The US, The UN and Iraq

timber

Preface: I'm getting really quite sleepy, so if my response is incoherent or insufficient, it is only because I'm tired and not because of any problem with my reasoning.

I do try not to simply settle into feel good positions, except during intimacy. I know, for example, that my thoughts on many present and past US policies related to the environment are shared by really very many folks in the earth sciences both inside the US and abroad.

As regards Iraq, it is complex, and though I don't think it is merely or even mainly about oil, oil is surely not irrelevant. Very ugly things have gone on elsewhere, as you know, which have not witnessed much US concern. Sadaam is, as I've said elsewhere, a bad fellow with the possible potential of becoming Stalin bad. Threatening him, as has been done, in order to get the inspectors back in was a good decision in my view. I am actually in favor of military intervention (in principle, and aside from complicating factors such as alliances) to restrict all further nuclear proliferation. With bad guys, it's even more critical. But I confess I'm not confident that when Sadaam falls, it won't be the oil resources which gain the ongoing attention rather than the Iraqui people. I hope that's wrong.

On the matter of hegemony, if the US allows itself to be placed under bodies such as the UN and World Court, I will accede to your notion that my claim is wrong. If the US continues to hold itself above these bodies, even if interacting with them in certain ways, I will be greatly disappointed, but unsurprised.

This is a tricky sort of argument to be making to you guys, not least of all because I'm Canadian. And I understand that it may sound like all I'm doing is finding fault and ignoring the rest. But this is a pivotal moment. How the US defines herself and her role in the world community right now will, absolutely will, determine the next bit of world history. I bring my personal values and my frightfully insufficient education to the discussion because they are all I have.

Blatham

Ah yes I agree with your final analysis of control by influence only----- does that make us the "evil empire"? The issue here is not actual result but the intent. Other empires had as their intent, conquering, enslavement of the people, and exploitation of resources. Our intent is the preservation of the best interests of the world and ours which are one and same----globalization makes this absolutely essential.

This from Joe Lieberman, yesterday, on 'Face The Nation':

"...I think the administration made a mistake and escalated this counterchallenge, like two people yelling at each other, and if they don't watch out, they end up getting into a fist fight.

I think it's time to lower the rhetoric, and knowing our strength, to sit down with the North Koreans and say:

"Look, the military option from the United States is on the table. Stop your uranium enrichment program, let the inspectors back into Yongbyon nuclear plant and let's talk about having normal relations and getting you reunified with the South." "

Sounds like an excellent way to avoid a war to me...

This entire sequence of events with NK is very disturbing and the timing of the NK actions lead me to ask many questions for which I have no answers.

1. What is the actual economic situation inside NK?

2. Is this an act of desperation on the part of Jong II because the country is on the verge of collapse?

3. Does he think we are preoccupied with Iraq and cannot adddress this new crisis?

4. What does he really hope to achieve/ what does he need to achieve in his mind?

5. Does he really think it necessary to test our new doctrine of pre-emptive strike?

6. Is he close enough to achieving the capability of nuclear blackmail---maybe he needs only a few days to put together a couple of nukes and already thinks he has the capability to deliver same nukes.

7. Why now?

8. Is he mentally unbalanced?

9 Does he comprehend the possible and probable consequences?

I do think the recent statement by Powell will tend to throw Jong off balance---I think he probably said to himself---Hmm that wasn't the reaction I expected. Maybe the administration wants to allow the inspectors to get out before taking any action and they just want to check his reaction to this statement.

We have many options available at this minute but the list is dwindling rapidly

Perception

"Evil"...I am not a fan of this word and its associated concepts, other than as an adjective in relation to my Aunt Nettie's home-made horse radish. It's a word which leads to absolute notions and claims and isn't of any real value in discourse except to instill hatred.

Talking about the 'intention' of a nation is tricky, though I probably do it myself more often than I'm aware. Intention always lies in the individual, though a similar intention can arise or be developed in a group of iindividuals. But the US, as it interacts with the world, is immensely complex and multi-dimensional. The intentions of a purchaser from WalMart searching out low cost garment factories in Myanmar, or a weapons salesman from Duluth knocking on some African dictators front door, will both be quite unlike the intentions of a barber in Seattle. More importantly, the consequences of these intentions (and subsequent actions) will be different.

