping of thousand pound bombs in densely populated areas; killing of more than a hundred thousand innocent civilians; the horrible pictures from Abu Graib became the poster of Bush doctrine on torture. Most Iraqis, happy at the tyrant’s downfall, slowly realized that though under brutal Saddam, there was no political liberty at least the streets were safe. If they kept quiet, they could have a reasonably good lively-hood. Now the living is a nightmare, and Bush keeps trumpeting that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that all the killing is done there to keep us safe here. Iraqis are listening intently; they realize that Iraqi lives are expendable in Bush doctrine.
The third option of Iraqification similar to Vietnamization has been in the works for about two years. According to the Pentagon more than two hundred thousand have been recruited in the Iraqi military. Most have joined because there is no other livelihood. Many Iraqis, viscerally against the US occupation have infiltrated the new military. That is why they are not trusted by the US command in Iraq, and can not perform independently. There is no way that Iraqis will like or trust us, after more than three years of horror that Bush has wrought on Iraqis, in our name.
The last two options are effectively a defeat of the Bush doctrine and by extension, the defeat of the mindless naked power that the rest of the world considers to be neo-Imperialism. But these are the only feasible courses to get out of an unending carnage. The neighboring countries have a natural interest in a stable Iraq. They can be persuaded to help stabilize Iraq under the aegis of the UN, only if convinced that the US will bear the enormous open ended expenses, but will not interfere in their decision making councils. It sounds expensive and a defeat of Bush doctrine, given the bravado and self delusion of Bush and his coterie, but the alternative is endless war that fuels terrorism.
Almost as many American soldiers have been killed in Iraq as the victims of 9/11. According to a prestigious study about 600,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, thanks to Bush and his mandate from “God”, through the powerful Armageddon seeking wing of the Christian right. Millions of Iraqis have been displaced because of the resulting civil war. To the Pentagon under Bush, the Iraqi lives do not matter. The quibbling over how many innocent Iraqis died, by those who do not even care to count the Iraqi dead is obnoxious.
It is time to learn from our recent history. Defeat of an immoral policy is better than following the corrupt policies to endless wars. Had we not been defeated in Vietnam, we would still be “winning”, the mirage of victory, perpetually just around the corner, 12 to 18 months away. These were the lies; we were fed adnauseam by the administrations then and now. Contrary to the dire predictions of doom of American prestige, the defeat in Vietnam liberated us and the Vietnamese to find new and better life to grow, prosper and even become friends.
The failure is evident to all who can reason. As predicted our bungling leader has not only landed the sole super power in an un-winnable quagmire in Iraq, but now even Afghanistan is on the skids, spiraling towards chaos.
Another slogan that ensnared the Americans, “Failure is not an option”, needs to be sent to the junk-yard of Fascism. It simply means, “Victory at any cost”. This should be an anathema in a moral, democracy. We need to stand up for our morals and values and say, “hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost through a policy that kills innocent civilians and creates more terrorists is too high a price to pay. No, we will not be a part of that immoral, mindless travesty.”
The Only Way Out Of Iraq
Nov 14, 2006
By Mirza A. Beg
mab64@yahoo.com
The mid-term congressional elections gave a thrashing to the Republican congress, because it failed its primary duty of oversight of the executive branch gone amuck. The electorate should have sent this message to Bush two years ago. Unfortunately most Americans are against the Bush policy in Iraq, not because it is wrong, but because it is not succeeding. Unless we understand; the invasion of Iraq was not only unwise but also immoral based on lies, we cannot formulate a well thought out exit strategy.
In the throes of mid-term congressional elections with his approval ratings in the tank, Bush junked the inane phrase, “Stay the course”, to the dust heap of slogans, such as “Shock and awe”, that awed Americans and shocked the world in its inane cruelty; and the fascistic phrase “If you are not with us you are against us”, that left no choice to thoughtful decent people, but to be morally against us. Remember the abuses heaped on France and Germany. Finally the reality dawned. Two days after an unequivocal support for Rumsfeld, Bush dumped him.
It is time to revisit our options in Iraq. Not that it is a mystery, exactly three years ago in November 2003, I wrote “There are only five options for the US in Iraq and none of them are good.”
“1- The military should be patient in response to the attacks because the guerrillas vanish in the population and innocent people are hurt. This frustrates the soldiers and strengthens the guerrillas garnering support from successes. “
“2- Draconian response to flush out the guerrillas and intimidate civilians into cooperation, engendering greater hatred for the US. Helping the US means inviting attacks. Iraqi policemen helping the occupation are considered collaborators targeted by the guerrillas.”
“3- Fast Iraqification, similar to Vietnamization. New recruits will inevitably attract infiltrators to sabotage the effort. This will help the US to cut and run rather than leaving a stable democratic Iraq.”
“4- Troops from other countries. No Islamic government will cooperate. US policy is seen as anti-Muslim. Europeans stung by the Bush deceit oppose the occupation, even the Spaniards are withdrawing. No country wants to send its citizens to be killed in a war it opposed.”
“5- Get the UN involved. UN will take part only if the US yields the civilian authority and still foots the bill. This will be open-ended, complete reversal of the Bush policy, full of long-term uncertainty.”
The first option was never tried. It is too late now. To the Neocon bullies, there was no substitute for a quick victory based on intimidation. Though individual commanders tried in local piecemeal efforts, but were stymied by the bullies of, “If you are not with us you are against us”, crowd. Thus, all Iraqis with any feeling of dignity were lumped as enemies, and eventually they became enemies.
The second option was tried with fanfare. The celebrated destruction of Faluja and many smaller cities, while the world watched in horror; dropping of thousand pound bombs in densely populated areas; killing of more than a hundred thousand innocent civilians; the horrible pictures from Abu Graib became the poster of Bush doctrine on torture. Most Iraqis, happy at the tyrant’s downfall, slowly realized that though under brutal Saddam, there was no political liberty at least the streets were safe. If they kept quiet, they could have a reasonably good lively-hood. Now the living is a nightmare, and Bush keeps trumpeting that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that all the killing is done there to keep us safe here. Iraqis are listening intently; they realize that Iraqi lives are expendable in Bush doctrine.
The third option of Iraqification similar to Vietnamization has been in the works for about two years. According to the Pentagon more than two hundred thousand have been recruited in the Iraqi military. Most have joined because there is no other livelihood. Many Iraqis, viscerally against the US occupation have infiltrated the new military. That is why they are not trusted by the US command in Iraq, and can not perform independently. There is no way that Iraqis will like or trust us, after more than three years of horror that Bush has wrought on Iraqis, in our name.
The last two options are effectively a defeat of the Bush doctrine and by extension, the defeat of the mindless naked power that the rest of the world considers to be neo-Imperialism. But these are the only feasible courses to get out of an unending carnage. The neighboring countries have a natural interest in a stable Iraq. They can be persuaded to help stabilize Iraq under the aegis of the UN, only if convinced that the US will bear the enormous open ended expenses, but will not interfere in their decision making councils. It sounds expensive and a defeat of Bush doctrine, given the bravado and self delusion of Bush and his coterie, but the alternative is endless war that fuels terrorism.
Almost as many American soldiers have been killed in Iraq as the victims of 9/11. According to a prestigious study about 600,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, thanks to Bush and his mandate from “God”, through the powerful Armageddon seeking wing of the Christian right. Millions of Iraqis have been displaced because of the resulting civil war. To the Pentagon under Bush, the Iraqi lives do not matter. The quibbling over how many innocent Iraqis died, by those who do not even care to count the Iraqi dead is obnoxious.
It is time to learn from our recent history. Defeat of an immoral policy is better than following the corrupt policies to endless wars. Had we not been defeated in Vietnam, we would still be “winning”, the mirage of victory, perpetually just around the corner, 12 to 18 months away. These were the lies; we were fed adnauseam by the administrations then and now. Contrary to the dire predictions of doom of American prestige, the defeat in Vietnam liberated us and the Vietnamese to find new and better life to grow, prosper and even become friends.
The failure is evident to all who can reason. As predicted our bungling leader has not only landed the sole super power in an un-winnable quagmire in Iraq, but now even Afghanistan is on the skids, spiraling towards chaos.
Another slogan that ensnared the Americans, “Failure is not an option”, needs to be sent to the junk-yard of Fascism. It simply means, “Victory at any cost”. This should be an anathema in a moral, democracy. We need to stand up for our morals and values and say, “hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost through a policy that kills innocent civilians and creates more terrorists is too high a price to pay. No, we will not be a part of that immoral, mindless travesty.”
By Mirza A. Beg
mab64@yahoo.com
The mid-term congressional elections gave a thrashing to the Republican congress, because it failed its primary duty of oversight of the executive branch gone amuck. The electorate should have sent this message to Bush two years ago. Unfortunately most Americans are against the Bush policy in Iraq, not because it is wrong, but because it is not succeeding. Unless we understand; the invasion of Iraq was not only unwise but also immoral based on lies, we cannot formulate a well thought out exit strategy.
In the throes of mid-term congressional elections with his approval ratings in the tank, Bush junked the inane phrase, “Stay the course”, to the dust heap of slogans, such as “Shock and awe”, that awed Americans and shocked the world in its inane cruelty; and the fascistic phrase “If you are not with us you are against us”, that left no choice to thoughtful decent people, but to be morally against us. Remember the abuses heaped on France and Germany. Finally the reality dawned. Two days after an unequivocal support for Rumsfeld, Bush dumped him.
