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Feb 19, 2003 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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53 questions and answers about Iraq and the US, you can't
find them on CNN
Al-Jazeerah, 2/19/03*
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Here's
some information worth knowing that you'll never get on CNN. Do you
know enough to justify going to war with 1.
Q: What percentage of the world's population does the 2.
Q: What percentage of the world's wealth does the 3.
Q: Which country has the largest oil reserves? A: 4.
Q: Which country has the second largest oil reserves? A: 5.
Q: How much is spent on military budgets a year worldwide? A: $900+
billion 6.
Q: How much of this is spent by the 7.
Q: What percent of 8.
Q: How many people have died in wars since World War II? A: 86 million
9.
Q: How long has 10.
Q: Did 11.
Q: Did the 12.
Q: How many people did Saddam Hussein kill using gas in the Kurdish
town of 13.
Q: How many western countries condemned this action at the time? A:0
14.
Q: How many gallons of Agent Orange did 15.
Q: Are there any proven links between 16.
Q: What is the estimated number of civilian casualties in the Gulf
War? A: 35,000 17.
Q: How many casualties did the Iraqi military inflict on the western
forces during the Gulf War ? A: 0 18.
Q: How many retreating Iraqi soldiers were buried alive by 19.
Q: How many tons of depleted uranium were
left in 20.
Q: What according to the UN was the increase in cancer rates in 21.
Q: How much of 22.
Q: Is there any proof that 23.
Q: Does 24.
Q: How many civilian deaths has the Pentagon predicted in the event of
an attack on 25.
Q: What percentage of these will be children? A:Over
50% 26.
Q: How many years has the 27.
Q: Was the U.S and the 28.
Q: How many pounds of explosives were dropped on 29.
Q: How many years ago was UN Resolution 661
introduced, imposing strict sanctions on 30.
Q: What was the child death rate in 31.
Q: What was the estimated child death rate in 32.
Q: How many Iraqis are estimated to have died by October 1999 as a
result of UN sanctions? A: 1.5 million 33.
Q: How many Iraqi children are estimated to have died due to sanctions
since 1997? A: 750,000 34.
Q: Did Saddam order the inspectors out of 35.
Q: How many inspections were there in November and December 1998? A:300
36.
Q: How many of these inspections had problems? A:5
37.
Q: Were the weapons inspectors allowed entry to the Ba'ath
Party HQ? A: Yes 38.
Q: Who said that by December 1998, 39.
Q: In 1998 how much of Iraq's post 1991 capacity to develop weapons of
mass destruction did the UN weapons inspectors claim to have
discovered and dismantled? A: 90% 40.
Q: Is 41.
Q: How many UN resolutions did 42.
Q: How many UN resolutions on 43.
Q: How much does the 44.
Q: How many countries are known to have nuclear weapons? A: 8 45.
Q: How many nuclear warheads does 46.
Q: How many nuclear warheads does US have?
A: over 10,000 47.
Q: Which is the only country to use nuclear weapons? A: the 48.
Q: How many nuclear warheads does 49.
Q: Has 50.
Q: What percentage of the Palestinian territories
are controlled by Israeli settlements? A: 42% 51.
Q: Is 52.
Q: Which country do you think poses the greatest threat to global
peace: 53. Q: Who said, "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter"? A: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
* Al-Jazeerah received it by email without an author's name mentioned.
On the BBC World Service, I heard Charles Moore, who represents a recently converted Zionist newspaper, replying to the posed question as to `why Conservative papers were alone in supporting a Labour initiative`- the forthcoming slaughter of Iraqis- (though one could have asked the same of the leader of the Conservative party) in which he appeared to veer dangerously close to answering the question honestly. Counterpoised by a very polite David Seymour he dismissed elements opposing the hate fest as being `anti Israel`, an astonishing remark, which remained un-challenged by his mild mannered rival, the inference being that those who wholeheartedly support the elimination of the Mesopotamian race, or a significant part of it, are pro Israel. Yet, there was no preponderance of jackboots or swastika armbands among the grannies and students marching in London. The only prior suggestion that Israel is behind the slaughter came long ago from the president himself, though he ceased this soon after. Referring
to “…a threat to his neighbors..”
and I remember hearing the radio commentators, somewhat mischievously
questioning state representatives of all the surrounding nations- save
one- whether they felt threatened, and receiving negative replies. Even
Kuwait and Iran were adamant in proclaiming themselves un-threatened and
rejecting the idea of U.S. protection. Conversely most expressed
considerable fear of the `Mad dog` nuclear-armed state of Israel,
particularly since, with the stable and secular state of Iraq emasculated,
there would be no restrictions of its traditional psychopathic tendencies. I wonder if this is from the same school of reasoning that considers it `anti Semitic` to condemn the use of sophisticated American tanks and jet bombers against unarmed, Semitic Arabs, in their own country, by preponderantly non Semitic immigrant Jews? We are daily treated by the authorities to a bewildering and contradictory morass of half-baked, moral, legal, and military excuses to slaughter the half-starved Iraqi people, while each non-homicidal alternative is rejected out of hand. Faced with this cat’s cradle of lies it is reasonable to assume that none of the given reasons are the true ones; while at the core lies some universal un-speak able truth, yet what reason could there be? What fact is so dangerous that it cannot be publicly and honestly admitted?
