The US, UN & Iraq II

Tartarin wrote:

but the guys in the middle,"ordinary Americans," who presumably have studied history as the rest of us have, but who are opposed to their brothers and sisters expressing their dissent -- these are the ones for whom I have neither liking nor respect.

I am one of these people Tartar and I wear your scorn like a badge of honor. I draw your attention to a small passage in our constitution( you know that document you love to hold up and say that we are abusing) Treason is defined as anyone who "gives aid and comfort to the enemy". Dissent in time of war is "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" Saddam(or his political advisors) are playing you demonstrators and dissenters like a flute. You are being USED. How does it feel to be a pawn?

I think we might differ less in opinion than it would seem at first sight.

I agree with you that real remedy has to be a long term one, that focuses on changing mindsets and creating social-political conditions under which those mindsets can change. I also agree that it would involve pressuring current Arab regimes to make changes.

It is this long-term perspective that actually fuels my opposition to this war, or at least to the mindset that spawned this war. US foreign policy should be focused on a long-term strategy stimulating the kind of government in the Arab world that, through respecting democracy, human rights, religious tolerance and the value of the individual - and through fostering decent living conditions and social justice - will create societies in which people don't have to turn to extremist populist movements in disgust or despair over current abuses.

Instead, US foreign policy seems to be energized by a worldview in which regimes are either "with us" or "against us", and as such they are supported or overthrown on an ad hoc basis. Yesterday, Iran was "against us", ergo, Iraq was "with us", ergo, we pumped it full with arms and money. Today, Iraq is "against us", so we invade it. Yesterday, the Afghani Mujahedeen was "with us" against the Soviets, so we armed and funded it; and, hey, after the Soviets leave, it turns out that the Mujahedeen are in fact corrupt warlords or Muslim fundamentalists, so now we have to attack them and disarm them of the weapons we gave them ourselves.

This kind of cycle depresses me enormously. It is born of a realpolitik that claims to be "pragmatical" - as opposed to the naive "idealism" of those proposing a moral foreign policy - and those formulating it say, well, the world isn't perfect so we always have to identify who we can make "our" brute, to use against "their" brutes. But in the long term this kind of policy-making isn't pragmatical at all, because it continually creates tomorrow's dangers in fighting today's.

I would propose a policy based on moral-political benchmarks, which denies support to the worst dictators even if they do happen to be the enemies of our enemies; gives basic support to those whom we can, if we conditionalise our support, push to make reforms; and gives ample support to "examples of good practice" in democracy and human rights - even if they happen to be left-wing instead of right-wing, et cetera. Sounds simple enough, but seems to go totally against the way of thinking in Pentagon and State Department. Today they are pumping money into dictatorships as brutal as Uzbekistan's, because of their support for the "war on terror"; tomorrow, after enough Uzbeks have died in prison, we'll be faced with a militant popular revolt there, the leaders of which will remember all too well that "we" in the West supported their dictators. This is no way to foster support for democracy and Western values.

In any case - I agree, thus, that long-term strategy is the key; I would differ merely on what exactly the Arab regimes should be pressured to change. You say: close all madrasa's, install secular education. First off, that might be one step too much too soon. Secondly, it ignores the immense variety within Islam. You seem to think all muslims are fundamentalists. In fact, some Muslim countries even have separation of church and state (Turkey), and in many other countries the mainstream brand of Islam is traditional, but moderate. Those propagating political Islam and the introduction of Sha'ria are still an (albeit vocal) minority. And in this minority again, those ready for martyrdom in terrorist struggle are a small minority.

That's not to belittle the danger - just to say that enforced secularisation would be as unnecessary as it would be counterproductive.

I do agree with you that, now the danger of fundamentalist terrorism has appeared, we have to tackle it. The long-term strategy isn't going to make Osama disappear today. The terrorists themselves need to be hunted down, now.

In fact, you have to realise that most every war protestor wants Osama arrested and tried - and most of them wouldnt mind him being killed, either. First of all, these are no demonstrations against the war on terrorism, they are against the war in Iraq. To us, it is a mystery how Osama has so seamlessly morphed into Saddam, considering links between the two are spurious and Osama is still walking around somewhere. Second, in as far as the demonstrators protest the war on terrorism, it's mostly about the way it's done, not about the need for one itself. Bush Jr has turned this war on terrorism into a) a cultural war, and b) a practical container to fit all his unsettled accounts in.

