Iraq

Civil Disobedience and Other Strategies

/ Iraq, War


Peace movement strategies as war continues -- support those troops (Washington Post, 3/26/03):

Nancy Lessin and Charley Richardson are frightened for their son Joe, a 25-year-old Arab-language specialist with the Marines who is stationed somewhere in the Persian Gulf region. They are also frightened for all the sons and daughters of the families they have met since forming Military Families Speak Out, a group of 200 families opposed to the war who have loved ones serving in this war. Ubiquitous at protest rallies in Washington and Boston, where they live, Lessin and Richardson were also the lead plaintiffs in an unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to stop the president from invading Iraq, on the grounds that it was illegal to do so under international law. Lessin was also arrested last week with religious leaders who tried to block access to the White House as part of a stepped-up campaign of civil disobedience to protest the war.

The couple plans more civil disobedience, and sees no inconsistency in supporting the troops and opposing the war. "We're actually surprised that people have trouble with this one," said Richardson, director of the labor extension program at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. "If this war is wrong, then stopping it is the right thing to do."

In other words, he said, "if you saw one of your kids getting into a car with a drunk driver, would you stand by the side of the road and salute? Or would you do everything in your power to stop the car?"

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Public Opinion: Perception of War Changes Swiftly

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, War

Pew Research Center Poll, 3/25/03: "Public Confidence In War Effort Falters, but Support for War Holds Steady": About 3/4 of Americans continue to support the war, but the proportion who think it is "going very well" is dropping.

The percentage of the public thinking the war was going very well was as high as 71% on Friday and Saturday, only to fall to 52% on Sunday and 38% Monday as the public learned of American casualties and POW's. Overall, the interviews by Sunday and Monday found about as many people thinking the war effort was going just fairly well (41%) as opposed to very well (45%). Only 8% went as far as to say the war effort was not going well.

But there are no indications that declining optimism about progress in the war is affecting overall support for military action or President Bush's handling of the conflict. Roughly seven-in-ten Americans say it was the right decision to use military force against Iraq, a figure that remained fairly stable during the polling period. And about the same number (71%) give the president positive marks for his handling of the war.

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Not as Easy as They Thought

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, US Military, War

Gideon Rose, "The Hawks Were Wrong" (Slate, 3/25/03):

With a few notable exceptions (such as Robert W. Kagan and, more recently, Kenneth Pollack), the Iraq hawks' favored strategy for toppling Saddam involved supporting the Iraqi opposition and, in particular, the Iraqi National Congress. Most of the dirty work of regime change, they argued, would not have to be done by the United States, but rather could and would be done by Iraqis themselves. The only things needed from America were financial and diplomatic support, training and equipment, and air cover. The actual fighting, if there was any, would be contracted out to local forces. . . .

But the war's progress to date is enough to put paid to the idea that Iraq was a paper tiger and that Saddam might have fallen quickly and easily to the less-than-daunting military prowess of the INC.

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Empire

/ GW Bush Admin, History, Iraq, US Economy, US Military, War

"The Arrogant Empire" -- Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek, 3/24/03:

[T]he United States will spend as much next year on defense as the rest of the world put together (yes, all 191 countries). And it will do so devoting 4 percent of its GDP, a low level by postwar standards.

American dominance is not simply military. The U.S. economy is as large as the next three -- Japan, Germany and Britain -- put together. With 5 percent of the world's population, this one country accounts for 43 percent of the world's economic production, 40 percent of its high-technology production and 50 percent of its research and development. If you look at the indicators of future growth, all are favorable for America. It is more dynamic economically, more youthful demographically and more flexible culturally than any other part of the world. It is conceivable that America's lead, especially over an aging and sclerotic Europe, will actually increase over the next two decades.

Given this situation, perhaps what is most surprising is that the world has not ganged up on America already. Since the beginnings of the state system in the 16th century, international politics has seen one clear pattern -- the formation of balances of power against the strong. Countries with immense military and economic might arouse fear and suspicion, and soon others coalesce against them. It happened to the Hapsburg Empire in the 17th century, France in the late 18th and early 19th century, Germany twice in the early 20th century, and the Soviet Union in the latter half of the 20th century. At this point, most Americans will surely protest: "But we're different!" Americans -- this writer included -- think of themselves as a nation that has never sought to occupy others, and that through the years has been a progressive and liberating force. But historians tell us that all dominant powers thought they were special. Their very success confirmed for them that they were blessed. But as they became ever more powerful, the world saw them differently. The English satirist John Dryden described this phenomenon in a poem set during the Biblical King David's reign. "When the chosen people grew too strong," he wrote, "The rightful cause at length became the wrong."

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Woman Chops Off Finger in War Protest

/ Iraq, War

The wife of a Gulf War addict in China cut off her finger to stop him from watching TV news about the conflict all day long, a news report said today.