Perhaps, as in past times the answer lies in what is not being said. Intelligent people the world over are debating the reasons for such unprecedented passion and single-minded desire to begin the killing. Yet, in all the media discussion there is rarely if ever, mention of Israel in this context. The benefits (to others than Israel) of the U.S. aggression are dubious and obscure- even the much-touted prize of oil seizure is not acceptable on moral grounds, and makes less sense on economic grounds. While the resultant costs to every country in the world- save Israel, especially to Iraq, the U.S., and U.K. are quite astronomical. The costs directly, in innocent lives, lost, maimed and disrupted in the attack, the direct and indirect financial costs, and the incalculable loss of freedom, mobility and happiness that we, and our children must endure henceforth, could only be in our interests, if in defence of an immediate threat to all our lives, but failing the negative justification of self defence, one must seek a reason to explain the policy and fanatical zeal of the warmongers. For it is apparent from their haste and lack of whit, that these people- our nominal leaders, are driven, not driving, and by someone else’s plan and timetable. It is equally obvious that the plan in which, as their predecessors, Bush and Blair are both mere journeymen, was hatched more than six years ago, and by others, who have no love for either Iraq, America or Britain. Is this why its authorship is such a great secret? In the absence of truth, one cannot be blamed for conjecture. However, while feeling nothing but contempt for the coke-sniffing waster of the White House, one must feel a little more for the increasingly haggard Blair. Faced with the options of throwing in our lot with the Armageddonist puppet, in hopes of moderating the slaughter, or directly objecting to, and (should he and any of his family members, by a stroke of luck, remain alive for the following twenty-four hours) thereby preventing an immediate U.S. attack, merely to have the Zionists provoke a worse one by lobbing nuclear bombs into Iraq, though reticent to spoil much of the anticipated `Greater Israel’, or via a Mossad engineered atrocity in London. If the above seems far-fetched so did my predictions (from `91 on) of the WTC airliner attack, as also the prediction of nuclear proliferation made before then. But it must surely be apparent by now, that the kinds of people willing to seize on the opportunity presented by `9/11` while unwilling to take the measures beforehand, required to prevent it. Further, have ignored and denied the lessons of causality in the disaster- thereby condemning more innocents to a similar or worse fate, and who now work with such single minded dedication to needlessly butcher and extend the nightmare state that is Israel, inflicting its self-made problems on us all. Anyone who could do this will literally stop at nothing, and care nothing for humanity, as they care nothing for their own people. It is a shame that these people are not bad people, they are far beyond this. While one can reason with a Saddam- a secularist, to appeal to his interest, his vanity- ambition- to any human characteristic. However, with fundamentalists- Bush, Bin Laden, the Zionists, and the like, reason is impossible. They are all spiritual throwbacks, outdated by seven thousand years. Such fossils have no need for either reason or conscience, they have a book instead, and the ancient, plagiarised, Mesopotamian stories and words of the book can be interpreted to justify anything. I cannot be the only person who wakes horrified to the realization that `New Killer` Bush is president of the U.S.A. Like a very bad ‘60’s movie, it could not actually happen in real life: A president of sufficiently addled brain to actually believe in religion, and as one of the anointed, and the agent of Armageddon from which he and his friends are invulnerable, fated to be `raptured` into heaven, unscathed by the hell-on-earth he has created. A worse situation for the world is hard to imagine. Would the world be a better place without Bush or Blair? I believe so, and many others of their ilk, but unless it were possible to blame their demise on a handy target, it would have no effect on the conduct of world affairs, since they can be replaced by the reserves at a moment’s notice. Could the general adoption of the currently accepted Bush/ Blair war philosophy- work to reduce America’s threat to the survival of the world? Europe expanded and united, possibly in co-operation with Russia and China, India and Pakistan, perhaps Canada and Australia too, counterpoising U.S. aggression by a blanket embargo of all U.S. goods and personnel, filling the continent with nuclear weapons, the skies with attack satellites, and the seas with nuclear robots. Then reversing the century long U.S. subversion of Latin America through counter subversion and promotion, if not, all out war. While. By arming and training the Israeli dwelling Arabs to a par position with their Israeli `Master race` occupiers, the twin phenomenon of `terrorism` and `suicide bombing` would be ended and replaced with a legitimate, nuclear backed, armed force. All this would be lunacy of course, and we have not considered the results of `Pre-emptive strikes`. But is it not, merely the direct reverse of the equally lunatic position now deemed both reasonable and just by American fundamentalist, Zionist, or British politician, and gaining currency in Europe? For lack of courage and honesty we are failing to confront the problems, these problems will rapidly worsen and overwhelm us, turning this planet into a wasteland unless we have the courage to dare, think, and speak. The problems are not caused by Iraq or Saddam Hussein. The reasons for the attack on the WTC are the very same that will horribly kill thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands in the USA and possibly in the U.K. too, unless we think, speak and act. The kamikaze WTC attack was aimed, not as previous terrorist attacks neither to gain a negotiated advantage denied them, nor to gain publicity for a cause, but out of despair and hopelessness derived from the acceptance that AmericIsrael would not negotiate and were not amenable to reason. The attacks- like those carried out by the Israelis on Arab villages, people and property, over the past forty years were intended to be purely retributive, to punish the capital and powerhouse of Jewish America, those responsible for providing the arms that kill, maim and drive the Arabs from their land. If it is all for the purpose of establishing the `Greater Israel` in the former Iraq, then why are we not, told? Here