B) refers to why it's Iraq we are now suddenly attacking. A) refers also to what you are writing. Lesson one about fighting terrorism is to separate the terrorists from their potential breeding grounds - to isolate them. It is no use to start a witchhunt against all who sympathise with socialism if it is the Red Army Fraction you're after, because that would be the surest way of guaranteeing thousands of new recruits for the RAF. We are not fighting a cultural war against Islam here - we are fighting a war against the terrorists who did 9/11. The more specifically we are able to target them, and the more we are able to show that on unrelated matters concerning Muslims (Israel, for example), we are willing to pressure for justice, too, the easier it becomes to isolate these terrorists and eliminate them within a generation.

Finally, though many demonstrators do indeed seem to be there merely because they hate George Bush, or the US, or capitalism, or whatever, many know very well what has been going on with Iraq. You may note that many of those protesting now were already among those protesting the gassing of the Kurds by Saddam back in 1988, when the Republicans didn't care yet. It comes with a preoccupation with human rights and civilian lives. Back then the Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Socialist International protested; now they are against war. In Holland, the political precursors of the Green Left were lonely voices calling for protest against Saddam when everyone else was preaching realpolitik - now again, they are lone protesting idealists.

And it goes the other way around, too, of course. How many of the politicians now supporting the war care a great deal about the Iraqi population? If they do, why were they so unconcerned in the past? If they do, why did the liberation/human rights argument only crop up at the very end of the push for war, when all other arguments (alleged Iraqi nukes, alleged links with Al-Qaeda, Iraq's "thumbing its nose" at the UN) failed? You say "many of the [demonstrators] know very little about Iraq or even where it is on the map", but it was only a pro-war poster whom I ever caught at writing Iran when he meant Iraq, another one at using the fate of the Kurds as an argument for war without even knowing when what actually happened to them. And you yourself talk of madrasa's as if they are by definition and collectively schools of fundamentalism and terrorism, which doesnt evidence a great deal of reading up on Islam either. So that goes both ways.

Nimb

You state your case very well and as you say there is not much real difference of opinion.

Before I start to pick at a couple of items which I diaggree with I admit you struck a nerve about my possible misunderstanding of the curriculum of the Madrasa school. It is my understanding that most of the students time is devoted to memorizing the Koran. There is some time for a basic education in rudimentary math, lanquage, and other basic necessities but mostly they are taught to hate or distrust the nonbeliever or infidel and these would be Secular Muslims as well as Christian. Jews are reserved for a special kink of hatred.

If you have knowledge to the contrary of what I believe please enlighten me and the others.

Regarding the demonstrators: I have come to the conclusion (that is being supported by some media pundits) that most of the demonstrators are not demonstrating agains the war but against George Bush. The democratic party has so bungled their agenda that party faithful have little left but to demonstrate against George W using the war in Iraq as an excuse.

If we are to take Perception at his word

we had better advise certain participants here of their impending arrests
because unknown to the rest of us, Perception excepted, the Constitution of the United States has apparently been suspended. Any further words* of dissent, or, I suppose, of mere disagreement, may result in someone turning someone in to some agency for re-education purposes.

Some of us were wondering, Perception, if we can ask questions, you know, not make any statements, just ask questions about this war? Can we ask, for example, if we do not yet know the total economic cost of this conflict, nor the size of the budget deficits it will bring, is this still the most propitious time to pass the second huge tax cut proposed by this Administration? {Passed by both the Senate and the House with changes, now on the way to conference committee, for those who might have missed the coverage on the back pages.}

By the way, Perception, your idea of enforced secularism contains the same kind of simplistic thinking as the us/them foreign policy so aptly discussed by Nimh while I was typing this and completely ignores the way Islam is interwoven into the lives of it's believers. This will be a time for reason to counter blind belief, but reason comes from discussion and debate and yes, dissent.
Joe
words * =weapons of mass perception

Nimb

You have touched on something that is becoming more and more apparent at least to me. In the past the US has been obligated to have diplomatic encounters with despots. These encounters have given the impression that this or that dictator is an ally of this country. You listed several such instances and applied them to your argument. I choose to use them in another manner.

I postulate that these encounters of the past have been deemed necessary as the result of our relative impotence to apply global power in the manner needed. This is due to the predominant notion that preemptive strike was unacceptable to the national psychie. I further propose that 9/II changed all that and the recent debacle in the UN caused by France rendered the old thinking even more obsolete.

To re-enforce my argument I present the following article by George Will using excerpts of a speech by Conrad Black, a well know British newspaper man.


Into this welter of foolishness has waded Conrad Black, a
British citizen and member of the House of Lords who is a
proprietor of many newspapers, including the Telegraph of London
and the Sun-Times of Chicago. In a recent London speech to the
Centre for Policy Studies, he noted that the United States, far
from being the "trigger-happy, hip-shooting country" of European
caricature, scarcely responded to the killing of dozens of U.S.
servicemen at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia and on the USS
Cole in Yemen. "And when two of its embassies in Africa were
virtually destroyed, President Clinton's response consisted of
rearranging some rocks in Afghanistan and blowing the roof off a
Sudanese aspirin factory in the middle of the night."