It is time to revisit our options in Iraq. Not that it is a mystery, exactly three years ago in November 2003, I wrote “There are only five options for the US in Iraq and none of them are good.”
“1- The military should be patient in response to the attacks because the guerrillas vanish in the population and innocent people are hurt. This frustrates the soldiers and strengthens the guerrillas garnering support from successes. “
“2- Draconian response to flush out the guerrillas and intimidate civilians into cooperation, engendering greater hatred for the US. Helping the US means inviting attacks. Iraqi policemen helping the occupation are considered collaborators targeted by the guerrillas.”
“3- Fast Iraqification, similar to Vietnamization. New recruits will inevitably attract infiltrators to sabotage the effort. This will help the US to cut and run rather than leaving a stable democratic Iraq.”
“4- Troops from other countries. No Islamic government will cooperate. US policy is seen as anti-Muslim. Europeans stung by the Bush deceit oppose the occupation, even the Spaniards are withdrawing. No country wants to send its citizens to be killed in a war it opposed.”
“5- Get the UN involved. UN will take part only if the US yields the civilian authority and still foots the bill. This will be open-ended, complete reversal of the Bush policy, full of long-term uncertainty.”
The first option was never tried. It is too late now. To the Neocon bullies, there was no substitute for a quick victory based on intimidation. Though individual commanders tried in local piecemeal efforts, but were stymied by the bullies of, “If you are not with us you are against us”, crowd. Thus, all Iraqis with any feeling of dignity were lumped as enemies, and eventually they became enemies.
The second option was tried with fanfare. The celebrated destruction of Faluja and many smaller cities, while the world watched in horror; dropping of thousand pound bombs in densely populated areas; killing of more than a hundred thousand innocent civilians; the horrible pictures from Abu Graib became the poster of Bush doctrine on torture. Most Iraqis, happy at the tyrant’s downfall, slowly realized that though under brutal Saddam, there was no political liberty at least the streets were safe. If they kept quiet, they could have a reasonably good lively-hood. Now the living is a nightmare, and Bush keeps trumpeting that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq so that all the killing is done there to keep us safe here. Iraqis are listening intently; they realize that Iraqi lives are expendable in Bush doctrine.
The third option of Iraqification similar to Vietnamization has been in the works for about two years. According to the Pentagon more than two hundred thousand have been recruited in the Iraqi military. Most have joined because there is no other livelihood. Many Iraqis, viscerally against the US occupation have infiltrated the new military. That is why they are not trusted by the US command in Iraq, and can not perform independently. There is no way that Iraqis will like or trust us, after more than three years of horror that Bush has wrought on Iraqis, in our name.
The last two options are effectively a defeat of the Bush doctrine and by extension, the defeat of the mindless naked power that the rest of the world considers to be neo-Imperialism. But these are the only feasible courses to get out of an unending carnage. The neighboring countries have a natural interest in a stable Iraq. They can be persuaded to help stabilize Iraq under the aegis of the UN, only if convinced that the US will bear the enormous open ended expenses, but will not interfere in their decision making councils. It sounds expensive and a defeat of Bush doctrine, given the bravado and self delusion of Bush and his coterie, but the alternative is endless war that fuels terrorism.
Almost as many American soldiers have been killed in Iraq as the victims of 9/11. According to a prestigious study about 600,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, thanks to Bush and his mandate from “God”, through the powerful Armageddon seeking wing of the Christian right. Millions of Iraqis have been displaced because of the resulting civil war. To the Pentagon under Bush, the Iraqi lives do not matter. The quibbling over how many innocent Iraqis died, by those who do not even care to count the Iraqi dead is obnoxious.
It is time to learn from our recent history. Defeat of an immoral policy is better than following the corrupt policies to endless wars. Had we not been defeated in Vietnam, we would still be “winning”, the mirage of victory, perpetually just around the corner, 12 to 18 months away. These were the lies; we were fed adnauseam by the administrations then and now. Contrary to the dire predictions of doom of American prestige, the defeat in Vietnam liberated us and the Vietnamese to find new and better life to grow, prosper and even become friends.
The failure is evident to all who can reason. As predicted our bungling leader has not only landed the sole super power in an un-winnable quagmire in Iraq, but now even Afghanistan is on the skids, spiraling towards chaos.
Another slogan that ensnared the Americans, “Failure is not an option”, needs to be sent to the junk-yard of Fascism. It simply means, “Victory at any cost”. This should be an anathema in a moral, democracy. We need to stand up for our morals and values and say, “hundreds of thousands of innocent lives lost through a policy that kills innocent civilians and creates more terrorists is too high a price to pay. No, we will not be a part of that immoral, mindless travesty.”
The U.S. Army's recruitment strategies (with video)
The Simpsons on Army Recruitment
Posted by: Administrator
Posted Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Filed under: US Politics, Videos, Society & Culture, War, Political
In their most recent episode, The Simpsons poked fun at the US Army so much that it completely overshadowed any botched joke John Kerry has ever made. Here I’ve posted a scene from the beginning of the episode that satirizes the shady practices of army recruiters. The episode later went on to criticize the caliber of recruits the army has been accepting.
There were other great highlights from the episode which are not in the clip above. One had to do with Marge begging Homer not to join. Homer says, “I have to Marge. Who else is gonna keep oil under $100 a barrel?” The other sad but true line came when Homer was playing war games with the army and got cornered in Moe’s basement. The idea of surrendering is brought up and Homer says, “I’m not gonna surrender. You’ve seen what the US Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointing at you and laughing?”
Could this kind of political satire revive The Simpsons from the fringes of irrelevance to share the comedic stage with Colbert and Stewart? Time will tell, but the past two episodes have definitely been on the upswing.
Video at:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2006/11/13/the-simpsons-on-army-recruitment/
Posted by: Administrator
Posted Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Filed under: US Politics, Videos, Society & Culture, War, Political
In their most recent episode, The Simpsons poked fun at the US Army so much that it completely overshadowed any botched joke John Kerry has ever made. Here I’ve posted a scene from the beginning of the episode that satirizes the shady practices of army recruiters. The episode later went on to criticize the caliber of recruits the army has been accepting.
There were other great highlights from the episode which are not in the clip above. One had to do with Marge begging Homer not to join. Homer says, “I have to Marge. Who else is gonna keep oil under $100 a barrel?” The other sad but true line came when Homer was playing war games with the army and got cornered in Moe’s basement. The idea of surrendering is brought up and Homer says, “I’m not gonna surrender. You’ve seen what the US Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointing at you and laughing?”
Could this kind of political satire revive The Simpsons from the fringes of irrelevance to share the comedic stage with Colbert and Stewart? Time will tell, but the past two episodes have definitely been on the upswing.
Video at:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2006/11/13/the-simpsons-on-army-recruitment/
The U.S. Army's recruitment strategies (with video)
The Simpsons on Army Recruitment
Posted by: Administrator
Posted Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Filed under: US Politics, Videos, Society & Culture, War, Political
In their most recent episode, The Simpsons poked fun at the US Army so much that it completely overshadowed any botched joke John Kerry has ever made. Here I’ve posted a scene from the beginning of the episode that satirizes the shady practices of army recruiters. The episode later went on to criticize the caliber of recruits the army has been accepting.
There were other great highlights from the episode which are not in the clip above. One had to do with Marge begging Homer not to join. Homer says, “I have to Marge. Who else is gonna keep oil under $100 a barrel?” The other sad but true line came when Homer was playing war games with the army and got cornered in Moe’s basement. The idea of surrendering is brought up and Homer says, “I’m not gonna surrender. You’ve seen what the US Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointing at you and laughing?”
Could this kind of political satire revive The Simpsons from the fringes of irrelevance to share the comedic stage with Colbert and Stewart? Time will tell, but the past two episodes have definitely been on the upswing.
Video at:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2006/11/13/the-simpsons-on-army-recruitment/
Posted by: Administrator
Posted Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Filed under: US Politics, Videos, Society & Culture, War, Political
In their most recent episode, The Simpsons poked fun at the US Army so much that it completely overshadowed any botched joke John Kerry has ever made. Here I’ve posted a scene from the beginning of the episode that satirizes the shady practices of army recruiters. The episode later went on to criticize the caliber of recruits the army has been accepting.
There were other great highlights from the episode which are not in the clip above. One had to do with Marge begging Homer not to join. Homer says, “I have to Marge. Who else is gonna keep oil under $100 a barrel?” The other sad but true line came when Homer was playing war games with the army and got cornered in Moe’s basement. The idea of surrendering is brought up and Homer says, “I’m not gonna surrender. You’ve seen what the US Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointing at you and laughing?”
Could this kind of political satire revive The Simpsons from the fringes of irrelevance to share the comedic stage with Colbert and Stewart? Time will tell, but the past two episodes have definitely been on the upswing.
Video at:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2006/11/13/the-simpsons-on-army-recruitment/
The U.S. Army's recruitment strategies (with video)
The Simpsons on Army Recruitment
Posted by: Administrator
Posted Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Filed under: US Politics, Videos, Society & Culture, War, Political
In their most recent episode, The Simpsons poked fun at the US Army so much that it completely overshadowed any botched joke John Kerry has ever made. Here I’ve posted a scene from the beginning of the episode that satirizes the shady practices of army recruiters. The episode later went on to criticize the caliber of recruits the army has been accepting.