one remembers the repeatedly screeched “No linkage, no linkage.” Mantra, which filled the airwaves during the earlier holocaust. Surely, if the motivation as seems most likely, is Israeli expansion and annexation of Iraq, with its resources of water, territory and oil, and the ethnic cleansing of the Arabs into the desert, then this can be justified- even sanctified by the same criteria as the original establishment of the state, and its continued unquestionable support ever since: as being ‘Gods will’. Indeed, cannot the Jews claim the whole of Babylon as theirs by right, or for that matter, Gelong to Quebec or anywhere else on earth by the same reference to the bible? There are many millions of gentile bible bashers in the U.S.A and elsewhere, who would buy this, and toward which fiction, would happily sacrifice the lives and the liberty of their nation, and ultimately, the world- George Bush for one. So by this reasoning, wherever the Arabs are deported, can (and I’m sure it will) be seen as a gesture of kindness and hospitality for which they owe a debt of gratitude to their Jewish superiors. This present overpopulated and interconnected world cannot continue to co-exist with mindless religious fundamentalism, neither the mad, vindictive, racism of fundamental Judaism, nor its equally intolerant offshoots of Mohammedanism, and Christianity, nor its secular branches- Marxism/ Capitalism. These 5 have been responsible for most of the worlds suffering, and incredibly as we enter the 21st century, this `Stone Age thinking`, instead of diminishing in virulence, is now increasing, allied to nuclear and biological weaponry of increasing sophistication. If humanity is to survive into the next century we must do all in our power to reduce this grossly excessive arsenal, but until, and unless, we have the courage, to unite as nations in order to begin to treat the Arabs and Jews in Palestine equal-handedly, then all else is pointless, and this will involve a genuine resolution of the problem- drastic reduction in American weapon supplies, re-drafting of the borders, and territorial agreements with all its neighbours- especially the sovereign state of Iraq. Despite all the above, I genuinely believe that a fair and lasting solution is possible, if only the leaders have the guts to ignore and by-pass their fundamentalists and fanatics, this will need enormous courage and sacrifice. Its success is undermined whenever a self-serving sycophant screams `anti Semite`, or equates criticism of U.S. actions with anti Jewish ness. Before submitting to Pavlov Ian- reactive conditioning and handing out labels, the distinction should be made as to whether one advocates equal handedness or not.
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Answers to two great mysteries -
On Friday, February 14, the Foreign Minister
of France, M. de Villepin, gave a remarkable speech to the U.N. Security
Council. The precision and force of reason with which he put France's
case concerning Iraq were nothing less than astonishing.
Not long after M. de Villepin's speech,
perhaps hoping to catch a hint of George Bush's ferocious anger over
developments at the U.N., CBC Radio broadcast the first part of the
President's words at the opening of a new FBI facility. They proved
standard, post 9/11 us-and-them boiler-plate with no reference to
developments at the U.N., but even in this workaday task, the President
conveyed the annoying simplicity of his thinking and managed yet again
to use the wrong word at least once.
Who can stand listening to this man? America
is such a vast country and despite its waddling platoons in suspenders
stretched sideways like buckling bridge supports and its huge clutches
of blinking mascara under chicken-head hair-dos, it still has a
remarkable number of decent people and educated, critical minds. How is
it possible for them to listen to this man who couldn't earn a living
demonstrating vacuum cleaners in Wal-Mart?
It is not just that Bush mumbles and slurs
words and speaks with the irritating cadence of a storefront preacher
looking to the collection plate for his next square meal. It's not just
that he makes insultingly broad claims that leave no room for
investigation, doubt, or negotiation. It's not just that he regularly
uses the wrong words, making many of his speeches resemble parodies or
Monty Python skits.
It's the utter nothingness of his thought,
the slap-in-the-face, stinging quality of a greatly privileged person
who has nothing to say but lacks the grace to avoid saying it. Listening
to him suggests what it must have been like living under
sixteenth-century princes whose word remained unquestioned despite
crushing evidence of excessive inbreeding.
He should be an embarrassment to the people
of the United States, but it is the voices of intelligence and reason
like those of M. de Villepin or Mr. Blix that are vilified in the
American press. The absurdly nasty, intellectually feeble Mr. Bush
remains largely untouched.
How, too, does one explain the behavior of
Britain's Prime Minister towards this odd creature? Mr. Blair is well
educated, articulate, and, by all accounts, a fierce power broker inside
his party. So why does he come off looking and sounding for all the
world like Bush's perfectly-deferential, live-in butler? I can't help
thinking of Anthony Hopkins serving a candlelight dinner to Doctor
Frankenstein's creature, as it grunts and grimaces and occasionally has
to be calmed to avoid ripping the seams of its suit while spasmodically
waving its arms.
Yet Blair genuinely seems taken with this
tongue-twisted, boring fundamentalist whose idea of a good time is
throwing another cow on the barbeque.
But I think back to Mrs. Thatcher, one of
the most formidable personalities on the world's political stage during
the second half of the twentieth century, and her sickening fawning over
Ronald Reagan, a charming man who liked jellybeans and shining cities on
hills, and was good at selling Chesterfield cigarettes. Blair's
demeaning performance is not new.
And then I reflect on one of the strangest,
most fascinating episodes of modern history, the British spies -- the
Cambridge circle of Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, and Anthony
Blunt, not to mention John Cairncross and the atomic spies Klaus Fuchs
and Alan Nunn May -- who during the 1940s and '50s gave away all
America's atomic secrets and pretty well everything else they could lay
their hands on. The damage was devastating to America's ego and to
relations with Britain. The full truth and full list of characters are
not known to this day, but even in Mrs. Thatcher's time, important bits,
like Anthony Blunt's role, still were being revealed.
