War

US Rebukes Canada for Failure to Support War

/ Canada, Iraq, War


US rebukes Canada for failure to support war (Gloria Galloway in the Toronto Globe and Mail, 3/26/03):

Washington's ambassador to Canada has delivered the sternest public rebuke by a U.S. representative since the Trudeau era, saying Americans are upset at Canada's refusal to join the war in Iraq and hinting there could be economic fallout.

At a breakfast speech yesterday to the Economic Club of Toronto, U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci said "there is a lot of disappointment in Washington and a lot of people are upset" about Canada's refusal to join the United States in its efforts to depose Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. . . .

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien retorted that Canada is a "sovereign independent country" that makes its own decisions and that there is unhappiness all around over the war in Iraq.

"We, too, are disappointed" that the United States went to war in Iraq without the approval of the United Nations, Mr. Chrétien said.

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The Larger Plan

/ Iraq, Middle East, War

The larger administration plan for the Middle East, of which the Iraq war is the first stage (and how first-stage failures will be used to justify confrontations with other states): Joshua Micah Marshall,
"Practice to Deceive", Washington Monthly, April 2003:

[T]o the Bush administration hawks who are guiding American foreign policy . . . . invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his administration gave strong hints. In February, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Meanwhile, neoconservative journalists have been channeling the administration's thinking. Late last month, The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a "world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism . . . a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future."

In short, the administration is trying to roll the table -- to use U.S. military force, or the threat of it, to reform or topple virtually every regime in the region, from foes like Syria to friends like Egypt, on the theory that it is the undemocratic nature of these regimes that ultimately breeds terrorism. So events that may seem negative -- Hezbollah for the first time targeting American civilians; U.S. soldiers preparing for war with Syria -- while unfortunate in themselves, are actually part of the hawks' broader agenda. Each crisis will draw U.S. forces further into the region and each countermove in turn will create problems that can only be fixed by still further American involvement, until democratic governments -- or, failing that, U.S. troops -- rule the entire Middle East.

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United Nations Options

/ Iraq, United Nations, War

UN Security Council meets today -- possible prologue to an emergency session of the General Assembly and consideration of a "Uniting for Peace" vote under Resolution 377? (The Hindu, 3/26/03):

At this stage, it is not clear if the 15-member Security Council will be pushing for a formal resolution at the end of this open session calling for an end to the hostilities and withdrawal of all foreign forces. Those in favour of such a resolution will have to first make sure they have nine votes to pass the resolution. Even then the U. S. and Britain will most certainly exercise their veto.

One scenario is that if a resolution is killed by a veto in the Security Council, the Arab League could call for an Emergency Session of the 191-member United Nations General Assembly.

To get this going, a petition signed by at least 97 States is required. This will not be difficult; and the chances of a resolution condemning the U.S.- led attack on Iraq passing the General Assembly is also high given the existing sentiments.

A resolution cannot be vetoed in the General Assembly. At the same time, resolutions are not legally binding unlike the case of the Security Council, but are seen as reflecting the views of the world opinion.

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Geneva Conventions?

/ Iraq, War

Linda S. Heard on the hypocrisy of US protestations over Iraq's treatment of POWs (Counterpunch, 3/26/03):

There was no talk about the Geneva Conventions when contingents of Arabs and Moslems were flown to Guantanamo Bay, shackled, handcuffed, gagged, hooded and chained to their aircraft seats only to be thrown into chicken coops open to the elements.

There was no mention of any conventions when John Walker Lindt was interviewed while he lay on a stretcher in Afghanistan. Oh, yes. These were 'detainees'.

They are the disappeared whose lives were not dignified with the title 'prisoner of war', except for Lindt, of course, who got special treatment due to his American passport. The others were left to rot without contact with their families and no recourse to legal representation.

Donald Rumsfeld who is the very person, who once said that he doubted that most of them would ever be released, is now bleating in the most hypocritical fashion about the Geneva Conventions. . . .

And has the White House or the Pentagon ever said a world about Israel's breaches of the Geneva Conventions? Even as 10 per cent of Jenin was demolished, Palestinian refugees used as human shields and ambulances prevented from reaching the sick and injured, the Bush administration stayed silent.

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Strategy: Win in Iraq with Lightweight Forces

/ Iraq, US Military, War

"The Garbo Doctrine" (Jonathan Freedland in The Guardian, 3/26/03):

In the months before war a debate raged in the Pentagon between, crudely put, the uniforms and the suits. The soldiers wanted more time, so they could build up to the 250,000 troops that would constitute the "overwhelming force" believed since the first Gulf war to be the best way to deploy US power. They wanted another month. But the Pentagon civilians, led by Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, insisted on going earlier, with many fewer men.

Why would a hawk like Rumsfeld prefer less to more? My Washington source offers an astonishing explanation: "So they can do it again." The logic is simple. Rumsfeld and co know that amassing an army of quarter of a million is a once-a-decade affair: 1991 and 2003. But if they can prove that victory is possible with a lighter, more nimble force, assembled rapidly - then why not repeat the trick? "This is just the beginning," an administration official told the New York Times this week. "I would not rule out the same sequence of events for Iran and North Korea as for Iraq."

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Protests in the Middle East

/ Bangladesh, Iraq, War

"Arab Governments Struggle to Control Protests against US" (Andrew Gumbel in The Independent, 3/26/03):

Popular fury over the war and continuing noisy street protests are threatening the stability of many autocratic governments in the Gulf region that rely on US support.

Protests also swept across Muslim countries in Asia yesterday. Bangladesh postponed its annual independence celebrations because of the war, while in Indonesia a small Islamist political party with admittedly limited means was deluged with volunteers after it advertised for fighters to go to Iraq to join the anti-American resistance.

Amid rising tensions in Saudi Arabia, the authorities floated a proposal to bring an early end to the war, saying it was in both sides' interests to stop the fighting and try to find another solution to their problems.

The initiative, being co-ordinated by the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Egyptians and the Bahrainis, comes at a time when anti-American and anti-government sentiment has been simmering for years. It risks reaching boiling point if the war becomes protracted.

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Fallout in Jordan

/ Iraq, Jordan, War

King Abdullah threatened as Jordanian anger over the war intensifies (Justin Huggler, The Independent, 3/26/03):

King Abdullah is walking a tightrope. For years his small kingdom, trapped between Iraq and Israel, Syria and Saudi Arabia, mostly desert with few natural resources, has thrived on its status as an American ally. But now he is under intense pressure from the United States to assist its invasion of Iraq. And equally intense pressure from his people to oppose it.

The fury all around the Arab world at the war in Iraq is seething here too. Jordanians at yesterday's protest were calling for the American and British embassies to be closed, and for the Jordanian government to open the border with Iraq so they could go and fight alongside the Iraqis against the invading Americans.

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Protests

/ Iraq, War

More protests: Australia, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Bahrain, Pakistan, and Lebanon. Many protests target US embassies (Guardian, 3/26/03).

More protests: Greece, Germany, Italy. European press analysts suggest that the news and images produced during the first week of war are bearing out protesters' fears that the war would be brutal and that the United States and Britain would lack wide public support in Iraq (Guardian, 3/26/03).

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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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