A trio of post-state of the union pieces: Paul Rogers of England’s openDemocracy website, as ever, well-informed and sober, picks up on the Iranian part of the President’s speech, which went almost unnoticed upon here. A “cakewalk” in Iraq (as our leaders seem to expect) could indeed lead an emboldened administration to take out after Axis of Evil target #2, neighboring Iran.
Rogers offers most clear-eyed assessment I’ve seen of the nature of any American plan for post-invasion, occupied Iraq. He doesn’t tarry on the American urge to bring democracy to the natives (without, of course, elections which might just lead to the sort of popular government that would negate the very point of the war just fought). Instead, he suggests that occupation will mean three or four giant American bases installed in perpetuity and a region sorted out by the Americans, Israel, and various client elites into an oil settlement that will keep SUVs humming until the last glaciers melt.
(By the way, let’s not think that, just because the president has dropped the term “axis of evil” for the moment, the third of the trio has actually been dropped as a target. In the January 21st issue of the New Yorker, reporter Seymour Hersh ended “The Cold Test,” a long piece on the administration, the North Korean nuclear program and the Pakistani connection with the following disquieting paragraph:
“One American intelligence official who has attended recent White House meetings cautioned against relying on the day-to-day Administration statements that emphasize a quick settlement of the dispute. The public talk of compromise is being matched by much private talk of high-level vindication. ‘Bush and Cheney want that guy’s head’ — Kim Jong Il’s — ‘on a platter. Don’t be distracted by all this talk about negotiations. There will be negotiations, but they have a plan, and they are going to get this guy after Iraq. He’s their version of Hitler.'”
To read more Hersh click here )
Jay Bookman, columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, points to a crucial “imagine” in our president’s speech, an “imagine” on which a war is to be built. As he says, “A world in which people launch wars based on such far-fetched fears of each other would soon be little more than a smoking ruin.” My fear exactly. And Ruth Rosen of the San Francisco Chronicle carefully demolishes a triad, though not quite an axis, of arguments underpinning the Bush case for war.
By the way, it’s worth taking a look at another openDemocracy piece, Todd Gitlin’s “With God on our Side: reading the State of the Union,” which highlights the messianism in the speech and adds this point:
To read more Hersh click here )
Jay Bookman, columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, points to a crucial “imagine” in our president’s speech, an “imagine” on which a war is to be built. As he says, “A world in which people launch wars based on such far-fetched fears of each other would soon be little more than a smoking ruin.” My fear exactly. And Ruth Rosen of the San Francisco Chronicle carefully demolishes a triad, though not quite an axis, of arguments underpinning the Bush case for war.
By the way, it’s worth taking a look at another openDemocracy piece, Todd Gitlin’s “With God on our Side: reading the State of the Union,” which highlights the messianism in the speech and adds this point:
“Along the way, Bush asks a question and neglects a plausible answer: ‘Year after year,’ he said, ‘Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why? The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate, or attack.’ Deterrence is the other, most plausible answer. How quickly they forget the theory of deterrence when it is somebody else doing the deterring! Messianism wants to short-circuit deterrence. Messianism makes right.”
To read more Gitlin click here
Finally, the upcoming Progressive magazine has a long piece on Bush’s “military messianism,” his combination of crusaderdom, fundamentalism, and the imperial which is well worth reading. To read this Progressive piece click here Tom
Iran: the next target?
By Paul Rogers
openDemocracy.net
January 30, 2003President Bush’s State of the Union address comes as near to a declaration of war on Iraq as is possible without the guns beginning to fire. It rehearsed all of the reasons for an attack relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, made no mention of oil, and made it clear that the US was prepared to go to war with minimal international support if need be.
The speech was significant for two other reasons, involving the ‘war on terror’ and Iran, respectively. First is George Bush’s affirmation that there are direct and compelling links between the Saddam Hussein regime and al-Qaida, with evidence on this promised in the next few days.
To read more Rogers click here
Are we willing to force a war? I can’t imagine
By Jay Bookman
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
January 30, 2003In his speech Tuesday night, President Bush laid out compelling and perhaps even irrefutable proof that Saddam Hussein continues to defy the United Nations and continues to conceal weapons of mass destruction.
As the president knows, though, that alone does not warrant war. The only justification for an invasion likely to end in the deaths of thousands — or even tens of thousands — of people, many of them innocent women and children, would be self-defense.
And when the president again attempted to make that case Tuesday night, he again faltered.
“Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans — this time armed by Saddam,” the president told the American people. “It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.
Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Thursdays.
To read more Bookman click here
Why Iraq?
By Ruth Rosen
January 30, 2003
San Francisco ChroniclePRESIDENT BUSH has offered three reasons why the United States should launch a pre-emptive attack against Iraq. But on close inspection, they just don’t hold up. Take a look.
Saddam Hussein is our greatest threat: Daniel Ellsberg, the career Pentagon official who released the Pentagon Papers in 1971, is an expert on government secrecy. His new book, “Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers” recounts the government deception that kept the American people from knowing the truth about the Vietnam War.
In the current issue of the trade magazine Editor and Publisher, Ellsberg now says that “this government, like in Vietnam, is lying us into a war. Like Vietnam, it’s a reckless unnecessary war, where the risks greatly outweigh any possible benefits.”