I'm convinced Mr. Blair's odd, servile
behavior, and Mrs. Thatcher's before him, can only be explained in light
of the terrible anger and hostility of America's establishment at these
betrayals. The Atlantic Alliance was seriously damaged at a time when it
meant something. Mr. Blair sees himself as doing heroic work in holding
it together at a time when it means a great deal less.
Britain can never quite make up its mind
about Europe. It wants to be part, but it wants to be a different kind
of part, and with the disappearance of its empire after the war, it is
only the connection with America that makes it a different kind of part.
Mr. Blair seems intent on holding on to this, even though geography and
economics argue for Britain's becoming a fully integrated part of
Europe.
As for the first great mystery, the answer
to that came in an e-mail from a friend in Maine. In response to one of
my cartoons sent round, she wrote that she was planning to take her kids
to Disney World and she prayed there would be no terrorist alerts. The
point of the cartoon had been missed entirely. It was a striking
graphic, almost iconic, and it concerned America's rush to kill people
in Iraq. But she missed that, equating her concern over a possible
terror alert at Disney World with the certain, incomparable destructive
horror awaiting people in Baghdad.
Why are otherwise intelligent and decent
Americans not repelled by George Bush? Because they are afraid as they
have not been in a very long time, and fear itself is a form of madness.
America's mainstream media do nothing to put this fear into perspective;
instead, they feed the frenzy with idiotic rumors and disparage those
with something reasonable to say.
We have Mr. bin Laden, in part, to thank for
that, but as Mr. Bush hurls himself into attacks and threats against
half a dozen countries, he has still largely failed to get at the
authors of America's fear. Far more importantly, the deeper cause of
America's fear and bin Laden's action is the long-term impact of some of
the country's destructive, indescribably selfish foreign policies, but
Mr. Bush's unblinking response is only to push even harder those same
destructive policies.
John Chuckman encourages your comments: jchuckman@YellowTimes.org
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People With a Hidden Agenda
are Running US Foreign Policy -
The odd thing about conspiracy theories is that the stranger they sound the more likely they are to be right. Since the Sept. 11 tragedy, conspiracy theorists have been having a field day with various explanations of what has followed. What makes the current arguments particularly interesting and credible is that they are provided from opposite directions of the political spectrum. Is it a war on Islam? That could be the case if you listen to groups who have established “credible links” to the policies and actions of the American administration with clear anti-Islamic ideologies amongst its prominent members. Or could this war be about oil? This one seems to be very popular in the West and the rest of the world as there are again “legitimate arguments” to be made about the American interest in securing oil sources in the Gulf and the Caspian Sea. There are various other concepts and theories that attempt to explain the reasons for the US’s aggressive unilateral policies today. What is very clear is that what is happening on the political front does not represent the will or opinion of the American public, but only of a minority in think tanks, corporate leadership and secret societies. It is quite clear that foreign policies are influenced and directed by people with dual loyalties and secret objectives like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. These people’s have a hidden agenda that is an integral part of every key foreign policy decision, particularly the fantasy linking Saddam to Al-Qaeda in the name of the war on terrorism. That is the work of dreamers who believe that a war will deter terrorism. But while disarming Iraq may delay terrorism for a short time, it will feed its causes even more. Saddam Hussein may go; terrorism will stay with us until all of its causes have been addressed. These causes include all butchers, Ariel Sharon among them. Yes, there is appalling, fanatical hatred loose in the world. But if America were as busy with the practice of compassion as it is with the craft of war and commerce, there would not arise from among the hopeless and desperate so many who see no alternative to violence. Europe is leading the world in listening beyond rhetoric, beyond the spin. Europeans of the World War II generation and those raised by them are repulsed by the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war. As President Dwight Eisenhower so aptly put it, “any missile launched, any shell fired, any bomb dropped is a theft from those who struggle to clothe and feed the needy.” Europeans have matured to the point where they see war as an anachronism, and now they are no longer alone. Others are joining in this vision. Conspiracy is alive and well so long as shady figures are allowed to have a say in global politics. It’s time for ordinary American people to have a say. Only then will any American foreign policy decisions be legitimate, with or without UN approval. Arab News Opinion 19 February 2003
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Astounding Outburst Arab
News, 19 February 2003 -
France’s determined opposition to Washington’s attempts to steer the UN into an attack on Iraq has given it an international standing that it has not enjoyed for many a year. It has come to be seen as the leader of the global anti-war movement, more so than even Russia and China. Proof of that was the unprecedented round of applause for French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s anti-war speech at the UN last week. For that reason, President Jacques Chirac’s outburst at central and eastern European governments such as Poland and the Czech Republic for daring to take the US point of view is astpounding. To threaten doing so might endanger their applications to join the EU could undermine the very policy that Chirac champions. To ridicule them publicly, saying that they have not behaved properly and have missed an historic opportunity to keep quiet, is hardly the way to make friends and influence people. This is the same blustering, steamroller approach that the White House has used to such damaging effect on the world stage. President Bush’s “either you’re with us or against us” statement, his arrogant assumption that Washington knows best and that everyone else has to fall into line behind it have done more to alienate international public opinion than the evident bellicosity of his Iraqi policy; other governments are not going to be told what to do by Washington. It is incredible then that Chirac should try to do the same on a European stage. All Chirac has done is to exacerbate anti-French feeling in Europe. The result will not be European governments falling into line behind France on Iraq, but the opposite. Indeed, from the furor it has created in Eastern Europe, that is already happening. The French position on Iraq is not only 100 percent right, it is clearly in tune with European public opinion; the demonstrations across Europe last Saturday prove that. It is quite understandable then that Chirac and his government should feel exasperated with other European governments who do not see the issue as they do. But bullying is not going to win converts. What makes his outburst even less comprehensible is that Eastern European support for US is hardly of major importance in the first place. If, apart from the UK and Australia, the only support that George Bush can find is from places such as Latvia and Slovakia, his case is not exactly strengthened. With Europe so divided on Iraq, what is needed is calm, intelligent diplomacy to convince those who would support Bush’s war that such adventurism is dangerous. What is not needed is petulance and threats from the very man whose job it is. President Chirac may be frustrated that he is not getting his way with other European leaders, but that is neither reason nor excuse for such bad behavior. He should have known better than to make the same foolish mistake as George Bush, to try and crack the whip and force everyone into line. It was a blunder. All he has done is infuriate the Central and East Europeans, making them and the existing members of the EU who support the Bush line even more determined to stick to it. It is not the Eastern Europeans who have missed an opportunity to keep silent; rather it is Chirac. France has earned itself the respect of much of the world because of its stand against the US over Iraq. This is not the time to throw it away. The cause is far too important.