There were other great highlights from the episode which are not in the clip above. One had to do with Marge begging Homer not to join. Homer says, “I have to Marge. Who else is gonna keep oil under $100 a barrel?” The other sad but true line came when Homer was playing war games with the army and got cornered in Moe’s basement. The idea of surrendering is brought up and Homer says, “I’m not gonna surrender. You’ve seen what the US Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointing at you and laughing?”
Could this kind of political satire revive The Simpsons from the fringes of irrelevance to share the comedic stage with Colbert and Stewart? Time will tell, but the past two episodes have definitely been on the upswing.
Video at:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2006/11/13/the-simpsons-on-army-recruitment/
Posted by: Administrator
Posted Monday, November 13th, 2006 at 9:24 pm
Filed under: US Politics, Videos, Society & Culture, War, Political
In their most recent episode, The Simpsons poked fun at the US Army so much that it completely overshadowed any botched joke John Kerry has ever made. Here I’ve posted a scene from the beginning of the episode that satirizes the shady practices of army recruiters. The episode later went on to criticize the caliber of recruits the army has been accepting.
There were other great highlights from the episode which are not in the clip above. One had to do with Marge begging Homer not to join. Homer says, “I have to Marge. Who else is gonna keep oil under $100 a barrel?” The other sad but true line came when Homer was playing war games with the army and got cornered in Moe’s basement. The idea of surrendering is brought up and Homer says, “I’m not gonna surrender. You’ve seen what the US Army does to prisoners. How would you like to be stacked naked in a pile with a hillbilly girl pointing at you and laughing?”
Could this kind of political satire revive The Simpsons from the fringes of irrelevance to share the comedic stage with Colbert and Stewart? Time will tell, but the past two episodes have definitely been on the upswing.
Video at:
http://www.jwharrison.com/blog/2006/11/13/the-simpsons-on-army-recruitment/
Falling In Line On Israel
A genuine Middle East peace process remains beyond reach as long as Dems continue to out-hawk the neocons.
Stephen Zunes
November 15, 2006
Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press). He serves as Middle East editor of Foreign Policy in Focus.
The election of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate is unlikely to result in any serious challenge to the Bush administration’s support for Israeli attacks against the civilian populations of its Arab neighbors and the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law.
The principal Democratic Party spokesmen on foreign policy will likely be Tom Lantos in the House of Representatives and Joe Biden in the Senate, both of whom have been longstanding and outspoken supporters of a series of right-wing Israeli governments and opponents of the Israeli peace movement. And, despite claims—even within the progressive press—that future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a “consistent supporter of human rights,” such humanitarian concerns have never applied to Arabs, since she is a staunch defender of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his predecessor Ariel Sharon.
For example, when President George W. Bush defended Israel’s assaults on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure this summer and defied the international community by initially blocking United Nations efforts to impose a cease-fire, the Democrats rushed to pass a resolution commending him for “fully supporting Israel.” The resolution, co-authored by Rep. Lantos, claimed that Israel’s actions were legitimate self-defense under the U.N. Charter and challenged the credibility of reputable human rights groups. Although groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch groups documented widespread attacks by Israeli forces against civilians in areas far from any Hezbollah military activity, the resolution praised “Israel’s longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcom[ed] Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” All but 15 of the House’s 201 Democrats voted in support.
Similarly, the Democrats echoed President Bush’s support for Israel’s 2002 offensive in the West Bank in another resolution co-authored by Lantos. In response to Amnesty International’s observation that the massive assault appeared to be aimed at the Palestinian population as a whole, all but two dozen Democrats went on record supporting the devastating Israeli offensive and claiming that it was “aimed solely at the terrorist infrastructure.”
In March 2003, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders signed a letter to President Bush opposing the White House-endorsed Middle East “Road Map” for peace, which they perceived as being too lenient on the Palestinians. The authors insisted that the peace process must be based “above all” on the end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership, not an end to Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land seized in the 1967 war. Indeed, there was no mention of any of the reciprocal actions called for in the Road Map—not ending Israel’s sieges and military assaults on Palestinian population centers and not halting the construction of additional illegal settlements.. The letter also voiced opposition to the U. N. or any government other than the U.S. monitoring progress on the ground.
The Democrats have attacked the International Court of Justice for its landmark 2004 ruling calling for the enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention in Israeli-occupied territories. In a resolution that summer, the Democratic leadership and the overwhelming majority of Democrats in both houses also condemned the World Court’s near-unanimous advisory opinion that Israel’s separation barrier could not be built beyond Israel’s internationally-recognized border into the occupied West Bank in order to incorporate illegal settlements into Israel.
More recently, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have condemned former President Jimmy Carter’s newly-released book criticizing Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in the West Bank. Carter’s use of the word “apartheid” in reference to Israeli policies of building Jewish-only settlements and highways on confiscated Palestinian land and allowing Palestinians to enter only as laborers with special passbooks proved particularly inflammatory to Pelosi and her colleagues. Meanwhile, they have refused to criticize this policy by any name and insist that the Israeli colonial outposts in the occupied territories—constructed in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions—are legitimate.
Ongoing talks between Fatah and Hamas for a coalition government have raised the hope that the Palestinian Authority will soon have a non-Hamas prime minister and a largely non-partisan, technocratic cabinet. However, the Democrats support Bush’s policy of refusing to resume normal relations with the PA unless the cabinet excludes members of Hamas or any party that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. By contrast, no prominent Democrat has raised any concerns over Olmert’s recent appointment of Avignor Lieberman, who has called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel and much of the West Bank, as a cabinet minister and his new deputy prime minister.
The Democrats have also pushed for increasing U.S. military aid to Israel and have rejected calls to condition the aid on an improvement in Israel’s human rights record. The Democrats have also pushed for an increase in economic assistance to Israel’s rightist government, already the recipient of nearly one-third of all U.S. foreign aid, despite the country’s relative affluence and the fact that Israelis represent only one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population.
The decision by Democratic members of Congress to take such hard-line positions against international law and human rights does not stem from the fear that it would jeopardize their re-election. Polls show that a sizable majority of Americans believe U.S. foreign policy should support these principles. More specifically, regarding Israel and Palestine, majorities support a more even-handed U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oppose the blank check given by the United States to Israel.
Nor is it a matter of Democratic lawmakers somehow being forced against their will to back Bush’s policy by Jewish voters and campaign contributors. In reality, Jewish public opinion is divided over the wisdom and morality of many Israeli policies endorsed by the Democrats, recognizing that such policies actually harm Israel’s legitimate long-term security interests. Furthermore, the vast majority of Democrats who support Bush’s Middle East policies come from very safe districts where a reduction in campaign contributions would not have a negative impact on Democratic re-election. Contrary to the belief that it is political suicide to condemn the policies of the Israeli government, every single Democrat who opposed this summer’s resolution in support of the Israeli assault on Lebanon was re-elected by a larger margin than in 2004.
Perhaps more damaging than pressure from right-wing PACs has been the absence of pressure from progressive groups that oppose Israeli policies. Indeed, some of the most hard-line Democratic opponents of Israeli peace and human rights groups were endorsed by leading U.S. peace and human rights groups.
Until the progressive community seriously challenges Democratic hawks, there is little hope that the new Democratic majority can be expected to contribute anything to the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/15/falling_in_line_on_israel.php
Stephen Zunes
November 15, 2006
Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press). He serves as Middle East editor of Foreign Policy in Focus.
The election of a Democratic majority in the House and Senate is unlikely to result in any serious challenge to the Bush administration’s support for Israeli attacks against the civilian populations of its Arab neighbors and the Israeli government’s ongoing violations of international humanitarian law.
The principal Democratic Party spokesmen on foreign policy will likely be Tom Lantos in the House of Representatives and Joe Biden in the Senate, both of whom have been longstanding and outspoken supporters of a series of right-wing Israeli governments and opponents of the Israeli peace movement. And, despite claims—even within the progressive press—that future House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a “consistent supporter of human rights,” such humanitarian concerns have never applied to Arabs, since she is a staunch defender of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his predecessor Ariel Sharon.
For example, when President George W. Bush defended Israel’s assaults on Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure this summer and defied the international community by initially blocking United Nations efforts to impose a cease-fire, the Democrats rushed to pass a resolution commending him for “fully supporting Israel.” The resolution, co-authored by Rep. Lantos, claimed that Israel’s actions were legitimate self-defense under the U.N. Charter and challenged the credibility of reputable human rights groups. Although groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch groups documented widespread attacks by Israeli forces against civilians in areas far from any Hezbollah military activity, the resolution praised “Israel’s longstanding commitment to minimizing civilian loss and welcom[ed] Israel's continued efforts to prevent civilian casualties.” All but 15 of the House’s 201 Democrats voted in support.
Similarly, the Democrats echoed President Bush’s support for Israel’s 2002 offensive in the West Bank in another resolution co-authored by Lantos. In response to Amnesty International’s observation that the massive assault appeared to be aimed at the Palestinian population as a whole, all but two dozen Democrats went on record supporting the devastating Israeli offensive and claiming that it was “aimed solely at the terrorist infrastructure.”
