Eric Margolis, veteran reporter of the Middle East and Central Asia (in the era of Soviet occupation of and defeat in Afghanistan), now columnist for the Toronto Sun, offers a stunning piece on the political disarray in the Arab world in the face of the world’s only hyperpower. It is as vivid a description of, as he says, a “nadir” moment as you could ask for. He manages as well to suggest a whole series of inventive ways in which Arab countries could have resisted (but won’t), a devastating war and occupation in the neighborhood. It made me think that if one man can come up with so many alternatives, had we in this country put half the energy that’s gone into war preparations into any kind of creative thinking about more peaceful ways to organize the world, Saddam would have been long gone.
The New York Times today offers the Nth leaked, bona fide, certified Pentagon “war plan” (all somewhat different), this time including plans for the unleashing of 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles within 48 hours of war’s beginning. (Other reports have spoken of 800 cruise missiles in those two days.) With it, the Times included an impressive map of “The Forces in Place to Strike,” and under the rubric “Dark of Night,” the phase of the moon for each day from February 16th to March 17th. The darkest of moonlit nights, for those checking off their calendars, fall right at the beginning of March. To read the Times piece click here, though the graphics are nowhere obvious in sight on-line.
Veteran Village Voice columnist Jim Ridgeway, as quoted recently by Danny Schecter (“the news dissector” of the Mediachannel.org website), has written:
“As President Bush was putting the finishing touches on his State of the Union address, the Pentagon top brass were talking about ‘A-Day,’ short for ‘Air Strikes Day.’ ‘On A-Day the air force and navy will launch 300 to 400 cruise missiles at
targets in Iraq, CBS reported Saturday. That’s more missiles than were
launched during the entire 40-day Persian Gulf war of 1991.“‘Then, on A-Day plus one, they’ll bombard Iraq with 400 more missiles.
‘There will not be a safe place in Baghdad,’ one Pentagon official told CBS…“They won’t admit it, but this is another horrible policy shift. This is what
Hitler did to London in World War II. What Bush proposes is not collateral
damage, but a level of civilian destruction not seen since the Second World
War, with tens of thousands of intended civilian casualties.”
In any case, the Times map, moon chart, and other graphics reminded me somehow of a board game of war. So I thought I might include a piece from the Insight section of today’s San Francisco Chronicle by Bob Ecker that compares our leaders’ plans to the board game Risk, which all of them undoubtedly played growing up. The important point to remember here is that never in our lifetimes (the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan included) have we had an administration so willing to roll the dice, so willing to gamble everything on an imperial facelift for planet Earth.
“‘Then, on A-Day plus one, they’ll bombard Iraq with 400 more missiles.
‘There will not be a safe place in Baghdad,’ one Pentagon official told CBS…
“They won’t admit it, but this is another horrible policy shift. This is what
Hitler did to London in World War II. What Bush proposes is not collateral
damage, but a level of civilian destruction not seen since the Second World
War, with tens of thousands of intended civilian casualties.”
In any case, the Times map, moon chart, and other graphics reminded me somehow of a board game of war. So I thought I might include a piece from the Insight section of today’s San Francisco Chronicle by Bob Ecker that compares our leaders’ plans to the board game Risk, which all of them undoubtedly played growing up. The important point to remember here is that never in our lifetimes (the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan included) have we had an administration so willing to roll the dice, so willing to gamble everything on an imperial facelift for planet Earth.
For those, by the way, who want a dose of realism — or a gauge of how effective the president’s state of the union speech was — should check out a new poll in the Washington Post today to read click here that shows over 50% of Americans now willing to have us go into Iraq without UN sanction. I suspect our leaders can recognize a brief window of opportunity when they see it. I expect them to take the gamble. Tom
Saddam’s Arab “brothers” desert Iraq
Eric Margolis, contributing foreign editor
The Toronto Sun
February 2, 2003Never has the old maxim “hang together or be hanged separately” been more fitting than for the Arab states now quailing before U.S. President George W. Bush’s evangelical crusade against Iraq.
The Arab world’s startling weakness and subservience to the West has never been more evident than in its open or discreet co-operation with Bush’s plans to invade “brother” Iraq. Though 99.99% of Arabs bitterly oppose an American-British attack on Iraq, their authoritarian regimes, which rely on the U.S. for protection from their own people and their neighbours, are quietly digging Iraq’s grave.
Every Arab leader knows the U.S. will crush Iraq, so none will support unloved megalomaniac Saddam Hussein and risk ending up on Washington’s hit list.
To read more Margolis click here
Playing for time
Risky business: The game of war
By Bob Ecker
The San Francisco Chronicle
February 2, 2003“Today, the Middle East, tomorrow the world . . . ”
A simple way to view today’s U.S. military and foreign policy involves pulling out a Risk board and taking a sober look at the world. That’s right, the clever board game, invented in 1959 by Parker Brothers in the middle of the Cold War, is clearly a model that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others in the administration are using as a blueprint. Absolute hegemony, the point of Risk, is a lesson that seems to have been eagerly taken to heart by our leaders.
Risk is a game of world conquest played over a map of the world divided into 42 territories, which may or may not include actual countries.
“Our” game pieces are based in North America, but also scattered around the world.