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When a Child Screams in
Baghdad, Will Anybody Hear? -
The death of seven astronauts is a catastrophe, an event to be pored over and grieved. But the death of thousands of Afghans, and the future deaths of possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, is barely noticed in the West, and is hardly considered a catastrophe. The deaths of seven astronauts, which must have been terrifying and violent, or the deaths of 3,000 people on Sept. 11, cruel, brutal, and horrible — that hits home, for those people are more like us than the dark skin people are, who dress in strange ways, and speak a language we can’t understand, and live in a country headed by a man who, we’re told, is evil, and wishes us harm. These people are not Americans, not Canadians, not Westerners, not Christians, not Jews, which may be why their deaths are barely noticed, and are called “regrettable” rather than “intolerable” or “criminal.” And so it is that everywhere we look — in newspapers, on television — the death of seven astronauts count for infinitely more than the impending deaths of seven thousand, or seven hundred thousand, who may be human, but who, in the universe of concentric circles which define how close any other person is to ourselves, occupy the farthest rings, the Plutos in our own personal solar systems. “We” are Winners? Flipping through TV channels I stumbled across an interview with a man, an American, who had written a defense of US foreign policy. “They say we’re stupid, we’re short-sighted, we’re bumblers,” he complained, bitter about the way Washington is regarded outside of America and 10 Downing Street. “Well, if we’re so stupid, so short-sighted, so bumbling, why is it that we keep winning?” This summed up the two defining characteristics of American foreign policy. First, the idea that America’s relation with other countries is a collective enterprise in which all Americans participate (“we” keep winning) rather than one planned by a tiny minority for the benefit of the same tiny minority. And two, the idea that foreign policy is a game (of conquest and control) whose object is to win. And so there are gradations of human beings, gradations of suffering that matter. Gradations of catastrophe, too, that can thrust the deaths of seven to the fore, and sweep the impending deaths of hundreds of thousands to the shadows. That, to those who plan wars, and gull others to go along or acquiesce, is well and good. “Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some simple person on a farm or in a city want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his home in one piece? But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.” These comments, from Gustave Gilbert’s Nuremberg Diary, are based on a conversation Gilbert had with Goering while the latter was on trial at Nuremberg. (Goering adds): “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. War for him was an abstraction, and more than that, a foreign abstraction, not blood, not viscera strewn across a kitchen floor, not kids screaming in terror, not the charred remains of children littering a street, not brains blown out.” All of these horrors he knew happened in war, but he preferred not to think about them, and he didn’t really have to think about them, because the wars his government was so ready to inflict upon others and that he was so ready to support as his patriotic duty were not wars that would leave his 10- year-old son a paraplegic, would not leave his aged mother crushed under the beam of a bombed-out building, and would not leave him whimpering in terror, huddled in some dank corner of his basement, in the dark, as bombs exploded outside, the noise deafening. Those fates would be visited upon other people, not him, not his neighbors, not his friends, not his family. He could afford to be cavalier about civilian casualties. He would never have to see the bits of crushed bone, the smashed skulls, and the entrails oozing from bellies. We don’t need to see that, say Washington’s grandees and America’s network executives. All we need to see, all we need to remember, are 3,000 killed on Sept. 11; think about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction; think about his resolve to harm Americans. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked... It works the same way in any country. Americans won’t see the immense suffering their government will inflict on others, as they haven’t seen the immense suffering it has already inflicted. That’s bad politics, and it’s bad for war, it’s bad for oil, it’s bad for profits. Arab News Opinion 19 February 2003
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Altruism
or Utilitarianism? -
It is a very good, reasonable, rational, and pragmatic statement. Any wise person would like Blair's wording and perhaps, intent, that is, the UN must indeed act to implement its stated will, if it is to maintain credibility. But an extraordinarily simple question comes to the fore here: Are there any differences between the UN's will expressed in one resolution and its will in another? We all understand that Iraq has violated international rules and regulations; we understand that Saddam Hussein is an aggressor and a bully; he did not have mercy on his own people; he used chemical weapons against them and Iranian soldiers; he invaded two of his neighbors in a span of just ten years, he has a history of accumulating various weapons of mass destruction; he has blackmailed his neighbors, etc. Therefore, he has to be reined in by the UN, for the UN is the sum total of the international community's will and wisdom, and its Security Council resolutions carry the weight and force of law in the international community of nations. Therefore, the British PM has every reason and right to defend the UN and to insist that the UN's will be implemented. At the same time, over decades, there have been a large number of resolutions issued by the same UN on Israel which have been lying dormant for years, and even decades. Israel too has violated international rules and regulations on numerous occasions, invaded Palestinian and Lebanese territory, and systematically kills all Palestinians who defend their land against its brutal occupiers. Furthermore, Israel continues to arrogantly decline to sign the NPT and the CTBT treaties and has a vast nuclear arsenal and, most worrisome, is a rogue, occupying state with an extremely dark and sordid record of state-sponsored terrorism. If Blair has any faith left in the UN, reason demands that he call for the implementation of all UN resolutions on Israel half as strongly as he does in Iraq's case. Else, world public opinion would easily see through the charade and realize that Blair's words are not rooted in altruistic intentions; rather they portray a utilitarian who is gravely under the influence of the Zionist lobby and the current master of the White House -- with grave consequences for British interests and world peace, not to mention the United Nations and all that it represents.