In March 2003, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders signed a letter to President Bush opposing the White House-endorsed Middle East “Road Map” for peace, which they perceived as being too lenient on the Palestinians. The authors insisted that the peace process must be based “above all” on the end of Palestinian violence and the establishment of a new Palestinian leadership, not an end to Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land seized in the 1967 war. Indeed, there was no mention of any of the reciprocal actions called for in the Road Map—not ending Israel’s sieges and military assaults on Palestinian population centers and not halting the construction of additional illegal settlements.. The letter also voiced opposition to the U. N. or any government other than the U.S. monitoring progress on the ground.
The Democrats have attacked the International Court of Justice for its landmark 2004 ruling calling for the enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention in Israeli-occupied territories. In a resolution that summer, the Democratic leadership and the overwhelming majority of Democrats in both houses also condemned the World Court’s near-unanimous advisory opinion that Israel’s separation barrier could not be built beyond Israel’s internationally-recognized border into the occupied West Bank in order to incorporate illegal settlements into Israel.
More recently, Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have condemned former President Jimmy Carter’s newly-released book criticizing Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in the West Bank. Carter’s use of the word “apartheid” in reference to Israeli policies of building Jewish-only settlements and highways on confiscated Palestinian land and allowing Palestinians to enter only as laborers with special passbooks proved particularly inflammatory to Pelosi and her colleagues. Meanwhile, they have refused to criticize this policy by any name and insist that the Israeli colonial outposts in the occupied territories—constructed in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and a series of U.N. Security Council resolutions—are legitimate.
Ongoing talks between Fatah and Hamas for a coalition government have raised the hope that the Palestinian Authority will soon have a non-Hamas prime minister and a largely non-partisan, technocratic cabinet. However, the Democrats support Bush’s policy of refusing to resume normal relations with the PA unless the cabinet excludes members of Hamas or any party that does not recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. By contrast, no prominent Democrat has raised any concerns over Olmert’s recent appointment of Avignor Lieberman, who has called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Israel and much of the West Bank, as a cabinet minister and his new deputy prime minister.
The Democrats have also pushed for increasing U.S. military aid to Israel and have rejected calls to condition the aid on an improvement in Israel’s human rights record. The Democrats have also pushed for an increase in economic assistance to Israel’s rightist government, already the recipient of nearly one-third of all U.S. foreign aid, despite the country’s relative affluence and the fact that Israelis represent only one-tenth of one percent of the world’s population.
The decision by Democratic members of Congress to take such hard-line positions against international law and human rights does not stem from the fear that it would jeopardize their re-election. Polls show that a sizable majority of Americans believe U.S. foreign policy should support these principles. More specifically, regarding Israel and Palestine, majorities support a more even-handed U.S. policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and oppose the blank check given by the United States to Israel.
Nor is it a matter of Democratic lawmakers somehow being forced against their will to back Bush’s policy by Jewish voters and campaign contributors. In reality, Jewish public opinion is divided over the wisdom and morality of many Israeli policies endorsed by the Democrats, recognizing that such policies actually harm Israel’s legitimate long-term security interests. Furthermore, the vast majority of Democrats who support Bush’s Middle East policies come from very safe districts where a reduction in campaign contributions would not have a negative impact on Democratic re-election. Contrary to the belief that it is political suicide to condemn the policies of the Israeli government, every single Democrat who opposed this summer’s resolution in support of the Israeli assault on Lebanon was re-elected by a larger margin than in 2004.
Perhaps more damaging than pressure from right-wing PACs has been the absence of pressure from progressive groups that oppose Israeli policies. Indeed, some of the most hard-line Democratic opponents of Israeli peace and human rights groups were endorsed by leading U.S. peace and human rights groups.
Until the progressive community seriously challenges Democratic hawks, there is little hope that the new Democratic majority can be expected to contribute anything to the cause of peace and justice in the Middle East.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/15/falling_in_line_on_israel.php
NATO Involved in Flawed Afghanistan Bomb, Brute and Bribe Operation
Nov 14, 2006
REPORT ON THE NATO QUEBEC CONFERENCE
By Joan Russow (PhD)
j.russow@shawlink.ca
Global Compliance Research Institute
(i) NATO MISCONSTRUED ARTICLE 51 OF THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
In 2001, NATO States disregarded the Charter of the United Nations when they accepted the US misinterpretation of Article 51- self defence clause- as justification for the US act of revenge against Afghanistan. The NATO states were lobbied by peace groups to support not the US act of revenge but the rule of international law and support chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations and seek justice through the International Court of Justice.
(ii) NATO MISSION VIOLATES UN CHARTER BY FAILING UN CONDITIONS
There was conditional support by the UN Security Council of NATO’s International Security Force. This force, oft described as a peacekeeping force, was sanctioned in UN Security Council resolutions only if the force's actions were in keeping with the Charter of the United Nations. Under the UN Charter, one of the purposes of the United Nations is the following:
"To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained,...”
The NATO states has been found to have violated the Convention against Torture and have yet to be assessed on their violation of Geneva Protocols on banned weapons systems such as Depleted uranium, and on their violation of international environmental instruments.
(iii) NATO IGNORES FUNDAMENTAL INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLE
Since 2001, most of the NATO countries have been belligerents in Afghanistan. The current "mission" described as a 3D - defense, development, and diplomacy- mission violates a fundamental international principle that a belligerent state should never be involved on the ground in reconstruction. NATO states are supporting a 3 B campaign: BOMB, BRUTE, and AND BRIBE OPERATION. Bombing a village, blasting in doors, brutally killing and wounding citizens and ignoring culture and then bribing with funds for reconstruction of hospitals to heal the victims are beyond any claims of legitimacy.
(IV) NATO USING MACHIAVELLIAN “HEARTS AND MINDS” STRATEGY
NATO supports the longstanding Vietnam strategy of attempting to win hearts and minds in order to obtain “intelligence”. Although there are irreversible environmental, social, and human rights consequences of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the only immediate recourse is for NATO to withdraw immediately, and be required to pay full compensation for damage and destruction of their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
Joan Russow (PhD) j.russow@shawlink.ca
Global Compliance Research Institute
Dr. Russow is the author of The Charter of Obligations, published the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). It looks at international sgreements dealing with issues of peace, the environment, social justice and human rights.
REPORT ON THE NATO QUEBEC CONFERENCE
By Joan Russow (PhD)
j.russow@shawlink.ca
Global Compliance Research Institute
(i) NATO MISCONSTRUED ARTICLE 51 OF THE CHARTER OF THE UNITED NATIONS
In 2001, NATO States disregarded the Charter of the United Nations when they accepted the US misinterpretation of Article 51- self defence clause- as justification for the US act of revenge against Afghanistan. The NATO states were lobbied by peace groups to support not the US act of revenge but the rule of international law and support chapter VI of the Charter of the United Nations and seek justice through the International Court of Justice.
(ii) NATO MISSION VIOLATES UN CHARTER BY FAILING UN CONDITIONS
There was conditional support by the UN Security Council of NATO’s International Security Force. This force, oft described as a peacekeeping force, was sanctioned in UN Security Council resolutions only if the force's actions were in keeping with the Charter of the United Nations. Under the UN Charter, one of the purposes of the United Nations is the following:
"To establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained,...”
The NATO states has been found to have violated the Convention against Torture and have yet to be assessed on their violation of Geneva Protocols on banned weapons systems such as Depleted uranium, and on their violation of international environmental instruments.
(iii) NATO IGNORES FUNDAMENTAL INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLE
Since 2001, most of the NATO countries have been belligerents in Afghanistan. The current "mission" described as a 3D - defense, development, and diplomacy- mission violates a fundamental international principle that a belligerent state should never be involved on the ground in reconstruction. NATO states are supporting a 3 B campaign: BOMB, BRUTE, and AND BRIBE OPERATION. Bombing a village, blasting in doors, brutally killing and wounding citizens and ignoring culture and then bribing with funds for reconstruction of hospitals to heal the victims are beyond any claims of legitimacy.
(IV) NATO USING MACHIAVELLIAN “HEARTS AND MINDS” STRATEGY
NATO supports the longstanding Vietnam strategy of attempting to win hearts and minds in order to obtain “intelligence”. Although there are irreversible environmental, social, and human rights consequences of the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the only immediate recourse is for NATO to withdraw immediately, and be required to pay full compensation for damage and destruction of their invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
Joan Russow (PhD) j.russow@shawlink.ca
Global Compliance Research Institute
Dr. Russow is the author of The Charter of Obligations, published the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). It looks at international sgreements dealing with issues of peace, the environment, social justice and human rights.
Conflict in the Middle East is Mission Implausible
Robert Fisk
The UN troops claim they are in Lebanon to protect the Shia. The Shia think they're there to protect Israel from Hizbollah. Is this because the peacekeepers are really a Nato army in disguise?
Published: 15 November 2006
The blue and white UN flag looks good in the morning over these soft, pale hills. For all of 28 years, it has flown beside Irish battalions, Nepalese battalions, Senegalese battalions, Finnish battalions, all kinds of battalions, from every worthy neutral nation you can imagine. But now the flag snaps over French battalions, Spanish battalions, Italian battalions, German naval units, over the offices of four Nato generals, two French, one Spanish and one Italian.
