The US, UN & Iraq III

HofT

Certainly there is government in The Netherlands, even - especially now, since it is a democratic country with a constitution!

On 22 January 2003, a new House of Representatives was elected after the government headed by Jan-Peter Balkenende had announced its intention to resign. This now 'caretaker' government consists of members of three parties: the Christian democratic CDA, the free market liberal VVD, and the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF). It decided to resign following a dispute between its LPF members.

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Just some quick notes, responses to posts backaways.

Mamajuana -- I've always been amused/chagrined by the absolute unsexiness of Republican leaders and heroes. There's a meaning there...

This way of thinking which keeps cropping up -- "Well, gee, if you criticize America I'll pile on yours or another country..." -- reminds me of two things: 6th grade and Ann Coulter. And the lauding of our forefathers forming our system of government -- they, of course, got mad as hell, often hated each other, wrangled and spat, and built into the system a continuum of wrangle and spit and the hope that voices would be strong and HEARD. I don't think they had the slightest notion or hope that the result would be criticism-proof and a model of loving unity. Yuck no. The whole point is diversity and self-criticism, so when I read some of the posts above, I wish I could take a look at the history books these folks were given by our oh-so-perfect educational system.

Blatham -- Of course there's no such thing as lying. Karl Rove is there to make everyone feel good. How could you be so daft.

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UK's International Development Secretary Clare Short has resigned from the cabinet. Here is the full text of her letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair announcing the news, and his response.

Quote:

Dear Tony

I have decided I must leave the government.

As you know, I thought the run-up to the conflict in Iraq was mishandled, but I agreed to stay in the government to help support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq.

I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached.

The Security Council resolution that you and Jack have so secretly negotiated contradicts the assurances I have given in the House of Commons and elsewhere about the legal authority of the occupying powers, and the need for a UN-led process to establish a legitimate Iraqi government. This makes my position impossible.

It has been a great honour for me to have led the establishment and development of the Department for International Development over the past six years.

I am proud of what we have achieved and much else that the government has done.

I am sad and sorry that it has ended like this.

Yours

Clare

Quote:

Dear Clare

Thank you for your letter of resignation from the government.

As you know, I believe you have done an excellent job in the department, which has the deserved reputation as one of the best such departments anywhere in the world.

That is in no small measure down to you.

Our record on aid and development is one of the government's proudest achievements and I would like to thank you for your role in bringing that about.

I know you have had doubts about the government's position on Iraq, but I was pleased you stayed to support the government during this military conflict.

Had you stayed on, there was clearly an important job to be done in the continuing efforts to bring about the reconstruction of Iraq.

My commitment to that effort remains as strong as ever.

I am afraid I do not understand your point about the UN. We are in the process of negotiating the UN resolution at the moment.

And the agreement on this resolution with our American and Spanish partners has scarcely been a secret.

As for who should lead the process of reconstruction, I have always been clear that this is not a matter of the UN leading or the coalition leading.

The two should work together. That is exactly what the resolution stipulates.

Yours ever

Tony

from Clare Short quits post over Iraq

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Tartarin's--And the lauding of our forefathers forming our system of government -- they, of course, got mad as hell, often hated each other, wrangled and spat, and built into the system a continuum of wrangle and spit and the hope that voices would be strong and HEARD. I don't think they had the slightest notion or hope that the result would be criticism-proof and a model of loving unity.
---------------------------------
Mine--The ideals that founded this country, and how we adapt and wrangle to define them and uphold them as time passes. The closest I can come to explaining what I mean by 'greatest' is that I can't conceive of an improvement that could have been made on our founding documents; the brilliant men who innovated our creation; and how the skeleton set up by our Founding Fathers has fleshed out, held up and met challenges, and afforded us the level of success we currently enjoy.
--------------------------------
No one said anything about being criticism-proof. The wrangling and adapting I described in my post, you repeat as if it was yours. We are 'lauding' the same thing. I'm afraid if you're going to copy my words, this obligates you to agree with me.