ONE OF the striking aspects of the current tension between the United States and most people in the Arab world over the issue of Iraq is the asymmetry in perceptions on both sides, which we can probably trace back to the terrible attack of Sept. 11, 2001. The most simple way to describe the asymmetry is that Americans feel shocked and brutalised by the unprecedented attack against them, while most Arabs today feel that the gathering Anglo-American armada poised to strike Iraq and rearrange the Middle Eastern political order is perhaps the fifth or sixth time in the past century that we witness such an armed assault from the West. Americans have had enough of Arab states that take their money and protection and allow anti-American terrorists to operate from their soil; Arabs also have had enough of Western powers that speak of peace and democracy but routinely use their capabilities to maintain an Arab autocratic and oligarchic order that has shunned democracy and maintained internal and regional orders defined by chronic inequalities and tensions. The terror attack against the US on Sept. 11, 2001, was an unprecedented and traumatic experience that shook the country to its very soul. My own sense is that the goals and intensity of American actions today are driven by two different phenomena: the policy of the Bush administration reflects the various strategic goals of the five main component groups that have captured and define the White House (traditional Republican conservatives, pro-Israel hawks, extremist fundamentalist Christian groups, neo-conservative American global supremacists, and free-wheeling free marketers); but the emotional and political intensity of the Bush policy reflects a delayed and intense reaction to the massive trauma of the Sept. 11 attacks. The military campaign in Afghanistan to overthrow the Taleban regime and disrupt the operations of Osama Ben Laden's group did not satisfy the core, understandable American need for justice and retribution. That, it seems, will be met by the less understandable goal of changing the Iraqi leadership and sending a message to all Middle Easterners that from now on they operate in the Middle East according to American rules, or they don't operate at all. For ordinary Arabs, the problem with this approach is that, in contrast with the novelty and shock of the Sept. 11 attacks for Americans, the spectacle of another Anglo-American armada coming here to enforce Western rules is both politically offensive and tediously repetitive. American, British, French and Italian troops have travelled this route numerous times in the past century, seeking either to maintain a Middle Eastern political order that is largely unsatisfactory to ordinary Arabs, or to rearrange a political order mainly to satisfy Western interests. The most irritating thing for ordinary Arabs is not the immediate issue of having to endure yet another military strike by Western armies. It is, rather, the gnawing realisation that throughout the past century of this nonsense we have not satisfactorily resolved the fundamental issues that challenged our grandparents in the 1910s and 1920s. It is most troubling that, for the past century, we have not resolved any of the following core issues that are relevant to the current stand-off in Iraq: the territorial shape of Arab countries, the quality of our sovereignty, the nature of our governance systems, the well-being of our economies, the provision and protection of the Arab individual's basic human rights, our relations with Western powers, the balance between religiosity and secularism, the nature of Arab citizenship, the role and rights of women, coexistence or confrontation between Arabism and Zionism, the balance between the identity of the modern Arab state and older indigenous identities, such as religion, tribalism, family, ethnicity, monarchy and regionalism, the role of civil society in the face of state power, the individual and collective right to bear arms, and the role of the military and security services in society. It is astounding and enraging that such basic issues not only are unresolved in our lifetime, but have consistently plagued the last four generations of our people. Faced with yet another Anglo-American armada steaming towards our shores to bring us freedom, peace, democracy, prosperity and other promises of a new Middle Eastern order, it is not surprising that most of us around here are sceptical. The understandable rage that drives Americans after Sept. 11 now confronts the equally understandable indignities that define the masses of Arabs, producing a gruesome cycle of imperial-vintage militarism from some quarters in the West and retrograde terror from pockets of enraged young men in the Middle East. My impression is that while we might be able rationally to explain the emotional and militaristic furies of self-appointed, divinely-mandated warriors like George Bush and Osama Ben Laden, their current policies reflect the proven failure of violence as an instrument of policy. Ben Laden represents a most un-Islamic approach to relations with the world, going against the grain of humility, tolerance and piety that define the core of Islamic values. George Bush, likewise, strikes me as blatantly un-American in his current war-mongering attitude, going against the grain of the long-standing tendency of ordinary Americans to shun imperial adventures, refrain from occupying other people, and live and trade in peace with others around the world. The motivating anger of these tough guys may be understandable, but their chosen policy paths are not and, instead, represent the triumph of failed militarism over the otherwise peaceful sensibilities of their own people.
