The US, UN & Iraq III

As much as I deplored what my country did in waging unprovoked war against Iraq, the deed is done. Now, I think we ought to go to school on the Brits who stuck by their colonies and did what was needed. We ought to install a governor-general or a viceroy -- too bad there isn't a king available as a figurehead -- and then put Americans in place where needed, Iraqis when they can be found, and TAKE CHARGE. We cannot pussyfoot around and pretend that we are going to let the Iraqis run the country when we have no such intention. It would be totally daft to have elections until a few years down the line when institutions have been established, police services, schools and hospitals are running normally, and until the concept and discussion of democracy are out there for the people to understand.

We decided long before we started this war that we were going to "install democracy" in Iraq after we conquered the country. It will take years to do that, and free elections cannot happen until there has been a period of American "colonial" rule to restore order and return the country to an operating state. We must get the infantry out of the country and rule it through civilians wherever possible, with only a few top military people as front dressing. If the ordinary people in Iraq see the country begin running again, with services and security in place, with work and pay and the resumption of daily life, they will be able to listen more reservedly to religious zealots who foment disorder.

A big question in my mind is humanitarian aid. I do not see that we have this problem under control and it may not even be first priority. The UN could play a role here, but I wonder if we will let this happen.

hear hear

Nimh -- Did you notice what happened in Amara without any American presence? I'll go look for a link, in case you're not familiar with that story...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/18/international/worldspecial/18SOUT.html

I agree that it is way too early to talk about elections, let alone plan for them. Some initial governmental infrastructure must be set up now, run by whomever you can find, from wherever, with the interest and commitment to essentially volunteer for a thankless job destined to produce burnout eventually. Needn't be military, needn't be American, needn't be UN, needn't be Iraqi. Here is a novel idea: people running Iraqi basic services and operations, not government or organizations. There has to be a final arbiter in decision-making, authority, control? How about a consortium, much like a board of directors, with members comprised of a whole slew of interested parties, with some disinterested parties thrown into the stew for good measure? Do not give ultimate decision-making to any one of the current key players.

Good story, Tartarin. Just the right mix in that city, that time, and that place.

g
Published on Monday May 19, 2003 by the Guardian/UK
Let's Hear It for Belgium
An attempt to try Tommy Franks for war crimes in a Belgian court has outraged the US
by George Monbiot


Belgium is becoming an interesting country. In the course of a week, it has managed to upset both liberal opinion in Europe - by granting the far-right Vlaams Blok 18 parliamentary seats - and illiberal opinion in the US. On Wednesday, a human rights lawyer filed a case with the federal prosecutors whose purpose is to arraign Thomas Franks, the commander of the American troops in Iraq, for crimes against humanity. This may be the only judicial means, anywhere on earth, of holding the US government to account for its actions.

The case has been filed in Belgium, on behalf of 17 Iraqis and two Jordanians, because Belgium has a law permitting foreigners to be tried for war crimes, irrespective of where they were committed. The suit has little chance of success, for the law was hastily amended by the government at the beginning of this month. But the fact that the plaintiffs had no choice but to seek redress in Belgium speaks volumes about the realities of Tony Blair's vision for a world order led by the US, built on democracy and justice.

Franks appears to have a case to answer. The charges fall into four categories: the use of cluster bombs; the killing of civilians by other means; attacks on the infrastructure essential for public health; and the failure to prevent the looting of hospitals. There is plenty of supporting evidence.

US forces dropped around 1,500 cluster bombs from the air and fired an unknown quantity from artillery pieces. British troops fired 2,100. Each contained several hundred bomblets, which fragment into shrapnel. Between 200 and 400 Iraqi civilians were killed by them during the war. Others, mostly children, continue to killed by those bomblets which failed to explode when they hit the ground. The effects of their deployment in residential areas were both predictable and predicted. This suggests that their use there breached protocol II to the Geneva conventions, which prohibits "violence to the life, health and physical or mental well-being" of non-combatants.

