I worked for Reuters back in the 80s and 90s, and still get email sometimes about things that happen to Reuters employees. I got one today concerning the murder of Reuters journalists that was exposed by Pfc Manning, the US soldier recently convicted of leaking confidential documents to WikiLeaks. The email contained a press release from Amnesty International calling on President Obama to pardon Manning, and included a link to a YouTube video: Iraq shooting exposed by Manning and WikiLeaks.
The video is difficult to watch. The dispassionate attitude of the military personnel is offset by the incredible force of their guns - enough force to knock over a minibus. (A minibus containing children.)
Sometimes news coverage gets so caught up in daily details that we forget the real story behind the news: in this case, why Manning leaked confidential US documents. That video certainly reminded me.
In the private electronic exchange that got Manning arrested, Manning sounds haunted. Manning wrote, "If you... saw incredible things, awful things ... things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC ... what would you do?”
During the three years after arrest and before trial, Manning was subjected to conditions so foul that they have been described as torture. Initially Manning was held in an 8 by 8 by 8 foot wire mesh cage, and then was moved to an even smaller 8 by 6 foot cell, in total isolation (even nearby isolation cells were kept vacant). For at least nine months Manning was forced to sleep on his side facing a bright lamp; kept naked and shoeless much of the time, without even sheets or blankets; shackled when leaving the cell; denied access to visitors, including a lawyer, for long periods; and not allowed any amusements, not even pictures or books or writing materials.
Manning has said that the only thing he had to amuse himself was a small mirror, and he spent a lot of time looking at himself. He also said that he danced as much as he could in his tiny cell, just to keep moving (there was no music of course). His guards said in court that he licked the bars on his cell a lot.
Given the prolonged privations and abuse that Manning suffered, I have to wonder about his decision to become a woman. Can a person in that situation be competent to make that decision? Manning is 5'2" and slight, and she (I will respect her gender identification from this point forward) may have thought about gender reassignment in her past life, but lots of people have thoughts about things that they never pursue fully. If Obama actually did pardon Manning and she had a few years to recover from this ordeal, I wonder if her decision would be the same.
My final thoughts about Manning are about the huge difference in outcome for Manning and America's other famous whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg. Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers in 1971, was tried for treason but not convicted. Manning got 35 years. There are a lot of differences - class (Ellsberg has a PhD), context (Manning was tried in a military court), government abuse (Nixon's henchmen plotted to kill Ellsberg and raided the office of his psychiatrist), etc - but the essential difference between Manning and Ellsberg seems to be the difference in public opinion. In 1971, the American public was outraged by the lies and abuses that Ellsberg exposed about Viet Nam. People were politically active and engaged. In 2013, the US public consumes infotainment instead of news; they are politically unengaged and ignorant. In short, they could care less about civil and human rights within or outside the US. I wish I could say that Canada was any better.
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq. Show all posts
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
The Greenspan Argument: Why Sadaam Hussein Had to Go
In his recent book The Age of Turbulence, former US Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan writes that oil was the reason for invading Iraq. I have questioned this notion, largely based on Gwynne Dyer's argument that it is against all countries' interests to disrupt the oil supply. But Greenspan is, at first blush, pretty convincing. Here's his argument, as passed on to Bob Woodward in an interview:
It was looking like Sadaam was going to be able to take control of the Straits of Hormuz, through which up to 19 million barrels of oil pass daily. Had he achieved this, Sadaam could have disrupted world oil supplies. Greenspan says that if Sadaam were able to disrupt as little as 3 million barrels a day, he could have caused prices to jump dramatically - easily to $120/barrel. If he had disrupted more than that, he could have caused chaos in the global economy.
Is this true? If it is, then history might judge that Bush did the right thing to unseat Sadaam. (I'm not saying that he was justified in invading and occupying the country - there is no justification for killing 650,000 people and turning 4 million into refugees.)
I have some doubts about Greenspan's argument.
Greenspan isn't explicitly trying to explain Bush's motivation: he is explaining his own reasons for thinking that something had to be done about Sadaam. If Bush's rationale for war had anything to do with the Straits of Hormuz, then he surely would have used it, given his kitchen-sink approach to justifying his war (WMD, human rights, regional stability, terrorism, al Quaeda, ...)
Also, Greenspan should be more explicit that such a move on Sadaam's part would cause short-term problems, not long-term ones, because if he had taken over the Straits of Hormuz there would have been a broad-based coalition of countries, including all oil-producing states whose oil business was disrupted, ready to take immediate military action to take back the Straits. In fact, had Sadaam been left in place to make such a bold move, it would probably have been fairly easy to depose him without bombing and occupying the entire country.
Update: Gwynne Dyer rebuts Greenspan here.
###
It was looking like Sadaam was going to be able to take control of the Straits of Hormuz, through which up to 19 million barrels of oil pass daily. Had he achieved this, Sadaam could have disrupted world oil supplies. Greenspan says that if Sadaam were able to disrupt as little as 3 million barrels a day, he could have caused prices to jump dramatically - easily to $120/barrel. If he had disrupted more than that, he could have caused chaos in the global economy.
Is this true? If it is, then history might judge that Bush did the right thing to unseat Sadaam. (I'm not saying that he was justified in invading and occupying the country - there is no justification for killing 650,000 people and turning 4 million into refugees.)
I have some doubts about Greenspan's argument.
Greenspan isn't explicitly trying to explain Bush's motivation: he is explaining his own reasons for thinking that something had to be done about Sadaam. If Bush's rationale for war had anything to do with the Straits of Hormuz, then he surely would have used it, given his kitchen-sink approach to justifying his war (WMD, human rights, regional stability, terrorism, al Quaeda, ...)
Also, Greenspan should be more explicit that such a move on Sadaam's part would cause short-term problems, not long-term ones, because if he had taken over the Straits of Hormuz there would have been a broad-based coalition of countries, including all oil-producing states whose oil business was disrupted, ready to take immediate military action to take back the Straits. In fact, had Sadaam been left in place to make such a bold move, it would probably have been fairly easy to depose him without bombing and occupying the entire country.
Update: Gwynne Dyer rebuts Greenspan here.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Humpty Dumpty Iraq
A year ago, the Lancet medical journal estimated that 650,000 Iraqis had died as a result of the US invasion. The number of documented civilian deaths due to violence since the invasion is 75,000. In addition, the United Nations estimates that there are over 4 million Iraqi refugees (including, this summer, the author of Baghdad Burning). The violence is only getting worse, and the violence is all about opposition to the US occupation.
There is no hope of creating a centralized Iraq without the long-term presence of US troops - probably for decades - and the price of doing that is too high. It is morally indefensible to perpetuate this level of hardship on the Iraqi people. There seems to be only one workable exit strategy: the US must give up on the attempt to put back together what it destroyed. Iraq must be divided up - like Bosnia - into its ethnic parts. (In fact, effectively, this has already happened.)
Dividing up Iraq causes all sorts of problems. Turkey has problems with the idea of an Iraqi Kurdish state. Iran may have an easier time taking over the Shi'ite part of Iraq (and since Iran and Iraq warred over territory for decades, we can assume that Iran wants to do this). The small nation-states that Iraq will become may war. The creation of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish states may contribute to regional factionalism and instability. There is the issue of stability of oil production. And loads of other big issues.
Once we accept that Iraq cannot be put back together again, we can begin to start focusing on how to meet these challenges, and stop the unrealistic focus on how to both withdraw US troops and maintain a centralized Iraq.
The US needs to also stop the rhetoric that the problem is not getting fixed because the Iraqi congress takes a 4-week holiday or Maliki is not serious. This mess is not the fault of the Iraqis, and at this point they are largely powerless to fix it. It is not the fault of Iran or the Arab states: in fact they all officially told the US not to invade Iraq. This mess is 100% the fault of the US, and the inability to fix it is 100% the fault of Bush insisting on the unrealistic goal of creating a unified Iraq (as he did again in his presidential address last week).
As I have argued before, what is needed is a Truth & Reconciliation commission in the US, similar to what was done in South Africa after the dismantling of apartheid. The US needs to assure itself and the world that it will never commit such an atrocity again.
###
There is no hope of creating a centralized Iraq without the long-term presence of US troops - probably for decades - and the price of doing that is too high. It is morally indefensible to perpetuate this level of hardship on the Iraqi people. There seems to be only one workable exit strategy: the US must give up on the attempt to put back together what it destroyed. Iraq must be divided up - like Bosnia - into its ethnic parts. (In fact, effectively, this has already happened.)
Dividing up Iraq causes all sorts of problems. Turkey has problems with the idea of an Iraqi Kurdish state. Iran may have an easier time taking over the Shi'ite part of Iraq (and since Iran and Iraq warred over territory for decades, we can assume that Iran wants to do this). The small nation-states that Iraq will become may war. The creation of Sunni, Shia and Kurdish states may contribute to regional factionalism and instability. There is the issue of stability of oil production. And loads of other big issues.
Once we accept that Iraq cannot be put back together again, we can begin to start focusing on how to meet these challenges, and stop the unrealistic focus on how to both withdraw US troops and maintain a centralized Iraq.
The US needs to also stop the rhetoric that the problem is not getting fixed because the Iraqi congress takes a 4-week holiday or Maliki is not serious. This mess is not the fault of the Iraqis, and at this point they are largely powerless to fix it. It is not the fault of Iran or the Arab states: in fact they all officially told the US not to invade Iraq. This mess is 100% the fault of the US, and the inability to fix it is 100% the fault of Bush insisting on the unrealistic goal of creating a unified Iraq (as he did again in his presidential address last week).