Yet it is presumably to counter America's insatiable appetite for
using its military that the idea has arisen that America should
submit to plans to "collegialize" its power. The idea is that any
use, even after successive acts of war against America, requires
the permission of France, Russia and China, which have not sought
U.N. blessings for their respective military interventions to
discipline Ivory Coast, to grind the Chechens into submission and
to suffocate Tibet.

NATO's 16 European members have chosen to spend on their defense
a combined sum one-third less than the United States spends, and
they have used their spending so fecklessly that it buys only
about 10 percent of U.S. military capability. In an episode of
what Black calls "the Ruritanian posturing of the French,"
President Jacques Chirac claimed that the European Rapid Reactio
n Force would "project European power throughout the world."
Black notes that the force, a mere reallocation of forces from N
ATO, is "almost totally dependent on American airlift capacity,
and is essentially a parade ground force to travel about Europe,
marching down the main avenues of the capitals on their national
days."

So Black is bemused by the moral calculus that produces the
conclusion that the United States is morally obligated to use its
military might only at the behest of, or with the permission of,
nations that do not wish it well. These are nations that "do not
share America's values, and that affect neutrality between a
wronged America, a Gulf War coalition betrayed, and affronted
international law on the one side, and the evil of Saddam Hussein
on the other."

America has had "the most successful foreign policy of any major
country" not just because of its strength but because "it has
never had any objective except not to be threatened and when
threatened, to remove the threat." And it "does not believe in
durable coexistence with a mortal threat."

Black says that three of the greatest strategic errors of modern
times -- Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917,
Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor and the Soviet refusal of postwar
U.S. aid in exchange for liberality in Eastern Europe -- involved
underestimating the dangers of provoking America. Khalid Sheik
Mohammed, one of the authors of the fourth great error, the Sept.
11 attacks, may have belatedly understood that danger when,
before dawn Saturday, he stood in his underwear, facing the drawn
guns of the men who told him America would like to ask him some
questions."
--George F. Will

The point I wish to emphasize is this one

America has had "the most successful foreign policy of any major
country" not just because of its strength but because "it has
never had any objective except not to be threatened and when
threatened, to remove the threat." And it "does not believe in
durable coexistence with a mortal threat."

<it has
never had any objective except not to be threatened and when
threatened, to remove the threat." And it "does not believe in
durable coexistence with a mortal threat.">


This to me seems self evident and I can not understand how any thinking person with a shred of knowledge of history could possibly think other wise.

You all will remember that any president of the US must first get the general agreement from Congress for any military action. Any proposed action that would needlessly place our troops in harms way would NOT receive the approval of Congress therefore all the handwringing of the opponents of pre-emptive strike is un-necessary. This power can not and will not be abused. I would stake my life on it.
perception

Joe Nation

I would say to you certainly you can ask questions but ask them of your congressman and/or Senator---work within the system and it's even more important during war that our internal disaggreements do not become public and in essence "give aid and comfort to the enemy"

To me demonstrations against any war are a form of public vigilanteism---now I know most of you are opposed to taking the law into your own hands or acting as a vigilante. It is especially regugnant to me when many of these demonstrations are organized by registered enemies of this country and your way of life.

"It is especially regugnant to me when many of these demonstrations are organized by registered enemies of this country and your way of life.
"


"registered enemies" -care to elaborate on that?

It is almost beneath me to respond to such vitriol but I must protest your patronizing pronouncments about my "education." I am no more or less "educated" than you are. My beliefs and thoughts are the summation of everything I have learned in a reading and listening life of many decades.

Do you not wonder why I make no personal attacks on you? It is because I feel you are entitled to your viewpoint if you have arrived at it honestly and thoughtfully. It is a view that I do not agree with, but I defend your right to hold it. You say that I hate George Bush. Please cite your reference. I don't "hate" George Bush any more than I hate Saddam Hussein. I believe with Nathaniel Hawthorne that "Man must not disclaim his brotherhood even with the guiltiest." I can despise certain acts that people perform, but you cannot make me hate anyone.

I believe in our country -- but perhaps not in a particular administration at any given time -- and I defend my own right to dissent, a right that is the cornerstone of the foundation of this country.

Hmm ... well, before I start posing as an expert I should exercise some modesty, but this much I gather: the fact that you are right about the schools being largely (though not exclusively) devoted to the study of the Quran, does not necessarily mean they are therewith automatically training centres of hatred.

