The US, UN & Iraq III

So, perhaps, Saddam can be added by then.

Very good, Walter!

Arafat was a recipent was he not? And didn't Kofi Anan get one also what the hell did he ever do?

Walter,

Somewhere, lying around conquered Iraq, are stocks of mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax and botulinum toxin, plus numbers of Scud missiles, gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment and mobile biological warfare factories. We know this because the governments of Britain and the US told us, at various times before the invasion, that Saddam Hussein's regime possessed all these weapons. Moreover, we were told that they were capable of mass destruction and that we should be worried, not only about what Saddam might do with them, but even more about their falling into the hands of terrorists.

They have not been found: US troops search high and low, scientists scurry hither and thither, intelligence operatives question (politely, we may be sure) captured Iraqi leaders, Daily Telegraph journalists empty the filing cabinets. But not a grain, not a drop, not a whiff. Perhaps the Iraqis suffer from collective amnesia; perhaps only Saddam and his sons knew where the weapons were kept; perhaps they were all carted off to Syria. Whatever the reasons, is it very naive to suggest that we should now be more worried than ever? If we do not know what has happened to such deadly weapons, or who controls them, why do we sleep so easy in our beds? Why, since the end of the war, have the terrorist alerts and warnings that had so frequently punctuated the period after 11 September 2001 suddenly stopped? Since Saddam and Osama Bin Laden are both still missing, and since we were told that they had forged close links, is it not possible that they are even now sitting in some Arabian cave, with missiles and some thousands of litres of poison gases, plotting a terrible attack? Why is nobody panicking?

These questions are not often asked, partly because a negative is rarely conclusive (as the UN inspectors found before the war) and doesn't make a good headline anyway. We cannot entirely rule out the possibility that Saddam's weapons still pose a threat - and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, does have a rather odd way of saying that weapons "must be found". But the common-sense view is that they either didn't exist or were destroyed or disabled long ago. After all, documents supporting the claim, made to the UN Security Council, that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger have already been exposed as forgeries - and it is likely that senior government figures knew that they were forgeries.

Common sense also suggests that the real reason for the invasion of Iraq was that the US saw an opportunity to strengthen its control, particularly over oil reserves, in a strategically important region. Saddam was attacked not because he posed a danger to anyone, but because his was by far the weakest regime in the Middle East, unpopular with its people and with its neighbours. It is hard to imagine that in late 21st-century A-levels on the causes of the second Gulf war, the examiners would accept any other answer from the candidates. No doubt some marks would be awarded for references to a crusading zeal for liberty and democracy and to a humanitarian mission to rescue people from state murder and torture - but these are not usually regarded as very sophisticated explanations for wars.

The claims about weapons of mass destruction, therefore, emerge as nothing more than a legal fig leaf. The UN Charter contains no provision for a humanitarian or democratic crusade. Perhaps it should. But as things stood, the only conceivable legal pretext for war was that Saddam had breached UN resolutions requiring him to disarm. Much of the public debate before the war - nearly everything said at the UN, for example, or in the House of Commons - was based on what may politely be called an untruth: that, as British and US leaders repeatedly stated, it was in Saddam's hands whether there was a war or not. There could have been an illuminating debate on how best to oppose tyrants; thanks largely to Mr Blair's insistence on legality (which at one stage seemed admirable), there was not. Instead, there was concealment and deception on a scale similar to that which preceded the British and French invasion of Egypt in 1956 - an episode that has more parallels with the 2003 invasion of Iraq than either the US governing class or the British Labour Party (both of which opposed the Suez adventure) would care to admit.

Does it matter? Is the liberation of the Iraqi people not enough? Should we not, as the rhythms of news require, move on? We know that truth is the first casualty of war and that governments lie and dissemble all the time; on this occasion, you could say, the results were reasonably benign. Casualties were relatively light; a loathsome government, without a shred of popular support, was overthrown; people no longer have their fingernails pulled out; the US occupiers may fire a few bullets, but they will not rule with an iron hand.

Yet it does matter. If our leaders misled us so comprehensively on Iraq, and put their hands on their hearts and called God in their aid as they did so, can we trust them on anything? Why should we believe Mr Blair when he tells us that foundation hospitals are not designed to prepare for NHS privatisation? Why should we believe assurances that there are no intentions to invade Syria or Iran?

Functioning democracies, like functioning markets, depend on information. Falsehood corrodes trust and ultimately unhinges our sense of reality; when rulers appear as habitual liars, stories about how Mossad was behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and how extraterrestrials have landed - and all the other paranoid fantasies of green-ink letter-writers - begin to seem plausible. The war is over - official. We should not forget that, on the evidence now available, it was based on a profound dishonesty.
from the NewStatesman

Good article

Frolic

Excellent article. But I was a little disappointed, I thought you had written it yourself. I started on page 18 of NS today not page 6!! (I know you made reference to newstatesman, at the end!)

Vietnamnurse

National Rational Thought day? Please tell me more. Is it compulsory or can some people opt out?

Meanwhile perhaps as a British contribution to National Rational Thought Day, Paignton Zoo has spent £2000 of Arts Council grant money to do a little experimentation with monkeys and computers.

You know the one... an infinite number of monkeys with infinite time will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. In this case they had only 6 monkeys and 4 weeks to get creative. It was not a success; although it certainly emphasised the differences between animals and machines.

"The monkeys aren't reducible to a random process. They get bored and they **** on the keyboard rather than type".

