The US, UN & Iraq III

What I tend to say is "I LOVED Chomsky in when I was in high school." <pregnant pause>

I do really enjoy his linguistic stuff, though, and feel about him roughly the way I feel about Michael Moore -- I'm glad he's doing his thing, even though I don't agree with the way he does it all the time.

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An excerpt from the Chomsky article

10) What has been your impression of antiwar opposition and what ought to be its agenda now?

Antiwar opposition here has been completely without precedent in scale and commitment, something we've discussed before, and that is certainly obvious to anyone who has had any experience in these matters here for the past 40 years. Its agenda right now, I think, should be to work to ensure that Iraq is run by Iraqis, that the US provide massive reparations for what it has done to Iraq for 20 years (by supporting Saddam Hussein, by wars, by brutal sanctions which probably caused a great deal more damage and deaths than the wars); and if that is too much honesty to expect, then at least massive aid, to be used by Iraqis, as they decide, which will be something other than US taxpayer subsidies to Halliburton and Bechtel. Also high on the agenda should be putting a brake on the extremely dangerous policies announced in the Security Strategy, and carried out in the "petri dish." And related to that, there should be serious efforts to block the bonanza of arms sales that is happily anticipated as a consequence of the war, which will also contribute to making the world a more awful and dangerous place. But that's only the beginning. The antiwar movement is indissolubly linked to the global justice movements, which have much more far-reaching goals, properly.

This is a fairly harmless statement if you don't puke over his demand that the US pay massive reparations for the damage caused by the sanctions---until you get to the last sentence:

"The antiwar movement is indissolubly linked to the global justice movements WHICH HAVE MORE FAR REACHING GOALS, properly.

HHmmm---now what could he possibly mean by that?

Oh --- I loved the questions asked by Znet/ a community committed to social change---Chomsky was probably author of the questions as well as the answers

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What is so infuriating about the Chomsky article is the total ommission of the actions of Russia and France in aiding the Saddam regime during the past 12 years----of course any anarchist worth his salt is not about to present any balance or even a hint of fairness in a diatribe such as this waste of paper.

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True, Perception, but we helped Saddam during the 12 years before that - when he attacked the Iranian Ayatollahs. One quick true story and then really must vanish until weekend - wish me luck, pls, for 3 days ahead. This is an actual dialogue between 2 arms manufacturers buying new machinery to expand factory capacity in order to sell (indirectly, ahem!) to both parties in that conflict:

"But isn't there some danger in what we're doing?"
"Of course there is danger. The war might stop."

<G>

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A bitter conflict is unfolding in northern Iraq between two minority communities, with the Americans accused of turning a blind eye to killings and ethnic cleansing.

The Kurds, the victims of oppression by Saddam Hussein and previous regimes in Baghdad, are being blamed for a violent campaign of intimidation against the Turkoman population. Organisations representing the Turkomans say they want British and European troops to protect them because the Americans are acquiescing in what is taking place.

Americans accused of turning blind eye to killings by Kurds

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Kara, 78 Renault Gordini r17 ..... loved that car.

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Now's here's something unexpected (?)

http://www.msnbc.com/news/903808.asp?0na=x2201100-

And the question is: How could it be unexpected? Could it be the philosophy of 'get'em Saddam and everything else will fall into place' has flaws? Rolling Eyes

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Quote:

Iranian support for fellow believers in Karbala

Translated from Het Parool, 23.04.03

Iran has sent different 'agents' to Karbala, Najaf and Basra, to make contacts with shi'ite leaders in Iraq.

This is reported by the New York Times today. The agents, who are said to be members of the radical Badr-Brigade, would use the pilgrimage in commemoration of imam Hussein as cover to enter the country. [..]

The pelgrimage to Karbala has been forbidden since 1977. Still the massive turnout of pelgrims had come as a surprise to the Americans. They fear that the shi'ites, encouraged by their spiritual leaders in Iran, will use the opportunity to pull power towards themselves. [..]

The Americans are wholly unprepared for a possible uprising of the shi'ite majority, sources at the Pentagon admit today in The Washington Post: "This is a very complex situation, and the American government has no idea what it will lead to."

