Feb 6, 2003 Op Eds

Feb 6, 2003 Opinion Editorials http://www.aljazeerah.info

If it were not so tragic, it would be funny. Two hundred snake charmers are currently stuck in no man’s land between the borders of Bangladesh and India, while a major row brews between Dhaka and New Delhi over whether or not they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

What brought about the confrontation is India’s growing impatience with what it claims is 20 million Bangladeshi immigrants that have crossed over illegally. Dhaka has denied outright that any of its citizens have sneaked over the border. However, it is a fact that the Indian economy is growing in strength while Bangladesh, with 128 million people, remains one of the world most densely populated and least economically developed countries. Smitten by regular environmental disasters, Bangladeshis face a constant struggle to survive, let alone prosper. It is hardly surprising that those who can will seek to find work their country’s wealthier and larger neighbor.

Viewed dispassionately, New Delhi’s tighter controls fall well within the bounds of reason. But unfortunately, it is not that simple. Bangladeshis are Muslims. Whether it likes it or not, India’s Hindu nationalist-led government’s campaign against illegal immigrants from its impoverished neighbor will be seen as anti-Muslim. That will add a further unpleasant dimension to the confrontation.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. India played an important part in helping Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, to break away from the control of Pakistan and Islamabad. Until recently, relations between the two countries have generally been amicable. During Bangladesh’s recurrent flooding disasters, New Delhi has frequently offered aid and assistance.

Expulsion of these people and a tightening of the borders are never going to be the answer. What will keep Bangladeshis at home is their own economic opportunities. Indian investment can do a lot to create this very thing. Steady and targeted Indian support for the Bangladesh economy will ease the flow of people wanting to escape to the opportunities they believe exist in India. And there is another important consideration. As has been demonstrated in Europe and the United States, immigrants, even illegal immigrants, are not necessarily bad news. They can bring skills and labor which can serve to enrich, not pauperize, their host country.

It must be hoped that the confrontation between Dhaka and New Delhi does not deepen and that an early resolution of the immigrant differences is found. India is already seriously at odds with Pakistan and it would be dangerous if any political factions within that country sought to make common cause with Bangladesh, claiming that India’s actions were anti-Muslim. Bangladeshi politics is notoriously volatile and every government must struggle with grave economic, social and environmental problems. If the immigrant issue gets out of hand, it might set off further instability. New Delhi must surely see the dangers of that.

Therefore, it would be wise to draw back from this row which has imprisoned these 200 unfortunate snake charmers in no man’s land. The venom needs to be drawn from the teeth of the confrontation. The concentration should be on charm.

Colin Powell has second thoughts
By Fawaz Turki, Special to Arab News
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My friend Brad, a well-informed native of South Dakota (far from being a mythical state, South Dakota, with a population of just under one million and a capital called Pierre, really does exist — out there somewhere), who in recent months has bemoaned the fact that the US has pretty much lost all the good will it had gained from the international community after Sept. 11, wants to know if Colin Powell has really shifted gears and joined the hawks.

Beats me, Brad. As a long-time resident of Washington, I’ve followed the complex interplay between the Congress, the White House and the State Department for years now, a punishing assignment in itself, and I still don’t get it either.

Ever since his appointment as secretary of state in 2000, Powell was seen as the nice guy in an administration noted for its preponderance of bullies, winning the admiration of world leaders for his cautious approach to foreign policy and commitment to multilateralism.

Up till less than a month ago, the man had consistently called for a measured posture in dealing with Iraq, arguing for more time for the United Nations weapons inspectors and eschewing the use of “hard power” as a vehicle of conflict resolution. It now appears that he has joined the grandstanding of the hawks with his assertion last week that “Iraq’s time for choosing peaceful disarmament is fast coming to an end,” and the flat claim that “inspections will not work.”

As you read this, Powell will have delivered his much-anticipated speech at the United Nations on Feb. 5, a speech where every sentence will have been fully vetted, every thought deeply considered, but where the secretary is expected to throw to the wind whatever reservations he had had about the use of force against Iraq, thereby effectively abandoning his own cherished doctrine that force should be used only in “defense of America’s vital interests” around the world, not in pursuit of an American-designed world order.

In his 1995 autobiography, “My American Journey,” Powell, who had served in Vietnam, told his readers that the lessons he had learned in that war convinced him that, when his generation came to power, they would have to exercise it with the utmost probity, never in a blustering fashion.

Now, alas, he appears, I say, to have joined the bully pulpit, along with those in the government, topped by President Bush, who have appropriated theological lingo to justify going after “the axis of evil.” (The original author of the phrase, David Frum, who had spent 14 months as a White House speech writer, has penned a score-settling tome, “The Right Man,” released last month, in which he describes Bush — a Yale alumni, thanks less to academic acumen than to the university’s affirmative action policy for the sons of powerful, rich, white men — as “quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result uninformed.”)

The word on the street is that Powell was pressured to abandon his doctrine, or ship out. He was becoming too much of a burden, an in-house opposition all by himself, hampering American interventionist policies even where, as in the case of Iraq, intervention is “justified.”

Now he is saying that “one must never rule out the use of force,” and hedging on the issue of linkage between Baghdad and Al-Qaeda, which would be a great casus belli were it to be truly established. But it has not. The administration, it will be recalled, has tried to pin Sept. 11 on Iraqis from the get-go, helped along by columnists like the New York Times’ William Safire and other right-wing representatives of the punditocracy, though the boys at Langley had, as far back as 1993, explicitly denied any connection there.

So, all aboard, this train is leaving the station — with the international community getting exceedingly concerned about the brazenly unilateralist manner in which American power is being projected around the world these days.

With the exception of Britain’s Tony Blair (he with the birdy tweet voice), whom the Economist has described as Bush’s “polite valet,” virtually the entire European community has become progressively more alienated from the US.