The 45-year-old woman from Nanjing in Jiangsu Province took the drastic step after quarrelling with her husband about his TV addiction since the war began last week, the Hong Kong edition of the official China Daily reported.

She cut off the middle finger of her left hand with a kitchen knife to get his attention because their 15-year-old daughter could not concentrate on studying for upcoming exams with the TV constantly on.

The shocked husband then turned off the TV and took her to hospital, said the newspaper report.

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Clear Channel Rallies and the Bush Administration

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, Media, Radio, War

Paul Krugman on Clear Channel's sponsorship of prowar rallies (New York Times, 3/25/03):

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry -- with close links to the Bush administration. . . .

Experienced Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company, called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.

There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have melded into one big 'us.' " On almost every aspect of domestic policy, business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees . . . now oversee industries for which they once worked." We should have realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians -- by, for example, organizing "grass roots" rallies on their behalf?

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Weblogging Soldiers

/ Iraq, US Military, War, Weblogs

Weblogging US soldiers -- and their surprising freedom (for now) to do so -- as covered by the Wall Street Journal via Yahoo (3/25/03):

It's not hard to run this kind of Web site from the front. The armed services don't have centralized rules governing troops' Internet use, beyond restricting such obvious things as pornography and disclosure of military operational details. Each branch of the military has its own set of general guidelines, but typically delegates decisions about e-mail and Internet access to commanders in the field. There, soldiers can use the military's nonofficial network, the Nonsecure Internet Protocol Network, or Nippernet. Enlisted troops often have access to makeshift Internet cafes in the larger camps.

Maj. C.J. Wallington, team leader for the Army's secure intranet system, Army Knowledge Online, says because of the volume, the Army "can't spend a lot of time" checking soldiers' e-mail. "We put a lot of faith in soldiers to do the right thing," and apply the same discretion to their Internet communications that they'd use in personal conversations, he says.

The Army is considering incorporating blogging into its secure network where troops communicate with each other and their families. If such a system were put into place, the general public would no longer have access to such blogs.

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Who’s Responsible for the Forged Nuclear Documents?

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, War

CIA ducks culpability for forged nuke docs (Slate, 3/23/03)

With CIA analysts accusing the Bush administration of coercing them, the administration is likely to volley back in this internecine war fought on the battlefields of the nation's dailies. A glimmer of that coming clash appears in the last paragraph of the [Washington] Post story, where a State Department spokesman flings the dead cat back over Foggy Bottom's fence toward Langley. The Post reports:

The State Department's December fact sheet, issued to point out glaring omissions in a declaration Iraq said accounted for all of its prohibited weapons, said the declaration "ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger." Asked this week to comment on the fact sheet, a CIA spokesman referred questions on the matter to the State Department, where a spokesman said "everything we wrote in the fact sheet was cleared with the agency."

Still unanswered are these urgent questions: Who forged the documents? Given the documents' transparent inauthenticity, why were they given such credence? Who in the administration pushed the CIA to validate them (if it did)? Why didn't the CIA push back?

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Clear Channel Rallies

/ Iraq, Media, Radio, War

"Media Giant's Rally Sponsorship Raises Questions" (Tim Jones, Chicago Tribune, 3/19/03):

Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations. . . .

The sponsorship of large rallies by Clear Channel stations is unique among major media companies, which have confined their activities in the war debate to reporting and occasionally commenting on the news. The San Antonio-based broadcaster owns more than 1,200 stations in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

While labor unions and special interest groups have organized and hosted rallies for decades, the involvement of a big publicly regulated broadcasting company breaks new ground in public demonstrations.

"I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news."

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Don’t Let These Peace Protesters Confuse You

/ Iraq, Media, Radio, War

Conservative talk radio host organizes prowar rallies; Clear Channel Communications pays for them (Douglas Jehl in the New York Times, 3/24/03):

"Don't let these peace protesters confuse you," Glenn Beck, a conservative radio host from Philadelphia, told the crowd estimated at 10,000 . . . [in Glen Allen, VA on March 23]. "We know we're facing dark and terrible, terrifying times. But I tell you, we will look these times dead in the eye, and we will climb these stairs."

Over the last few weeks, Mr. Beck, whose three-hour program is heard five days a week on more than 100 stations, has helped promote many similar demonstrations under the banner of Rally for America. Some have been financed by radio stations owned by his employer, Clear Channel Communications, the nation's largest owner of radio stations, in an arrangement that has been criticized by those who contend that media companies should not engage in political advocacy.

The rally near Richmond was paid for by WRVA, a local radio station that broadcasts Mr. Beck's program. Executives at WRVA, which is owned by Clear Channel, said they had decided to stage the event in response to calls from listeners, who in turn had been exhorted by Mr. Beck to seek venues for such rallies.

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