The most important shi'ite organisation, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq has already made clear not to accept an American domination, not even a temporary one. The consultations last week about forming a post-war Iraqi administration were boycotted by the organisation. [..]

The Americans seem to have underestimated the shi'ite ambitions in Iraq. Last Monday American generals and admirals received a crash course to beef up their knowledge about shi'ite Muslims, according to the Washington Post. [..]

The Americans don't know well how to soothe the shi'ite dissatisfaction. Many important leaders have been assassinated by Saddam's regime. Other organisations were condemned to an underground existence. The consequence is that the Iraqi shi'ites are hardly organised.

With Iran, where most shi'ite Muslims live, the Americans maintain hardly any diplomatic ties. Contacts between the US and the Iraqi shi'ites have been anything but intense already anyway, since the 1991 insurrection against Saddam was bloodily repressed when, against all expectations, American military support failed to materialise. Since then the CIA has tried to build contacts with moderate shi'ite clergy, with mixed results.

It is possible that the Americans have allowed themselves to be misguided by Ahmed Chalabi, the shi'ite leader of the Iraqi National Congress, in which most opposition parties are represented. "They really believed he was a shi'ite leader, although he fled Iraq 45 years ago already", says an American government official.

"The Americans had expected a warmer welcome by the shi'ites", says former CIA analyst Kenneth Pollack. "That misconception is at the basis of the problems they are confronted with now."

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Eh Joe, we picked up on the same news it seems. And it seems the article of the Dutch paper's "foreign news editors" is just copied/translated wholesale from the WP article. Consider it the summary, eh?

Meanwhile, on a wholly other note, in the UK, Labour dissenter MP George Galloway has gotten in acute problems after a Daily Telegraph journalist discovered Iraqi government papers that suggest Galloway has been receiving substantial sums from Baghdad in recent years.

Galloway has threatened to sue, but the Telegraph sticks to its story, and Labour loyalists are now talking disciplinary action or expulsion for the prominent opponent of the war. See http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,941528,00.html for questions and answers.

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perception wrote:

What is so infuriating about the Chomsky article is the total ommission of the actions of Russia and France in aiding the Saddam regime during the past 12 years----of course any anarchist worth his salt is not about to present any balance or even a hint of fairness in a diatribe such as this waste of paper.

Doesn't feel a little two-faced? What with the US (and UK) backing him, training him, and allowing him to regain power which led to those 12 years?

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http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm#01
Site is dated before the war, and suggests that although Saddam hasn't got nuclear capabilities, it may well have chemical and biological weapons. Since that was the legal stance behind the pre-emptive strike, I ws wandering where they were. If they can't be found, shouldn't the UN start legal precedings against the Bush and Blair administrations?

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dafdaf wrote:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/iraq_wmd/Iraq_Oct_2002.htm#01
Site is dated before the war, and suggests that although Saddam hasn't got nuclear capabilities, it may well have chemical and biological weapons. Since that was the legal stance behind the pre-emptive strike, I ws wandering where they were. If they can't be found, shouldn't the UN start legal precedings against the Bush and Blair administrations?

Quote:

Blix: 'US undermined inspectors'

American officials tried to discredit the work of inspectors in Iraq to further their own case for war, the chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has charged.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Blix said American officials leaked suggestions that inspectors had deliberately suppressed information to the media in an attempt to undermine their work in Iraq.

Excerpts of the interview were released just before Mr Blix went to address the Security Council in a meeting that could begin to determine whether he and his team are ever to return to Iraq.

Inspectors were withdrawn shortly before the US launched a war to topple Saddam Hussein, whom Washington insists possessed weapons of mass destruction.

The US has since deployed its own teams to look for weapons, which it cited as the key reason for launching war, but so far none are reported to have been found.

Many nations on the Security Council say UN inspectors should be the ones to verify any new discoveries, and Mr Blix says his team could return to Iraq within two weeks if he was told to do so.