As I have argued before, what is needed is a Truth & Reconciliation commission in the US, similar to what was done in South Africa after the dismantling of apartheid. The US needs to assure itself and the world that it will never commit such an atrocity again.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Are you sleeping, Hagen my son?
I'm a big fan of Wagner's Ring Cycle, and if I had to pick one moment in the 17-hour, four opera marathon to call my favorite, it would be the weird, creepy conversation between Alberich and his son Hagen in the final opera, Gotterdammerung.
Alberich (a powerful dwarf from deep in the earth) and Wotan (the chief of the Norse gods) are in a multi-generational battle to obtain the Ring of the Nibelung and gain ultimate power. They have both sired off-spring to unwittingly act as their agents. Alberich's son is Hagen, and one night while Hagen is sleeping Alberich creeps up to him to give him instructions. Hagen is not in a natural sleep. He answers Alberich, and in his sleep he promises to steal the ring for his father. Several times during the conversation Alberich asks, "Are you sleeping, Hagen my son?" (Schlafst du, Hagen mein Sohn?)
The father-son conversation (with beautiful bass/baritone singing) has a languorous, almost lullabye aspect, except that the father is making his unconscious son swear to do monstrous acts. (Lack of free will is a recurring theme in Wagner, and in this case Alberich can beat Wotan because Alberich has the free will to make his son the tool of his bidding, while Wotan is constrained to let his offspring act freely.)
In the Ring Cycle, Wotan's agent (his grandson Siegfried) is powerful because he is fearless. But Alberich's agent, his son Hagen, is powerful because of his hatred. In the end hatred beats fearlessness, but hatred also kills itself. Hagen literally stabs Siegfried in the back, but the result is that the ring is lost to Alberich forever. in addition Valhalla burns and there are no gods left to replace it, so the next era of history begins.
I was thinking of all this while reading James Benjamin over at Left End of the Dial v2.0; he has written a series of posts about Dolchstosslegende as practiced by supporters of the Bush government. The Dolchstosslegende propaganda technique was used in Germany during its two world wars and deliberately references the legends Wagner based the Ring Cycle on. It blames failure in war on a populace that is insufficiently patriotic: it implies that the government, like the hero Siegfried, has been stabbed in the back by factions that questioned government policies for their own ends.
I think we're all aware that Dolchstosslegende has been a big part of the Bush spin about the US invasion of Iraq. There has been nothing subtle about it. (Benjamin's posts are still well worth reading.) The Bush government feels that it has been stabbed in the back by Democrats who have questioned its policies. It alleges that the troops have been stabbed in the back by anti-war protestors. Debate is reduced to the unproductive question: Who is a patriot and who is a traitor?
Dolchstosslegende propaganda can only reference the legends Wagner based his tale on, and not the Ring Cycle itself, because Wagner (for whom the term "moral ambiguity" was coined) paints a much less black-and-white picture of the back-stabbers and the back-stabbed. None of that directly applies to the Bush use of the propaganda technique... except in that Bush is unwittingly referencing the end of World War 2 and the new world that never would have emerged without it, and similarly is referencing the result of the fall of Valhalla - the rise of humanity. The Wagnerian conclusion may be that our only hope is the fall of Superpower-America and the beginning of the next era.
###
Alberich (a powerful dwarf from deep in the earth) and Wotan (the chief of the Norse gods) are in a multi-generational battle to obtain the Ring of the Nibelung and gain ultimate power. They have both sired off-spring to unwittingly act as their agents. Alberich's son is Hagen, and one night while Hagen is sleeping Alberich creeps up to him to give him instructions. Hagen is not in a natural sleep. He answers Alberich, and in his sleep he promises to steal the ring for his father. Several times during the conversation Alberich asks, "Are you sleeping, Hagen my son?" (Schlafst du, Hagen mein Sohn?)
The father-son conversation (with beautiful bass/baritone singing) has a languorous, almost lullabye aspect, except that the father is making his unconscious son swear to do monstrous acts. (Lack of free will is a recurring theme in Wagner, and in this case Alberich can beat Wotan because Alberich has the free will to make his son the tool of his bidding, while Wotan is constrained to let his offspring act freely.)
In the Ring Cycle, Wotan's agent (his grandson Siegfried) is powerful because he is fearless. But Alberich's agent, his son Hagen, is powerful because of his hatred. In the end hatred beats fearlessness, but hatred also kills itself. Hagen literally stabs Siegfried in the back, but the result is that the ring is lost to Alberich forever. in addition Valhalla burns and there are no gods left to replace it, so the next era of history begins.
I was thinking of all this while reading James Benjamin over at Left End of the Dial v2.0; he has written a series of posts about Dolchstosslegende as practiced by supporters of the Bush government. The Dolchstosslegende propaganda technique was used in Germany during its two world wars and deliberately references the legends Wagner based the Ring Cycle on. It blames failure in war on a populace that is insufficiently patriotic: it implies that the government, like the hero Siegfried, has been stabbed in the back by factions that questioned government policies for their own ends.
I think we're all aware that Dolchstosslegende has been a big part of the Bush spin about the US invasion of Iraq. There has been nothing subtle about it. (Benjamin's posts are still well worth reading.) The Bush government feels that it has been stabbed in the back by Democrats who have questioned its policies. It alleges that the troops have been stabbed in the back by anti-war protestors. Debate is reduced to the unproductive question: Who is a patriot and who is a traitor?
Dolchstosslegende propaganda can only reference the legends Wagner based his tale on, and not the Ring Cycle itself, because Wagner (for whom the term "moral ambiguity" was coined) paints a much less black-and-white picture of the back-stabbers and the back-stabbed. None of that directly applies to the Bush use of the propaganda technique... except in that Bush is unwittingly referencing the end of World War 2 and the new world that never would have emerged without it, and similarly is referencing the result of the fall of Valhalla - the rise of humanity. The Wagnerian conclusion may be that our only hope is the fall of Superpower-America and the beginning of the next era.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
State of Denial (Review)
Bob Woodward's third book about the Bush presidency, State of Denial, is well written, factual, unbelievably thorough, and a great record of events around the waging of the Iraq war. He had unprecedented access to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and a zillion other major players in the White House and military. As one reviewer said, this a book that historians will use as a major resource in 100 years.
And yet, and yet. This book is a dense pile of facts without premise or conclusion. But a book like this must have premises and conclusions. At a minimum, they permeate the questions he asked and how he reported the responses. Either Woodward is hiding his conclusions, or he is confused himself.
The closest he gets to a conclusion is on page 490 (the second last page of the book), when he lists some of the questions he asked. "Didn't anyone at the White House notice that the actions being implemented on the ground in the months after the invasion were almost diametrically opposed to the plan that had been briefed to Bush?" And so on. But most of the questions are not just too obvious, but also dependent on other assumptions. The question "When did they realize that there would likely never be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq?" implies that they truly believed at some point that there were WMD in Iraq - a premise that defies credulity once you read other sources.
At other points, Woodward is so deep in the projected world view of the Bushies that he loses sight of how the world works. He seems flabbergasted that in his interviews, Bush and Rumsfeld refuse to admit how dire the situation is in Iraq. But why would they? It's not shocking that the President and Defence Secretary put a brave face on a war during the war. It doesn't mean that they're in a state of denial. Does Woodward really think that he has such stature that nobody would prevaricate when he interviews them? Seemingly so.
Woodward's lack of credulity (or unrealistic belief in his own abilities) means that the book presents (in part) a picture of Bush & co. that is exactly what they wanted him to see. The impression that Woodward gives is that all the three-word slogans used during the war were completely heartfelt. These are a bunch of good guys doing what they think is best. The only reason they invaded is to protect the world from attack by Saddam Hussein. True, Rumsfeld comes in for some heavy drubbing, but I got the impression that Rumsfeld's biggest crime is that the war went badly.
In terms of revelations in the book, the thing that really blew me away is how much of the problem was basic mismanagement. Again and again there were multiple bosses and no clear chain of command. On several occasions in the book Bush gave direct orders that were ignored (it seems that his subordinates have very little respect for him). Bremer acted as if he reported directly to Bush, but Bush said he reported to Rumsfeld. At one time Rumsfeld declares that Bremer reports to him and at another time Rumsfeld says that Bremer reports to Rice. Some of this stuff is just big government bureaucracy, but there are giant gaffes like having a theater of war that had two supreme commanders. Even Condoleeza Rice calls the government "dysfunctional".
Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from the book and I enjoyed reading it. But when I was finished I had to give my head a shake to correct some misimpressions of Bush and his White House. That's not the way it should work.
###
And yet, and yet. This book is a dense pile of facts without premise or conclusion. But a book like this must have premises and conclusions. At a minimum, they permeate the questions he asked and how he reported the responses. Either Woodward is hiding his conclusions, or he is confused himself.
The closest he gets to a conclusion is on page 490 (the second last page of the book), when he lists some of the questions he asked. "Didn't anyone at the White House notice that the actions being implemented on the ground in the months after the invasion were almost diametrically opposed to the plan that had been briefed to Bush?" And so on. But most of the questions are not just too obvious, but also dependent on other assumptions. The question "When did they realize that there would likely never be weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq?" implies that they truly believed at some point that there were WMD in Iraq - a premise that defies credulity once you read other sources.
At other points, Woodward is so deep in the projected world view of the Bushies that he loses sight of how the world works. He seems flabbergasted that in his interviews, Bush and Rumsfeld refuse to admit how dire the situation is in Iraq. But why would they? It's not shocking that the President and Defence Secretary put a brave face on a war during the war. It doesn't mean that they're in a state of denial. Does Woodward really think that he has such stature that nobody would prevaricate when he interviews them? Seemingly so.