Like any holy book, the Qu'ran is approached in many different ways, as different denominations and 'schools' of religious thought each focus more on this or that side of what can be taken from the book. Much like with the Bible, really. Before you start throwing bloody-sounding Qu'ran quotes at me, of course the book includes many an episode of violent rejection and threat against infidels. So does the Bible. In that sense atheists (of whom I am one) are right to distrust religion (which by nature holds one Truth to be superior over all others) per se. But the history of both Christianity and Islam has shown that at different times and places the holy book in question has been used to create a flourishing and tolerant religious culture, or a strident hate of all things Other. At the moment, Islam has its share of the latter, and it's going up rather than down. But that is a far cry from assuming all imams hold to Osama's principles. There are many mainstream, and many enlightened teachers of Islam, and so there are different kinds of madrasa's too.

I don't know if that really helps - perhaps the above was really a kind of duh-thing. But in light of what you write it may be important to again keep in mind.

God knows the Christian Bible is used as a hate book by many.

Nimb wrote this about me

<And you yourself talk of madrasa's as if they are by definition and collectively schools of fundamentalism and terrorism, which doesnt evidence a great deal of reading up on Islam either. So that goes both ways.>

I admit that I do not know of real curriculum content---your most recent response disappoints in that it provides no substance that you use to refute my contention about madrasa schools. Why is that---I don't mind learning from an expert ---that is why we participate in these forums---to learn-- but I strenuously object to someone making a statement that would imply expertise then you "cop out"
I am constantly confronted with rhetoric but in your case I expected something better.

Oh, I missed the part where the freedom of assembly had been suspended as well. I will refer all my questions in the future to the proper authorities........

Are all marchs and assemblies as peaceful as the one is NYC yesterday? No, and I recognize there are always elements of the violent, nutsos in any movement. I'm sure the Christian Right isn't very happy with their own violent, nutsos (Aryan Nation, KKK, White Supremacy Movement.) But the liberals in this society (the USA) continue to speak for the powerless and to try to expand freedom through ideas, and to dissuade any within their midsts who are bent toward violence and disruption.

We aren't always successful at getting our message across to them. Yesterday after 100,000 walked peacefully for four hours without incident, a bunch of yahoos decided not to clear an area and wound up getting busted. Okay, so 100,000 march for peace and a handful mis-behave, so what did the liberal media lead with?///// Yeah, that's right. Some
sh!thead getting dragged away an HOUR after the event was over. Darn liberal media.

We will continue to question our officials, we will continue to discuss and dissent and stand up. There is more value in showing the process of how our system works, even the disagreements among us, to all the people of world, rather than show a fake unanimity. They already live in systems where enforced agreement with the authorities is a way a life.

For those who oppose the war and who want a laugh and a sigh, I recommend the following:
http://able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=147478#147478

If a skunk backed up to Perception's leg and let go with a whopper, Perception would say accusingly to those standing within earshot, "Can you prove to me that was a skunk?" Me, I just hold my nose and walk away, muttering "rhetoric" and maybe giggling a little.

I think that freedom of expression and freedom of organisation - which together are the stuff demonstrations are made of, since they are nothing but organised expression of opinion - is very much part of the system we have here in the West. The demonstrators acting wholly within the laws of this system. It's not like they're setting up militias in Montana.

Joe Nation

By all means "stand up" as Jane Fonda did in Vietnam. Your friends will be proud of you but what will you think in your heart?

I also have the right to disuade you in any manner I deem fit within the bounds of civility.

The silent majority (not to be confused with moral majority) will make it's case at the polls in 2004. Can you be equaly confident?

Just another little "needle" ----right now Daschle is our best propaganda weapon --- long may he screw up. Of course you can still bring Gore out of retirement but then he has already joined the ranks of the corrupt executives I hear.

Nimb

You can defend the demonstrations vehemently but you can't discount the positive supportive effects they most probably will have on the enemy.

Funny, I was just writing about that. I'll put it here, then, instead of in the edit of my post above:

I also think that the fact that in the West, "internal disagreements" can be expressed openly and is done so within the system, without ever toppling it, is a sign of strength on 'our' part, and should it "give comfort" to anyone, it would be to those we're trying to liberate. It'll reassure and embolden them about the kind of system that'll be after 'we won', and thus lessen resistance and strengthen support for the invading troops.

The one thing Iraqis are afraid of (judging on what exiles say), is that the US is only out to establish a zone of influence, and that it'll just replace one dictatorship with another. The vibrant space for opposition and discussion in the West should reassure them, if anything.

Tartarin wrote

<If a skunk backed up to Perception's leg and let go with a whopper, Perception would say accusingly to those standing within earshot, "Can you prove to me that was a skunk?" Me, I just hold my nose and walk away, muttering "rhetoric" and maybe giggling a little.>

Tsk--Tsk---is that the way Texas "cowgirls" talk. My-My how elegant.