On several occasions, US troops appear to have opened fire on unarmed civilians. In Nassiriya, they shot at any vehicle that approached their positions. In one night alone they killed 12 civilians. On a bridge on the outskirts of Baghdad they shot 15 in two days. Last month, US troops fired on peaceful demonstrators in Mosul, killing seven, and in Falluja, killing 13 and injuring 75. All these actions appear to offend the fourth convention.

The armed forces also deliberately destroyed civilian infrastructure, bombing the electricity lines upon which water treatment plants depended, with the result that cholera and dysentery have spread. Protocol II prohibits troops from attacking "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as ... drinking water installations and supplies".

The fourth convention also insists that an occupying power is responsible for "ensuring and maintaining ... the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory". Yet when the US defenses secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked why his troops had failed to prevent the looting of public buildings, he replied: "Stuff happens. Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things." Many hospitals remain closed or desperately under-supplied. On several occasions US soldiers acted on orders to fire at Iraqi ambulances, killing or wounding their occupants. They shot the medical crews which came to retrieve the dead and wounded at the demonstration in Falluja. The Geneva conventions suggest that these are straightforward war crimes: "Medical units and transports shall be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack."

The armed forces of the US, in other words, appear to have taken short cuts while prosecuting their war with Iraq. Some of these may have permitted them to conclude their war more swiftly, but at the expense of the civilian population. Repeatedly, in some cases systematically, US soldiers appear to have broken the laws of war.

We should not be surprised to learn that the US government has responded to the suit with outrage. The state department has warned Belgium that it will punish nations which permit their laws to be used for "political ends". The Belgian government hasn't waited to discover what this means. It has amended the law and denounced the lawyer who filed the case.

The Bush government's response would doubtless be explained by its apologists as a measure of its insistence upon and respect for national sovereignty. But while the US forbids other nations to proscribe the actions of its citizens, it also insists that its own laws should apply abroad. The foreign sovereignty immunities act, for example, permits the US courts to prosecute foreigners for harming commercial interests in the US, even if they are breaking no laws within their own countries. The Helms-Burton Act allows the courts in America to confiscate the property of foreign companies which do business with Cuba. The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act instructs the government to punish foreign firms investing in the oil or gas sectors in those countries. The message these laws send is this: you can't prosecute us, but we can prosecute you.

Of course, the sensible means of resolving legal disputes between nations is the use of impartial, multinational tribunals, such as the international criminal court in the Hague. But impartial legislation is precisely what the US government will not contemplate. When the ICC treaty was being negotiated, the US demanded that its troops should be exempt from prosecution, and the UN security council gave it what it wanted. The US also helped to ensure that the court's writ runs only in the nations which have ratified the treaty. Its soldiers in Iraq would thus have been exempt in any case, as Saddam Hussein's government was one of seven which voted against the formation of the court in 1998. The others were China, Israel, Libya, Qatar, Yemen and the US. This is the company the American government keeps when it comes to international law.

To ensure that there was not the slightest possibility that his servicemen need fear the rule of law, George W Bush signed a new piece of extra-territorial legislation last year, which permits the US "to use all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release" of US citizens being tried in the court. This appears to include the invasion of the capital of the Netherlands.

All this serves to illustrate the grand mistake Tony Blair is making. The empire he claims to influence entertains no interest in his moral posturing. Its vision of justice between nations is the judicial oubliette of Guantanamo Bay. The idea that it might be subject to the international rule of law, and therefore belong to a world order in which other nations can participate, is as unthinkable in Washington as a six-month public holiday. If Blair does not understand this, he has missed the entire point of US foreign policy. If he does understand it, he has misled us as to the purpose of his own diplomacy. The US government does not respect the law between nations. It is the law.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

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War
Published on Monday, May 5, 2003 by TomPaine.com
My Country: The World
by Howard Zinn


Our government has declared a military victory in Iraq. As a patriot, I will not celebrate. I will mourn the dead -- the American GIs, and also the Iraqi dead, of which there have been many, many more.

I will mourn the Iraqi children, not just those who are dead, but those who have been be blinded, crippled, disfigured, or traumatized, like the bombed children of Afghanistan who, as reported by American visitors, lost their power of speech. The American media has not given us a full picture of the human suffering caused by our bombing; for that, we need to read the foreign press.