Woodward's lack of credulity (or unrealistic belief in his own abilities) means that the book presents (in part) a picture of Bush & co. that is exactly what they wanted him to see. The impression that Woodward gives is that all the three-word slogans used during the war were completely heartfelt. These are a bunch of good guys doing what they think is best. The only reason they invaded is to protect the world from attack by Saddam Hussein. True, Rumsfeld comes in for some heavy drubbing, but I got the impression that Rumsfeld's biggest crime is that the war went badly.
In terms of revelations in the book, the thing that really blew me away is how much of the problem was basic mismanagement. Again and again there were multiple bosses and no clear chain of command. On several occasions in the book Bush gave direct orders that were ignored (it seems that his subordinates have very little respect for him). Bremer acted as if he reported directly to Bush, but Bush said he reported to Rumsfeld. At one time Rumsfeld declares that Bremer reports to him and at another time Rumsfeld says that Bremer reports to Rice. Some of this stuff is just big government bureaucracy, but there are giant gaffes like having a theater of war that had two supreme commanders. Even Condoleeza Rice calls the government "dysfunctional".
Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot from the book and I enjoyed reading it. But when I was finished I had to give my head a shake to correct some misimpressions of Bush and his White House. That's not the way it should work.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Get Out
US administration officials like to say that if they leave Iraq now, there will be civil war and regional instability. This is untrue. If they stay in Iraq there will be civil war and regional instability. If the US pulls out, Iraq has a chance to pick up the pieces.
Violence in Iraq is aimed against the American occupation. Thousands of people are dying because of this resistance to the US occupation, and the resistance is only going to spread to more and more moderate Iraqis. Here are the casualty estimates as of today:
US military deaths (Iraq): 3,346
US military wounded (Iraq): 24,912
Iraqi civilian deaths (minimum): 62,570
Iraqi deaths related to the war and occupation: 655,000
In addition to the US military deaths, there are untold military contractors on the US payroll who have been killed in Iraq and whose deaths go unreported.
In addition to Iraqi deaths, there are millions of Iraqi refugees who have fled the country, many to Syria.
US attempts to reconstruct infrastructure that it bombed in 2003 have been a disaster, in part because of widespread fraud among contractors friendly to the Bush administration. The New York Times reports today: "In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle."
The US owes Iraq a lot. The illegal invasion and destruction requires reparation. Occupation is not reparation: just the opposite. By staying in Iraq, the US just continues to kill people and destroy infrastructure.
The Bush administration doesn't want to leave Iraq because they don't want to admit defeat. But defeat has happened and it's not getting better. Thank heavens there's a Democrat-led congress now to make the military leave.
###
Violence in Iraq is aimed against the American occupation. Thousands of people are dying because of this resistance to the US occupation, and the resistance is only going to spread to more and more moderate Iraqis. Here are the casualty estimates as of today:
US military deaths (Iraq): 3,346
US military wounded (Iraq): 24,912
Iraqi civilian deaths (minimum): 62,570
Iraqi deaths related to the war and occupation: 655,000
In addition to the US military deaths, there are untold military contractors on the US payroll who have been killed in Iraq and whose deaths go unreported.
In addition to Iraqi deaths, there are millions of Iraqi refugees who have fled the country, many to Syria.
US attempts to reconstruct infrastructure that it bombed in 2003 have been a disaster, in part because of widespread fraud among contractors friendly to the Bush administration. The New York Times reports today: "In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle."
The US owes Iraq a lot. The illegal invasion and destruction requires reparation. Occupation is not reparation: just the opposite. By staying in Iraq, the US just continues to kill people and destroy infrastructure.
The Bush administration doesn't want to leave Iraq because they don't want to admit defeat. But defeat has happened and it's not getting better. Thank heavens there's a Democrat-led congress now to make the military leave.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Other Questions About the War in Iraq
I am baffled not only about why the US invaded Iraq, but also about other things concerning that war:
Why did Tony Blair support it?
Unlike many people, I really like Tony Blair. He's my kind of politician: a pragmatic lefty - fiscally conservative, socially progressive, and someone who knows that the devil's in the details. He talked straight and he knew what he was talking about. He spoke from the heart and with conviction. Plus, he came into power and solved the Irish problem - after more than 100 years of strife and terrorism, he just fixed it. And he gave limited sovereignty to Scotland and Wales - not as much as your average province or state has, but better than hundreds of years of English rule has allowed.
Then he went and got all buddied up with Bush.2. At first I thought that this was a requirement of the US-UK "special arrangement" (or whatever they call it now) - the secret sharing of intelligence info and general quid pro quo between the two powers. But Blair seemed to be legitimately, even passionately, in support of the invasion. If he was coerced, he's the world's greatest actor.
Could it have been naivete and stupidity? That doesn't fit my image of Blair.
The big problem is how to reconcile Blair's war values with what his values seemed to be prior to the war. Was he lying before? Did he change? It just doesn't make any sense. There wasn't even any political expediency. He knew that his support for the war was so unpopular that he was wrecking his popularity and his legacy. And yet... he did it.
Did the Bushies ever really think they could win?
There has been a lot of criticism of Bush for not having an exit strategy. But an exit strategy is just another way of saying you have a vision for how to win and finish something. They didn't.
They didn't have one in Afghanistan either. They started out really well in Afghanistan: without a lot of bombing, CIA agents with bags of cash and some special forces troops managed to buy off warlords and topple the Taliban. It looked good on the news for a little while... until it became obvious that toppling the Taliban isn't the same as defeating the Taliban. Now we're all bogged down in Afghanistan like the Russians and many other invaders before them, and I don't know that anyone has had much success at that strategy.
They went into Iraq with half the troops that experienced war strategists said they needed, they blew up more infrastructure than they should have, and they dismantled all the Iraqi security forces. They never had a chance. They cared a lot - to the point of panic - that they didn't find any WMD to justify their invasion, but did they care that they were losing?
It's as if the Bush gang can't plan beyond the next headline. Like someone who gleefully takes your rook, not realizing that they've opened themselves up for checkmate. But they can't be that stupid. When it comes to outfoxing the Democrats in elections, they're 3 for 4. They have the most highly trained military in the world advising them. It just doesn't seem possible that they could have thought they'd win the war that they planned.
Is it possible that they didn't care whether they won or lost? If their goal was to create a Pax Americana - a new world order based on America being the sole superpower - then maybe winning seemed secondary, and the whole point was just to show the world they would use their military might unilaterally. But if that were true, it has backfired big time. Being defeated by an impoverished country of 30 million (pre-war population) is hardly the way to look tough.
###
Why did Tony Blair support it?
Unlike many people, I really like Tony Blair. He's my kind of politician: a pragmatic lefty - fiscally conservative, socially progressive, and someone who knows that the devil's in the details. He talked straight and he knew what he was talking about. He spoke from the heart and with conviction. Plus, he came into power and solved the Irish problem - after more than 100 years of strife and terrorism, he just fixed it. And he gave limited sovereignty to Scotland and Wales - not as much as your average province or state has, but better than hundreds of years of English rule has allowed.
Then he went and got all buddied up with Bush.2. At first I thought that this was a requirement of the US-UK "special arrangement" (or whatever they call it now) - the secret sharing of intelligence info and general quid pro quo between the two powers. But Blair seemed to be legitimately, even passionately, in support of the invasion. If he was coerced, he's the world's greatest actor.
Could it have been naivete and stupidity? That doesn't fit my image of Blair.
The big problem is how to reconcile Blair's war values with what his values seemed to be prior to the war. Was he lying before? Did he change? It just doesn't make any sense. There wasn't even any political expediency. He knew that his support for the war was so unpopular that he was wrecking his popularity and his legacy. And yet... he did it.
Did the Bushies ever really think they could win?
There has been a lot of criticism of Bush for not having an exit strategy. But an exit strategy is just another way of saying you have a vision for how to win and finish something. They didn't.
They didn't have one in Afghanistan either. They started out really well in Afghanistan: without a lot of bombing, CIA agents with bags of cash and some special forces troops managed to buy off warlords and topple the Taliban. It looked good on the news for a little while... until it became obvious that toppling the Taliban isn't the same as defeating the Taliban. Now we're all bogged down in Afghanistan like the Russians and many other invaders before them, and I don't know that anyone has had much success at that strategy.
They went into Iraq with half the troops that experienced war strategists said they needed, they blew up more infrastructure than they should have, and they dismantled all the Iraqi security forces. They never had a chance. They cared a lot - to the point of panic - that they didn't find any WMD to justify their invasion, but did they care that they were losing?
It's as if the Bush gang can't plan beyond the next headline. Like someone who gleefully takes your rook, not realizing that they've opened themselves up for checkmate. But they can't be that stupid. When it comes to outfoxing the Democrats in elections, they're 3 for 4. They have the most highly trained military in the world advising them. It just doesn't seem possible that they could have thought they'd win the war that they planned.
Is it possible that they didn't care whether they won or lost? If their goal was to create a Pax Americana - a new world order based on America being the sole superpower - then maybe winning seemed secondary, and the whole point was just to show the world they would use their military might unilaterally. But if that were true, it has backfired big time. Being defeated by an impoverished country of 30 million (pre-war population) is hardly the way to look tough.
Why Did They Go to War in Iraq?
Such a simple question... and such a baffling one.