To the neocons, this is a scandalous display by an ungrateful, jealous and resentful Europe that is now “a smoldering caldron” of anti-Americanism — as if disapproval of the United States “for what it does, rather than what it is,” in the words of the Italian scholar Robert Toscano, is an expression of that xenophobic sentiment.

Truth be told, the criticism in Europe is pervasive, including Britain, where commentators in the mainstream press have pulled no punches. Consider the Mirror’s large headline a while back, “The US is now the world’s leading rogue state,” and the Guardian’s description of it as an “unrepentant outlaw.”

In France, Le Monde termed Bush’s Middle East policies “extraordinary, unjust and arrogant.” And in Germany, traditionally a bastion of support for the US, opposition to Washington’s foreign policy designs has hardly been limited to street demonstrations and hostile commentary in the media, for recall how, when Bush visited Berlin in the spring of 2002, the mayor announced that he “would have to leave town,” and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder ran his re-election campaign on a platform opposing Bush’s proposed war in Iraq.

My friend Brad was right — all that outpouring of support, sympathy and good will the United States got from the international community after Sept. 11 has been squandered on the altar of the Bush administration’s penchant for unilateralism, militarism and adventurism.

It is equally distressing to learn that Colin Powell, once a prominent advocate of caution in the use of “hard power” to resolve international disputes, has climbed aboard and joined the chorus of hawks hellbent on war.

Waiting for the missiles in Baghdad
By Norman Solomon, Special to Arab News
Arab News, 2/6/03

BAGHDAD — Picture yourself as an American reporter here in the Iraqi capital. You’re based in one of the fraying rooms at the Al-Rashid, the large hotel where most Western journalists stay.

There’s plenty to cover, but the obstacles are daunting. Iraq’s government often makes things difficult: “Minders” accompany you. Interviews with top officials are hard to obtain. Sometimes international calls can’t get through.

Editors back home want you to be a bit ahead of the US media curve — but not too far out on a limb. Your stories are supposed to be ahead of the pack but not out of step.

The winter weather is unseasonably mild under blue sky. But the scene is grim. By now, even the most optimistic souls can’t quite believe their own denial. Nothing is certain, but one specter is close: The missiles are coming. Probably within a few weeks.

Fear is in the air. And a sense of doom has fallen over the city like a smothering blanket. But there’s little time to dwell on, or even acknowledge, such emotions. Staying busy seems to push back the dread.

There’s no telling whether your 10-day visa will be renewed. You want to stay on, filing stories destined for front pages. You’d have an up-close look at a turning point of history. But during the later stages of the Pentagon’s assault, there’s no telling what might happen to you.

Day by day, as the probability of war nears certainty, you realize that you’re getting a small taste of the insecurity that Iraqi people have been facing for a long time. And despite all the claims of reportorial “objectivity,” it’s hard to deny that many deep stories aren’t getting much coverage.

You might do a story about the escalating fears among Iraqi children. Many of them are now exhibiting signs of acute anxiety. You realize that the youngsters, along with older Iraqis, are experiencing a form of terror. Yet the US government is supposed to be opposing terrorism, not inflicting it.

But the routine baseline of journalism cannot be shirked. There are officials to quote, political statements to analyze, military scenarios to assess.

At least dimly, you ponder the disparities between piling up facts and illuminating human truths. (A phone book may be largely accurate, but what does it tell you about the people named between its covers?) Every day brings more details, but many human dimensions seem to be excluded from the media frame.

People at home know how horrific Saddam Hussein is. But do they know how much suffering is sure to come if the US government launches an attack? Are American media outlets really conveying the humanity of the people in the line of fire?

There’s not much time to focus on such questions. You wrap up the story for tomorrow’s editions, slip the floppy disk out of your laptop and ride an elevator down to the first floor. Walking past the no-alcohol bar, you stride into the little Internet shop that caters to foreign journalists. The proprietor, a young man named Firas Behnam, smiles and waves from a desk.

Minutes later, you’re clicking a “send” button, and your story is on its way to the newsroom back home. You breathe a sigh of relief and glance over at a British newspaper reporter checking his e-mail. You remember hearing him talk about covering the Gulf War a dozen years ago: During forays to take a look at bomb damage, he’d recalled, the Iraqi people he met did not express any hostility toward him. You tried to imagine the shoe on the other foot. If Iraq’s air force were bombing American cities, how would Iraqi visitors be treated?

When you pull some dinars from your pocket, Firas takes out the usual dog-eared notebook from a drawer to record the transaction, then writes a receipt. In the last few days, he has talked to you with great enthusiasm about his faith.

Now you remember it’s Saturday night and mention that you guess he’ll be going to church tomorrow. Firas brightens, describing the wonderful service at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Baghdad on Al-Nidhal Street. And just before you wish him good night, he says: “I just want everyone to understand the love of the Lord.”

Unconvincing evidence

Jordan Times, 2/6/03

THE WORLD listened closely to US Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation at the United Nations Security Council, that was supposed to convince a sceptical global audience that the solution to the deepening crisis is an American-led military invasion of Iraq. Powell's 75-minute presentation contained little that was new. Many of his claims about Iraq's alleged chemical and biological programmes were old allegations that the United States had made prior to the Nov. 8 passage of Resolution 1441, which reinstated UN inspections in Iraq. Other evidence consisted of audiotapes, satellite photos and reports from anonymous witnesses.

Many people will question the authenticity of these documents, and their mere presentation is unlikely to change many minds. Yet, even if we give the United States the benefit of the doubt, these new elements did not amount to convincing evidence of Iraqi noncompliance, or that Iraq presents any real or imminent danger to any party. The conclusion that all reasonable observers must reach is that any questions raised by the information presented by the United States can only be answered by allowing the UN inspectors the time, resources and support needed to carry out the mandate unanimously endorsed in Resolution 1441.