We will get precise figures for the American dead, but not for the Iraqis. Recall Colin Powell after the first Gulf War, when he reported the "small" number of U.S. dead, and when asked about the Iraqi dead, Powell replied: "That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in."

As a patriot, contemplating the dead GIs, should I comfort myself (as, understandably, their families do) with the thought: "They died for their country." If so, I would be lying to myself. Those who die in this war will not die for their country. They will die for their government. They will die for Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld. And yes, they will die for the greed of the oil cartels, for the expansion of the American empire, for the political ambitions of the President. They will die to cover up the theft of the nation's wealth to pay for the machines of death.

The distinction between dying for our country and dying for your government is crucial in understanding what I believe to be the definition of patriotism in a democracy.

According to the Declaration of Independence -- the fundamental document of democracy -- governments are artificial creations, established by the people, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed", and charged by the people to ensure the equal right of all to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". Furthermore, as the Declaration says, "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

When a government recklessly expends the lives of its young for crass motives of profit and power (always claiming that its motives are pure and moral ("Operation Just Cause" was the invasion of Panama and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in the present instance) it is violating its promise to the country. It is the country that is primary -- the people, the ideals of the sanctity of human life and the promotion of liberty. War is almost always a breaking of those promises (although one might find rare instances of true self defense). It does not enable the pursuit of happiness, but brings despair and grief.

With the war in Iraq won, shall we revel in American military power and, against the history of modern empires, insist that the American empire will be beneficent?

The American record does not justify confidence in its boast that it will bring democracy to Iraq. Should Americans welcome the expansion of the nation's power, with the anger this has generated among so many people in the world? Should we welcome the huge growth of the military budget at the expense of health, education, the needs of children, one fifth of whom grow up in poverty?

I suggest that a patriotic American who cares for his country might act on behalf of a different vision. Instead of being feared for our military prowess, we should want to be respected for our dedication to human rights.

Should we not begin to redefine patriotism? We need to expand it beyond that narrow nationalism which has caused so much death and suffering. If national boundaries should not be obstacles to trade -- we call it globalization -- should they also not be obstacles to compassion and generosity?

Should we not begin to consider all children, everywhere, as our own? In that case, war, which in our time is always an assault on children, would be unacceptable as a solution to the problems of the world. Human ingenuity would have to search for other ways.

Tom Paine used the word "patriot" to describe the rebels resisting imperial rule. He also enlarged the idea of patriotism when he said: "My country is the world. My countrymen are mankind."

Howard Zinn is an historian and author of A People's History of the United States.

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fune


Metallica is latest interrogation tactic

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday May 20, 2003
The Guardian

US military interrogators are using unorthodox musical techniques to extract information about weapons of mass destruction of fugitive Ba'athist leaders from their detainees - a fearsome mix of Metallica and Barney the Dinosaur.

The Americans have long been aware of the impact of heavy metal music on foreign miscreants. They blared Van Halen (among other artists) at the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega when he took refuge in the Vatican embassy in Panama City, and blasted similarly high-decibel music at Afghan caves where al-Qaida fighters were thought to be hiding.

Now it is reported that the combination of high-voltage rock and happy-smiley children's songs can break the will of the hardest terrorist or rogue element.

"Trust me, it works," a US "operative" told Newsweek magazine.

"In training, they forced me to listen to the Barney I Love You song for 45 minutes. I never want to go through that again."

US interrogators routinely employ "stress-and-duress" techniques, including sleep deprivation: treatment which human rights activists describe as a form of torture.

"Prolonged sensory deprivation and prolonged sensory over-stimulation can cause intense suffering. You can torture someone with psychological pressure," said Dinah PoKempner of Human Rights Watch.

Ralph Peters, a former colonel in army intelligence, called heavy metal "the American equivalent of sending bagpipes into battle".

"Anything you can do to disconcert someone is going to help," he said. "But it's a myth that torture is effective. The best way to win someone over is to treat them kindly."

