The US, UN & Iraq III

double posting

Hopefully, a most interesting reply.
HofT,

As regarding your post of Wed Apr 16, 2003 4:14 pm which you state:



The reference to "12 years of info" was directed more towards the subject of this thread of U.S. policy towards Iraq and the present and future role of the UN in not only Iraq but also more generally the Middle East (some might state: "even more generally"). This time frame was a specific reference to what some perceive as Saddam Hussein's UN facilitated agile ability in dealing with many UN Security Council resolutions related to his agreement to disarmament in 1991 and his demonstrated proclivity for Byzantium bazaar type bargaining tactics used in his diplomacy towards his neighbors and the "West" in general. Indeed, we do have relevant data pertaining to Saddam going back 25-30 years. However, judging from your past posts and to the post addressed to me, you probably are referring to information that is at least a hundred or many more years old.

Since Saddam, along with any of his personal ruling policies for national state administration, had not been conceived at this earlier time this information lends little relevance to modern discussion. Further adding to the invalidation of out of date information is the fact that it seems Saddam based a lot of his war strategy on more recent historical events such as the "Blackhawk Down" incident in Africa and civilian demonstrations against an Iraqi conflict with the USA and such as pertains to the earlier Vietnam conflict. In Saddam these demonstrations seemed to have given rise to his belief that America was "casualty adverse" and would not be able to sustain a fighting force in the region due to civilian unrest at home. Saddam seems to have made a military miscalculation by concentrating on perceived enemy weaknesses, hoping these will carry the day for him, and forgetting the enemy's real strengths.
After all, what good does a strategy of long term war and civilian perceived mass human attrition do one when the war is short? For various reasons his dependence on history seemed to blind him as regards to the present. But then, Saddam’s attempted engagement with recent history, although flawed, is certainly more relevant to today's events than if he had studied Sultan Suleyman's Order of Battle or Infantry Tactics.

History's concepts such as Bismarck's Realpolitik, Stalin's Sphere's of Influence, or Britain's Balance of Power (was that Disraeli?) are useful as well but cannot always be transposed directly onto modern events. (I originally thought France's delaying tactics regarding this past conflict in the UN was a display of Balance of Power of Europe against America and the UK. Seems now it was just a bid for relevance upon the world stage, oh well.)

Your reference to Lebanon as a "domino piece" is rather interesting but leads me to believe you did not read the entire article on the Website. (Sometimes NYT will charge you for older articles, so I can PM you a downloaded copy for free if you wish.) Neither Tom Friedman nor I implied the Domino Theory of conquest towards Syria or Lebanon. "Aggressive Engagement" is as nihm suspected: a more pointed form of diplomacy lying between "constructive engagement" (French for: dancing with dictators) and military action. The theory is that this "in your face diplomacy" is now possible since the victory in Iraq has been witnessed. What Friedman proposed was to use this as leverage to force not so much as regime change as a change in regime policy from Syria the "occupier" to Syria "the good neighbor". If you did get this "domino" take from reading either source please explain for it is important to me that I learn from my errors in communication.

In regards to guffawing 19th century statesman: In earlier days I once was cautioned by a history professor of the danger of trying to judge the actions of those in the past using present morals and information available only to us and not to those in the past. Such an action was at least unfair to those who came before and at worst misleading to us in the present. Conversely, I would submit that deceased statesman's advice, as to events currently unfolding, would have to be severely discounted however extraordinary its means of becoming available to us.

As regards your last query as to my views on Ottoman Empire relics:

I must admit my ignorance regarding articles of antiquity originating from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey, so my views would be severely limited and certainly irrelevant to this thread.

If one reads my past posts it will surprise no one to learn that I agree that theft and destruction of such items is sad but that both the theft and lack of a policing force to prevent such are understandable in light of current events unfolding in Iraq. The destruction of these objects, however, is puzzling to me; there is no gain in such acts. As important as this issue is to some people I must agree with perc and timber that in the overall picture this is a sidebar; we should also howl about the suffering of the people, food, water, and 3000-6000 civilian casualties with at least equal anguish. I might also add that the road to Iraqi self-determination that is currently being pursued is a longer one than if the U.S. simply empowered another dictatorship as it has in the past. Governments such as the latter need not bother themselves with the niceties of governments who draw their legitimacy from the governed. Patience is in order.

Threads such as these have stimulated my personal research in such topics as the British carving up the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century without regard to such regional peoples as the Bosnians, Turks, and Kurds. My interests, however, seem to lie in the history of people and their behavior towards current events and their relationships towards each other. HofT, you seem to be schooled in some of the languages and have an interest in archeological finds of the area and I welcome any information or opinion you can share here on this thread.

I myself have always found the Middle Eastern and Far Eastern mind a mystery. This, of course, is due to my ignorance of the area and not any inherent fault in the peoples in this area. The more we learn of the history of the area and its culture perhaps the more tolerance can be exhibited (as did the founders of the Ottoman Empire) towards "alien" cultures. The advent of instantaneous communication may perhaps lead us towards this tolerance. Strangely the opposite condition seemed to have forced the rulers of the Ottoman Empire to accept a large degree of tolerance and some amount of self-determination for various subjected areas. But I digress.