On Powell's claims that Iraq has close links with Al Qaeda, we have to wonder why it is that reports from all of the leading intelligence agencies over the past two years consistently contradict this view. Powell presented precious little evidence in this regard, but made allegations which can only increase irrational fears about terrorism at a time when the war on terrorism is faltering precisely because the United States has incomprehensibly shifted the focus to Iraq. The battle against terrorism requires serious attention to the root causes that fuel support for such violence. Creating new myths about "evil" individuals in order to achieve a political goal does not help, especially when the United States has a poor record of catching such individuals once it has built-up their reputations with sensational charges.

The statements from the French, Russian and Chinese foreign ministers immediately after Powell's presentation indicated that these governments also strongly support a continuation of inspections and an increase in the number of inspectors should that be required. Iraq will be acting in its interests and the interests of the entire region to do its utmost to continue cooperating with the inspectors in order to avoid giving any party a pretext for an unjust and devastating war.

Powell's threats, echoing President George W. Bush, that the Security Council risked "irrelevance" if it failed to render the decision demanded by the United States, is incompatible with the spirit of international decision making and legality that the United States says it wants to uphold. His unconvincing presentation came a day after British Prime Minister Tony Blair failed to persuade President Jacques Chirac of France that war is the answer. Instead, Chirac declared that "war is always the worst solution." Those wise words should guide the deliberations of the Security Council in all the decisions it makes. We have every reason to believe that the Iraqi crisis can be solved by peaceful means and insist that all parties, including the United States and Iraq, should work tirelessly for that outcome.

Objectives of the 'Shock and Awe' strategy

By Michael Jansen

Jordan Times, 2/6/03

BAGHDAD — Washington's “Shock and Awe” strategy for waging war on Iraq involves the commission of international war crimes for which individual members of the Bush administration could, in theory, be held responsible if the post-World War II system of international order survives the onslaught.

These crimes include indiscriminate air strikes on civilian population centres, the use of weaponry which does not discriminate between military and civilian target, strikes on electricity plants damaging and destroying “civilian life support systems” and use of bombing “for non-military purposes”, for affecting civilian morale and inducing the Iraqis to overthrow their government.

This short list of potential violations of the Geneva Conventions and customary international law was included in a report released last week by the New York-based Centre for Economic and Social Rights.

In its discussion of the “international law framework governing war”, the centre says that international humanitarian law places constraints on military action in order to minimise its impact on civilians. Military action is governed by two principles: “distinction” and “proportionality”. On the one hand, attacking forces must distinguish between military and civilian targets, on the other, they must forego attacks on military targets “if such attacks have a disproportionate impact upon civilian life or civilian objects”.

“Shock and Awe”, promulgated far and wide with the aim of scaring the Iraqis into capitulating, ignores both the principle of “distinction” and that of “proportionality”. The campaign is slated to begin with a 48-hour blitz on a virtually undefended “open city” with 3,000 “precision guided” bombs and missiles. This would coincide with the use of “High Power Microwave” (HPM) weaponry devised to knock out electricity installations, communications and electronic equipment including computers. This blitz in itself will constitute a war crime.

The initial assault would be succeeded by the targeting of Baghdad with 300-400 cruise missiles on a daily basis for at least a week, averaging one missile attack on the city every five minutes. Other weapons listed in the report include precision-guided missiles fired from aircraft, area-impact munitions, such as cluster bombs, fuel-air explosives and multiple rockets. Some of the munitions are likely to carry warheads tipped with depleted uranium, which pollutes the target territory for generations and, deployed in a dry, desert area, is spread by wind to neighbouring countries. (Kuwaitis are now exhibiting the same symptoms of depleted uranium sicknesses which affected Iraqis soon after the 1991 war). The use of tactical nuclear weapons has not been ruled out by the US and Britain, regardless of consequent fall-out in the region.

During the blitz, ground forces would seize control of Iraq's northern and southern oil fields and seal the country's frontiers to prevent Iraqis from seeking refuge in neighbouring countries which do not want to be landed with a humanitarian disaster.

As the code name for the operation indicates, the objective of the sustained assault on the capital is to compel the Iraqi armed forces to surrender without mounting serious resistance which could cost lives amongst the invading forces. Any resistance would be countered by more intensive bombardment and, according to a Western diplomat based in Baghdad, the invading forces could use armoured bulldozers to clear wide swaths of territory for the entry of tanks and armoured troop carriers into closely built neighbourhoods.

Although the US claims that 75 per cent of the explosives to be used will be electronically guided munitions (as compared to nine per cent in the 1991 war), the consequences of “Shock and Awe” for Iraqi civilians could be catastrophic. Since military camps, defensive positions, government and party offices and other strategic sites are located throughout Iraq's cities in and adjacent to neighbourhoods inhabited by ordinary folk, they are likely to become “collateral casualties” in a massive assault.

Thousands could be killed outright by “smart” bombs and missiles which hit their targets, by ordnance which goes astray and by the 25 per cent of “stupid” bombs which do not have guidance systems.

According to UN estimates, 3.6 million city dwellers may lose their homes and will need emergency shelter, and 900,000 could flee their country to seek safety in Iran, Turkey, Jordan and Syria.

HPM weapons will shut down Iraq's power and sewage treatment plants and water purification facilities for an indefinite period, putting the lives of millions of Iraqis at risk from water borne and infectious diseases.

“Shock and Awe” is designed to have a far greater impact than the 1991 bombing which killed 3,500 civilians and 56,000 troops outright.

During the civil conflict which followed the US campaign 35,000 people died. Some 111,000 Iraqis also died during that first year from adverse post-war health affects. The toll for 12 years of sanctions is 1.75 million.

The intensity of the bombardment in a coming war is certain to kill and maim far more Iraqi civilians and wreak greater havoc than the 1991 offensive. For instance, the total number of cruise missiles used during the entire 1991 assault was less than the figure slated for one day's expenditure in the coming war.