Here are all the reasons I can think up for why American war planners wanted to invade Iraq:
* They really believed Iraq had WMD: None of the insiders could have believed this. More and more US and British officials have exposed just how little evidence there was - and how much counter-evidence. Even George Tenet has said that his "slam dunk" comment only referred to how easy it would be to convince Americans that there were WMD. Insiders knew that Sadaam had not had WMD since 1991, and that UN sanctions since then had crippled him. He was no threat. If anything, Iraq was probably seen as an easy target. (Why would the US have massed its troops within Scud range of Iraq for months before the invasion if they believed Sadaam could attack them?) It seems likely that they thought they could find enough weapons to justify their invasion, but not likely that it was ever a reason for war.
* They really believed Hussein had ties with al Qaeda: Ditto: they knew that he didn't have any such ties and that Sadaam and bin Laden were fierce enemies. In addition, planning for the attack started in the first National Security Council meeting of Bush's presidency, nine months before 9/11. The Bush presidency showed no interest in terrorism before 9/11.
* Bush's floundering presidency: Like Thatcher in the Falklands, Bush used the war to win a second term, but I'm not cynical enough to believe that Republicans would kill hundreds of thousands of people to win an election.
* They wanted to finish the Gulf war: Embittered Republicans felt Bush.1 had been to soft when he didn't invade Baghdad and they wanted to finish the job. Or: Bush.2 wanted to one-up his dad. Or... various other explanations of the father-son relationship. Sounds unlikely. Most indications are that Bush policy does not emanate from Bush, but from his advisors. And the advisors surely can't be stupid enough to want to fight a war that had been over for more than 10 years.
* US neoconservatives wanted to start a new world order with the US as the global dominator, and they needed to attack someone as a show of force: This is Gwynne Dyer's main thesis in his book Future: Tense, and his arguments are persuasive. It also fits with why they decided to break with the Geneva Convention (the US is showing itself to be above all that on grounds of moral necessity). Still, I find it too cynical to be credible.
* They wanted to undermine the UN: This is related to the last item - they want to supplant the international power of the UN. This is true, although again it seems more of a side-effect or means rather than a motive.
* Iraq was a threat to Israel: It is true that several of Bush's key advisors had close ties to the Likud Party. But again, the lack of immediate threat and the toothlessness of Sadaam's regime make any argument based on threat to seem unlikely.
* They wanted to control Middle East oil: There is no reason to worry about oil supplies anymore. Even Iran has never held back oil sales from whoever wants to buy it. There was a theory that the US needed to invade Iraq in order to build an oil pipeline, but it has been discredited. Instability of oil supply was more of a Cold War issue, and could resurface if the US starts a cold war with China, but it isn't an issue now.
* Saddam Hussein refused to allow WMD inspectors to work in Iraq: Not true. He was very cooperative and they were able to do a thorough job.
* Sadaam threatened the US or US interests: Just the opposite. Hussein was quite cordial towards the US. Sadaam even consulted the US amabassador to Iraq before invading Kuwait, and appeared to get the green light to go ahead with the plan. (This was revealed in the New Yorker shortly after the Gulf War.)
* They wanted to make the Bush oil industry and military contractor base rich: That seems to have been a motivation in the way the war was planned, but it's hard to believe that even this crew would go to war for that reason.
* They wanted to create a permanent military base in Iraq so troops could be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: It's true that the military presence in Saudi Arabia has caused some instability in the country, but the US could move more forces to Bahrain or Qatar.
* Humanitarian reasons: Bush? Ha, ha. Also, while I don't condone Sadaam in the least, the Americans have immensely overstated Sadaam's atrocities. The nerve gas deaths for which he was executed were part of the Iraq-Iran war. Most of the mass graves that have been found in Iraq were due to a 1993 uprising against him. Sadaam was no Pol Pot, not even a Milocevic.
To me, it just doesn't add up. You might say that it's difficult to see why anyone would start a war, but actually I can think of motivation for most wars, even if they're evil or irrational. You might also say that it's hard to see any reason for starting a war after it has been lost, and that might be my problem. Except I'm not sure that they ever cared about winning this war. More on that later.
###
Here are all the reasons I can think up for why American war planners wanted to invade Iraq:
* They really believed Iraq had WMD: None of the insiders could have believed this. More and more US and British officials have exposed just how little evidence there was - and how much counter-evidence. Even George Tenet has said that his "slam dunk" comment only referred to how easy it would be to convince Americans that there were WMD. Insiders knew that Sadaam had not had WMD since 1991, and that UN sanctions since then had crippled him. He was no threat. If anything, Iraq was probably seen as an easy target. (Why would the US have massed its troops within Scud range of Iraq for months before the invasion if they believed Sadaam could attack them?) It seems likely that they thought they could find enough weapons to justify their invasion, but not likely that it was ever a reason for war.
* They really believed Hussein had ties with al Qaeda: Ditto: they knew that he didn't have any such ties and that Sadaam and bin Laden were fierce enemies. In addition, planning for the attack started in the first National Security Council meeting of Bush's presidency, nine months before 9/11. The Bush presidency showed no interest in terrorism before 9/11.
* Bush's floundering presidency: Like Thatcher in the Falklands, Bush used the war to win a second term, but I'm not cynical enough to believe that Republicans would kill hundreds of thousands of people to win an election.
* They wanted to finish the Gulf war: Embittered Republicans felt Bush.1 had been to soft when he didn't invade Baghdad and they wanted to finish the job. Or: Bush.2 wanted to one-up his dad. Or... various other explanations of the father-son relationship. Sounds unlikely. Most indications are that Bush policy does not emanate from Bush, but from his advisors. And the advisors surely can't be stupid enough to want to fight a war that had been over for more than 10 years.
* US neoconservatives wanted to start a new world order with the US as the global dominator, and they needed to attack someone as a show of force: This is Gwynne Dyer's main thesis in his book Future: Tense, and his arguments are persuasive. It also fits with why they decided to break with the Geneva Convention (the US is showing itself to be above all that on grounds of moral necessity). Still, I find it too cynical to be credible.
* They wanted to undermine the UN: This is related to the last item - they want to supplant the international power of the UN. This is true, although again it seems more of a side-effect or means rather than a motive.
* Iraq was a threat to Israel: It is true that several of Bush's key advisors had close ties to the Likud Party. But again, the lack of immediate threat and the toothlessness of Sadaam's regime make any argument based on threat to seem unlikely.
* They wanted to control Middle East oil: There is no reason to worry about oil supplies anymore. Even Iran has never held back oil sales from whoever wants to buy it. There was a theory that the US needed to invade Iraq in order to build an oil pipeline, but it has been discredited. Instability of oil supply was more of a Cold War issue, and could resurface if the US starts a cold war with China, but it isn't an issue now.
* Saddam Hussein refused to allow WMD inspectors to work in Iraq: Not true. He was very cooperative and they were able to do a thorough job.
* Sadaam threatened the US or US interests: Just the opposite. Hussein was quite cordial towards the US. Sadaam even consulted the US amabassador to Iraq before invading Kuwait, and appeared to get the green light to go ahead with the plan. (This was revealed in the New Yorker shortly after the Gulf War.)
* They wanted to make the Bush oil industry and military contractor base rich: That seems to have been a motivation in the way the war was planned, but it's hard to believe that even this crew would go to war for that reason.
* They wanted to create a permanent military base in Iraq so troops could be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: It's true that the military presence in Saudi Arabia has caused some instability in the country, but the US could move more forces to Bahrain or Qatar.
* Humanitarian reasons: Bush? Ha, ha. Also, while I don't condone Sadaam in the least, the Americans have immensely overstated Sadaam's atrocities. The nerve gas deaths for which he was executed were part of the Iraq-Iran war. Most of the mass graves that have been found in Iraq were due to a 1993 uprising against him. Sadaam was no Pol Pot, not even a Milocevic.
To me, it just doesn't add up. You might say that it's difficult to see why anyone would start a war, but actually I can think of motivation for most wars, even if they're evil or irrational. You might also say that it's hard to see any reason for starting a war after it has been lost, and that might be my problem. Except I'm not sure that they ever cared about winning this war. More on that later.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Hey Ho The Witch is (Rumored To Be) (Almost) Dead
Rumors are starting to surface that US Vice President Dick Cheney may be about to resign. I know, it's unlikely, but consider this: he's unwell and he's implicated in a huge scandal to boot. (He escaped having to testify in Libby's trial, but there shouldn't be anyone left in the US who believes he didn't mastermind the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame for purposes of political revenge.) I imagine that both he and Bush want him to hang on till the bitter end, but hey, this just may be the bitter end. His latest health crisis may even be an orchestrated event to give him a way out.
In a spirit of optimism, I'll start writing Cheney's political obituary now.
It's startling how radically my view of Cheney has changed in the last few months.
When Cheney, as chair of the committee to find a Veep for presidential candidate George Bush, chose himself for the job, I started to think of Cheney as a foxy manipulator who was dominating the weaker Bush.
Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty, an authorized account of Paul O'Neill's experience as Treasury Secretary to Bush, seemed to bear this out. Suskind/O'Neill describe cabinet meetings in which cabinet ministers are given scripts by Cheney aides and allowed only to say only what is in the script, while Bush sits silently and Cheney appears in a TV screen at the end of the table, Big Brother directing the play.
By all reports, Cheney acted as no Veep has acted before, directing policy and telling the president what to do. Post-9/11, Cheney took to the bunker while (the presumably more expendable?) Bush stayed in the White House. Cheney's guy (Defence Secretary Rumsfeld) held the balance of power, while Bush's "guy" (NSA Director Condi Rice) was left struggling. Cheney directed Iraq policy, and the company Cheney used to run, Halliburton, just happened to cash in to the tune of billions because of the Iraq war. My image of Cheney was unscrupulous, arrogant and corrupt, but also brilliant and wily.