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Why do you need to be agreed with Sofia? Why isn't is just as honorable to disagree?

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More so

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Walter - since NIMH is in Holland, perhaps you would allow that he knows more about the lack of a government in Holland during the last 3 months?

Facts are facts, and can be documented. To what extent anyone's idle speculations, reminiscences, and other foggy notions are relevant isn't clear <G>

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HofT

Since I quoted (sorry not to have marked that such) fron today's official Netherland's Government website, I thought it to be true.

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How about... BECAUSE YOU RESTATED ALMOST EXACTLY WHAT I SAID.

This requires agreement of the content, SINCE BOTH PEOPLE SAID THE SAME THING.

I will be happy to disagree with you WHEN YOU DON'T RESTATE MY POINT.

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Craven

Sanitized news?! You bet. If you missed it earlier, the piece by Massing is on the money... http://www.nybooks.com/

Re citicism of the US by folks outside... even if the US didn't have it's influence stretching across the planet, there's nothing we outside the border might say which hasn't been said by Americans themselves, and very many of them, so it is a sillness to even bring up. Much more importantly, it is an avoidance of the criticisms. And if you (personally or as an electorate) are going to support an administration which is puposively setting out on a policy of hegemony, then you better get yourselves prepared for choruses of criticism, and rightly so.

The only relevant issue is whether the criticisms have grounds to be voiced and attended to. But a tendency to deny negative influences is as big a danger (and failing) as it was with the Brits or any other state with the goal of empire. Though I admit it might be a foolish romanticism on my part to hope some of you will read such a statement without getting your flag-print undies in a knot.

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Walter - thanks for posting the exact date of the last election in Holland. So it's almost 4 (four) months since they actually had a government in that country.

Please look into it before commenting further.

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Could this be true ...

"The desire for these freshly empowered PNAC men to extend American hegemony
by force of arms across the globe has been there since day one of the Bush
administration, and is in no small part a central reason for the Florida
electoral battle in 2000. Note that while many have said that Gore and Bush
are ideologically identical, Mr. Gore had no ties whatsoever to the fellows
at PNAC. George W. Bush had to win that election by any means necessary,
and PNAC signatory Jeb Bush was in the perfect position to ensure the rise
to prominence of his fellow imperialists. Desire for such action, however,
is by no means translatable into workable policy. Americans enjoy their
comforts, but don't cotton to the idea of being some sort of Neo-Rome."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1665.htm

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The piece from which the following quotes originate is really a fine bit of analysis, and I hope some of you take the time to read it.

Quote:

In this analysis, both the grotesque public optimism of the Neo-Con rhetoric about democratisation and its exaggeration of threats to the US stem from the fact that it takes a lot to stir ordinary Americans out of their customary apathy with regard to international affairs. While it is true that an element of democratic messianism is built into what Samuel Huntington and others have called 'the American Creed', it is also the case that many Americans have a deep scepticism - healthy or chauvinist according to taste - about the ability of other countries to develop their own forms of democracy...

As for the majority of Americans, well, they have already been duped once, by a propaganda programme which for systematic mendacity has few parallels in peacetime democracies: by the end of it, between 42 and 56 per cent of Americans (the polls vary) were convinced that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in the attacks of 11 September. This gave the run-up to the war a peculiarly nightmarish quality in the US. It was as if the full truth about Tonkin Gulf, instead of emerging in dribs and drabs over a decade, had been fully available and in the open the whole time - and the US intervention in Vietnam had happened anyway.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n09/liev01_.html

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Nimh,

I agree that the European mindset you described is indeed a factor in the present state of trans Atlantic relations, as is the contrasting view of that in the United States. Both models describe important aspects of the matter.

There are other aspects to this as well: you have already noted the European experience of war in the last century and its relative absence from America.