Respectfully,

JM

JM, I'm not sure how reliable the information is, but it might seem that the items stolen were the 'valuable' ones, and the fakes and other copies were left. They are saying that the robbery of artifacts was done by professionals, and the important ones may be safe. Let's hope so. I'm sure more news will be forthcoming. c.i.

Frolic wrote

"Let the dollarisation of Iraq begin!"

One of the less discussed aspects of this conflict was the attempt by Iraq to substitute the EURO for the dollar in oil transactions. If the EURO rather than the doller became the reserve currency for international oil transaction the US would suffer a great dimunition in influence and economic clout. As well as reducing the value of the dollar as an international currency which would have serious adverse affects on our own economy. The foundations of this war were not WMD but economic.

JM - tks for thoughtful post; one point which you may have overlooked is that there is no "Bosnian" people - they're just as Slavic as any Serb or Croat, just descended from families who accepted to convert to Islam under Ottoman rule in order to obtain privileged status, lands, properties, freedom from taxation, immunity from some laws, and of course "access" to Ottoman rulers. Kurds and Turkmen are peoples.

Since even the most ancient economists made the distinction between money as a means of exchange (or unit of account), and money as a store of value (or reserve currency), there is no more to be said on the next post <G>

I think there's growing evidence that Syria is a target -- of one kind or another. It seems not at all unlikely that Saddam is in Syria and that may provide the thin edge of the wedge when it comes to playing up the "necessity" for "liberating" Syria. In another one of those, !go-figure! pieces of info, it is revealed that though between 60 and 70% of Americans believe the war was a success, many of them (wish I'd remembered the number) are heartily against pre-emptive strikes. That leaves me with the feeling that Syria's in the post-2004 day book.

HofT,

Thanks for your response. These reason I refered to the Muslims in Bosnia as Bosnians is for the same reason I refer to Roman Catholics in Italy as Italians. It was a purely geographic reference and not intended to suggest they belonged to any type of Bosniactic ethinic group. I stand informed.

JM

HofT, JM -



Even Communist Yugoslavia already started identifying and counting the Bosnian "Muslims" as an ethnic as well as a religious group. Regardless of the circumstances of their ethnogenesis, a Bosniak ethnic self-identification has emerged over the ages, and has now come to be accompanied by an identification with a Bosnian national state as well.

That would have the Bosnians meeting pretty basic criteria on what a "people" is, and the fact that they are as Slav as other peoples like the Bulgarians, Serbs or Slovaks is irrelevant to it.

Peoples are nowadays accepted by many to be social constructs, that can emerge (and disappear) over time, and whose actual existence as self-identified communities is not extra validated or invalidated by the circumstances of their historical origin. If it were - as some would still have it - such notions as "Kurd" and "Turkmen" would be almost as controversial as that of "Bosniak".

LOL Nimh. Perhaps you'd care to repeat that speech on "Peoples are Social Constructs" at the annual meeting of the Basque separatist movement? You might wish to inform the local hospital in advance to keep extra blood supplies other than type "O" which is all they keep around since the Basques (although "socially constructed" to belong to the crown of Spain) all have that one type, extremely rare elsewhere. But we digress <G>

No - the Basques are "socially constructed" as Basques. The fact that they believe it makes it real enough. That was my point - the nation (perhaps my point would have been more clear if I had used the word "nations" instead of "peoples") is a social construct, made real by a collective self-identification.

No nation has existed forever. They emerged, and national and ethnic identities emerge, disappear and are reinvented or redefined as each decade comes and goes. Just take "Macedonians" as an example. The Greeks would deny such a thing as the Macedonian people exists, just like you deny a Bosnian people exists. And it's true, back when nationalism made its first inroads in the Balkans, half or more of the politically active proponents of independent statehood in the, ahem, region currently named Macedonia, identified themselves as Bulgarians rather than Macedonians. But here we are, 90 years onwards, and Macedonians consider themselves a nation - a people; identify themselves as ethnically Macedonian and politically loyal to the Macedonian state. Same with the Muslim Bosniaks.

But - off-topic again, it's true.

Thanks, Nimh; of course you know that the "Macedonians" in question speak and write Bulgarian, and the only reason they identified themselves as "Macedonians" was to avoid mixing with Serbs - still Slavs, but speaking a different language. You might also look up why, if "Basques" really are social constructs, 98% have blood type "O", almost never encountered elsewhere in Spain, or in Europe generally.