Then I read State of Denial by Bob Woodward. Woodward, arguably the best-informed objective analyst of the Bush White House, paints a very different picture of Cheney: in particular, as a man of mediocre intelligence and dubious judgement.
For example, Woodward shows Cheney during the first years of the Iraq war, sitting with aides for days on end reading raw intelligence data about weapons of mass destruction - and he has no idea how to read intelligence data, so wastes everyone's time with false emergencies. He calls the head of the weapons of mass destruction search in Iraq at 2 AM, insists someone wake the guy up, and tells him he must immediately follow up on a lead that everyone else knows is a hoax. At other time he gives the guy geographical coordinates which he says pinpoint an Iraqi weapons cache, but the location turns out to be 1,000 miles away in another country. Here we see Cheney the bumbler, with an arrogance that makes him think he can take on a specialized task and do it better than people trained to do it. And he's not just a bumbler, but a buffoon who is laughed at.
That he inspires fear seems to be the truth. Suskind ends The Price of Loyalty with a cryptic account of Cheney firing O'Neill and Bush seemingly trying ineffectually to override the decision. Suskind asks O'Neill why he is speaking out about the Bush administration. O'Neill says that most people simply cannot criticize the Bush administration because they will be destroyed. "These people are nasty, and they have a long memory... I'm an old guy, and I'm rich. And there's nothing they can do to hurt me." That turned out to be true for O'Neill, and not true for Valerie Plame.
###
In a spirit of optimism, I'll start writing Cheney's political obituary now.
It's startling how radically my view of Cheney has changed in the last few months.
When Cheney, as chair of the committee to find a Veep for presidential candidate George Bush, chose himself for the job, I started to think of Cheney as a foxy manipulator who was dominating the weaker Bush.
Ron Suskind's The Price of Loyalty, an authorized account of Paul O'Neill's experience as Treasury Secretary to Bush, seemed to bear this out. Suskind/O'Neill describe cabinet meetings in which cabinet ministers are given scripts by Cheney aides and allowed only to say only what is in the script, while Bush sits silently and Cheney appears in a TV screen at the end of the table, Big Brother directing the play.
By all reports, Cheney acted as no Veep has acted before, directing policy and telling the president what to do. Post-9/11, Cheney took to the bunker while (the presumably more expendable?) Bush stayed in the White House. Cheney's guy (Defence Secretary Rumsfeld) held the balance of power, while Bush's "guy" (NSA Director Condi Rice) was left struggling. Cheney directed Iraq policy, and the company Cheney used to run, Halliburton, just happened to cash in to the tune of billions because of the Iraq war. My image of Cheney was unscrupulous, arrogant and corrupt, but also brilliant and wily.
Then I read State of Denial by Bob Woodward. Woodward, arguably the best-informed objective analyst of the Bush White House, paints a very different picture of Cheney: in particular, as a man of mediocre intelligence and dubious judgement.
For example, Woodward shows Cheney during the first years of the Iraq war, sitting with aides for days on end reading raw intelligence data about weapons of mass destruction - and he has no idea how to read intelligence data, so wastes everyone's time with false emergencies. He calls the head of the weapons of mass destruction search in Iraq at 2 AM, insists someone wake the guy up, and tells him he must immediately follow up on a lead that everyone else knows is a hoax. At other time he gives the guy geographical coordinates which he says pinpoint an Iraqi weapons cache, but the location turns out to be 1,000 miles away in another country. Here we see Cheney the bumbler, with an arrogance that makes him think he can take on a specialized task and do it better than people trained to do it. And he's not just a bumbler, but a buffoon who is laughed at.
That he inspires fear seems to be the truth. Suskind ends The Price of Loyalty with a cryptic account of Cheney firing O'Neill and Bush seemingly trying ineffectually to override the decision. Suskind asks O'Neill why he is speaking out about the Bush administration. O'Neill says that most people simply cannot criticize the Bush administration because they will be destroyed. "These people are nasty, and they have a long memory... I'm an old guy, and I'm rich. And there's nothing they can do to hurt me." That turned out to be true for O'Neill, and not true for Valerie Plame.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Latest News from "Baghdad Burning"
The young woman blogger from Baghdad writes:
...and she continues.
###
End of Another Year...
You know your country is in trouble when:
1. The UN has to open a special branch just to keep track of the chaos and bloodshed, UNAMI.
2. Abovementioned branch cannot be run from your country.
3. The politicians who worked to put your country in this sorry state can no longer be found inside of, or anywhere near, its borders.
4. The only thing the US and Iran can agree about is the deteriorating state of your nation.
5. An 8-year war and 13-year blockade are looking like the country's 'Golden Years'.
6. Your country is purportedly 'selling' 2 million barrels of oil a day, but you are standing in line for 4 hours for black market gasoline for the generator.
7. For every 5 hours of no electricity, you get one hour of public electricity and then the government announces it's going to cut back on providing that hour.
8. Politicians who supported the war spend tv time debating whether it is 'sectarian bloodshed' or 'civil war'.
9. People consider themselves lucky if they can actually identify the corpse of the relative that's been missing for two weeks.
A day in the life of the average Iraqi has been reduced to identifying corpses, avoiding car bombs and attempting to keep track of which family members have been detained, which ones have been exiled and which ones have been abducted.
2006 has been, decidedly, the worst year yet. No- really. The magnitude of this war and occupation is only now hitting the country full force. It's like having a big piece of hard, dry earth you are determined to break apart. You drive in the first stake in the form of an infrastructure damaged with missiles and the newest in arms technology, the first cracks begin to form. Several smaller stakes come in the form of politicians like Chalabi, Al Hakim, Talbani, Pachachi, Allawi and Maliki. The cracks slowly begin to multiply and stretch across the once solid piece of earth, reaching out towards its edges like so many skeletal hands. And you apply pressure. You surround it from all sides and push and pull. Slowly, but surely, it begins coming apart- a chip here, a chunk there.
That is Iraq right now. The Americans have done a fine job of working to break it apart. This last year has nearly everyone convinced that that was the plan right from the start. There were too many blunders for them to actually have been, simply, blunders. The 'mistakes' were too catastrophic. The people the Bush administration chose to support and promote were openly and publicly terrible- from the conman and embezzler Chalabi, to the terrorist Jaffari, to the militia man Maliki. The decisions, like disbanding the Iraqi army, abolishing the original constitution, and allowing militias to take over Iraqi security were too damaging to be anything but intentional.
The question now is, but why? I really have been asking myself that these last few days. What does America possibly gain by damaging Iraq to this extent? I'm certain only raving idiots still believe this war and occupation were about WMD or an actual fear of Saddam.
Al Qaeda? That's laughable. Bush has effectively created more terrorists in Iraq these last 4 years than Osama could have created in 10 different terrorist camps in the distant hills of Afghanistan. Our children now play games of 'sniper' and 'jihadi', pretending that one hit an American soldier between the eyes and this one overturned a Humvee.
This last year especially has been a turning point. Nearly every Iraqi has lost so much. So much. There's no way to describe the loss we've experienced with this war and occupation. There are no words to relay the feelings that come with the knowledge that daily almost 40 corpses are found in different states of decay and mutilation. There is no compensation for the dense, black cloud of fear that hangs over the head of every Iraqi. Fear of things so out of ones hands, it borders on the ridiculous- like whether your name is 'too Sunni' or 'too Shia'. Fear of the larger things- like the Americans in the tank, the police patrolling your area in black bandanas and green banners, and the Iraqi soldiers wearing black masks at the checkpoint.
Again, I can't help but ask myself why this was all done? What was the point of breaking Iraq so that it was beyond repair? Iran seems to be the only gainer. Their presence in Iraq is so well-established, publicly criticizing a cleric or ayatollah verges on suicide. Has the situation gone so beyond America that it is now irretrievable? Or was this a part of the plan all along? My head aches just posing the questions.
...and she continues.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Killing the President
Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, overthrown by a foreign invasion, is to be executed within 30 days. I have so many types of objection to this that I almost feel unable to do more than sputter and wave my arms around in exasperated anguish. Of course I don't think he was a good man or the people's choice as president. But...
- People who support the death penalty like to think that executions are humane, but they're not. Even lethal injections, supposedly the most painless method, are currently banned in California and Florida because of recent executions where the administration of the drug went wrong. Saddam Hussein is to be killed by hanging. The US banned hanging years ago on the grounds that it is cruel and unusual punishment. I read an eye-witness account of the hanging of Nigerian poet Ken Saro-Wiwa. He didn't die and after leaving him to dangle for a while they tried dropping him again. They hanged him several times before they killed him, and he was conscious, in unbelievable agony, until he died.
- People who think Saddam's regime was unusual have no understanding of what's going on in the world. There are recent African rulers who ate their political enemies. There are scores of dictators running countries. Many countries don't have elections; many do but they're completely rigged. Sure, it's great to overthrow vicious dictators, but only when the populace and neighboring countries call for it - in this case, the Arab world formally condemned the invasion before it happened.
- The American press never seems to refer to Saddam Hussein as president - they call him the dictator. This sort of loaded language helps them justify what they're doing, I suppose. Oh and the Americans aren't executing him. Their puppet regime is. And it was a coincidence that the verdict was delivered two days before the US mid-term elections. A man is being killed in the Middle East for domestic political gain in the United States.
- The Iraqi blogger Baghdad Burning says, "When All Else Fails... … Execute the dictator. It’s that simple." She describes an unfair trial, an unfree press and a foreign occupation that has destroyed her country.