The Paignton six's literary efforts have now been printed in a limited edition book entitled Notes towards the Complete Works of Shakespeare. Just £25 - from all good booksellers, or maybe not in this case.

should have said above based on a Guardian article, though it doesnt seem to be in the web edition

tFor those interested Raed (Salam pas) is up again.


http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

Sorry , i'm an illiterate peasant :wink: from the Flanders Fields where poppies blow. I cant write such well balanced articles.

I have been thinking about this, and I have concluded that an infinite number of monkeys given infinite time would NOT produce the complete works of Shakespeare.
Most of these monkeys would never have heard of Shakespeare, and most of them would probably be foreign anyway.
So the whole idea is stupid.

From Raed:


"American civil administration in Iraq is having a shortage of Bright ideas. I keep wondering what happened to the months of "preparation" for a "post-saddam" Iraq. What happened to all these 100-page reports, where is that Dick Cheney report? Why is every single issue treated like they have never thought it would come up? What's with the juggling of people and ideas about how to form that "interim government"? Why does it feel like they are using the [lets-try-this-lets-try-that] strategy? Trial and error on a whole country?
The various bodies that have been installed here don't seem to have much coordination between them. We all need to feel that big sure and confident strides forward are being taken; it is not like this at all. And how about stopping empty pointless gestures and focusing on things that are real problems? Can anyone tell me what the return of children to schools really means? Other than it makes nice 6 o'clock news footage."

Darn, my money was on Syria to be next, but then, during Rational Thought Day, I remembered that Syria doesn't have any oil to speak of AND is not a member of the Axis of Evil.
(Two questions: Is a memory a thought? and Can you have a Axis of Evil with only two members?)
There are only murmurs and dark glances now but
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iran-usa.html

Let's look at the calendar.
June: Report comes out saying Iran very bad girl, not in compliance.
July and August: Nothing happens. President is on vacation in Maine.
Except for one weekend when he invites Chirac to the ranch in Texas.
Temperature is 122 degrees F
Apologies for the broken A/C in Chirac's quarters.
September: President turns heat up on Iran and UN over Nuclear.
North Korea rips her teeshirt trying to get attention. NADA.
October
November
December Lot's of tough talk, lots of Iranian denials.
January Nice, cool weather in Iran. Ships arrive on position after Xmas.

North Korea explodes bomb in it's second largest city. US responds by saying essentially "PLEASE, I'm on the phone!!

Groundhog Day (Feb 2) Yeah, that's where my money is now. Qum goes boom.

Joe

McTag

Trust you and your piercing intellect to deflate the Shakespeare/Monkey controversy. Of course they would never have heard of Shakespeare, so as you say the whole thing is a nonsense. My guess is they were making (limited) progress towards the complete banana genome.

..............


Before the war

"Iraq could disarm its WMD in a matter of weeks if inspectors were given full and active co operation"

After the war

"It is not something we are going to crack in a couple of days or weeks or months. The evidence is unlikely to be a great revelation or a single find."

um, well this just in on the Dyslexia All The News That Fits news service "Osama and Saddam having served their terms on the Bush Re-election Committee are now in the FBI Witness Relocation Program living in ajoining estates on the 9th tee at the Palm Springs California Golf Course." Their new identification papers indicate they are using the names "Ben" and "Jerry." Neighbors report hearing "Ahab the Arab" a song by Ray Stevens blaring out of Bens patio sound system.

If someone had said "Oil is a vital and limited strategic resource on which the whole developed world depends. America imports nearly 60% of its oil requirements. We cannot tolerate a situation where a hostile government directly controls a significant proportion of the world's oil, can manipulate its price, and threaten American oil assets in nearby countries with nuclear missiles. So before the crunch comes and the oil starts to run dry forcing us to move to the so called hyrogen economy, we are going to take global control over oil and in particular Iraqi energy resources, thereby securing our own supply and allowing other countries a share (if we feel like it). It will also remove the disgusting tyrant we helped install in Iraq, and eliminate the most dangerous long term threat to our pet project Israel.

... now if Bush or Blair had said that, i.e. told us the truth about what we were doing and why, I might even have gone along with it. But a lot would not, and in a "democracy" that's a problem for elected politicians. So the solution...exaggerate the threat, hide the truth behind the flag, win a quick war and rely on the euphoria generated by victory to form the basis for the next electoral success.

Steve -- Whichever direction you come from, looking at the administration and its policies, would be hard put to find truth. We spend a lot of time herein dealing with current events as though we were dealing with some kind of rational process. In that sense, we are the patsies. We're up against real greed, real subterfuge, massive and unblinking dishonesty. If the country weren't infected with these social diseases itself, it would have an easier time identifying them. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld -- the whole gang -- are simply successful leaders of a country which, to a large extent, shares their cynicism and extreme arrogance. That's why their culture, little declarations of "faith," speeches about "democracy" and "compassion" are so much more repulsive.

I've thought a lot about why America has driven itself to these extremes and have puzzled about its anger and aggression and hypocrisy. What, I keep asking myself, are we getting out of this? A tentative answer: reaction to and distraction from our failures. Enough Americans have travelled far enough to have noticed that freedom, democracy and social justice have taken root in other countries far more successfully than here. Our myths are catching up with us on the nightly news. We are violent; our laws are applied unequally; we have allowed our materialism to stand between us and social justice; we are dismissive of education (in all but lip service); we value winning over truth; we hide in old religions and tell ourselves we are good people.

Excellent bit of writing there, T.
And a answer to AU's $hithole question as well.

Just to review:
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Stand by for denials brought to by the makers of Coke. "It's the real thing" and by the Fox News Network.

Woke up after eight full hours of sleep last night, Joe, and decided I've had it with the little Phil Hendry and Ann Coulter clones herein. We discuss with them politely, as though they have a worthy point of view. I don't know why.