Unifil, the United Nations - wait for it - Interim Force in Lebanon, is now in effect a Nato force which has all this power and anti-aircraft missiles and tanks and artillery spread over these beautiful hills. It is a "buffer" force, so it claims to the Shia villages among whom it lives. It is there to "protect" them from the Israelis who bombarded them so savagely after the Lebanese Shia Hizbollah army captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others last July - and then fought off the Israeli army for 34 devastating days in which almost a hundred Israeli civilians and well over a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed (10 to one being a normal casualty count around here).
But life has changed. The Unifil force is not the friendly, neutral, soft army it used to be, backed up by Indian troops (among the best) and Nepalese (among the worst) and Fijian (among the friendliest) and Ghanaian soldiers, but a "robust" army - to use Tony Blair's distinctive un-robust semantics - with Nato soldiers trained to fire back and to take no nonsense from the militias of southern Lebanon or from the Israeli army. To which one can only say: ho hum.
A few days ago, for example, French troops got to within "two seconds" of firing their anti-aircraft missiles at an Israeli pilot who was making mock attacks on their battalion headquarters at Bourj Qalawiyeh. This, at least, is what the French Defence Minister said when she objected to Israel's continued over-flights of Lebanon. The reality is somewhat different. Ever since they took casualties from a helicopter in Ivory Coast, the French government will not deploy troops without 155mm artillery, Leclerc tanks and anti-aircraft missiles. The rockets are programmed to fire when a non-transponder attack aircraft approaches French positions; French troops - desperately trying to prevent their own missiles from firing at an indisciplined Israeli pilot - were two seconds short of allowing their rocket to shoot at the Israeli when they managed to pull the computer disk out of the firing mechanism.
But these are incidents, not politics. The reality is that the people of southern Lebanon - Shia Muslims and a few Christians - know very well that the new force is there for Israel's protection, not for theirs. If it was to protect Lebanon as well as Israel, it would be on both sides of the border - in Israel as well as in Lebanon - which it is not. It is, in the words of one Lebanese landowner who stands to profit from the UN's presence, "placed here to do what Israel failed to do during its military operations - to keep the Hizbollah away from the frontier".
Only, of course, that is not the case. General Alain Pellegrini, the French commander of what the French like to call Finul Plus, makes it clear that it is not his job to disarm the Lebanese guerrilla army which fought off the Israelis last summer. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requires him only to assist the Lebanese army in performing such a task. And since the Lebanese army - more than half of whose troops are themselves Shia - will not be doing this, the UN contingent will not be taking missiles off the Hizbollah. Indeed, the only weapons moving across Lebanon which the Lebanese army have come across were rockets being sent back to Syria from here for safe-keeping - which is not exactly the Israeli version of reality.
So what is Unifil here for? As a symbol of the West's earnest desire, no doubt, to bring "peace" to the Middle East (whatever that means). As an attempt to "defang" Iran by disarming its protégés in the Hizbollah. But it will not do that. "You mustn't have this fixation about asking all the time if Unifil is going to disarm the Hizbollah," Pellegrini snapped at a Lebanese reporter this week.
Hizbollah remains well-armed, south of the Litani river, and, according to its leadership, ready to fight the next war against Israel. Which is why Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah commander, is demanding more seats in the Lebanese government.
Pellegrini now talks about the dangers of "deterioration" in his UN zone, and he is right. One of the wisest owls in Lebanon, Timur Goksel - the Turkish former assistant to Unifil's force commander - once made a dangerous, accurate, prediction of UN mission capability. "If a UN mission begins well, it might work," he said. "If it begins badly, it will fail." He was talking about Unprofor in Bosnia, but he might have been talking about Unifil. And this mission is not beginning well. The Israelis are daily over-flying Lebanon because, they say, they want to know what Unifil is doing to prevent the flow of arms to Hizbollah. The French have asked George Bush to end the flights, but Mr Bush hasn't the political will to do this. So the Lebanese Shias are asking why Unifil does not protect them from the Israeli aircraft which killed so many of their loved ones this summer. But there are other, more dangerous signs for Unifil.
In the Sunni Lebanese cities to the north - in Sidon and in Tripoli - there are families who have sent their sons and cousins to Iraq to fight the Americans. They have videotapes of these young men as they set off to car-bomb - to suicide-bomb - the US occupation forces in Iraq. They have shown these videos to me. They, too, see the "new" Unifil as a Nato force. In the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, for example, there is now a rumour. That "if you can drive well, you are at the top of the list". In other words, if you can drive well, you are the next in the list for suicide bombing.
The French take this seriously. They should. Which is why they are using concrete stockades to surround their camps - Baghdad-style - from the bombers. Al-Qa'ida has already threatened Unifil's new army in southern Lebanon. "We are not occupiers," Pellegrini has repeatedly announced. But why did he have to say this?
With good fortune - something the UN should worship at a special altar in New York - its army in southern Lebanon might just survive. If it can prevent Italian troops from shoplifting in the village of Haris - the relevant soldiers have been sent home in disgrace - and stop Israeli troops from recrossing the Lebanese border, their "mission" might be accomplished. But the political barriers to success are high. The United States, for instance, is still keen to blame Syria for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, but the Syrians are insisting that President Bashar al-Assad had nothing to do with this.
The UN's inquiry into the assassination is slowly disintegrating. The latest judge - a Belgian - is tacking away from the Syrians. Assad is no longer mentioned in UN reports. The finger is being pointed at the late Syrian minister of the interior who mysteriously killed himself last year. His brother, according to anti-Assadists, has also now killed himself. Is the way being cleared for Syria's assistance to America in Iraq? Does Damascus have enough power over the resistance to US forces in Iraq to make it powerful again in Lebanon? Answer: probably, yes.
Down here in southern Lebanon, of course, there are other arguments. The French and the Spanish and the Italians and even the Irish, who have returned to their beloved southern Lebanon with 160 men, are creating a new economy, buying up the milk, souvenirs, camouflage jackets and cedar trees on sale - a good enough reason to maintain Unifil in the eyes of the Shias.
And the Hizbollah - here is a fact which will not sit happily with the John Boltons of this world at the UN - are watching every car that drives south of the Litani river. For they know that if a suicide bomber attacks the French, they - the Hizbollah - will be blamed. They will not be to blame. It will be the Sunni Muslim al-Qa'idists to the north who wish to attack Nato. So Hizbollah will be the most powerful defenders of the European armies in southern Lebanon. Now there's something to think about.
The blue and white UN flag looks good in the morning over these soft, pale hills. For all of 28 years, it has flown beside Irish battalions, Nepalese battalions, Senegalese battalions, Finnish battalions, all kinds of battalions, from every worthy neutral nation you can imagine. But now the flag snaps over French battalions, Spanish battalions, Italian battalions, German naval units, over the offices of four Nato generals, two French, one Spanish and one Italian.
Unifil, the United Nations - wait for it - Interim Force in Lebanon, is now in effect a Nato force which has all this power and anti-aircraft missiles and tanks and artillery spread over these beautiful hills. It is a "buffer" force, so it claims to the Shia villages among whom it lives. It is there to "protect" them from the Israelis who bombarded them so savagely after the Lebanese Shia Hizbollah army captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others last July - and then fought off the Israeli army for 34 devastating days in which almost a hundred Israeli civilians and well over a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed (10 to one being a normal casualty count around here).
But life has changed. The Unifil force is not the friendly, neutral, soft army it used to be, backed up by Indian troops (among the best) and Nepalese (among the worst) and Fijian (among the friendliest) and Ghanaian soldiers, but a "robust" army - to use Tony Blair's distinctive un-robust semantics - with Nato soldiers trained to fire back and to take no nonsense from the militias of southern Lebanon or from the Israeli army. To which one can only say: ho hum.
A few days ago, for example, French troops got to within "two seconds" of firing their anti-aircraft missiles at an Israeli pilot who was making mock attacks on their battalion headquarters at Bourj Qalawiyeh. This, at least, is what the French Defence Minister said when she objected to Israel's continued over-flights of Lebanon. The reality is somewhat different. Ever since they took casualties from a helicopter in Ivory Coast, the French government will not deploy troops without 155mm artillery, Leclerc tanks and anti-aircraft missiles. The rockets are programmed to fire when a non-transponder attack aircraft approaches French positions; French troops - desperately trying to prevent their own missiles from firing at an indisciplined Israeli pilot - were two seconds short of allowing their rocket to shoot at the Israeli when they managed to pull the computer disk out of the firing mechanism.
But these are incidents, not politics. The reality is that the people of southern Lebanon - Shia Muslims and a few Christians - know very well that the new force is there for Israel's protection, not for theirs. If it was to protect Lebanon as well as Israel, it would be on both sides of the border - in Israel as well as in Lebanon - which it is not. It is, in the words of one Lebanese landowner who stands to profit from the UN's presence, "placed here to do what Israel failed to do during its military operations - to keep the Hizbollah away from the frontier".
Only, of course, that is not the case. General Alain Pellegrini, the French commander of what the French like to call Finul Plus, makes it clear that it is not his job to disarm the Lebanese guerrilla army which fought off the Israelis last summer. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requires him only to assist the Lebanese army in performing such a task. And since the Lebanese army - more than half of whose troops are themselves Shia - will not be doing this, the UN contingent will not be taking missiles off the Hizbollah. Indeed, the only weapons moving across Lebanon which the Lebanese army have come across were rockets being sent back to Syria from here for safe-keeping - which is not exactly the Israeli version of reality.