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'The axis of evil' By Hasan Abu Nimah Jordan Times, 2/19/03
- WE LIVE in a world that has never lived without a natural or man-made catastrophe in one or other of its corners. We have come to accept that some of these disasters are simply inevitable. But that is not the case when a superpower decrees that we must have a war for the most unconvincing, fabricated reasons, for an openly imperialistic ideology, for power and greed, and for distraction from other, glaring, failures. These reasons, and nothing more, lie behind the US drive for an attack on Iraq, supported primarily by the United Kingdom and Israel. The irony is that more and more people in the world, especially in the Middle East, are starting to see these three countries acting together as the true “axis of evil”. Haaretz confirmed that Israel's “military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq”. (“Enthusiastic Israeli army awaits war in Iraq”, Haaretz, Feb. 17, 2003) Israel's leadership hopes that the destruction of Iraq will lead to the total subjugation and defeat of Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Israel also hopes to benefit from deep divisions about Iraq among the United States and its European allies. According to the Israeli newspaper: “There is also excitement in the Israeli army's planning department over the stand-off between the US and its NATO allies. A paper distributed to the army's upper echelons even spoke of an opportunity to remove the pro-Palestinian Europeans from the Middle East. A senior source said Saturday that the US will punish the Europeans for their back-stabbing on the road to Baghdad, and will no longer ask them for input regarding Israeli concessions.” This zeal for war and destruction is supposed to lead to an outcome where a defeated Arab world and a marginalised Europe cannot stand in the way of Israel, backed by an increasingly extremist and isolated United States, imposing any settlement it wants on the Palestinians. At best, what the Palestinians can hope for is direct Israeli rule with all their civil and national rights cancelled. This will be Israel's “generous” alternative to what many in Israel's leadership really want, which is the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Looking back, this is no more than an attempt to achieve what was tried — but failed — more subtly after the 1991 Gulf War. The main difference is that the first war was widely seen as justified by Iraq's clear transgression of invading and occupying Kuwait. What followed was essentially not different from what is planned this time. The 1991 war created “convenient” circumstances for an Arab-Israeli settlement. The PLO was severely weakened politically and hard hit financially, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians working in Gulf states were expelled and governments cut off their assistance to the leadership. The PLO was not even accepted as a direct participant in the October 1991 Madrid conference, and the talks which followed in Washington. With Israel's position thus strengthened, and unlimited American diplomatic support (except for token and temporary US resistance to aid for Israel's colony-building on Palestinian land), Israel did not respond to any of the far-reaching Palestinian compromises offered for peace, including full recognition of Israel in advance and full acceptance of the two-state solution. Rather, Israel took advantage of the weakness and desperation of the PLO and, behind the backs of the Washington negotiators, hatched the secret Oslo agreement which must go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made. This disaster simply laundered, with full PLO approval, all of Israel illegal war gains, at the expense of the Palestinian people. Negotiations were dragged on indefinitely in order to allow Israel the necessary time to achieve de facto annexation of all of the conquered territory. By imposing, by brute force, a scandalously unjust and humiliating deal on the Palestinians, entirely denying their political and national rights, and by reducing the PLO to nothing more than a South Lebanon army-like police force for the Israeli occupation, Israel laid the grounds for the present Intifada and did not achieve the “peace” of the strong that it hopes for. The warmongers in Washington and Tel Aviv believe that this time round they can get it right, having failed twelve years ago, by going all the way. Once they impose “total defeat” on the Palestinians and Arabs, they believe a golden age will open for Israel, which will face no obstacles before it. This will not happen. It is quite possible that an attack on Iraq will destroy that country and produce immense political pressure on Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It is also possible that Israel, while world attention is focused on Iraq, will further intensify its campaign of war crimes against the Palestinians. It is even possible that by raising the level of atrocities even higher, Israel will claim to have imposed some sort of order on the situation, to have “defeated” the Palestinians. None of this will succeed. Israel, instead, will be guaranteed only more unrest, more determined resistance, more bloodshed and more horror. The planned war against Iraq is an idea of a small group of ultra-pro-Israeli hawks who hatched it in the mid-1990s when they were advising the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Today, this same small group has hijacked American policy at the Pentagon. This group, that gathered around figures like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, is not concerned with Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”, human rights or terrorism. Their concern is the pure pursuit of power. For this group, there is no difference between American interests and the interests of Israel as defined by the most extreme elements. They have an obsession with the Arab and Muslim world that borders on hatred. While it is easy to trace the growing influence of this group on an American establishment that has always allowed Israel to set the agenda for US policy in the Middle East, the UK's slavish commitment to this group is more puzzling. The British people are clearly concerned about how their prime minister seems to have transformed himself into America's deputy secretary of state in pursuit of an agenda that holds nothing positive for Britain. The UK always calculated that by forging a “special relationship” with the United States, it would gain influence both in America and in Europe. Prime Minister Tony Blair's foolish policies have done the opposite. The Americans simply take British support for granted, while Britain's position in Europe is worse even than it was under Thatcher. And for what? Blair claims that the UK is in danger from global terror. Maybe so, but many of his people answer that his dangerous policies are exposing the country to such terror rather than dealing effectively with any threat. The voices of the tens of millions who marched for peace all over the world are sending a loud message to the United States, Britain and Israel, the three pillars of this new axis, if not of “evil”, then at least of raw, dangerous power and colonialism. These are voices of truth and reason. They are voices which bridge the gulf of misunderstanding, fear and suspicion between the West and the rest of the world, that figures like Bush, Blair and Sharon are fuelling. Let us hope that the millions who came out will act as an urgently needed check on the forces who relish war and use words like “justice” and “peace” only to mock them.