However, to return to the subject: Iraq was cobbled together - by some Foreign Office mandarins - of 3 formerly Ottoman provinces. You may be able to inform the rest of us whether the socially constructed Iraq or the ethnically constructed 3 ex-Ottoman provinces should be observed in that country's "reconstruction". Nobody seems to know for sure, and a lot is riding on the answer <G>

I translated and posted an article by a Kurdish-Iraqi refugee in Holland, that I found moving and thought-provoking, on the Iraqi exile views thread, see http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4300&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20

Scroll down to the two-part post of today titled "The fear is in the blood - The quest of a refugee Iraqi Kurd"

My guess would be it's because social constructs are not necessarily a-historical: if the "social construct" of forming a Basque nation has been believed in rigorously enough, and accompanied by equally rigorous social conventions on the undesirability of interethnic marriages for long enough, you would get the physical appearances of such long-standing separation from neighbouring groups, too. But though I know a bit about nations, I dont know much about blood types, so I'll leave it at that.



Ha! <grins> You may well have one of the million-dollar questions there, HofT. I wouldnt pretend to have the answer to that one, but it will surely be one of the most important answers of all!

Latest BBC news:

US experts resign over Iraq looting


It's a "disaster", Unesco says
Three White House cultural advisers have resigned in protest at the failure of US forces to prevent the looting of Iraq's national museum - home to artefacts dating back 10,000 years.
Priceless statues, manuscripts and other treasures were taken away in a wave of lawlessness following the collapse of the government of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad last week.

"It didn't have to happen", Martin Sullivan - who chaired the President's Advisory Committee on Cultural Property for eight years - told Reuters news agency.

The tragedy was not prevented, due to our nation's inaction

Martin Sullivan
committee chairman

"In a pre-emptive war that's the kind of thing you should have planned for," he said.

In his letter of resignation, Mr Sullivan - who also heads a historic commission in Maryland - called the looting a "tragedy" and said many other Americans shared his feelings.

'Open floodgate'

His disquiet was echoed by Richard S Lanier and Gary Vikan of the 11-member committee composed of experts and professionals from the art world.

According to the Associated Press, Mr Lanier - director of a New York foundation - attacked "the administration's total lack of sensitivity and forethought regarding the Iraq invasion and loss of cultural treasures".

PRESUMED MISSING
80,000 cuneiform tablets with world's earliest writing
Bronze figure of Akkadian king - 4,500 years old
Silver harp from ancient city of Ur - 4,000 years old
Three-foot carved Sumerian vase - 5,200 years old
Headless statue of Sumerian king Entemena - 4,600 years old
Carved sacred cup - 4,600 years old


Pictures from ransacked museum

And Mr Vikan - director of Baltimore's Walters Art Museum - criticised the American failure to curb "what is now an open floodgate", the agency said.

As well as the national museum in Baghdad, a museum in Mosul was looted and the capital's Islamic Library, which housed ancient manuscripts including one of the oldest surviving copies of the Koran, was ravaged by fire.

The UN's cultural agency Unesco has called the loss and destruction already suffered as "a disaster".

The US has pledged to recover and repair the items looted.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Baghdad museum was "one of the great museums in the world" and that the US would take a leading role in restoring it.

nimh, given their separate non-indo-european language and distinctly individual genetics, I'd say the Basques, if indeed a "Construct", are indeed a sturdy one.

A general admission of overreach here ... earlier I alluded to a finding the "The Average Iraqi" was better off now than pre-Attack.
In fact, such is not the case (though many are no less well off than under Saddam), and I admit my assertion was misfounded. Apparently from Um Qasr to the Basra area, food, water, and medical care are more generally available aNd are more equitably distrib uted than had been the case from the suppression of the '91 uprising on. Much of the rest of Iraq currently suffers ill effect from The Attack, but both aid and order are increasing. I got a little too enthusiastic ... sorry.

timber, Appreciate the fact that you're willing to take responsibility for your own "over reach." Thx, c.i.

bookmark

http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030417-57639655.htm




http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030417-26288214.htm

Yes, its early yet, and there is plenty of chaos and confusion to go around, and will be for some time. Still, indications so far lead one to conclude The Current Administation has cause for optimism. Indeed "Times are perilous", but the situation appears to be in hand and progressing essentially according to plan. Whatever one may think of either The Administration or its Plan, one cannot deny the former is carrying out the latter in competent manner. Bush The Younger's agenda is being vigorously and effectively promoted. I begin to suspect a strategic error of underestimation on the parts of The Opposition, which Opposition I see as having lost much of the initiative in the related quests of "Someone Else In '04" and "Restraining US Global Influence". Even The UN as a body, apart from energetic statements of position from among some members, or spokespersons, presents a hope of reconcilliation . Whatever else it may be, it is expedient at present to seek reconcilliation with The US. Politicians and diplomats are quite fond of expedience.

Oh, and .
Subtle, real subtle.

I am almost too angry to risk writing here concerning the Museum of Antiquities. J Morrison, you refer to it earlier as a 'sidebar'. Timber, you suggested elsewhere that it was mere coincidence that this site (and others) were left unprotected while the Ministry of Oil building was well defended - simply due to chance.

This loss has a handful of precedents in human history and surely none going as far back as any of you can trace any of your ancestors.

I am completely disgusted by a culture that would allow this to happen, that would excuse it, that would think it vaguely regretful. A fire in Cooperstown would gain more concern.

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbur/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=483231