- I'm not a religious person, but I feel in my gut that death is just about the most important thing that happens to us, at least consciously (birth being something we don't experience in the same way), and we must help each other go through it with dignity. Capital punishment is the opposite of that. State executions are about the most barbaric thing that could be done to a person or to a society. It should never happen, no matter what crime a person has committed. Governments would do well to adopt the medical precept "First, do no harm."
- The US invasion and occupation, and now this barbaric murder, are worse than anything Saddam Hussein ever did. More Iraqis are dying under US tyranny than under Saddam's tyranny (and especially over the last ten years of his rule). And the slaughter continues - in fact, it's getting worse. The world needs an international court with the teeth to make the US pay for their murderous acts in Iraq. Everything about this is evil.
See also: Saddam: Hanged for the wrong reason
###
- People who support the death penalty like to think that executions are humane, but they're not. Even lethal injections, supposedly the most painless method, are currently banned in California and Florida because of recent executions where the administration of the drug went wrong. Saddam Hussein is to be killed by hanging. The US banned hanging years ago on the grounds that it is cruel and unusual punishment. I read an eye-witness account of the hanging of Nigerian poet Ken Saro-Wiwa. He didn't die and after leaving him to dangle for a while they tried dropping him again. They hanged him several times before they killed him, and he was conscious, in unbelievable agony, until he died.
- People who think Saddam's regime was unusual have no understanding of what's going on in the world. There are recent African rulers who ate their political enemies. There are scores of dictators running countries. Many countries don't have elections; many do but they're completely rigged. Sure, it's great to overthrow vicious dictators, but only when the populace and neighboring countries call for it - in this case, the Arab world formally condemned the invasion before it happened.
- The American press never seems to refer to Saddam Hussein as president - they call him the dictator. This sort of loaded language helps them justify what they're doing, I suppose. Oh and the Americans aren't executing him. Their puppet regime is. And it was a coincidence that the verdict was delivered two days before the US mid-term elections. A man is being killed in the Middle East for domestic political gain in the United States.
- The Iraqi blogger Baghdad Burning says, "When All Else Fails... … Execute the dictator. It’s that simple." She describes an unfair trial, an unfree press and a foreign occupation that has destroyed her country.
- I'm not a religious person, but I feel in my gut that death is just about the most important thing that happens to us, at least consciously (birth being something we don't experience in the same way), and we must help each other go through it with dignity. Capital punishment is the opposite of that. State executions are about the most barbaric thing that could be done to a person or to a society. It should never happen, no matter what crime a person has committed. Governments would do well to adopt the medical precept "First, do no harm."
- The US invasion and occupation, and now this barbaric murder, are worse than anything Saddam Hussein ever did. More Iraqis are dying under US tyranny than under Saddam's tyranny (and especially over the last ten years of his rule). And the slaughter continues - in fact, it's getting worse. The world needs an international court with the teeth to make the US pay for their murderous acts in Iraq. Everything about this is evil.
See also: Saddam: Hanged for the wrong reason
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
The Non-Military Solution
President Bush has convened a committee to try to figure out an exit strategy for Iraq. (Most people do this before invading, not three years later, but we'll leave that for now.) The options that the committee has reportedly come up with are: Go long, Go big, Go home.
First, a small point: this American political sloganeering that's become so popular under Bush is really counter-productive and they should cut it out. Everyday politics are being turned into an endless election campaign.
More importantly, if the committee sincerely wants to solve the mess caused by invading Iraq they need to think about Iraq, and not focus so completely on what is essentially a US domestic concern - how many troops will be there for how long. The timeline of military involvement is an implementation detail and a US election issue, not a solution to the mess caused by the US invasion.
These are the sorts of things they should be discussing:
Benchmarks for rebuilding Iraqi social infrastructure:
- electricity, petrol supply, potable water
- schools, hospitals, government facilities
- roads, public transport
- public security
Benchmarks for creating stability as a state:
- constitution, federal government
- local governments
- civil society (indigenous NGOs)
- free press
Benchmarks for repairing the economy:
- oil industry
- rebuilding small business
- unemployment, poverty
Righting the wrong that was done:
- deal with the issues above
- truth and reconciliation commission (see Exit Strategy) or at least congressional hearings into wrong-doing by US government
- commitment of funds to repair what the US blew up
- apologize!
I'm sure the Great Big Heads on the committee could fill out this list more comprehensively than I can. The point is that these are the sorts of thing they should be talking about.
As to a military timeline, I think the probable best course is to pull out US troops in short order, but to replace them all (at the US expense) with trainers, social workers, analysts, etc - as well as police and security forces - who are Iraqi ex-pats, Arabs, from the UN, or at least from countries that did not support the invasion.
When you hear the figures of 50,000 Iraqis killed directly as a result of the invasion vs 600,000 Iraqis having died who would not have died if not for the invasion, the difference is largely all the people who have died from disease and from lack of shelter, drinkable water, electricity, medical facilities, etc. The US bombed electrical plants and water treatment facilities in 2003. They could have repaired them very quickly. However, repair would have involved local workers. The US chose to hire American contractors to rebuild the facilities, and that meant years during which Iraqis suffered. This is the sort of problem they must reverse. It's the right thing to do, and it's the only way to avoid decades of anti-western revolt in the Arab world.
###
First, a small point: this American political sloganeering that's become so popular under Bush is really counter-productive and they should cut it out. Everyday politics are being turned into an endless election campaign.
More importantly, if the committee sincerely wants to solve the mess caused by invading Iraq they need to think about Iraq, and not focus so completely on what is essentially a US domestic concern - how many troops will be there for how long. The timeline of military involvement is an implementation detail and a US election issue, not a solution to the mess caused by the US invasion.
These are the sorts of things they should be discussing:
Benchmarks for rebuilding Iraqi social infrastructure:
- electricity, petrol supply, potable water
- schools, hospitals, government facilities
- roads, public transport
- public security
Benchmarks for creating stability as a state:
- constitution, federal government
- local governments
- civil society (indigenous NGOs)
- free press
Benchmarks for repairing the economy:
- oil industry
- rebuilding small business
- unemployment, poverty
Righting the wrong that was done:
- deal with the issues above
- truth and reconciliation commission (see Exit Strategy) or at least congressional hearings into wrong-doing by US government
- commitment of funds to repair what the US blew up
- apologize!
I'm sure the Great Big Heads on the committee could fill out this list more comprehensively than I can. The point is that these are the sorts of thing they should be talking about.
As to a military timeline, I think the probable best course is to pull out US troops in short order, but to replace them all (at the US expense) with trainers, social workers, analysts, etc - as well as police and security forces - who are Iraqi ex-pats, Arabs, from the UN, or at least from countries that did not support the invasion.
When you hear the figures of 50,000 Iraqis killed directly as a result of the invasion vs 600,000 Iraqis having died who would not have died if not for the invasion, the difference is largely all the people who have died from disease and from lack of shelter, drinkable water, electricity, medical facilities, etc. The US bombed electrical plants and water treatment facilities in 2003. They could have repaired them very quickly. However, repair would have involved local workers. The US chose to hire American contractors to rebuild the facilities, and that meant years during which Iraqis suffered. This is the sort of problem they must reverse. It's the right thing to do, and it's the only way to avoid decades of anti-western revolt in the Arab world.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Peace in Iraq
American Republicans are geniuses at using language to change reality, or at least the perception thereof. It may seem goofy that they all come out one week spouting the same phrase, but before you know it their spin has wormed its way into our consciousnesses and got us all thinking the way they want - at least for a couple of weeks until they've won the vote or the election or whatever.
The latest spin-lie has to do with peace in Iraq. The story is that we are trying to help the Iraqis achieve peace but they have to try too, and if they don't try hard enough then eventually we will have to stop helping them.
The lie in this is that the US created the mess, and the Iraqis are largely powerless to fix it.
Take for example the local militias. The US disbanded previous law enforcement and then used inadequate screening to select new forces, especially at the management level. The result is corrupt law enforcement that is run by local gangs who are terrorizing the population, demanding allegiance from citizens, stealing, and killing people.
Or the death squads in the Ministry of Interior. Or members of the Iraqi government, widely believed to be puppets of the US, who are corrupt, incompetent and in some cases extremists.
Another area where the US is responsible and is not stepping up to the plate is the destruction of infrastructure in Iraq. How are the Iraqi people supposed to get back to normal when their sources of electricity and water were bombed into oblivion in 2003? There also needs to be massive rebuilding of roads, bridges, and buildings.
Perhaps the US is not capable of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and helping them get back to pre-2003 prosperity. As Baghdad Burning says, "As long as foreign troops are in Iraq, resistance or 'insurgency' will continue" and there will be violent unrest. The US was able to start rebuilding in Japan immediately after the Japanese surrender in WWII, but in that case the US was not the bad guy. Now, most definitely, it is.
So maybe the US should pull out of Iraq, but only if it pledges the hundreds of billions of dollars it will take for other countries to fix the mess.
###
The latest spin-lie has to do with peace in Iraq. The story is that we are trying to help the Iraqis achieve peace but they have to try too, and if they don't try hard enough then eventually we will have to stop helping them.
The lie in this is that the US created the mess, and the Iraqis are largely powerless to fix it.
Take for example the local militias. The US disbanded previous law enforcement and then used inadequate screening to select new forces, especially at the management level. The result is corrupt law enforcement that is run by local gangs who are terrorizing the population, demanding allegiance from citizens, stealing, and killing people.
Or the death squads in the Ministry of Interior. Or members of the Iraqi government, widely believed to be puppets of the US, who are corrupt, incompetent and in some cases extremists.