Let's take the example of the ongoing fun at Bhopal. The disaster at the Union Carbide plant happened in 84. The survivors have yet to see a penny in compensation. Now, add this update...

" When survivors' organisations protested at Dow's Mumbai HQ on 2 December about the contamination from the abandoned Union Carbide factory that has led to mercury, lead and organochlorines being found in the breast milk of women living near the factory, the company's Finance Director Anand Vohra promised that he would personally recommend to his superiors "that action should be taken to alleviate the plight of gas-affected people in Bhopal."

Instead the corporation has filed a suit against the survivors demanding about US$10,000 compensation for "loss of work". "

America is neither 'Good' nor 'Evil'. The 'best interests of the world', to use your words, are not well served by more than a few interactions between US agents and the folks in other places.

But as I said earlier, the converse is also true...there are ways in which contact with US agents do serve the best interests.

Blatham

It is as I suspected, you just cannot accept that our intentions are honorable with regard to our interests being identical with those of the world.

Perception, i aimed nothing in my post at you. There is one individual who has not shown here for a while whom i did have in mind when i spoke of administration cheerleaders. My principal concern i what is see in the press and hear in the world about me as well--a good many conservatives, most but not all of whom i would describe as well-meaning, are positively gleeful at the prospect of this war. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. We should go to war if we must in the best interests of a global society. I do NOT equate a global society with economic "globalization," and, in fact, mistrust that movement altogether. NAFTA has provisions which by-pass the court systems of the United States of America, the United States of Mexico and Canada, and this is disturbing to me. I remain unconvinced that Saddam is a clear and present danger--although i'm not so foolish as to deny that he could quickly become very dangerous. However, that does not immediately imply that direct, overwhelming military action is the only solution. And i remain concerned that so many people in this country think this could be a walk-over. I've never mentioned CBN disasters in my analysis of what might happen, and those factors just up the ante. If Saddam goes down, it is not simply a case of him trying to take as many with him as possible--one also has to consider that he is the leader of a minority clan against which the rest of the Iraqi population has been storing up grudges for a generation. Even with Saddam out of the picture, they will not go gently into that good night. My long discursus above on military leaders and the choices they make in sacrificing the lives of their troops for a greater good specifically points to the issues of what we will have accomplished, whatever the cost, in the event that we take this particular loony out. We are supposed to be in a war against terror, and, absent proof that Saddam is behind terror in any significant way, this is a side-trip not related to the main effort, but one which will consume a great deal of our resources, and may well consume many lives, American, English and Iraqi, as well as anyone else unfortunate enough to be drawn in. In Afghanistan, several Canadians lost their lives when two US Airguard pilots ignored rules of engagement and direct orders, and dropped their bombs. We face a longer, much tougher occupation if we go into Iraq, and what happened to the Canadians in Afghanistan can happen to anyone under the best of circumstances. The Afghans are now facing a cruel winter, with refugees coming home, and damned little done to help them cope. And here we are, forgetting all about them, and gearing up to widen the scope of our responsibilities without having shown the world that we're willing to discharge those responsibilities we've already taken on. That is why the issue of military success was so important to me in what i wrote. We go after the Taliban, and then leave the Afghans hanging. You might see this as an unfair statement, but that is very likely how many muslims see the situation. Now we're about to get embroiled in yet another muslim country, and we will have taken on a new set of responsibilities--and we will not only not have furthered our war on terrorism if we do not behave with circumspection and an obvious responsibility, we may well have made matters worse if we come off looking like the latest set of Crusaders, out to kill muslims and destroy Islam. From a purely pragmatic point of view, we need to be very careful that we aren't providing rich new recruiting grounds and heaps of propaganda to those out there in the muslim world who are already our dedicated enemies.

blatham,

This has certainly been a most stimulating and interesting discourse on an important matter. Well worth the effort and time. I have enjoyed it and have learned a thing or two in the process. I agree there's little point in beating a dead horse, so I'll try to address only the main points.

