[A note from Tom: I just want you to be aware that the Tomdispatch weblog is becoming ever user-friendlier. If you check to your right on the main screen, you’ll find, from top to bottom, a blank window into which you can (and, I hope, will) urge friends to put their email addresses and begin to receive these dispatches. Soon, I’m promised by those who are actually capable of enhancing this site — I’m merely a puppet in these matters — you’ll also be able to email dispatches you like to friends. Just below the e-address window, you’ll find a little information about me and the clickable title of my book, The End of Victory Culture, which you can view at Amazon. You might find it a useful resource in this renewed age of American triumphalism. Below that are “older posts,” where my dispatches are archived, arranged by month. Below that, as of today, are links to some of the sites I find particularly useful and visit every day. I’ll be adding on to these from time to time.]
There’s no way to keep up with the flow (flood?) of global events — the push-pull of a war the Bush administration is desperate to have and that much of the rest of the world is desperate to avoid. You can feel the frustration building in Washington. Only today, the done-deal in Turkey — reportedly done and done again in these last weeks — threatened to unravel as the Turkish parliament put off until the weekend a debate and vote that would grant Washington permission to land 60,000 troops in Turkey to invade Iraq. And yet, at least the equipment for those troops is evidently already being surreptitiously landed at the port of Iskenderun with the support of the Turkish military.
In turn, according to the BBC news, the Turks are threatening to send up to 80,000 of their own troops into the Kurdish areas of Northern Iraq when we invade, and the Kurds are insisting vociferously that it must not happen. Who knows who could be shooting at whom by the time all this unravels.
Only a hop, skip and a ferry ride away in Greece, in a rare act of professional courage, a career diplomat, John Brady Kiesling resigned as political counselor at the American embassy in Athens, writing in a resignation letter, “Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America’s most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson.” He’s also quoted in the New York Times as saying, “No one has any illusions that the policy will be changed. Too much has been invested in the war.” And that’s just one small corner of a disturbed world not yet quite at war.
In the UN, the U.S. and Britain have put forth a new resolution which, from first sentence to last, is literally impossible for an outsider to parse. It might as easily be calling for a landing on Mars or the opening of the last Alaskan oil fields as war in Iraq. The Germans, Russian, and French have responded with a counter-resolution of their own strengthening the inspection process.
Theirs makes reasonable sense to the uninitiated reader. Think about what can be read into that. Both documents can be found at the Global Beat website.
As the staggering size of the worldwide demonstrations forced the story of global popular opposition to war into the American mainstream media, so the remarkably public bargaining process between the Bush administration and the Turkish government for so many billions of dollars has finally begun to bring to the surface here how the earth’s sole imperial power musters a “coalition of the willing” and attempts to win votes at the UN. The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington has just released a study on the subject, Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced?. As Phyllis Bennis, one of its authors, comments, “It’s hardly a new phenomenon for the U.S. to use bribes and threats to get its way in the UN. What’s new this time around is the breathtaking scale of those pressures — because this time around, global public opinion has weighed in, and every government leaning Washington’s way faces massive opposition at home. The study’s major findings are:
“Although the Bush Administration claims that the anonymous ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is the basis of genuine multilateralism, the report shows that most were recruited through coercion, bullying, and bribery.
As the staggering size of the worldwide demonstrations forced the story of global popular opposition to war into the American mainstream media, so the remarkably public bargaining process between the Bush administration and the Turkish government for so many billions of dollars has finally begun to bring to the surface here how the earth’s sole imperial power musters a “coalition of the willing” and attempts to win votes at the UN. The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington has just released a study on the subject, Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced?. As Phyllis Bennis, one of its authors, comments, “It’s hardly a new phenomenon for the U.S. to use bribes and threats to get its way in the UN. What’s new this time around is the breathtaking scale of those pressures — because this time around, global public opinion has weighed in, and every government leaning Washington’s way faces massive opposition at home. The study’s major findings are:
“Although the Bush Administration claims that the anonymous ‘Coalition of the Willing’ is the basis of genuine multilateralism, the report shows that most were recruited through coercion, bullying, and bribery.
“The pursuit of access to U.S. export markets is a powerful lever for influence over many countries, including Chile and Costa Rica, both of which are close to concluding free trade deals with the United States; African nations that want to maintain U.S. trade preferences; and Mexico, which depends on the U.S. market for about 80 percent of its export sales.
