The American three-legged race to get the collapsing “coalition of the willing” to the finish line of an Iraqi war would be humorous if the finish line weren’t such a disastrously serious place. The Turks, it seems, have yet to grant the American military not only invasion rights, but air base and air rights as well. (Do I hear aid money or permission for the Turkish army to enter Northern Iraq anyone?)
In the meantime, this administration’s top-of-the-line tin-eared “diplomat,” Donald Rumsfeld, running much of American foreign policy on a military-to-military basis from the Pentagon, managed to cause “consternation” in Tony Blair-land (already facing the threat of more cabinet defections), with comments at a press conference in which, for the first time, he questioned Britain’s role in the war and indicated that the United States would be willing to go it alone.
Rumsfeld said, in part, “”What will ultimately be decided is unclear as to their [Britain’s] role in the event that a decision is made to use force….Until we know what the resolution is, we won’t know what their role will be and the extent they’ll be able to participate.”
The Independent reports,
“Such was the consternation caused in Whitehall by the remarks, that Mr Rumsfeld’s office later issued a written statement of clarification saying his main point had been that obtaining a second resolution ‘is important to the United Kingdom’ and that both countries were working to achieve it. ‘In the event that a decision to use force is made, we have every reason to believe there will be a significant military contribution from the United Kingdom,’ his statement said.”
The Washington Post today in the penultimate paragraph — oh, those final paragraphs of news stories in the imperial press — of a piece entitled, Bush Lobbies for Deal on Iraq offered this:
“British officials also expressed fresh concern that failure to obtain a resolution authorizing war against Iraq would expose them to potential prosecution by a newly established International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over war crimes. Britain is a signatory to the treaty establishing the tribunal, but the United States is not. Blair was advised by his attorney general last October that military action to force “regime change” in Baghdad would violate international law.”
The Washington Post today in the penultimate paragraph — oh, those final paragraphs of news stories in the imperial press — of a piece entitled, Bush Lobbies for Deal on Iraq offered this:
“British officials also expressed fresh concern that failure to obtain a resolution authorizing war against Iraq would expose them to potential prosecution by a newly established International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over war crimes. Britain is a signatory to the treaty establishing the tribunal, but the United States is not. Blair was advised by his attorney general last October that military action to force “regime change” in Baghdad would violate international law.”
Before we’re done, the administration’s coalition of the willing may consist of a small group of semi-occupied Arab states and sheikdoms and two eager countries, as Paul Richter of the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday, Bulgaria and Rumania:
“From Paris and Berlin, the U.S. troops flowing toward the Persian Gulf these days look like the menacing might of an overbearing superpower. From Sofia and Bucharest, they look like the business opportunity of a lifetime….For Romania and Bulgaria — among the slowest Eastern European nations to recover from their Communist past — the opportunity offered by the war came not a moment too soon. They missed out in the early 1990s when a post-communism economic surge began a revival in other former Warsaw Pact countries, such as Poland and Hungary.”
As many now know, a new poll in the New York Times (Growing Number in U.S. Back War, New Survey Finds) indicates that, unlike the British and much of the rest of the world, “Americans are growing impatient with the United Nations and say they would support military action against Iraq even if the Security Council refuses to support an invasion….And for all the signs of dissent and protest around the nation, it would appear that support for war is on the rise.” This poll was begun the day after Bush’s press conference and after months of endless TV and press attacks on the UN, on the French (and Germans), on European opposition in general, on the “intransigent” Turks and so on.
The assault on the UN has been merciless. And example A of the sort of thing that passes for reporting in our press (TV and radio are largely beyond the pale) was an article by David E. Sanger (of the “intransigent” Turks comment) positioned right next to the front-page polling piece,U.S. Says U.N. Could Repeat Errors of 90’s. The lead paragraph began thusly:
“The White House declared today that the United Nations Security Council’s failure to act against Iraq would not only compound mistakes it made in the 1990’s but would also encourage North Korea and Iran as they race to build nuclear arsenals.”