My reference to the unverifiable quality of Lieven's central thesis (namely that Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et.al. are in the grip of deeply rooted and psychologically driven desire for U.S. world dominance, and that this is the defining central motive of U.S. policy) had to do with a generally accepted principle of philosophical and historical analysis. It is that, to be considered scientific, arguments must be based of testable hypotheses, which, at least in principle, can be either verified or falsified if sufficient information is available. Arguments based on hypotheses that do not meet this test are generally excluded from scientific discourse. (The philosopher, Karl Popper was a strong advocate of this principle. He devoted a good deal of time to an examination of totalitarian societies and contrasting them with an ideal which he termed "the open society". I recommend him to you.) Lieven's whole argument was based on quite unverifiable "insights". It is the rankest sophistry, and is not worthy of the serious consideration of thoughtful people.

You have expressed the view that the U.S. in effect operates an empire, that in its action is no better or worse than other empires of the past including those of Britain and France, and perhaps others as well. You have added that in the modern world the artifacts of empire are changed, now including dominance in commerce, banking, and the like. (I believe this is a fair encapsulation). You further state that our failure to submit to the governance of international bodies is the principal fault you find with us.

Permit a few distinctions that I believe are both important and significant to the result.

If a U.S. empire is based on economic dominance then it is a poor empire indeed and hardly an insurmountable threat to its several competitors. We face growing competition from many sources, including a rapidly uniting EU and the several unfolding economies of Asia and India. We have submitted to international organizations such as the WTO and others that govern this aspect of "empire" far more than did the other European empires you cite on the issues that were then significant artifacts of their empires.

It is simply a fact that, compared to the empires of Britain, France, Russia, and others, the U.S. has not systematically sought sovereignty over the territory and lives of other people. We have no Raffles or Cecil Rhodes figures carving out commercial empires on the backs of people and lands living under the complete control of our central government. We have no Ireland in which we attempted to impose economic exploitation and a religion and language on a people who clearly resisted all. There are exceptions, most notably our seizure of some of the debris of the Spanish empire and several adventures in Central America, however they are relatively small, involved other motives as well, and were voluntarily left after relatively short durations.

There is no precedent in recent history for the United States' willing withdrawl from Europe and the debris of European empires after the world wars of the just completed century. It would be difficult indeed to find any equivalent act in the histories of any of the empires with which you have compared us. There are certainly very good moments in the histories of the British Empire and others, however I contest the suggestion that ours is or was ever an empire even analogous to them, or that we have even approached them as exploiters of subject peoples.

We arrive at perhaps the central issue in today's political scene. That is the frustration of our allies with a United States that will not submit its will and policy to the oversight and governance of a somewhat amorphous body of right thinking nations that surround us. I believe this is the central issues in the world wide debate, and, based on remarks in your most recent post, a central issue in your view as well. This is a question of national sovereignty, and a matter quite apart from notions of empire.

Nothing in the UN Charter or any treaty we have signed requires the United States to accept the jurisdiction of an extraterritorial court, not subject to our Constitution or the political oversight of even the UN, that claims jurisdiction over the acts of U.S. Government officials and military personnel under remarkably vague guidelines. Of course the consequences of this treaty will impact the United States far more than any other nation due simply to our prominence in so many matters. I can think of no precedent whatever for the acceptance of such an instrument by a world power in any age. The recent revelations about the under-the-table deals limiting jurisdiction cut by France, Germany, and others illustrate clearly the contemptible behavior and hypocrisy of our critics in this matter.

The point I am attempting to illustrate with this example is that our many foreign critics have fallen into the habit of criticism of us as a cover for decidedly sloppy thought and action in the formulation of policy (and acting on it) to address serious issues in the world. As examples I offer the unnecessarily prolonged slaughter in the Balkans, the League of Nations-like vacillation with respect to UN resolutions on Iraq,, and even Canada's failure to enforce border controls, while demanding continued open acess to the U.S.

We need more balance in the debate. Less shrill criticism of the U.S. and more introspective thought by our critics.

Come, now, to this I really must take exception ... military toys typically are not shiny at all, but in fact are finsished with great care to avoid reflectivity or specular highlight. Harumph!



timber

Blatham

Oh Oh Blatham---it would appear that you are facing a new champion of debate.