So what is Unifil here for? As a symbol of the West's earnest desire, no doubt, to bring "peace" to the Middle East (whatever that means). As an attempt to "defang" Iran by disarming its protégés in the Hizbollah. But it will not do that. "You mustn't have this fixation about asking all the time if Unifil is going to disarm the Hizbollah," Pellegrini snapped at a Lebanese reporter this week.
Hizbollah remains well-armed, south of the Litani river, and, according to its leadership, ready to fight the next war against Israel. Which is why Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah commander, is demanding more seats in the Lebanese government.
Pellegrini now talks about the dangers of "deterioration" in his UN zone, and he is right. One of the wisest owls in Lebanon, Timur Goksel - the Turkish former assistant to Unifil's force commander - once made a dangerous, accurate, prediction of UN mission capability. "If a UN mission begins well, it might work," he said. "If it begins badly, it will fail." He was talking about Unprofor in Bosnia, but he might have been talking about Unifil. And this mission is not beginning well. The Israelis are daily over-flying Lebanon because, they say, they want to know what Unifil is doing to prevent the flow of arms to Hizbollah. The French have asked George Bush to end the flights, but Mr Bush hasn't the political will to do this. So the Lebanese Shias are asking why Unifil does not protect them from the Israeli aircraft which killed so many of their loved ones this summer. But there are other, more dangerous signs for Unifil.
In the Sunni Lebanese cities to the north - in Sidon and in Tripoli - there are families who have sent their sons and cousins to Iraq to fight the Americans. They have videotapes of these young men as they set off to car-bomb - to suicide-bomb - the US occupation forces in Iraq. They have shown these videos to me. They, too, see the "new" Unifil as a Nato force. In the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, for example, there is now a rumour. That "if you can drive well, you are at the top of the list". In other words, if you can drive well, you are the next in the list for suicide bombing.
The French take this seriously. They should. Which is why they are using concrete stockades to surround their camps - Baghdad-style - from the bombers. Al-Qa'ida has already threatened Unifil's new army in southern Lebanon. "We are not occupiers," Pellegrini has repeatedly announced. But why did he have to say this?
With good fortune - something the UN should worship at a special altar in New York - its army in southern Lebanon might just survive. If it can prevent Italian troops from shoplifting in the village of Haris - the relevant soldiers have been sent home in disgrace - and stop Israeli troops from recrossing the Lebanese border, their "mission" might be accomplished. But the political barriers to success are high. The United States, for instance, is still keen to blame Syria for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, but the Syrians are insisting that President Bashar al-Assad had nothing to do with this.
The UN's inquiry into the assassination is slowly disintegrating. The latest judge - a Belgian - is tacking away from the Syrians. Assad is no longer mentioned in UN reports. The finger is being pointed at the late Syrian minister of the interior who mysteriously killed himself last year. His brother, according to anti-Assadists, has also now killed himself. Is the way being cleared for Syria's assistance to America in Iraq? Does Damascus have enough power over the resistance to US forces in Iraq to make it powerful again in Lebanon? Answer: probably, yes.
Down here in southern Lebanon, of course, there are other arguments. The French and the Spanish and the Italians and even the Irish, who have returned to their beloved southern Lebanon with 160 men, are creating a new economy, buying up the milk, souvenirs, camouflage jackets and cedar trees on sale - a good enough reason to maintain Unifil in the eyes of the Shias.
And the Hizbollah - here is a fact which will not sit happily with the John Boltons of this world at the UN - are watching every car that drives south of the Litani river. For they know that if a suicide bomber attacks the French, they - the Hizbollah - will be blamed. They will not be to blame. It will be the Sunni Muslim al-Qa'idists to the north who wish to attack Nato. So Hizbollah will be the most powerful defenders of the European armies in southern Lebanon. Now there's something to think about.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1984418.ece
The UN troops claim they are in Lebanon to protect the Shia. The Shia think they're there to protect Israel from Hizbollah. Is this because the peacekeepers are really a Nato army in disguise?
Published: 15 November 2006
The blue and white UN flag looks good in the morning over these soft, pale hills. For all of 28 years, it has flown beside Irish battalions, Nepalese battalions, Senegalese battalions, Finnish battalions, all kinds of battalions, from every worthy neutral nation you can imagine. But now the flag snaps over French battalions, Spanish battalions, Italian battalions, German naval units, over the offices of four Nato generals, two French, one Spanish and one Italian.
Unifil, the United Nations - wait for it - Interim Force in Lebanon, is now in effect a Nato force which has all this power and anti-aircraft missiles and tanks and artillery spread over these beautiful hills. It is a "buffer" force, so it claims to the Shia villages among whom it lives. It is there to "protect" them from the Israelis who bombarded them so savagely after the Lebanese Shia Hizbollah army captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others last July - and then fought off the Israeli army for 34 devastating days in which almost a hundred Israeli civilians and well over a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed (10 to one being a normal casualty count around here).
But life has changed. The Unifil force is not the friendly, neutral, soft army it used to be, backed up by Indian troops (among the best) and Nepalese (among the worst) and Fijian (among the friendliest) and Ghanaian soldiers, but a "robust" army - to use Tony Blair's distinctive un-robust semantics - with Nato soldiers trained to fire back and to take no nonsense from the militias of southern Lebanon or from the Israeli army. To which one can only say: ho hum.
A few days ago, for example, French troops got to within "two seconds" of firing their anti-aircraft missiles at an Israeli pilot who was making mock attacks on their battalion headquarters at Bourj Qalawiyeh. This, at least, is what the French Defence Minister said when she objected to Israel's continued over-flights of Lebanon. The reality is somewhat different. Ever since they took casualties from a helicopter in Ivory Coast, the French government will not deploy troops without 155mm artillery, Leclerc tanks and anti-aircraft missiles. The rockets are programmed to fire when a non-transponder attack aircraft approaches French positions; French troops - desperately trying to prevent their own missiles from firing at an indisciplined Israeli pilot - were two seconds short of allowing their rocket to shoot at the Israeli when they managed to pull the computer disk out of the firing mechanism.
But these are incidents, not politics. The reality is that the people of southern Lebanon - Shia Muslims and a few Christians - know very well that the new force is there for Israel's protection, not for theirs. If it was to protect Lebanon as well as Israel, it would be on both sides of the border - in Israel as well as in Lebanon - which it is not. It is, in the words of one Lebanese landowner who stands to profit from the UN's presence, "placed here to do what Israel failed to do during its military operations - to keep the Hizbollah away from the frontier".
Only, of course, that is not the case. General Alain Pellegrini, the French commander of what the French like to call Finul Plus, makes it clear that it is not his job to disarm the Lebanese guerrilla army which fought off the Israelis last summer. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requires him only to assist the Lebanese army in performing such a task. And since the Lebanese army - more than half of whose troops are themselves Shia - will not be doing this, the UN contingent will not be taking missiles off the Hizbollah. Indeed, the only weapons moving across Lebanon which the Lebanese army have come across were rockets being sent back to Syria from here for safe-keeping - which is not exactly the Israeli version of reality.
So what is Unifil here for? As a symbol of the West's earnest desire, no doubt, to bring "peace" to the Middle East (whatever that means). As an attempt to "defang" Iran by disarming its protégés in the Hizbollah. But it will not do that. "You mustn't have this fixation about asking all the time if Unifil is going to disarm the Hizbollah," Pellegrini snapped at a Lebanese reporter this week.
Hizbollah remains well-armed, south of the Litani river, and, according to its leadership, ready to fight the next war against Israel. Which is why Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah commander, is demanding more seats in the Lebanese government.
Pellegrini now talks about the dangers of "deterioration" in his UN zone, and he is right. One of the wisest owls in Lebanon, Timur Goksel - the Turkish former assistant to Unifil's force commander - once made a dangerous, accurate, prediction of UN mission capability. "If a UN mission begins well, it might work," he said. "If it begins badly, it will fail." He was talking about Unprofor in Bosnia, but he might have been talking about Unifil. And this mission is not beginning well. The Israelis are daily over-flying Lebanon because, they say, they want to know what Unifil is doing to prevent the flow of arms to Hizbollah. The French have asked George Bush to end the flights, but Mr Bush hasn't the political will to do this. So the Lebanese Shias are asking why Unifil does not protect them from the Israeli aircraft which killed so many of their loved ones this summer. But there are other, more dangerous signs for Unifil.
In the Sunni Lebanese cities to the north - in Sidon and in Tripoli - there are families who have sent their sons and cousins to Iraq to fight the Americans. They have videotapes of these young men as they set off to car-bomb - to suicide-bomb - the US occupation forces in Iraq. They have shown these videos to me. They, too, see the "new" Unifil as a Nato force. In the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, for example, there is now a rumour. That "if you can drive well, you are at the top of the list". In other words, if you can drive well, you are the next in the list for suicide bombing.
The French take this seriously. They should. Which is why they are using concrete stockades to surround their camps - Baghdad-style - from the bombers. Al-Qa'ida has already threatened Unifil's new army in southern Lebanon. "We are not occupiers," Pellegrini has repeatedly announced. But why did he have to say this?
With good fortune - something the UN should worship at a special altar in New York - its army in southern Lebanon might just survive. If it can prevent Italian troops from shoplifting in the village of Haris - the relevant soldiers have been sent home in disgrace - and stop Israeli troops from recrossing the Lebanese border, their "mission" might be accomplished. But the political barriers to success are high. The United States, for instance, is still keen to blame Syria for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, but the Syrians are insisting that President Bashar al-Assad had nothing to do with this.