The UN figures are 100,000 for direct casualties — killed and wounded — and 400,000 for those who suffer the immediate adverse affects of the war. If one takes the traditional battlefield ratio of 1:3 for killed to wounded, this would mean 33,000 killed (nine times the 1991 figure) and 66,000 wounded in the onslaught. The number of Iraqis estimated to suffer death and serious illness from lack of power, freshwater and sanitation could be four times the figure of 1991.

These are conservative estimates.

The US had “international legality” on its side when it launched its attack on Iraq in 1991, because Iraq had occupied the territory of its neighbour Kuwait. Iraq is no longer occupying anyone else's territory and is not seen as a threat by any of its neighbours. Furthermore, the second Bush administration has failed to make a compelling case for “Shock and Awe”. US Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted that “there is no smoking gun”. Therefore, the US is preparing for a “war without evidence” that Iraq is in serious breach of UN resolutions prohibiting its possession of arms of mass destruction. This means that the legality of a new war is highly questionable.

It will be a “war without evidence” of dubious legality, perpetrated in such a way as to commit international war crimes.

The Centre for Economic and Social Rights is examining possibilities of taking the US government to court, perhaps within the inter-American system, if it launches a war on Iraq. US lawmakers and officials have already been warned that they could face prosecution for acts which violate international humanitarian law. However, the hawks in the Bush administration have little regard for international law or the UN, which they are using as a convenient cover for unilateral aggression against Iraq.

By waging war on Iraq in accordance with the “Shock and Awe” strategy, the Bush administration's hawks will achieve larger objectives than subjugation of Iraq and control over the oil resources of the region. The hawks will finish off both the UN, which they despise, and the body of international law which has been painstakingly built up since World War II.

As far as they are concerned, “might is right” and since the US is the mightiest power in the world today, the US is “right” even when it is totally wrong.

Arguments against war in the Middle East

By George S. Hishmeh

Jordan Times, 2/6/03

WASHINGTON — Whatever today's headline reads about the Bush administration's case against Saddam Hussein, the opposition in the United States for a preemptive war against Iraq is gaining surprising strength and logic, virtually puncturing all the arguments that have been presented so far.

The disagreements within the administration are a matter of public knowledge and record, and some still argue, defensively, that Secretary of State Colin Powell has not really changed his colours despite his vociferousness and presentation at the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

There are countless former senior officials, from the State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the military, as well as prominent academicians, who have argued publicly and forcefully against a devastating strike, which is bound to be very costly in human life and financial resources, at a time when the US economy is encountering serious problems. The estimate of the cost of war is about $100 billion.

The case for “regime change” and disarmament of the Iraqi regime has been repeatedly voiced by US leaders at various forums, national and international. But it has not been very convincing. Former President Jimmy Carter argued that President George Bush has “not made a case for a preemptive strike against Iraq”. Former South African President Nelson Mandela was vehement in his criticism of the American president.

For anybody wondering about the real reasons for the war on Iraq, Bill and Kathleen Christison, former CIA political analysts, have written for Counterpunch (www.counterpunch.org) an article that documented “the Zionist connection to this war ... a war unnecessary for the US but immensely useful for Israel”. Much of their article are excerpts “from the mouths of the horses themselves”, either the neo-conservative planners in the US administration (like Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz) or Israeli government officials, putting forth “the evidence for the assertion of Israeli complicity in the Bush administration planning for war with Iraq.”

Another former CIA official, Stephen C. Pelletiere, who was the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, disputed the allegation, as implied in Bush's State of the Union message, that Saddam has gassed his own people, the Kurdish inhabitants of Halabja, that amounted to an act of genocide. “(This) is not correct because all of the cases where gas was used involved battles,” he underlined; in other words, “these were tragedies of war”.

The gassing at Halabja took place in March 1988 in the battle between Iraqis and Iranians, who were apparently aiming to seize control of the important Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized Halabja, according to Pelletiere, and “the Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange”. He wrote in the New York Times on Jan. 31: “But they (the Kurds) were not Iraq's main target.”

A Defence Intelligence Agency study also asserted, he wrote, that “it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas”. This was attributed to the presence of a blood agent in the bodies of the dead Kurds — “a cyanide-based gas which Iran was known to use”. The Iraqis used mustard gas in the battle, he added, and did not possess blood agents at the time.

The American case was further weakened by Hans Blix, the chief chemical and biological weapons inspector, who took issue with claims by Powell that the UN inspectors had found that Iraqi officials were hiding and moving illicitly materials within and outside of Iraq to prevent their discovery.

Blix said he favoured disarmament through peaceful means: “I think it would be terrible if this comes to an end by armed forces.” Most importantly, he said he had seen no persuasive indications of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, run by Osama Ben Laden who, surprisingly, was not mentioned by the American president in his televised remarks before Congress.

The bottom line in the arguments against a war in the Middle East, correctly voiced by many, among them Senator Richard G. Lugar, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is the fear that “military action will often breed more terrorism” of the type that was witnessed here on Sept. 11, 2001.

Anyone listening before it is too late?