Very, Very well said Georgeob1.

Setanta and Blatham, The unfortunate truth of our administration's cheerleaders is that they are in the majority in this country. Haven't you seen the latest polls? GWBush is the "most admired" man in the world. Beyond that, I agree with your assessment of our administration's unwavering goal for war with Iraq without the necessary proof. They continue to tell the world that they have failed to live under UN resolutions, but they are myopic. Anybody with access to media knows that Israel is also guilty. There is no consistency in our government. It makes the US an easy target for criticism.

georgeob, The idea about the central issue surrounding US current world policy cannot be compared to past history is correct. This is a different world, not only by its makeup, but also because of the global economy. The primary goal of the US is to democratize the world and to open up the capital markets, and not to colonize them. Those countries that criticize the US are usually inconsistent in their rhetoric and actions toward those goals. The same thing happens in our domestic politics. Look at the many democrats that decry how Bush has handled the war on terrorism. They say Bush has not done enough, but provide nothing to show what actions would have provided more success. It's easy to complain when one doesn't have the responsibility to manage it. I'm no fan of GWBush, but the man has only been in office for two years. The democrats demand miracles of an improved economy and the war on terrorism in two years. The worst complainers are the leaders of Arab countries: They complain, but offer no solutions to the Israeli or Iraq question. All talk and no action.

Nothing is always clear cut black and white. The big problem that I see is that most of us see the issues from different perspectives. In that regard, we will continue to disagree not only about the 'problem,' but also about the best solutions.

c.i.

Setanta
Thanks for answering my question---there are so many arrows flying about that I'm just trying to keep track of the targets. I have absolutely no quarrel with your strong convictions which are entirely honorable.

With regard to the plight of the Afghans and the impending winter---I would ask that you take issue with the hundreds of "Aid" agencies currently expending all their energies in Kabul paying thousands of $dollars for villas suitable for their "station" and then take a look at the hundreds of new white land rovers driven by these............!
The Us gov't has little or no control over these agencies but they are all considered part of the US gov't in the eyes of the Afghans.

Maybe we should send Jimmy Carter over there to micro-manage the situation----then again maybe we shouldn't------he proved he couldn't even micro-manage the white house tennis courts. Besides he's too busy polishing his Nobel prize which stole at the expense of the current president.

These are my opinions only---before anyone challenges me to a duel. Please accept my apologies for the rhetoric but since many here indulge in voicing their contempt for some public figures please allow me to show a little contempt.

Contemn away, Perception. I do not feel that way about Carter, so i'll leave that alone, i don't have dog in that fight--and your point about self-serving aid agencies is well taken. I would add a warning however: as you have pointed out, the failure of said agencies to provide substantial relief to the Afghans will be seen as an American failure in much of the world, and i would say rightfully so. We made promises which we need to keep, despite the failings of international aid agencies. If we have the resources to kick Iraqi ass, we surely have the resources to police the portable welfare agencies . . .

timber

Really!? That is just SO disappointing.

Console yerself, BLatham . . . "They blowed up, they blowed up real good . . . "

perception said: No, that really is a misunderstanding. I'm saying that it is a mix, not either black or white.

I must head out for the day now.

C.I.
While your post above is addressed to Blatham and Setanta please forgive me for sticking my nose in---- While I agree with almost everything you've said and applaud you for saying it, I take issue with this statement you made. "The goal of the US is democratize the world and open up all the markets created". No one in a sane state of mind would dare presume that our form of democracy would or could function in most of the countries of the world. We ENCOURAGE democracy where we think it will work and we will provide assistance to any such country but to say that our GOAL is to democratize the world is a bit too broad----I hope you agree.

Since most people are at work and things are a bit slow, I hope I haven't caused too much consternation with my remark.

You know, Boss, i've never been, to my knowledge, consterned . . . i doubt this is something about which you need to worry . . . please continue to constern us, as you do it so well . . . :wink:

perception, I'm not sold on the word "encourage," because even our current administration speaks to the issue of "democracy" for Iraq. Maybe, it's somewhere between "encourage" and "manipulate." c.i.

as in we "encouraged democracy" in Palestine (unless of course they elect someone we don't approve).