“The populations of the countries in the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’ make up only about 10 percent of the world’s population. Opponents of the U.S. position currently include the leading economies of four continents (Germany, Brazil, China, and South Africa).
“President Bush could make or break the chances of Eastern European members of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ that are eager to become members of NATO. In order for these nations to join the military alliance, Bush must ask the Senate for approval.”
In the meantime rumors swirl. Among the most fascinating, if hardly reliable, comes from Stratfor, a for-pay info/intelligence site, whose unsourced reports are impossible to assess. They write of the visit of former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, supposedly a “personal friend” of Saddam, to Baghdad on February 23:
“Reliable Stratfor sources within the Russian government say
Hussein indeed has promised to scrap its al Samoud 2 missile
program by March 1.“The importance of the meeting stretches much further, however.
Sources say the Iraqi leader has agreed to a proposal by Russian
President Vladimir Putin — previously discussed between Russian,
French and German leaders — that Baghdad formally invite U.N.
peacekeepers within the next 10 days or so to back up weapons
inspectors. This, sources say, would show the world that Iraq
will be unconditionally disarmed under strict and fully
enforceable U.N. deadlines, with peacekeepers staying on in Iraq
until the task is complete.“Sources also say that Hussein has asked Putin to deliver a secret
offer to U.S. and British energy giants, inviting them back to
Iraq as major industry players roughly 30 years after they were
ousted from the country.”
If anything like this were ever to happen, it would indeed be a fly in the ointment of American plans.
Below, Simon Tisdale of the Guardian considers a world in which war remains the option of first resort. Jim Lobe in the Asia Times offers a different view of the meaning of the President’s speech last night (on which more in the next dispatch) by choosing to focus less on what he said than where he said it. Finally, because in such a world a little laughter goes a long way, I include Tim Dowling’s version of the debate that will never happen (despite Saddam’s challenge through Dan Rather on 60 Minutes) between the Great Satan and the Mother of All Tinpot Dictators with the besieged Tony Blair as moderator. Don’t miss it. It’s priceless (and appeared in the Guardian.) Tom
War remains the option of first resort – not last
The US is by no means alone in conniving at conflict with Iraq
By Simon Tisdall
The Guardian
February 27, 2003The approaching Middle East convulsion is hardly an aberration. America has been fighting wars all our lifetimes, from Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf to Serbia, Afghanistan and now, again, in Iraq. Its wars have flared hot and brief, as in Libya in 1986, Panama in 1989, and Somalia in 1992. They have run cold and long, as in its 40-year global confrontation with the Soviet Union. They have been fought by proxy, as in Angola and Mozambique, or behind the scenes as in Lebanon and Cambodia. They have been waged covertly as in Chile and Cuba, Nicaragua and El Salvador; or by invitation, as in the current Colombian “war on drugs” and the Philippines leg of the “war on terror”.
To read more Tisdall click here
Bush shares dream of Middle East democracy
By Jim Lobe
Asia Times
February 27, 2003WASHINGTON – In a major policy address to the neo-conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), US President George W Bush on Wednesday pledged to “ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another” in post-invasion Iraq and argued that a US victory there “could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace”.
“The passing of Saddam Hussein’s regime will deprive terrorist networks of a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training, and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers,” he said. “And other regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror will not be tolerated.”
The speech, the latest in an accelerating series of appearances by Bush and other senior members of his administration to drum up public support for war in Iraq with or without the United Nations Security Council’s authorization, was notable as much for its venue as its content.
The Saddam and George show
Ignoring the fact that George Bush declined Saddam Hussein’s challenge to a televised debate, Tim Dowling exclusively reveals what could have happened had they met
By Tim Dowling
February 25, 2003
The GuardianTony Blair, moderator: Welcome to the first televised debate between George W Bush and Saddam Hussein, live from United Nations headquarters in New York. We will begin with a brief opening statement from each of you.
Bush: First of all I would just like to welcome my evil friend to the UN, one of the great American institutions for the propulsion of freedom throughout the world.
Saddam: Thank you, Great Satan. I hope that in today’s debate we may find some common ground between the Iraqi people’s commitment to peace and human progress and America’s desire to destroy the Middle East.
Bush: Do I answer that?
Blair: No. The first question is quite simply this: do you have any links with al-Qaida?
Bush: I do not.
Blair: The question is for President Saddam.