'Disturbing'

Mr Blix said that in the run-up to war, the US had seized on his alleged failure to include details of a drone and cluster bomb found in Iraq in his oral presentations to the Council.

"The US was very eager to sway the votes in the Security Council, and they felt that stories about these things would be useful to have, and they let it out," he said.

"And thereby they tried to hurt us a bit and say that we had suppressed this.

"It was not the case, and it was a bit unfair, and hurt us. [We] felt a little displeased about it."

He also reiterated his disquiet at how documents the International Atomic Energy Agency "had no great difficulty finding out were fake" managed to get through US and UK intelligence analysis.

Also disturbing, he said, was the question of who was responsible for the falsification.

US unenthusiastic

Washington has so far shown little interest in the return of UN inspectors to Iraq.

On Monday officials repeated that they saw "no immediate role for Dr Blix and his inspection teams".

Although no decision is likely to be made soon, correspondents say Tuesday's meeting could be the start of a diplomatic initiative aimed at persuading the Bush administration of the benefits to be gained from allowing the UN inspectors back.

The argument from many on the council is that independent UN verification that the weapons have been destroyed would help to win international support for the swift lifting of economic sanctions against Iraq.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/2966639.stm

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dafdaf, please provide credible, verifiable sources for your allegation the US supplied or trained Iraq over oh, say, the last 30 years or so. Also, "The Legal Basis" was that Iraq had failed to comply with UNSCR 687, and others, including UNSCR 1441, demansding Iraq produce proof of destruction of known stocks of, and research and production capasbilities pertinent to, proscribed materials and programs. Iraq at no time acceeded to the demands of the UNas as set forth in a succession of resolutions. It was her continued defiance of the UN mandates that was the proximate cause of the attack. Whether or not she had WMD was not the issue; the issue was that she failed to provide required proofs she had divested herself of same and terminated all related programs. The Inspectors job was not to find WMDs, it was to verify that Iraq had disposed of them. This they did not do.

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Timber -- Has it occurred to you that the urgency with which we insisted on going into Iraq, the care with which we defended certain ministries, our nervousness about Blix and Ritter, is that there have been weapons (and much more) sold to the Iraqis by the US (privately in large part, perhaps) and that we want to find and destroy the evidence?

As for credible evidence (which you ask Daf for), it's been all over these discussions not to mention the US mainstream press. I don't want to stop Daf from representing it, but a little googling on your part would find the info you want.

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Why the Security Council Failed

Summary: One thing the current Iraq crisis has made clear is that a grand experiment of the twentieth century--the attempt to impose binding international law on the use of force--has failed. As Washington showed, nations need consider not whether armed intervention abroad is legal, merely whether it is preferable to the alternatives. The structure and rules of the UN Security Council really reflected the hopes of its founders rather than the realities of the way states work. And these hopes were no match for American hyperpower.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030501faessay11217/michael-j-glennon/why-the-security-council-failed.html

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when i say something debatable I try to put references in. I didn't do so when I said Iraq was armed and trained the Iraqis because I thought that was a fact everyone concedes. My books are at home and computer here, and I don't really have time to trawl through the web. If anyone can find a reference for me that'll be great, otherwise I'll just remove that from the post.

Also, you talk of Iraq's failure to comply with UN mandates, something the US has never done? What gives the right for US to enforce UN law without UN approval?

Iraq having/not having WMD was very much the issue when it was used as he reason for striking immediately and without an approved resolution

Lastly, the role of the inspectors wasn't at all to verify that Iraq had disposed of them. It was widely known that Iraq had them - the inspectors role was to find and remove them. If I recall Iraq did destroy vast quantities of chemical weapons before the inspectors got there which was protested by them as they wanted to conduct the destruction themselves to make sure it was done appropriately.

These statements are written in much the same way as you wrote yours Timber, and you didn't provide references to the inspectors role either.

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dafdaf wrote:

when i say something debatable I try to put references in. I didn't do so when I said Iraq was armed and trained the Iraqis because I thought that was a fact everyone concedes. My books are at home and computer here, and I don't really have time to trawl through the web. If anyone can find a reference for me that'll be great, otherwise I'll just remove that from the post.