The UN's inquiry into the assassination is slowly disintegrating. The latest judge - a Belgian - is tacking away from the Syrians. Assad is no longer mentioned in UN reports. The finger is being pointed at the late Syrian minister of the interior who mysteriously killed himself last year. His brother, according to anti-Assadists, has also now killed himself. Is the way being cleared for Syria's assistance to America in Iraq? Does Damascus have enough power over the resistance to US forces in Iraq to make it powerful again in Lebanon? Answer: probably, yes.
Down here in southern Lebanon, of course, there are other arguments. The French and the Spanish and the Italians and even the Irish, who have returned to their beloved southern Lebanon with 160 men, are creating a new economy, buying up the milk, souvenirs, camouflage jackets and cedar trees on sale - a good enough reason to maintain Unifil in the eyes of the Shias.
And the Hizbollah - here is a fact which will not sit happily with the John Boltons of this world at the UN - are watching every car that drives south of the Litani river. For they know that if a suicide bomber attacks the French, they - the Hizbollah - will be blamed. They will not be to blame. It will be the Sunni Muslim al-Qa'idists to the north who wish to attack Nato. So Hizbollah will be the most powerful defenders of the European armies in southern Lebanon. Now there's something to think about.
The blue and white UN flag looks good in the morning over these soft, pale hills. For all of 28 years, it has flown beside Irish battalions, Nepalese battalions, Senegalese battalions, Finnish battalions, all kinds of battalions, from every worthy neutral nation you can imagine. But now the flag snaps over French battalions, Spanish battalions, Italian battalions, German naval units, over the offices of four Nato generals, two French, one Spanish and one Italian.
Unifil, the United Nations - wait for it - Interim Force in Lebanon, is now in effect a Nato force which has all this power and anti-aircraft missiles and tanks and artillery spread over these beautiful hills. It is a "buffer" force, so it claims to the Shia villages among whom it lives. It is there to "protect" them from the Israelis who bombarded them so savagely after the Lebanese Shia Hizbollah army captured two Israeli soldiers and killed three others last July - and then fought off the Israeli army for 34 devastating days in which almost a hundred Israeli civilians and well over a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed (10 to one being a normal casualty count around here).
But life has changed. The Unifil force is not the friendly, neutral, soft army it used to be, backed up by Indian troops (among the best) and Nepalese (among the worst) and Fijian (among the friendliest) and Ghanaian soldiers, but a "robust" army - to use Tony Blair's distinctive un-robust semantics - with Nato soldiers trained to fire back and to take no nonsense from the militias of southern Lebanon or from the Israeli army. To which one can only say: ho hum.
A few days ago, for example, French troops got to within "two seconds" of firing their anti-aircraft missiles at an Israeli pilot who was making mock attacks on their battalion headquarters at Bourj Qalawiyeh. This, at least, is what the French Defence Minister said when she objected to Israel's continued over-flights of Lebanon. The reality is somewhat different. Ever since they took casualties from a helicopter in Ivory Coast, the French government will not deploy troops without 155mm artillery, Leclerc tanks and anti-aircraft missiles. The rockets are programmed to fire when a non-transponder attack aircraft approaches French positions; French troops - desperately trying to prevent their own missiles from firing at an indisciplined Israeli pilot - were two seconds short of allowing their rocket to shoot at the Israeli when they managed to pull the computer disk out of the firing mechanism.
But these are incidents, not politics. The reality is that the people of southern Lebanon - Shia Muslims and a few Christians - know very well that the new force is there for Israel's protection, not for theirs. If it was to protect Lebanon as well as Israel, it would be on both sides of the border - in Israel as well as in Lebanon - which it is not. It is, in the words of one Lebanese landowner who stands to profit from the UN's presence, "placed here to do what Israel failed to do during its military operations - to keep the Hizbollah away from the frontier".
Only, of course, that is not the case. General Alain Pellegrini, the French commander of what the French like to call Finul Plus, makes it clear that it is not his job to disarm the Lebanese guerrilla army which fought off the Israelis last summer. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 requires him only to assist the Lebanese army in performing such a task. And since the Lebanese army - more than half of whose troops are themselves Shia - will not be doing this, the UN contingent will not be taking missiles off the Hizbollah. Indeed, the only weapons moving across Lebanon which the Lebanese army have come across were rockets being sent back to Syria from here for safe-keeping - which is not exactly the Israeli version of reality.
So what is Unifil here for? As a symbol of the West's earnest desire, no doubt, to bring "peace" to the Middle East (whatever that means). As an attempt to "defang" Iran by disarming its protégés in the Hizbollah. But it will not do that. "You mustn't have this fixation about asking all the time if Unifil is going to disarm the Hizbollah," Pellegrini snapped at a Lebanese reporter this week.
Hizbollah remains well-armed, south of the Litani river, and, according to its leadership, ready to fight the next war against Israel. Which is why Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah commander, is demanding more seats in the Lebanese government.
Pellegrini now talks about the dangers of "deterioration" in his UN zone, and he is right. One of the wisest owls in Lebanon, Timur Goksel - the Turkish former assistant to Unifil's force commander - once made a dangerous, accurate, prediction of UN mission capability. "If a UN mission begins well, it might work," he said. "If it begins badly, it will fail." He was talking about Unprofor in Bosnia, but he might have been talking about Unifil. And this mission is not beginning well. The Israelis are daily over-flying Lebanon because, they say, they want to know what Unifil is doing to prevent the flow of arms to Hizbollah. The French have asked George Bush to end the flights, but Mr Bush hasn't the political will to do this. So the Lebanese Shias are asking why Unifil does not protect them from the Israeli aircraft which killed so many of their loved ones this summer. But there are other, more dangerous signs for Unifil.
In the Sunni Lebanese cities to the north - in Sidon and in Tripoli - there are families who have sent their sons and cousins to Iraq to fight the Americans. They have videotapes of these young men as they set off to car-bomb - to suicide-bomb - the US occupation forces in Iraq. They have shown these videos to me. They, too, see the "new" Unifil as a Nato force. In the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh, for example, there is now a rumour. That "if you can drive well, you are at the top of the list". In other words, if you can drive well, you are the next in the list for suicide bombing.
The French take this seriously. They should. Which is why they are using concrete stockades to surround their camps - Baghdad-style - from the bombers. Al-Qa'ida has already threatened Unifil's new army in southern Lebanon. "We are not occupiers," Pellegrini has repeatedly announced. But why did he have to say this?
With good fortune - something the UN should worship at a special altar in New York - its army in southern Lebanon might just survive. If it can prevent Italian troops from shoplifting in the village of Haris - the relevant soldiers have been sent home in disgrace - and stop Israeli troops from recrossing the Lebanese border, their "mission" might be accomplished. But the political barriers to success are high. The United States, for instance, is still keen to blame Syria for the murder of ex-prime minister Rafik Hariri last year, but the Syrians are insisting that President Bashar al-Assad had nothing to do with this.
The UN's inquiry into the assassination is slowly disintegrating. The latest judge - a Belgian - is tacking away from the Syrians. Assad is no longer mentioned in UN reports. The finger is being pointed at the late Syrian minister of the interior who mysteriously killed himself last year. His brother, according to anti-Assadists, has also now killed himself. Is the way being cleared for Syria's assistance to America in Iraq? Does Damascus have enough power over the resistance to US forces in Iraq to make it powerful again in Lebanon? Answer: probably, yes.
Down here in southern Lebanon, of course, there are other arguments. The French and the Spanish and the Italians and even the Irish, who have returned to their beloved southern Lebanon with 160 men, are creating a new economy, buying up the milk, souvenirs, camouflage jackets and cedar trees on sale - a good enough reason to maintain Unifil in the eyes of the Shias.
And the Hizbollah - here is a fact which will not sit happily with the John Boltons of this world at the UN - are watching every car that drives south of the Litani river. For they know that if a suicide bomber attacks the French, they - the Hizbollah - will be blamed. They will not be to blame. It will be the Sunni Muslim al-Qa'idists to the north who wish to attack Nato. So Hizbollah will be the most powerful defenders of the European armies in southern Lebanon. Now there's something to think about.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1984418.ece
U.S. tanks will roll out of Iraq on a road paved with excuses
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
ROBERT FISK
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
"Great news from America!" the cashier at my local Beirut bookshop shouted at me the other morning, raising her thumbs in the air. "Things will be better after these elections?" Alas, I said. Alas, no. Things are going to get worse in the Middle East even if, in two years' time, the U.S. is blessed with a Democrat (and democratic) president.
For the disastrous philosophers behind the bloodbath in Iraq are now washing their hands of the whole mess and crying "Not Us!" with the same enthusiasm as the Lebanese lady in my book shop, while the "experts" on the mainstream U.S. East Coast press are preparing the ground for our Iraqi retreat -- by blaming it all on those greedy, blood-lusting, anarchic, depraved, uncompromising Iraqis.