It’s, of course, a joke to blame the North Korean race to build a nuclear arsenal on the UN when that “race” was a clear response to being categorized as part of the Axis of Evil and so being publicly placed second or third in line for dismemberment. The statement is, however, presented without further comment, no less contradiction of any sort. Here are a few other gems. “‘If the United Nations fails to act that means the United Nations will not be the international body that disarms Saddam Hussein,’ [Press Secretary Ari Fleischer] said. ‘Another International body will disarm Saddam Hussein… There are many ways to form international coalitions… The United Nations Security council is but one of them.’
You may wonder how this sort of thing can be reported with a straight face. Fleischer undoubtedly means an international “body” of one standing over a corpse. Or how about the article’s statement that the President wants the “moral authority” of a majority vote in the Security Council, “even if that vote were to be formally [my italics] overturned by a French or Russian veto.” I’m willing to bet you could search the annals of New York Times UN coverage in vain for a similar description of majoritarian “moral authority” in a case where a majority in the Council voted for something and the U.S. vetoed it.
And let’s remember the Times reporting is the mild version of this stuff. I consider it a miracle that an antiwar movement, still a minority movement, has grown as fast as and sunk its root as deep as it has in this country. Let’s remember, after all, that we’re in the heart of what may be the Earth’s last empire, the globe’s sole “hyperpower,” as is said again and again.
Here’s a note I received from a reader in Alaska that catches both sides of this:
“A couple more points of light — Saturday there was a peace march in Barrow. Look at your map and be amazed. The ladies called the borough government to get a parade permit and were told, thanks for calling but it wasn’t necessary. Nobody in Barrow had ever thought about doing such a thing before. And it is worth noting that Kraft and Procter and Gamble have both pulled sponsorship of hate radio host Michael Savage. Last night I listened to him call war protesters ‘communists’ repeatedly, and then step over the line. He said ‘Is it time for Americans to act themselves to get the garbage off the streets, if the police won’t do the job?'”
Protests in Barrow and Michael Savage, there you have it. Below are three strong columns — George Monbiot of the Guardian on American global policies as “planet-building,” not nation-building; James Carroll of the Boston Globe on the attractions of war for both warriors and anti-warriors, a sad reality that must be grasped; and finally Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times on our war plans as war crimes. Strong, eloquent columns all — if only they offset the flow of words in this country. Tom
A willful blindness
Why can’t liberal interventionists see that Iraq is part of a bid to cement US global power?
By George Monbiot
The Guardian
March 11, 2003The war in Afghanistan has plainly brought certain benefits to that country: thousands of girls have gone to school for the first time, for example, and in some parts of the country women have been able to go back to work. While more than 3,000 civilians were killed by the bombing, while much of the country is still controlled by predatory warlords, while most of the promised assistance has not materialised, while torture is widespread and women are still beaten in the streets, it would be wrong to minimise gains that have flowed from the defeat of the Taliban. But, and I realise that it might sound callous to say it, this does not mean that the Afghan war was a good thing.
To read more Monbiot click here
War’s power of attraction
By James Carroll
The Boston Globe
March 3, 2003Until the war begins, one must insist that it is not inevitable. The conventional wisdom is that the United States, having already deployed its massive fighting force, cannot back down from the assault against Iraq without humiliation — and a grievous loss of ”credibility.” But that ”wisdom” fails to take into account the most basic fact of military strategy. ”Violence is most purposive and most successful,” the theorist Thomas C. Schelling wrote, ”when it is threatened and not used. Successful threats are those that do not have to be carried out.” The Bush administration seems confused about this, as if the movement from threat to action is inexorable. Why else would Washington manifest such consistent indifference to the obvious success its threats have been having with Saddam Hussein? The tyrant has steadily bent to Washington’s will and shows every sign, despite his bluster, of continuing to do so.
To read more Carroll click here
When Bombs Fall, U.S. Will Join Ranks of War Criminals
By Robert Scheer
The Los Angeles Times
March 11, 2003The maiming or killing of a single Iraqi civilian in an attack by the United States would constitute a war crime, as well as a profound violation of the Christian notion of just war. That is because the recent report of the U.N. inspectors has made indelibly clear that disarmament is working and that Iraq at this time poses no direct threat to the well-being of the American people.
Of course, we are not talking about one or two casualties. In seriously considering such war strategies as bringing a city- destroying firestorm down upon a population half made up of children, the U.S. is planning to disarm a nation of its weapons of mass destruction by using weapons that cause mass destruction.