The US did not provide arms or training to the Iraqi military. You will find no evidence to the contrary. The US did provide lab samples of biologics to Iraq's Public Health Ministry, and during the Iran/Iraq War provided Iraq with some intelligence regarding Iranian troop dispositions and other activities. No hardware, training, or other US Military Advisory Service was provided.

Quote:

Also, you talk of Iraq's failure to comply with UN mandates, something the US has never done? What gives the right for US to enforce UN law without UN approval?

What Article VII UN Resolution has the US violated? Or Israel, for that matter?

Quote:

Iraq having/not having WMD was very much the issue when it was used as he reason for striking immediately and without an approved resolution

Lastly, the role of the inspectors wasn't at all to verify that Iraq had disposed of them. It was widely known that Iraq had them - the inspectors role was to find and remove them. If I recall Iraq did destroy vast quantities of chemical weapons before the inspectors got there which was protested by them as they wanted to conduct the destruction themselves to make sure it was done appropriately.

I suggest you read up on UNSCOM and UNMOVIC. You will find the mandates called for verification and monitoring of required compliance with disarmament stipulations as itterated primarily in UNSCR 687, 1284, and 1441. Nowhere is there a requirtement that WMD be found; what was called for was evidence that Iraqi WMD pursuits had been halted and that known relevant materials and production capabilities had been destroyed and Iraqi submission to effect preventive monitoring. Iraq failed to provide that evidence and hindered effective monitoring of compliance. Why?

Quote:

These statements are written in much the same way as you wrote yours Timber, and you didn't provide references to the inspectors role either.

You're new to the debate here, relatively speaking, so I will repost the pertinent info for you ... it has appeared here several times, and from several different members:

http://www.un.org/Depts/unscom/General/basicfacts.html#REQUIREMENTS
UNSCOM MANDATE
The Commission's mandate was the following: to carry out immediate on-site inspections of Iraq's biological, chemical and missile capabilities; to take possession for destruction, removal or rendering harmless of all chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related sub-systems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities; to supervise the destruction by Iraq of all its ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 km and related major parts, and repair and production facilities; and to monitor and verify Iraq's compliance with its undertaking not to use, develop, construct or acquire any of the items specified above. The Commission was also requested to assist the Director General of the IAEA, which, under resolution 687, was requested to undertake activities similar to those of the Commission but specifically in the nuclear field. Further, the Commission was entrusted to designate for inspection any additional site necessary for ensuring the fulfilment of the mandates given to the Commission and the IAEA.

http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/documents/s-res-1284.pdf
UNMOVIC Responsibilities as established by UNSCR 1284
2. Decides also that UNMOVIC will undertake the responsibilities mandated
to the Special Commission by the Council with regard to the verification of
compliance by Iraq with its obligations under paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 of
resolution 687 (1991) and other related resolutions, that UNMOVIC will establish
and operate, as was recommended by the panel on disarmament and current and
future ongoing monitoring and verification issues, a reinforced system of
ongoing monitoring and verification, which will implement the plan approved by
the Council in resolution 715 (1991) and address unresolved disarmament issues,
and that UNMOVIC will identify, as necessary in accordance with its mandate,
additional sites in Iraq to be covered by the reinforced system of ongoing
monitoring and verification;

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timberlandko wrote:

dafdaf, please provide credible, verifiable sources for your allegation the US supplied or trained Iraq [..]. Also, "The Legal Basis" was that Iraq had failed to comply with UNSCR 687, and others, including UNSCR 1441, [..] Iraq at no time acceeded to the demands of the UNas as set forth in a succession of resolutions. It was her continued defiance of the UN mandates that was the proximate cause of the attack.

timber, concerning "The Legal Basis", please provide the excerpt from 1441 that states that any one Security Council member was authorized to decide what response should be undertaken at what time should Iraq remain short of fulfilling the resolution.

In 1441 the UN recalled "that its resolution 678 (1990) authorized Member States to use all necessary means to uphold and implement its resolution 660 (1990)". Wouldn't one assume that meant the Member States together - not whichever single Member State ran out of patience first?