Here comes the American juggernaut: Be prepared

The Daily Star, 2/6/03

US Secretary of State Colin Powell made Washington’s case at the United Nations on Wednesday, but the power of his evidence or lack thereof will be a matter for historians to debate. In the immediate future, there is little point to poring over what he said. Instead, it is crucial to understand the meaning of what he did not: Barring a proverbial miracle, the United States is going to invade Iraq. The rest of the world had better get used to that idea, because in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, America is in no mood to negotiate with its foes or even to discuss matters with its allies.
The Middle East can expect to absorb the harshest blows as the repercussions of war ripple out from Iraq. The regional economy will come under heavy strain, individual governments will face heightened domestic tensions, and front-line Arab states may face direct hostilities if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon tries to take advantage of a distracted international community by attempting to implement “final solutions” in the Occupied Territories and/or Lebanon.
And the dangers will not end when the war does. Once the world’s sole remaining superpower has dismantled what remains of the Iraqi military and installed a government of its liking, the Bush administration might be in the mood for more. It has disputes with several other Arab regimes as well, including some that have put aside past differences to cooperate with the “war on terror” and even a few that have been American allies for decades.
Never has the adage “better safe then sorry” been more applicable to Arab leadership. Unfortunately, the track record of Arab rulers is not encouraging. They have demonstrated an alarming capacity to view folly as virtue, pursuing policies that are self-evidently hazardous to the welfare of their peoples and even to the survival of their own regimes. The damage incurred in the past was nothing, though, compared to what stalks them now.
In most previous crises they have had only to deal with Israel. Washington’s involvement was that of a distant power annoyed at having to immerse any of its formidable limbs in a backwater. This time is very different. With no Cold War to erode its limited attention span and no credible rival to challenge its overwhelming military and diplomatic muscle, the United States is bearing down on the region like the heat-seeking missiles it would shortly be using if only Iraq still had an air force worth mentioning. Iraqis will be lucky if the war is mercifully quick, but that might infuse Washington with added confidence in its ability to have its way with other countries.
No force of the size and power being invested in America’s Gulf contingent can fail to wreak havoc on a massive scale. The Arab world should therefore be under no illusions that it will emerge unscathed, even if the US expedition ends in Iraq. Time is running out for preparations aimed at avoiding or cushioning whatever blows are forthcoming. History will look back on how and why America came crashing into the Middle East in 2003, but it will also examine the steps that Arab governments took or failed to take in order to protect themselves and their peoples. That is the verdict that should concern us now.

President Bush, your words scare us

By Sa'ad Mehio, The Daily Star, 2/6/03

Dear Mr. President,

I realize that you are on the verge of deciding to go to war if, that is, you have not decided already. I also know that you appreciate that while most Iraqis are eagerly awaiting the arrival of US forces in order to vent their anger at Saddam and his cronies, other Arab peoples are confused and divided between supporting your effort to unseat the evil tyrant, and fearing for their own independence and freedom from your plans.
I also know that you know that no one in this region including those professing opposition to war and support for Saddam is too embarrassed to publicly come out in support of the Iraqi leader.
Having said all that, Mr. President, let me speak to you with complete frankness.
I am not about to say that your impending war on Iraq is about oil, nor that you intend to seize the oil resources of the Middle East in order to exercise a stranglehold on the entire Eurasian land mass.
All this is of no concern to us now. What concerns us is something else far more important at least where Arabs and Muslims are involved.
I carefully read your recent State of the Union address. At first, I thought you wanted to mobilize the support of the American people for your global “war on terror” by warning them of the dangers posed by the alliance between terrorists and dictatorships. Yet by the end of the address, I realized that it is we Arabs who should be scared, and not the American people. Fear, as you well know Mr. President, makes a bad adviser.
But what were we scared of Mr. President?
Three things: The first was the religious tone you used in the address; the second was the almost total absence of any reference to the gravest danger facing peace in the Middle East the Arab-Israeli conflict; and the third was your failure to even mention Secretary of State Colin Powell’s US-Middle East partnership initiative.
Religion also figured highly in the speech.
“We Americans have faith in ourselves,” you said, “but not in ourselves alone. We do not know we do not claim to know all the ways of providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.”
God standing behind history? Isn’t that the same political and ideological message of Osama bin Laden? Bin Laden has always said that God is the engine of history and that men are mere instruments.
If this is not a clash of civilizations, Mr. President, then what else can it be? I wonder how else you could have regurgitated thousand-year-old enmities between Christians and Muslims.
Where did all the secular American values go? Is it possible that a secular superpower could be led by a president who behaves like a priest without a frock; a beardless fundamentalist?
When, soon after Sept. 11, 2001, you said you were embarking on a “crusade against terrorism,” we were told that it was an inadvertent slip of the tongue. Well, it seems now that it was a Freudian slip rather than a linguistic one. It seems, Mr. President that deep inside, you actually believe what Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Franklin Graham and other fundamentalist Christian preachers have been saying publicly.
Do you actually believe that involving God in this oil-and blood-spattered political conflict would not elicit any harsh reactions?
Don’t you realize that Muslim fundamentalists, in future confrontations, will also invoke the same God you are calling on to be on your side?
So much for religion. As for the Palestine question, which only took up four words in your six-page address, let me quote what William Wallace, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics, had to say: “Then there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was awarded one brief mention in the president’s address, as if it was a problem that could safely be left to one side until the Middle East had been reshaped.” It seemed, Lord Wallace added, that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had acquired “more influence in Washington than the US secretary of state.”
Do I need to add anything to that? I don’t believe so.
The third cause for Arab fear was the fact that by totally ignoring Powell’s initiative (which was a weak proposal to begin with), you reinforced their suspicions that the State Department does not express the true intentions of the White House and the Pentagon.
Moreover, by dedicating half the address to Iraq (the other half was mainly concerned with the US economy), and totally ignoring the hopes and aspirations of people in other Arab countries, you demonstrated a degree of arrogance that Arabs would not be able to stomach.
This could have been an oversight on your part. If, however, it was not, then Mr. President, I have to warn you that ignoring Arab aspirations will lead to destroying the very foundations of the Pax Americana in the Middle East.
The Middle East, Mr. President, is not a land without a people. Nor are its people without their own history and civilization. The Middle East, it might interest you to know, is Arab, and despite the survival of some aspects of tribalism, stopped belonging to tribal politics 1,400 years ago. Your attempt to turn the clock back hundreds of years will only succeed in uniting all Arabs and Muslims against you. Ask Bernard Lewis he’ll tell you.
The Arab world, Mr. President, is characterized by a highly developed social-historical sense of Arab nationalism recognized by all Orientalists. If you try to deny this fact, then the price for that will be very high indeed.
Mr. President, no one in this region likes Saddam Hussein. But they like Sharon even less. If you ignore this fact, then everyone in the Middle East will be with Saddam and fully against Sharon and America.

Sa'ad Mehio is a Lebanese journalist.

Who will benefit from America’s latest fabrications against Baghdad?