I must say Richard Perle's version of a mea culpa did take my breath away. Here was the ex-chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee -- he who once said, "Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform" -- admitting he "underestimated the depravity" in Iraq. He holds the president responsible, of course, acknowledging only that -- and here, dear reader, swallow hard -- "I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said: 'Should we go into Iraq?' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies ... ' "
Maybe I find this self-righteous, odious mea culpa all the more objectionable because the same miserable man was shouting abuse down a radio line to me in Baghdad a couple of years ago, condemning me for claiming that the U.S. was losing its war in Iraq and claiming that I was "a supporter of the maintenance of the Baathist regime." That lie, I might add, was particularly malicious as I was reporting Saddam's mass rapes and mass hangings at Abu Ghraib prison when Perle and his cohorts were silent about Saddam's wickedness and when their chum Donald Rumsfeld was cheerfully shaking the monster's hand in Baghdad in an attempt to reopen the U.S. embassy there.
Not that Perle isn't in good company. Kenneth Adelman, the Pentagon neocon who also beat the drums for war, has been telling Vanity Fair that "the idea of using our power for moral good in the world" is dead. As for Adelman's mate David Frumm, well he's decided that President Bush just "did not absorb the ideas" behind the speeches Frumm wrote for him. But this, I'm afraid, is not the worst to come from those who encouraged us to invade Iraq and start a war that has cost the lives of 600,000 civilians.
For a new phenomenon is creeping into the pages of The New York Times and those other great organs of state in the U.S. For those journalists who supported the war, it's not enough to bash Bush. No, they've got a new flag to fly: The Iraqis don't deserve us. David Brooks -- he who once told us that neocons such as Perle had nothing to do with the president's decision to invade Iraq -- has been ransacking his way through Elie Kedourie's 1970 essay on the British occupation of Mesopotamia in the 1920s. And what has he discovered? That "the British tried to encourage responsible leadership to no avail," quoting a British officer at the time as concluding that Iraqi Shiites "have no motive for refraining from sacrificing the interests of Iraq to those which they conceive to be their own."
But the Brooks article in The New York Times was also frightening. Iraq, he now informs us, is suffering "a complete social integration" and "American blunders" were exacerbated "by the same old Iraqi demons: greed, blood lust and a mind-boggling unwillingness to compromise, even in the face of self-immolation." Iraq, Brooks has decided, is "teetering on the edge of futility" and if U.S. troops cannot restore order, "it will be time to effectively end Iraq," diffusing authority down to "the clan, the tribe or sect" which -- wait for it -- are "the only communities which are viable."
Nor should you believe that the Brooks article represents a lone voice.
Here is Ralph Peters, a USA Today writer and retired U.S. Army officer. He had supported the invasion because, he says, he was "convinced that the Middle East was so politically, socially, morally and intellectually stagnant that we (sic) had to risk intervention -- or face generations of terrorism and tumult." For all Washington's errors, Peters boasts, "we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy."
But those pesky Iraqis, it now seems, "preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption." Peters' conclusion? "Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it." As a result, "it's their tragedy, not ours. Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future ..." Incredibly, Peters finishes by believing that "if the Arab world and Iran embark on an orgy of bloodshed, the harsh truth is that we may be the beneficiaries" because Iraq will have "consumed" "terrorists" and the United States will "still be the greatest power on Earth."
It's not the shamefulness of all this -- do none of these men have any shame? -- but the racist assumption that the hecatomb in Iraq is all the fault of the Iraqis, that their intrinsic backwardness, their viciousness, their failure to appreciate the fruits of our civilization make them unworthy of our further attention. At no point does anyone question whether the fact that the U.S. is "the greatest power on Earth" might not be part of the problem. Nor that Iraqis who endured among their worst years of dictatorship when Saddam was supported by the United States, who were sanctioned by the United Nations at a cost of a half a million children's lives and who were then brutally invaded by our armies, might not actually be terribly keen on all the good things we wished to offer them.
Many Arabs, as I've written before, would like some of our democracy, but they would also like another kind of freedom -- freedom from us.
But you get the point. We are preparing our get-out excuses. The Iraqis don't deserve us. Screw them. That's the grit we're laying down on the desert floor to help our tanks out of Iraq.
---
Robert Fisk writes from the Middle East for The Independent of Britain.
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/292183_fisk14.html
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
ROBERT FISK
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
"Great news from America!" the cashier at my local Beirut bookshop shouted at me the other morning, raising her thumbs in the air. "Things will be better after these elections?" Alas, I said. Alas, no. Things are going to get worse in the Middle East even if, in two years' time, the U.S. is blessed with a Democrat (and democratic) president.
For the disastrous philosophers behind the bloodbath in Iraq are now washing their hands of the whole mess and crying "Not Us!" with the same enthusiasm as the Lebanese lady in my book shop, while the "experts" on the mainstream U.S. East Coast press are preparing the ground for our Iraqi retreat -- by blaming it all on those greedy, blood-lusting, anarchic, depraved, uncompromising Iraqis.
I must say Richard Perle's version of a mea culpa did take my breath away. Here was the ex-chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee -- he who once said, "Iraq is a very good candidate for democratic reform" -- admitting he "underestimated the depravity" in Iraq. He holds the president responsible, of course, acknowledging only that -- and here, dear reader, swallow hard -- "I think if I had been Delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said: 'Should we go into Iraq?' I think now I probably would have said, 'No, let's consider other strategies ... ' "
Maybe I find this self-righteous, odious mea culpa all the more objectionable because the same miserable man was shouting abuse down a radio line to me in Baghdad a couple of years ago, condemning me for claiming that the U.S. was losing its war in Iraq and claiming that I was "a supporter of the maintenance of the Baathist regime." That lie, I might add, was particularly malicious as I was reporting Saddam's mass rapes and mass hangings at Abu Ghraib prison when Perle and his cohorts were silent about Saddam's wickedness and when their chum Donald Rumsfeld was cheerfully shaking the monster's hand in Baghdad in an attempt to reopen the U.S. embassy there.
Not that Perle isn't in good company. Kenneth Adelman, the Pentagon neocon who also beat the drums for war, has been telling Vanity Fair that "the idea of using our power for moral good in the world" is dead. As for Adelman's mate David Frumm, well he's decided that President Bush just "did not absorb the ideas" behind the speeches Frumm wrote for him. But this, I'm afraid, is not the worst to come from those who encouraged us to invade Iraq and start a war that has cost the lives of 600,000 civilians.
For a new phenomenon is creeping into the pages of The New York Times and those other great organs of state in the U.S. For those journalists who supported the war, it's not enough to bash Bush. No, they've got a new flag to fly: The Iraqis don't deserve us. David Brooks -- he who once told us that neocons such as Perle had nothing to do with the president's decision to invade Iraq -- has been ransacking his way through Elie Kedourie's 1970 essay on the British occupation of Mesopotamia in the 1920s. And what has he discovered? That "the British tried to encourage responsible leadership to no avail," quoting a British officer at the time as concluding that Iraqi Shiites "have no motive for refraining from sacrificing the interests of Iraq to those which they conceive to be their own."
But the Brooks article in The New York Times was also frightening. Iraq, he now informs us, is suffering "a complete social integration" and "American blunders" were exacerbated "by the same old Iraqi demons: greed, blood lust and a mind-boggling unwillingness to compromise, even in the face of self-immolation." Iraq, Brooks has decided, is "teetering on the edge of futility" and if U.S. troops cannot restore order, "it will be time to effectively end Iraq," diffusing authority down to "the clan, the tribe or sect" which -- wait for it -- are "the only communities which are viable."
Nor should you believe that the Brooks article represents a lone voice.
Here is Ralph Peters, a USA Today writer and retired U.S. Army officer. He had supported the invasion because, he says, he was "convinced that the Middle East was so politically, socially, morally and intellectually stagnant that we (sic) had to risk intervention -- or face generations of terrorism and tumult." For all Washington's errors, Peters boasts, "we did give the Iraqis a unique chance to build a rule-of-law democracy."
But those pesky Iraqis, it now seems, "preferred to indulge in old hatreds, confessional violence, ethnic bigotry and a culture of corruption." Peters' conclusion? "Arab societies can't support democracy as we know it." As a result, "it's their tragedy, not ours. Iraq was the Arab world's last chance to board the train to modernity, to give the region a future ..." Incredibly, Peters finishes by believing that "if the Arab world and Iran embark on an orgy of bloodshed, the harsh truth is that we may be the beneficiaries" because Iraq will have "consumed" "terrorists" and the United States will "still be the greatest power on Earth."
It's not the shamefulness of all this -- do none of these men have any shame? -- but the racist assumption that the hecatomb in Iraq is all the fault of the Iraqis, that their intrinsic backwardness, their viciousness, their failure to appreciate the fruits of our civilization make them unworthy of our further attention. At no point does anyone question whether the fact that the U.S. is "the greatest power on Earth" might not be part of the problem. Nor that Iraqis who endured among their worst years of dictatorship when Saddam was supported by the United States, who were sanctioned by the United Nations at a cost of a half a million children's lives and who were then brutally invaded by our armies, might not actually be terribly keen on all the good things we wished to offer them.
Many Arabs, as I've written before, would like some of our democracy, but they would also like another kind of freedom -- freedom from us.
But you get the point. We are preparing our get-out excuses. The Iraqis don't deserve us. Screw them. That's the grit we're laying down on the desert floor to help our tanks out of Iraq.
---
Robert Fisk writes from the Middle East for The Independent of Britain.
© 1998-2006 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/292183_fisk14.html
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