Another area where the US is responsible and is not stepping up to the plate is the destruction of infrastructure in Iraq. How are the Iraqi people supposed to get back to normal when their sources of electricity and water were bombed into oblivion in 2003? There also needs to be massive rebuilding of roads, bridges, and buildings.
Perhaps the US is not capable of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure and helping them get back to pre-2003 prosperity. As Baghdad Burning says, "As long as foreign troops are in Iraq, resistance or 'insurgency' will continue" and there will be violent unrest. The US was able to start rebuilding in Japan immediately after the Japanese surrender in WWII, but in that case the US was not the bad guy. Now, most definitely, it is.
So maybe the US should pull out of Iraq, but only if it pledges the hundreds of billions of dollars it will take for other countries to fix the mess.
Friday, June 02, 2006
The Continuing Oppression of Iraqis
Baghdad Burning has another great post, this time about the rise of repressive fundamentalism during the US occupation (a story about a shop owner who loves football but was forced to take down his Brazilian flag by local clerics).
The first justification for the invasion didn't pan out (WMD).
The second justfication was to liberate the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator... but life is far worse for them under the US occupation.
I don't really have anything to add on the topic. I just feel that we have to all keep pressing the cause of the Iraqi people in the hopes that the US government will do right by them, or at least stop doing such terrible wrong.
###
The first justification for the invasion didn't pan out (WMD).
The second justfication was to liberate the Iraqi people from a brutal dictator... but life is far worse for them under the US occupation.
I don't really have anything to add on the topic. I just feel that we have to all keep pressing the cause of the Iraqi people in the hopes that the US government will do right by them, or at least stop doing such terrible wrong.
Friday, May 19, 2006
The Weird Wild World of Debt Relief
For over a decade there has been a powerful international movement to provide debt relief to developing countries. This movement included religious leaders, heads of state, rock stars, a large coalition of US conservative religious organizations, and on and on. They had votes in the US congress. They had money and power and visibility. They had a strong argument: debt repayments from the south to the north are crippling the south. And in many cases very poor countries were being forced to pay back loans that in the US or Canada a court would declare illegitimate - because it was money borrowed by individuals that the IMF or World Bank turned into public debt, or because the debt was acquired by an unelected dictator who no-one should have been loaning money to.
Despite having all this on their side, the debt relief movement didn't get very far. Oh, a little program called Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative was started in which the indebted poor countries had to jump through hoops for three to six years in order to get some help on their interest payments, but no serious successes were achieved.
Then the US invaded Iraq.
As the occupiers of Iraq, the US had to deal with Iraqi international debt, which amounted to a staggering $120 billion. Only $4B of this amount was debt held by the US; most of the rest was owed to France, Germany, Russia and some Arab countries. Notice that all of those countries opposed the US invasion of Iraq. The US tried to declare that the debt was, in legal terms, "odious" and so did not need to be repaid, but that ploy failed. The US then tried to get the international community to give debt relief to Iraq, but that too was not accepted. In particular, French President Jacques Chirac spoke out against the US plan and said that if Iraqi debt should be forgiven, then so should the debt of all poor countries. It's not clear at all that Chirac meant what he said, but Bush & Co. called his bluff and said Well okay then: let's have a widespread program of debt relief.
Bush & Co. didn't actually fall on their noggins and start caring about the poor and dying of the world. They wanted to clear the Iraqi debt, and they thought they could manipulate the situation so that they could achieve a dual goal of crippling the IMF and World Bank. So they proposed that the debt of some poor countries should be forgiven, and the entire cost of the operation should be borne by the IMF and World Bank.
They almost won. They got some of the Iraqi debt written off, and the $55 billion cost of the debt relief program is falling almost completely on the IMF (the World Bank escaped relatively unscathed). Eighteen other countries also got some relief, including Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
It isn't all champagne corks and car horns though. The countries still have to abide by IMF/World Bank restructuring conditions - reductions in infrastructure spending which have long been an impediment to their development. Also, in some cases the debt relief is matched by a reduction in future loans, which means some countries might not actually get anything out of it. It's possible that Tanzania might even lose funding from having its debt forgiven.
Still, it's an interesting insight into the self-interest that drives humanitarian achievements.
Despite having all this on their side, the debt relief movement didn't get very far. Oh, a little program called Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative was started in which the indebted poor countries had to jump through hoops for three to six years in order to get some help on their interest payments, but no serious successes were achieved.
Then the US invaded Iraq.
As the occupiers of Iraq, the US had to deal with Iraqi international debt, which amounted to a staggering $120 billion. Only $4B of this amount was debt held by the US; most of the rest was owed to France, Germany, Russia and some Arab countries. Notice that all of those countries opposed the US invasion of Iraq. The US tried to declare that the debt was, in legal terms, "odious" and so did not need to be repaid, but that ploy failed. The US then tried to get the international community to give debt relief to Iraq, but that too was not accepted. In particular, French President Jacques Chirac spoke out against the US plan and said that if Iraqi debt should be forgiven, then so should the debt of all poor countries. It's not clear at all that Chirac meant what he said, but Bush & Co. called his bluff and said Well okay then: let's have a widespread program of debt relief.
Bush & Co. didn't actually fall on their noggins and start caring about the poor and dying of the world. They wanted to clear the Iraqi debt, and they thought they could manipulate the situation so that they could achieve a dual goal of crippling the IMF and World Bank. So they proposed that the debt of some poor countries should be forgiven, and the entire cost of the operation should be borne by the IMF and World Bank.
They almost won. They got some of the Iraqi debt written off, and the $55 billion cost of the debt relief program is falling almost completely on the IMF (the World Bank escaped relatively unscathed). Eighteen other countries also got some relief, including Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guyana, Honduras, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
It isn't all champagne corks and car horns though. The countries still have to abide by IMF/World Bank restructuring conditions - reductions in infrastructure spending which have long been an impediment to their development. Also, in some cases the debt relief is matched by a reduction in future loans, which means some countries might not actually get anything out of it. It's possible that Tanzania might even lose funding from having its debt forgiven.
Still, it's an interesting insight into the self-interest that drives humanitarian achievements.
Saturday, April 01, 2006
Exit strategy
The mess in Iraq seems hopeless... another Vietnam, a cycle of death and destruction.
According to the Iraqi blogger Baghdad Burning, Iraqi TV is now broadcasting the following warning: “The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by American coalition forces working in that area.”
She adds, "They’ve been finding corpses all over Baghdad for weeks now---and it’s always the same: holes drilled in the head, multiple shots or strangulation, like the victims were hung. Execution, militia style. Many of the people were taken from their homes by security forces---police or special army brigades..."
The US can't just pull out and leave the country in this condition. But by remaining it is fomenting more rebellion and destruction. What's to do? I think it's up to all of us to put on our collective thinking hats and figure this out.
Here's a suggestion: Look to how South Africa survived after it ended apartheid. The US could hold Truth & Reconciliation hearings; apologize and make restitution to the Iraqi people; formulate principles on how the US should proceed responsibly as the world's sole superpower; and enact those principles in law.
###
According to the Iraqi blogger Baghdad Burning, Iraqi TV is now broadcasting the following warning: “The Ministry of Defense requests that civilians do not comply with the orders of the army or police on nightly patrols unless they are accompanied by American coalition forces working in that area.”
She adds, "They’ve been finding corpses all over Baghdad for weeks now---and it’s always the same: holes drilled in the head, multiple shots or strangulation, like the victims were hung. Execution, militia style. Many of the people were taken from their homes by security forces---police or special army brigades..."
The US can't just pull out and leave the country in this condition. But by remaining it is fomenting more rebellion and destruction. What's to do? I think it's up to all of us to put on our collective thinking hats and figure this out.
Here's a suggestion: Look to how South Africa survived after it ended apartheid. The US could hold Truth & Reconciliation hearings; apologize and make restitution to the Iraqi people; formulate principles on how the US should proceed responsibly as the world's sole superpower; and enact those principles in law.
Worries of Mass Dementia
Boffo set of articles by Murray Waas (link) about the Bush administration's knowledge of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before they invaded Iraq, and their cover-up since then.
One problem with all this: This was all out in the open before Bush invaded and occupied Iraq. Joe Wilson was not the lone whistle-blower. Chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix told us over and over that Sadaam Hussein had no WMD. UN chief nuclear inspector Mohamed El Baradei told us that there was no evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapons development program. The yellow-tail uranium story was debunked long before the invasion. Back in the period when Republicans were flooding the news networks with the catchy slogan that an invasion would be in "weeks, not months"---when Colin Powell made his allegations in the UN, when Bush laid out his rationale for war in his State of the Union address---it was clear (at least in the international press) that they were lying.
I recently watched the most brazen and bare-faced liar of our age, Condoleeza Rice, claim on the Sunday morning news shows that in 2002-3 everyone thought that Sadaam had WMD. It's infuriating to see the Republican smokescreen strategy work yet again, as we debate the details of why they should have known when the truth is that they did know, they lied, and they killed tens of thousands of people for no remotely justifiable reason.
And while I'm on the subject, one great big whopping US apology is still owed to the French.
###
One problem with all this: This was all out in the open before Bush invaded and occupied Iraq. Joe Wilson was not the lone whistle-blower. Chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix told us over and over that Sadaam Hussein had no WMD. UN chief nuclear inspector Mohamed El Baradei told us that there was no evidence Iraq had a nuclear weapons development program. The yellow-tail uranium story was debunked long before the invasion. Back in the period when Republicans were flooding the news networks with the catchy slogan that an invasion would be in "weeks, not months"---when Colin Powell made his allegations in the UN, when Bush laid out his rationale for war in his State of the Union address---it was clear (at least in the international press) that they were lying.