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Powell is flawless - inside a media bubble By Norman Solomon Jordan Times, 2/19/03
- THERE'S no doubt about it: Colin Powell is a great performer, as he showed yet again at the UN Security Council the other day. On television, he exudes confidence and authoritative judgement. But Powell owes much of his touted credibility to the fact that he is functioning inside a media bubble that protects him from direct challenge. Powell doesn't face basic questions like: — You cite Iraq's violations of UN Security Council resolutions to justify the US launching an all-out war. But you're well aware that American allies like Turkey and Israel continue to violate dozens of Security Council resolutions. Why couldn't other nations claim the right to militarily “enforce” the Security Council's resolutions against countries that they'd prefer to bomb? — You insist that Iraq poses a grave threat to the other nations of the Middle East. But, with the exception of Israel, no country in the region has made such a claim or expressed any enthusiasm for a war on Iraq. If Iraq is a serious threat to the region, why doesn't the region feel threatened? — You say that the Iraqi regime is committed to aggression. Yet Iraq hasn't attacked any country for more than 12 years. And just eight days before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, the US envoy to Baghdad gave what appeared to be a green light for the invasion when she met with Saddam Hussein. An Iraqi transcript of the meeting quotes Ambassador April Glaspie as saying: “We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasise the instruction ... that Kuwait is not associated with America.” Mr Powell, why don't you ever mention such information? — Washington tilted in favour of Iraq during its war with Iran in the 1980s. Like other US officials, you emphasise that Saddam Hussein “gassed his own people” and used chemical weapons against Iran, but you don't talk about the intelligence data and other forms of assistance that the United States provided to help Iraq do those things. If the history of Baghdad's evil deeds is relevant, why aren't facts about US complicity also relevant? — When you warn that the UN Security Council “places itself in danger of irrelevance” if it fails to endorse a US-led war on Iraq, aren't you really proclaiming that the United Nations is “relevant” only to the extent that it does what the US government wants? If Powell faced such questions on a regular basis, his media halo would begin to tarnish. Instead, floating inside a media bubble, he moves from high-level meetings to speeches to news conferences where tough questions are rare. And when Powell appears as a guest on American media outlets, he doesn't need to worry that he'll encounter interviewers who'll challenge his basic assumptions. Tacit erasure of inconvenient history — including his own — is integral to the warm relationship between Powell and US news media. There's a lot to erase. For instance, in January 1986, serving as a top aide to Pentagon chief Caspar Weinberger, he supervised the transfer of 4,508 TOW missiles to the CIA, and then sought to hide the transaction from Congress and the public. No wonder; almost half of those missiles had become part of the Iran-Contra scandal's arms-for-hostages deal. As President Reagan's national security adviser, Powell worked diligently on behalf of the Contra guerrillas who were killing civilians in Nicaragua. In December 1989, Powell — at that point the head of the joint chiefs-of-staff — was a key player behind the invasion of Panama. The Gulf War catapulted Powell to the apex of American political stardom in early 1991. When he was asked about the Iraqi death toll from that war, Powell said that such numbers didn't interest him. At the UN on Feb. 5, in typical fashion, Powell presented himself as an implacable foe of terrorism — much as he did on Sept. 11, 2001, when he denounced “people who feel that with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose”. While aptly condemning the despicable hijackers who murdered thousands of people that day, Powell was also using words that could be applied to a long line of top officials in Washington. Including himself. At this point, it seems that only a miracle could prevent the Bush administration from going ahead with its plans for a horrific attack on Iraq, sure to kill many thousands of civilians. The US leaders will demonstrate their evident belief that, in Powell's apt words, “with the destruction of buildings, with the murder of people, they can somehow achieve a political purpose”. To the extent that the media bubble around them stays airtight, Powell and his colleagues are likely to bask in national acclaim. The writer has a syndicated column on media and politics.
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Arabs still feeling Kissinger’s touch
The Daily Star, 2/19/03
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It is no longer a secret that a large number
of Washington hawks especially such Pentagon hard-liners as Paul
Wolfowitz and Richard Perle belong to the so-called “diplomacy of
power” school of international relations. These hawks all see former
Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as being their spiritual father. Abdelmalik Salman is an Egyptian analyst who heads the Studies and Research Department at the Bahrain daily Akhbar al-Khaleej.
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Arab governments bicker over American war
plans An Arab press
review, By The Daily Star, 2/19/03
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Arab newspapers detect the emergence of an
old-fashioned inter-Arab split over Iraq, with Arab governments falling out
with each other over how to handle the crisis and increasingly appearing to
line up into two rival camps. Amid controversy over the emergency Arab
summit that Egypt called for at last weekend’s meeting of Arab foreign
ministers in Cairo, the press portrays an Arab world deeply divided but
trying to keep its differences under wraps. |