An Arab press review, By The Daily Star, 2/6/03

Anticipating no surprises from US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN Security Council, Arab commentators dismiss his alleged “new evidence” of Iraq’s wrongdoing as a final and probably futile ploy to mislead a skeptical world into supporting the impending war. They are equally unimpressed by efforts being made by Arab leaders to grapple with the crisis.
Newspapers note that moves to convene an emergency Arab summit aimed at trying to prevent a US invasion of Iraq have apparently been abandoned in favor of rescheduling the annual get-together of Arab rulers that was due to be held in Bahrain on March 24. The summit is to be relocated to Cairo and probably brought forward, but the Bahrainis will still chair it. The Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat points out that this remains uncertain: The Arab League has only “requested” that a new early-March date be set.
The Arab governments’ perceived idleness over Iraq earns them much criticism in the op-ed pages.
In the Bahraini daily Akhbar
al-Khaleej, Egyptian columnist Assayed Zahra laments the unedifying spectacle of Arab governments dithering over whether, when, and where to convene their summit, asking: “Is this the sight of a nation facing up to an imminent catastrophe?
“The truth, which no one wants to state frankly, is that most Arab leaders don’t want the summit to convene at all,” Zahra writes.
The principal reason for that is that US President George W. Bush doesn’t want an Arab summit to be held, “or to be more precise, America’s view is that the summit should either convene to support the war or else not convene at all,” he adds.
“The second reason is that a large number of Arab leaders (American officials have counted 12) have sorted themselves out, in secret of course, with America regarding policy toward the war and the occupation of Iraq. In other words, they have notified Washington of their de facto support for war regardless of what they may declare in public.”
And the third reason is that even if some or most Arab leaders are genuinely opposed to war, “they don’t know what exactly they can do, or rather they are totally convinced that they are incapable of doing anything” to help prevent it.
“We Arabs resemble a crippled ship,” Zahra says. “The leaders have opted to jump off onto American lifeboats and leave the vessel and everyone on it in mid-sea, to sink or float, it doesn’t matter.”
Jordanian commentator Tarek Massarwa is scathing about the “Arab solution” that regional players are reportedly considering to the Iraq crisis namely, getting the Iraqi leadership to stand down after the Security Council has adopted a war resolution.
He writes in the Amman daily
Al-Rai that the US is seemingly encouraging such a course, hence its hints that it would welcome the exile or banishment of President Saddam Hussein.
It is unclear whether this means that if Saddam were to step down, the Americans “would accept Taha Yassin Ramadan as his replacement,” or if “what is required is the departure of the entire regime, including the Baath Party, the army command and the millions of armed militia who fill Iraq’s towns, villages and countryside,” Massarwa writes.
But even assuming that the Iraqi leadership would agree to some deal along these lines, “are those who advocate it and dub it an ‘Arab solution’ guaranteeing a replacement?” he asks. Or will Saddam’s successor be US General Tommy Franks, who is tipped to become military governor of a US-occupied Iraq? Will he take up Iraq’s seat at future Arab summits, while Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon represents Palestine?
“Originally, the ‘Arab solution’ was for the international inspectors to return to Iraq,” Massarwa recalls. “They did. But did we hear the advocates of this solution require Washington and London to accept the inspectors’ conclusions in exchange, or to cease their military buildup in the Gulf if Iraq were shown not to possess weapons of mass destruction, or to lift the embargo against it?
“So why should we believe that the departure of Saddam Hussein, or the party or military leadership, will stop the progress of the Anglo-American drive to occupy Iraq and guide the Iraqis toward democracy so that Baghdad can have its Republican and Democratic parties and its Congress of representatives and senators, and its oil can be placed in safe American hands, as Arab oil always is?”
Washington’s rhetoric about freeing Iraq from dictatorship prompts Talal Salman, publisher of the Beirut daily As-Safir, to remark that however much of a despot Saddam may be, Bush has been every bit as tyrannical in his bid to “impose on the entire world his decision to plunge it into a war on Iraq.”
Having failed to make a convincing case for military action, despite resorting to outright fabrications, the Bush administration “has resorted to tried and tested ‘democratic’ methods known throughout history: bribes for those humiliated by want, and the stick for the defiant,” Salman writes.
Thus, it has “muzzled China,” which needs access to US markets and technology, “blackmailed Russia” by exploiting its desperation for IMF and World Bank loans, and “split Europe” by luring a number of East European countries still recovering from their miserable experience as part of the Soviet bloc he says.
“As for Silvio Berlusconi’s Italy, its corrupt and corrupting ruler didn’t need persuading to participate in the ‘dirty work,’ as that was his original profession,” Salman says. “And when the German chancellor signaled his opposition, he was ‘embargoed’ and war was declared on him by invoking German Nazism’s black record against the Jews.”
To browbeat Turkey into going along with its war plans, Washington threatened to rekindle Kurdish separatism, cut off financial aid, and “deprive it of its slice of the liberated Iraqi cake.”
But Salman remarks that the US has reserved its most “democratic” manners for its “Arab friends.” It has made “direct threats” to the Saudi royal family to split it from within, turn the tribes against it, or even divide the kingdom into three.
“Egypt has no role at all. Jordan is a rear operations room, plus a launching pad for some joint special operations with the Israeli occupation army designed to reassure Sharon. As for the Gulf Arab countries, they are missile platforms and rear bases for the forces spearheading the offensive. Their opinions are neither ventured nor asked,” Salman writes. “Isn’t George W. Bush the highest prototype of democracy on the global level?”
Arab pundits commenting on Powell’s much-awaited appearance before the Security Council, meanwhile, discount in advance the new “evidence” in support of Washington’s case for war.
Syria’s ruling Baath Party daily Al-Baath uses its editorial to ask a key question reiterated in many other newspapers across the region: “If the US has evidence that Iraq is concealing weapons of mass destruction, why hasn’t it made it available to the UN arms inspectors, instead of holding on to it while threatening that time is running out and continuing its military buildup?”
The paper stresses that there is no justification or meaningful international backing for war, and if Washington opts to attack Iraq it will effectively be doing so on its own, and will be solely to blame for the death and destruction it causes.
“The region, as everyone keep reiterating, does not need a new war to destroy what remains in it. It needs peace, security and prosperity. It has experienced more war, injustice and outrage than it can bear … not least the aggressive wars waged by Israel against the Palestinian people and the Arabs in general with the illegal support of America,” Al-Baath says.
In Lebanon’s An-Nahar, Rajeh al-Khoury reports that extensive details of Powell’s presentation to the UN were leaked beforehand. But no one ever explained why the US “sat on” this supposedly incriminating evidence for so long. “And if US intelligence agencies are openly rowing with the Pentagon over this evidence, deeming it spurious and unconvincing, if not scandalous, how can Powell expect to persuade the Security Council and the world of it?”
Some council members will, of course, applaud his presentation. “The British will be there, as will the Spanish and the Bulgarians, who are still entranced by Americanization and its rosy dreams in Eastern Europe,” Khoury says. But for the other delegates, it will not be a matter of Iraq having been caught with a smoking gun, but Powell having been caught lying.
Pan-Arab Al-Quds al-Arabi publisher/editor Abdelbari Atwan who conducted an interview with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan prior to Sept. 11 balks at Washington’s efforts to persuade the world that the secular regime in Baghdad is somehow in cahoots with Al-Qaeda.
Apart from the fact that they are worlds apart ideologically, he writes that it was bin Laden’s hostility to the Iraqi regime that turned him against the Saudi authorities and their American protectors in the first place. After the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Atwan says, bin Laden proposed to the Saudi government that he form an “international Islamist front” composed of “Arab-Afghan” fighters to eject Iraqi forces from the emirate in the same way that Soviet troops had been forced out of Afghanistan.
“But the senior Saudi prince he approached with the offer told him to keep within his bounds, concentrate exclusively on his business interests and leave politics to the politicians. That meeting was the turning point of his career, prompting him to join the ranks of the opposition, form the Advice and Reform Movement, and move to Sudan and then to the wild mountains of Tora Bora in Afghanistan.”
But Atwan says that links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda “will definitely be established, but only after Iraq has been bombed.”
An American invasion and occupation will enable the group to create a presence for itself in the country and mount attacks on US forces there. The toppling of the regime could do much to “bestow legitimacy” on Al-Qaeda by rallying thousands of Iraqis opposed to the occupation to its ranks.
Atwan writes that the latest US claims that Iraq is sponsoring
Al-Qaeda or concealing weapons “will convince no one.”
The US administration is hell-bent on war, and the date for launching it was decided at Bush’s latest meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he says. The Bush administration has served notice that it will invade Iraq with or without Security Council endorsement, and that “whoever joins us will have a share of the Iraqi oil cake, and whoever opposes us will face our big stick and find no place in our new world order.”
This being the case, it is “not difficult for the Bush administration to fabricate new evidence against Iraq, in order to provide a fig leaf to those especially in the Arab world who are looking for one with which to conceal the shame of their participation, whether actual or nominal, in the war on Iraq.”
The US has a record of making such fabrications, especially during the 1991 Gulf War, Atwan writes.
In 1990, it provided the Saudis with doctored satellite images, purporting to show that Iraqi forces were massing on the border poised to invade the kingdom, in order to persuade them to agree to the deployment of US troops there. King Fahd didn’t believe the Americans but opted to agree to their demand anyway, despite the advice of Crown Prince Abdullah, who urged him to withhold his approval, he says.
There was also the case of the young woman who was instrumental in persuading the US Congress to vote in favor of the 1991 war with her moving testimony about how she had, as a nurse in a Kuwaiti hospital, witnessed Iraqi soldiers throwing infants out of incubators. It was only afterward that it was revealed that she was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador, had not been in the emirate at all, and had been coached by a public relations firm to lie to US lawmakers in order to win them over to the war camp.