Please consider also that the same rational, self-deprecating but complacent sense of balance and irony you have described was also amply detectable in Prime Minister Chamberlain's words about czechoslovakia following the Munich conference with Hitler, and in Leon Blum's rationalizations of Stalin's purges. I believe the same sense of limits and rationality that may cause Europe to shy away from real excesses by others can also be seen as factors in European blindness and inaction in the face of serious danger - even from within Europe. I suspect there may have been some of this at work in the otherwise inexplicable (to me) prolonged European inaction in the face of the slaughter in Bosnia.

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Thanks for the Lieven piece, Blatham. He's always good. Well, he's always chilling. (I just dumped my subscription to the LRB and picked up NYRB instead and appreciate being reminded that LRB articles can be found online.)

George: Each country's different experiences and interests are best served, in my view, when implemented consensually through an international body. No country benefits from walking down the same old well-beaten track it's been on in years, blind to other opportunities, always tripping over the same rocks. We're not alone in having let the UN down, but we certainly need to do something about it.

I'm surprised -- we should all be surprised! -- at the amount of time we spend here discussing the extent and manner in which we ought to be criticizing our government. That in itself is symptomatic of a declining democracy (as though we need any reminders!)... It is also most unbecoming, in an international forum of this kind, to imply that non-Americans shouldn't make negative comments about this country. Really, kids!

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Blatham: Lieven's final sentences are very, very chilling, mostly because we recognize the truth of what he writes as already part of the country's recent history and in its reaction to "terrorism."

Quote:

The danger is not so much that the Bush Administration will consciously adopt the whole Neo-Con imperialist programme as that the Neo-Cons and their allies will contribute to tendencies stemming inexorably from the US occupation of Iraq and that the result will be a vicious circle of terrorism and war. If this proves to be the case, then the damage inflicted over time by the US on the Muslim world and by Muslims on the US and its allies is likely to be horrendous. We have already shown that we can destroy Muslim states. Even the most ferocious terrorist attacks will not do that to Western states; but if continued over decades, they stand a good chance of destroying democracy in America and any state associated with it.

I think it begs the question: Was bin Laden incredibly savvy, or incredibly lucky, about the after effects of the 9/11 attacks? Or was bin Laden involved? Or was it the work of others who, Strauss-like, had real problems with the efficacy of democracy?

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Tartarin wrote:

George: Each country's different experiences and interests are best served, in my view, when implemented consensually through an international body.

Every country?? What International body??? What if there is no consent or agreement??

Meaningless, vapid generalities.

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And so boring to the imperialist?

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Walter, thanks for Clare Short's resignation letter. I'm really surprised you were on the circulation list, and for Tony's reply.

She resigned (after an aborted attempt just before the war) because Blair's promises to her about the status and authority of the UN in setting up a post war Iraqi govt. have come to nothing. The only body that can legally set up a new administration in Iraq is the UN, the occupying powers have responsibility for maintaining order etc, specifically NOT for setting up an Interim Iraqi Authority.

The "vital" role for the UN promised by Bush and Blair on 8th April in fact is relegated to an advisory role on humanitarian matters.

She described the UN resolution put by Britain America and Spain as "shameful".

As it was an illegal war, I think it entirely appropriate that American and British forces should be seen as illegal occupation forces.

In the House of Commons, Short made a blistering attack on Blair, accusing him of undoing the good work he has done in a blind pursuit of securing his "place in history". [sharp intake of breath from Labour members, cries of oh! from the Tories....all good stuff!]

Personally I think she went too far, but I am pleased someone has given Blair a good kick in the balls.

A question for our American friends about the UN. Exactly what is it about that body that brings on a fit of the vapours with so many Americans?

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Thanks, Steve. (Actually I'm only on the BBC's list.)

Personally, I think, she acted correctly re conscience, mandate from the voters, etc.
However, I've learnt that such a behaviour is uncommon in politics and fairly unknown as well.

["vapour" is the same as "vapeur" isn't it? Yuck!!! :wink: ]

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The US, UN & Iraq III

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