I recently watched the most brazen and bare-faced liar of our age, Condoleeza Rice, claim on the Sunday morning news shows that in 2002-3 everyone thought that Sadaam had WMD. It's infuriating to see the Republican smokescreen strategy work yet again, as we debate the details of why they should have known when the truth is that they did know, they lied, and they killed tens of thousands of people for no remotely justifiable reason.
And while I'm on the subject, one great big whopping US apology is still owed to the French.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Clash of Civilizations
It's so easy to get mesmerized by the invasion of Iraq and general strong-arm tactics of the US that I sometimes forget that this may not be the main front in the evolution of Arab-Western relations.
In my previous blog The Burqa, I detailed some of the upheaval in northern European countries surrounding tension between Islamic and non-Islamic communities. The Dutch, Danish, and others are having some tough times. Politicians have been murdered. Some laws that address the tensions seem to go too far.
We may be lucky that these tensions are coming to a head in northern Europe, which has long had a reputation as the most tolerant and progressive place in the world. My guess is that they'll work it out, tensions will subside, their societies will be better off for it, and they will provide a model for the rest of the world to follow.
After all, our society is firmly committed to multiculturalism. All kinds of disparate groups co-exist in Canadian society who don't assimilate, such as Old Order Mennonites, new age religious cultists and native Indians. I don't see why the most traditional, fundamentalist Muslims shouldn't be able to maintain their faith and co-exist just as well.
There have had to be some compromises. After losing a 10 year legal battle, Old Order Mennonites were forced to install electricity to refrigerate milk in their dairy barns, and they have to put orange triangles on the back of their horse-drawn buggies. So far Ontario has rejected Sharia law (though narrowly) and polygamy.
But consider the case of 81-year old Doukhobor Mary Braun, who burned down a British Columbia school in 2001 and refused to wear clothing at her trial. There were no major outcries against her anarchist-arsonist-nudist sect. In fact, there was a great deal of unsolicited support.
Prior to 9/11 I wouldn't have worried so much about the future of Muslim/non-Muslim relations in the West. It's a tense time all around, but I'm starting to feel that the western intolerance may be temporary.
I'm not quite as sure about Muslim intolerance, but then I know a lot less. Two recent columns in Al Jazeera (link and link) make me a bit worried.
But we have to distinguish between issues in Arab countries and issues in western countries. For example, I'm appalled at calls to execute Abdul Rahm for converting to Christianity, and we should speak out against it: but that is the internal business of the Afghans. However, the murder of Pim Fortuyn is very much the business of Holland because he was a Dutch politician killed in Holland. Similarly, we have to be careful not to conflate Muslims in Pakistan who riot to protest Danish cartoons with Muslims in Toronto who have orderly protests.
There is a movement for reform in the Arab world. This special section in Al Jazeera pulls together a number of discussions about ways to reform Arab states and even Islam.
Of course, outside of domestic issues, the two big problems in Western-Arab relations are Israel and the US, and I don't know if there's any reason to feel that there's hope on those fronts.
I'm not sure how much Israeli/Arab peace is up to the Israelis. They have to protect themselves from the stated goal of genocide by their neighbors. While they have made some missteps in the peace process, they seem to have made a legitimate effort time and time again that was rebuffed. I don't think the situation can improve until the Palestinians want it to.
The US is a very different problem. I wouldn't be surprised if members of the current administration are prosecuted for war crimes one day, but their disastrous middle east policies could turn on a dime in the next election. However, the US practice of "spreading democracy" around the world, which also means spreading US business interests, is deeply entrenched and may not be called off so easily. Anyone around the world who has the strength to push back is going to want to do it, and that doesn't bode well for the world.
###
In my previous blog The Burqa, I detailed some of the upheaval in northern European countries surrounding tension between Islamic and non-Islamic communities. The Dutch, Danish, and others are having some tough times. Politicians have been murdered. Some laws that address the tensions seem to go too far.
We may be lucky that these tensions are coming to a head in northern Europe, which has long had a reputation as the most tolerant and progressive place in the world. My guess is that they'll work it out, tensions will subside, their societies will be better off for it, and they will provide a model for the rest of the world to follow.
After all, our society is firmly committed to multiculturalism. All kinds of disparate groups co-exist in Canadian society who don't assimilate, such as Old Order Mennonites, new age religious cultists and native Indians. I don't see why the most traditional, fundamentalist Muslims shouldn't be able to maintain their faith and co-exist just as well.
There have had to be some compromises. After losing a 10 year legal battle, Old Order Mennonites were forced to install electricity to refrigerate milk in their dairy barns, and they have to put orange triangles on the back of their horse-drawn buggies. So far Ontario has rejected Sharia law (though narrowly) and polygamy.
But consider the case of 81-year old Doukhobor Mary Braun, who burned down a British Columbia school in 2001 and refused to wear clothing at her trial. There were no major outcries against her anarchist-arsonist-nudist sect. In fact, there was a great deal of unsolicited support.
Prior to 9/11 I wouldn't have worried so much about the future of Muslim/non-Muslim relations in the West. It's a tense time all around, but I'm starting to feel that the western intolerance may be temporary.
I'm not quite as sure about Muslim intolerance, but then I know a lot less. Two recent columns in Al Jazeera (link and link) make me a bit worried.
But we have to distinguish between issues in Arab countries and issues in western countries. For example, I'm appalled at calls to execute Abdul Rahm for converting to Christianity, and we should speak out against it: but that is the internal business of the Afghans. However, the murder of Pim Fortuyn is very much the business of Holland because he was a Dutch politician killed in Holland. Similarly, we have to be careful not to conflate Muslims in Pakistan who riot to protest Danish cartoons with Muslims in Toronto who have orderly protests.
There is a movement for reform in the Arab world. This special section in Al Jazeera pulls together a number of discussions about ways to reform Arab states and even Islam.
Of course, outside of domestic issues, the two big problems in Western-Arab relations are Israel and the US, and I don't know if there's any reason to feel that there's hope on those fronts.
I'm not sure how much Israeli/Arab peace is up to the Israelis. They have to protect themselves from the stated goal of genocide by their neighbors. While they have made some missteps in the peace process, they seem to have made a legitimate effort time and time again that was rebuffed. I don't think the situation can improve until the Palestinians want it to.
The US is a very different problem. I wouldn't be surprised if members of the current administration are prosecuted for war crimes one day, but their disastrous middle east policies could turn on a dime in the next election. However, the US practice of "spreading democracy" around the world, which also means spreading US business interests, is deeply entrenched and may not be called off so easily. Anyone around the world who has the strength to push back is going to want to do it, and that doesn't bode well for the world.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Rant
There was a pretty good editorial cartoon in the Washington Post recently in which a guy is sitting at a bar reading a newspaper. He says to the guy next to him, "It says here that Canada just elected a leader who's friendly to the US and they aren't mad at us anymore." The other guy, looking bored, responds, "Canada was mad at us?"
That reminds me, thinking of national bouts of anger, how mad the US got at Canada and France when they refused to help invade Iraq. The backlash was incredible, not just from the US government, but also from individual US citizens, who in some cases even refused to sell goods to citizens of the upstart nations. What drives that sort of anger? Do those people (some of whom, based on polls, must have changed their minds about the decision to invade Iraq), feel at all contrite about how they treated their allies? Or is lack of loyalty to the imperial power their real complaint?
But getting back to people being angry at the US, it doesn't seem unrealistic to say that most of the world is pretty pissed off at Americans these days. It isn't just the Bush White House that's the focus of ire. After all the disgusting things he did, Americans elected him in 2004. It's pretty hard to forgive that. Given all the dead or tortured Iraqi civilians, the lies about WMD, the undermining of the United Nations, the bullying of other countries, the heavy-handed trade practices---all of which was known before the 2004 elections---it's really hard not to conclude that the majority of Americans are bad people. That's where world opinion seems to be at.
So if mild-mannered, polite-to-a-fault Canadians are mad at the US, what of the Arab world, or Central America, or the Far East? Okay, I have read a few too many sci-fi novels in which the US is at war with the UN. But trust once lost is hard to regain. When nations don't trust the US, there are repercussions in terms of who they elect, what policies they support, and what countries they want to ally with. This doesn't seem to have any good result, especially for Americans.
###
That reminds me, thinking of national bouts of anger, how mad the US got at Canada and France when they refused to help invade Iraq. The backlash was incredible, not just from the US government, but also from individual US citizens, who in some cases even refused to sell goods to citizens of the upstart nations. What drives that sort of anger? Do those people (some of whom, based on polls, must have changed their minds about the decision to invade Iraq), feel at all contrite about how they treated their allies? Or is lack of loyalty to the imperial power their real complaint?
But getting back to people being angry at the US, it doesn't seem unrealistic to say that most of the world is pretty pissed off at Americans these days. It isn't just the Bush White House that's the focus of ire. After all the disgusting things he did, Americans elected him in 2004. It's pretty hard to forgive that. Given all the dead or tortured Iraqi civilians, the lies about WMD, the undermining of the United Nations, the bullying of other countries, the heavy-handed trade practices---all of which was known before the 2004 elections---it's really hard not to conclude that the majority of Americans are bad people. That's where world opinion seems to be at.
So if mild-mannered, polite-to-a-fault Canadians are mad at the US, what of the Arab world, or Central America, or the Far East? Okay, I have read a few too many sci-fi novels in which the US is at war with the UN. But trust once lost is hard to regain. When nations don't trust the US, there are repercussions in terms of who they elect, what policies they support, and what countries they want to ally with. This doesn't seem to have any good result, especially for Americans.
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