Israeli savagery to the fore
Gulf News, 06-02-2003
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Israel's policy of bulldozing the houses of suspected militants or those who aid them, has rebounded upon them. For yesterday, as Israeli forces razed the home of a Palestinian activist, his partially deaf stepmother was killed as the house crashed around her. Israeli officials claim that every precaution was taken before the demolition and that a thorough search was made of the premises prior to their demolition. But then the Israeli defence would be along such lines, regardless of what the truth is, which would appear to be very far from what the Israeli troops claim. This blatantly cruel act does nothing to endear the occupying force to the population and is in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention, which stipulates how the occupiers should relate to the incarcerated - for such are the Palestinians, kept captive in their own lands.

There is further evidence of the awesome might of Israel over the Palestinians, and the bias shown, even in a so-called unbiased court of justice - albeit Israeli justice. A Tel Aviv court ruled in favour of an Israeli bus company, awarding it $10 million against the Palestinian National Authority, claiming the Authority was responsible for all the damage and loss of business that had occurred due to suicide bombings. It is a very dangerous verdict, since it sets a precedent which might be taken up by other Jewish businesses who also feel similarly affected. It also flies in the face of natural justice and shows utter and complete contempt for the Palestinian National Authority and, most importantly, its leader, President Yasser Arafat. To add further insult to injury, the court made provision for the payment to be made from funds of the PNA which the Israeli government has been withholding from disbursement. This obvious political decision was likely inspired by the return to power of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, whose loathing for all things Palestinian is well known.

Pakistan needs to meet new challenges
By Farhan Bokhari | Gulf News, 06-02-2003
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As Pakistan's federal government battled the challenge of restoring peace after an unprecedented attack on the country's main gas pipelines from Baluchistan, the south western province, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, the prime minister, was touring the Middle East on a mission to calm down the temperature surrounding Iraq.