Newsweek quotes a Sergeant Mark Hadsell explaining the qualities of heavy metal that bends the will of US enemies.

"These people haven't heard heavy metal before. They can't take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken.

"That's when we come in and talk to them."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

A cut from the piece Gelisgesti posted from Howard Zinn:



These are memorable words. They are the words of a one-worlder, but we who have always believed in one world do not yet find ourselves with many friends in this country at this time.

I am reading in today's NYTimes about the dissent over Iraq's future.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/21/international/worldspecial/21IRAQ.html

One ought to read the whole piece, but here is an excerpt about halfway through:

Just for fun, here's a couple of quotes from Leo Strauss, darling of the boys in charge...

"...those who are fit to rule are those who realize there is no morality and that there is only one right; the right of the superior to rule over the inferior."

"Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed. Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united - and they can only be united against other people."

Blatham, Ever since Strauss came into these discussions, I've been hoping someone would point out (even provide a link to an extremely interesting and provocative essay about) the intricate relationship of Strauss to Hitler. The disempowerment of the Jews in the movement which led to Hitler's leadership as the impetus for a number of Jewish intellectual refugees in this country to envy/emulate Hitler philosophically? The strong father, hated, emulated? Lola?

blatham and tartarin, we discussed on this thread a while back the influence on Leo Strauss on the neo-cons, and I posted a link to a NYTimes article on the Leo-cons. The article posited that the neo-cons in claiming kinship with Strauss may have missed the essence of Strauss' thought, which is more malign than the neo-cons suppose.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0253334721/qid=1053527536/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-7889858-4423318?v=glance&s=books

Here we go, fellas. A Canadian caller into one of my favorite radio shows just now mentioned this book in connection with alleged proofs that a form of SARS virus was part of the biowarfare which the US waged in Korea fifty years ago, that it's almost impossible now to find info on this in the US, but that historians in Canada, UK and elsewhere have primary sources...

Kara -- I don't think the neo-cons missed that point about Strauss at all. We have to accept that the human mind is not only incredibly complex but that it can hold several apparently incompatible thoughts at the same time: Hitler decimated whole groups of people, it was a holocaust, he was the very devil himself, he was right, his power was bad, his power was good.

Vague, high level generalities about the (unknowable) inner motives of others, increasingly tortured conspiracy theories about neocons, Strauss thought, displaced European Jews, heavy metal music as an instrument of torture, unexploded ammo in Iraq, and inspiring tales about wonderful little Belgium writing laws for all mankind. How strange and unrealistic it all is !

I suspect the truth is much simpler and more prosaic.

Perhaps someone from the Congo will accuse the Belgians of crimes against humanity during their colonial rule and plunder of that unfortunate region.

Do tell us the truth then, George...

I think it even more humorous that you assume that all Iraqis think what you have seen some Iraqis express. DUring and immediately following the war you could see scenes of Iraqis kissing photos of Bush immediately followed by angry Iraqis filled with hatred for him for the destruction the war wrought there. Some liked to pretend that each image represented every Iraqi's opinion. Some others (myself among them) realized that Iraqis. like individuals everywhere, would have wide-ranging opinions on the war.

So now, some recognize the need for the coalition to stay until a government is in place. Others--many the followers of someone who would grab power in the vacuum--are clamoring for an immediate withdrawal.

Scrat, Did I say "all Iraqis?" c.i.

Good response, Tartarin - I deserved it.

Sadly, I don't know the truth. At best I can form judgements based on the weight of the evidence as I know it.

That leads me to conclude (1) that the security situation of the United States has been significantly improved by our intervention; (2) That more moderate forces in the Islamic world may be empowered by our actions; and (3) that the Iraqi people will benefit significantly from the end of the UN sanctions and the depredations of a cruel and authoritarian regime. Trouble and discord in the region will continue, and the Iraqi road to economic welfare and the establishment of a liberal secular government will be full of challenge and uncertainty. However the possibilities, both short and long term in all these areas are now much improved.

I'm in agreement with much of 2 and 3 but what leads you to conclude #1?