Also, did the Resolution specify what "all necessary means" were? If not, who would have to decide whether it was "necessary" to resort to war and military occupation? Who would be authorized to decide when this was necessary to enforce the "implementation of its resolution 660"? Who else but the authors of the Resolution in question, the UN Security Council?

"The Council declared that a ceasefire would be based on acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution", 1441 reminds us. Again, who else would be authorized to ascertain the "acceptance by Iraq of the provisions of that resolution" but those who authored and adopted the resolution? How can the US claim to derive from this text the "Legal Basis" for any one single Member State to choose to end the ceasefire? To end it even when the other Member States explicitly disagree about the necessity of resorting to war - when a majority in the Council actually felt that Iraq was sufficiently "accepting the provisions of that resolution" to at least warrant the process of implementing it more time?

I have asked these questions every time someone referred to 1441 to state that "this war was legal", and not once received an answer. If a UN resolution is henceforth to mean whatever the best armed SC member deems it to mean then UN resolutions will lose all significance.

The underlying question is, to quote dafdaf up here, "What gives the right for US to enforce UN law without UN approval?" The fall-back argument on that was, at the time, that even should UN legitimisation remain impossible to achieve, a formally illegal war was still justified considering the immediate and overwhelming threat to global security posed by the Iraqi WMD - WMD American intel had proof about. That argument, too, seems to quickly erode now as in one after the other of the locations where US intel claimed the UN inspectors had been bamboozled, the Americans, too, now fail to uncover any WMD. Good thing they came up with the ersatz justification of "Iraqi Freedom" just in time, huh? It works a lot better.

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Chomsky....it's very interesting to see the different notions folks have about this fellow. Soz understandably analogized Chomsky and Moore, and both are rather strident voices in the political sphere, but that doesn't bother me at all. It's not as if Rumsfeld, Bush, and Anne Coulter aren't strident voices. If correct appraisal of real world dynamics is the criterion, I'll take Chompsky's vision as winning a credibility race when set against Ari Fleischer's words.

Chompsky, Perc, targets America for the same reason that Solzhenitsyn targeted Russia, or that dissidents in China target China...one is responsible first for one's own community.

There's no question that Chompsky is one of the over-arching intellects of the twentieth century. One measure of this is that theses in English cite his work in frequency second only to Shakespeare. He's an immensely intelligent man. He is, and this is a common complaint, a moralizer. But though moral statements aren't allowable in a logical positivist universe, their absence doesn't make for a comfy community. GW's favorite philosopher was, after all, something of a moralist himself.

Chompsky, again, not unlike Solzhenitsyn, points towards aspects of his country which fall outside of (and are contradictory to) reigning mythologies, directing attention to realities which many frantically avoid recognition of. Some denied truths, like pedophilia in the Catholic Church, are truths even if it's sorely discomfiting for parishoners to peer at them.

Chompsky's political statements are, I think, extremely valuable not simply because of the range of historical knowledge with which he marshalls his claims, but also because of the 'anarchist' preference he holds, and which Perc doesn't think much of. There was a wonderful witticism from a Brit writer some years ago in his description of Thatcher, "She can't see an institution without wanting to hit it with her purse." It's no small irony that Chompsky has a similar reaction to certain insitutions.

A critical difference is that Chompsky addresses structures which we are not really acknowledging exist or operate as insitituions. Of course, Eisenhower's famous warning could be restated with the following preamble, "There is a new INSTITUTION forming up here that we ought to acknowledge."

HofT very relevantly points to the weapons trade as a dynamic force in modern American society, really, with its salesmen and links to the Pentagon and to Congress and Senate, it's 'rules' and traditions and real operational policies, not unfruitfully seen as a fundamental institution influencing internal and external policy. But definitely not much acknowledged outside of the dissident voices.

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Quick note - tks for reference, Blatham, to conversation quoted by me between 2 arms manufacturers supplying both parties in 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war. Sorry am not at liberty to disclose their nationalities but at least I can state that neither was American.

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The US, UN & Iraq III

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