With preparations underway for a possible U.S. led attack on Iraq, many analysts fear the resultant fallout for the surrounding region. For many Pakistanis, the public protests which followed the first Gulf War more than a decade ago, are still a quick reminder of similar protests waiting to happen in the not too distant future.

Jamali, newly elected as prime minister for the first time, knows that the stakes for his own political future must run high in the event of fresh turmoil in a not too distant Islamic country. Yet, if Pakistan's potentially beleaguered outlook was to face the severest scrutiny, Jamali may eventually have to acknowledge that the primary challenge to his country's future, lies not only on foreign shores but essentially also on the home turf.

In reaching to the outside world on ventures such as activism to face the policy challenge surrounding Iraq, Jamali and his regime face the danger of overseeing the challenges faced by Pakistan, at a time when there are few indications that the country's outlook is heading anywhere other than a further erosion. While Jamali's government battles to bring relative calm to Baluchistan in managing the tribal resentment which triggered recent attacks on the gas pipeline, this case in itself illustrates a wider issue.

The fire in Baluchistan is indeed the consequence of Pakistan's malaise for years when successive federal governments have just not kept up with the royalty payments to Baluch tribesmen. Ultimately, the choice by some of those tribesmen to take up arms and disrupt gas supply to the rest of Pakistan, though an act of criminality that must not go unpunished, nevertheless has understandable political connotations.

More than three months after elections last October which brought Jamali to power, Pakistan's misfortune indeed is that it's still struggling to take the first few steps towards becoming a stable democracy and lay the foundations of a thriving economy, as its leaders search for ways to become involved in foreign lands.

Coinciding with what must appear to many Pakistanis as a critical time in the country's history, the reality of politics remaining divided between sharply antagonistic interests and an increasing social fragmentation, are together almost certain to lead to more erosion. Following one of the most controversial transitions to civilian rule, beginning with last April's controversial presidential referendum when General Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler, chose not to face any competing candidates, to the outcome of recent elections, it's clear that Pakistan is in short supply of good news.

Too complacent

Such a conclusion must stand directly in contradiction with the beliefs across the high corridors of power surrounding offices of the president and the prime minister. However, it's not the first time that Pakistan's leaders have chosen to remain complacent just when the country's outlook is increasingly suffering under the weight of rising uncertainty and diminishing prospects for a more promising future.

For successive Pakistani governments, the reassuring view has always been that there could be no reason for concern as long as the streets of Pakistan generally remain calm. In other words, there should be few anxieties over worsening long term prospects as long as the short term outlook remains secure.

But in driving themselves to such complacency, successive Pakistani governments have risked overseeing an important lesson. That lesson must be recurring visits to life on the brink in the midst of crisis situations, without a clear assurance of long term certainty, is often a dangerous affair. It's possible that Pakistan may face a crisis where returning to the relative comfort of stability may become difficult.

Jamali along with Musharraf faces the crucial test of reforming Pakistan internally in a way that its future outlook begins to show clear signs of improvement on a sustainable basis. Reinforcing this point is all the more significant just at the time when the government's credibility is in tatters over the issue of the gas pipeline in Baluchistan. The Pakistani government's success in reining in those who were at the centre of this recent agitation, would still fail to satisfy the mounting concerns over the country's two significant challenges.

First, reforming Pakistan's political order must eventually be driven by settling a number of discords, beginning with a conclusion to the periodic rift between its civilian politicians and military leaders.

Musharraf, in continuing to wear two hats as the military chief while also serving as the president, has only succeeded in aggravating the already considerable tension in this area. Ultimately, he would have to concede that his continuance of such a twin leadership role is neither in the best interest of evolving a new political arrangement for Pakistan nor indeed helps the institutional interests of the military.

Even though Jamali has been elected as prime minister, many political analysts are quick to conclude that he remains under the shadow of Musharraf's all too overwhelming position. The past three years have adequately demonstrated that under the leadership of the Pakistani military, the country's reform agenda to bring about change to its political and economic realities, remains only half met.

Official claim to fame

Notwithstanding the official claim to fame surrounding Pakistan's economic recovery, many independent analysts armed with convincing evidence are quick to note that the relative change for Pakistan has followed as a consequence of events after the terrorist attacks in New York. Indicators such as a mammoth rise in Pakistan's liquid foreign currency reserves have emerged only because expatriate Pakistanis worldwide chose to send back their funds through regular banks rather than the informal "hawala" system, as many did not want to risk becoming caught in investigations into money laundering.

Second, the internal divide across Pakistan in the wake of the return to a semblance of democracy following elections last October is much too serious to be ignored. Jamali's time and efforts may well have been better utilised if he would concentrate increasingly on tackling Pakistan's domestic divide in sharp contrast to embarking upon foreign ventures with little assurance of success.

Accounts of strong-arm methods allegedly used in getting the "correct" results during the democratisation process have indeed deepened Pakistan's political predicament, as the country's opposition leaders find themselves increasingly marginalised and ultimately forced to opt for politics of confrontation rather than reconciliation.

The overwhelming impression across the political spectrum is now clearly that success in Pakistani politics lies only through gateways running via the military led establishment rather than a consequence of popular choice. The return of some of the most tainted politicians to Islamabad and the provincial capitals, with past allegations ranging from financial bungling to the use of alleged brute force as in the case of at least one recently rehabilitated Karachi politician, has clearly not been in Pakistan's best interest.

In sharp contrast to the best ideals of moving forward, led by a new breed of relatively clean leaders, Pakistan appears to have taken a step backward, with at least a portion of its power structure now clearly dominated by leaders with controversial pasts. Extricating Pakistan from a tainted new political order is now the most significant challenge. Marking a new beginning must be based on not only an admission of guilt over the past, but also the acceptance of political foes as important stake-holders in a new political arrangement.

For Pakistan's leaders, the still unmet challenge is to clearly demonstrate that a return to a democratic environment marks the first step towards reforms unforeseen in recent history.

Farhan Bokhari is a Pakistan-based commentator who writes on political and economic matters.

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