From: Greg Schmitz (gws1@columbia.edu)
Date: 04/10/03-05:45:15 PM Z
Frank - if you look down a couple of messages before the original
posting the sender apologizes for posting this to the list by
mistake.
-greg schmitz <gws1@columbia.edu>
On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Frank Isaac wrote:
> Take me off this list. How dare you lecture me, or anyone for that matter, as
> if I were a child and unable to think for myself about this matter. Don't
> EVER email me again.
>
>
> Jack Fulton <jefulton1@attbi.com> wrote:
> on 4/10/03 4:37 AM, Richard Knoppow at dickburk@ix.netcom.com wrote:
>
> > Iraqis have paid the blood price for a fraudulent war
> >
> > The crudely colonial nature of this enterprise can no longer
> > be disguised
> >
> > Seumas Milne
> > Thursday April 10, 2003
> > The Guardian
> >
> > On the streets of Baghdad yesterday, it was Kabul, November
> > 2001, all over again. Then, enthusiasts for the war on
> > terror were in triumphalist mood, as the Taliban regime was
> > overthrown. The critics had been confounded, they insisted,
> > kites were flying, music was playing again and women were
> > throwing off their burkas. In parliament, Jack Straw mocked
> > Labour MPs who predicted US and British forces would still
> > be fighting in the country in six months' time.
> > Seventeen months later, such confidence looks grimly ironic.
> > For most Afghans, "liberation" has meant the return of rival
> > warlords, harsh repression, rampant lawlessness, widespread
> > torture and Taliban-style policing of women. Meanwhile,
> > guerrilla attacks are mounting on US troops - special forces
> > soldiers have been killed in recent weeks, while 11
> > civilians died yesterday in an American air raid - and the
> > likelihood of credible elections next year appears to be
> > close to zero.
> >
> > In Baghdad and Basra, perhaps the cheering crowds have been
> > a bit thinner on the ground than Tony Blair and George Bush
> > might have hoped - and the looters and lynchers more
> > numerous. But it would be extraordinary if many Iraqis
> > didn't feel relief or euphoria at the prospect of an end to
> > a brutal government, 12 years of murderous sanctions and a
> > merciless bombardment by the most powerful military machine
> > in the world. Afghanistan is not of course Iraq, though it
> > is a salutary lesson to those who believe the overthrow of
> > recalcitrant regimes is the way to defeat anti-western
> > terrorism. It would nevertheless be a mistake to confuse the
> > current mood in Iraqi cities with enthusiasm for the foreign
> > occupation now being imposed. Even Israel's invading troops
> > were feted by south Lebanese Shi'ites in 1982 - only to be
> > driven out by the Shi'ite Hizbullah resistance 18 years
> > later.
> >
> > Nor does the comparative ease with which US and British
> > forces have bombed and blasted their way through Iraq in any
> > way strengthen the case for their war of aggression, as some
> > seem to have convinced themselves. Not even the smallest
> > part of the anti-war argument rested on any illusion that a
> > broken-backed third world regime could win a set-piece
> > military confrontation with the most technologically
> > advanced fighting force in history. Rather, the surprise has
> > been the extent of the resistance and bravery of many
> > fighters, who have confronted tanks with AK 47 rifles and
> > died in their thousands.
> >
> > In reality, the course of the conflict has strengthened the
> > case against a war supposedly launched to rid Iraq of
> > "weapons of mass destruction" - but which has now morphed
> > into a crusade for regime change as evidence for the
> > original pretext has so embarrassingly not materialised. Not
> > only have US and British forces so far been unable to find
> > the slightest evidence of Saddam Hussein's much-vaunted
> > chemical or biological weapons. But the Iraqi regime's
> > failure to use such weapons up to now, even at the point of
> > its own destruction, suggests either that it doesn't possess
> > any - at least in any usable form, as Robin Cook suggested -
> > or that it has decided their use would be militarily
> > ineffective and politically counter-productive.
> >
> > So great is the political imperative to find such weapons,
> > it seems hard to believe they won't turn up in some form.
> > This is after all the coalition which used forged documents
> > to implicate Iraq in the purchase of uranium for nuclear
> > weapons from Niger. But, short of a last-ditch deployment in
> > Tikrit or Mosul, the main pre-emptive pretext for war has
> > already been exposed as a fraud.
> >
> > As the price that Iraqis have had to pay in blood has become
> > clearer - civilian deaths are already well into four
> > figures - Tony Blair and his ministers have increasingly had
> > to fall back on a specious moral calculus to justify their
> > aggression, claiming that more innocents would have died if
> > they had left the Iraqi regime in place.
> >
> > What cannot now be disguised, as US marines swagger around
> > the Iraqi capital swathing toppled statues of Saddam Hussein
> > with the stars and stripes and declaring "we own Baghdad",
> > is the crudely colonial nature of this enterprise. Any day
> > now, the pro-Israeli retired US general Jay Garner is due to
> > take over the running of Iraq, with plans to replace the
> > Iraqi dinar with the dollar, parcel out contracts to US
> > companies and set the free market parameters for the future
> > "interim Iraqi administration".
> >
> > Shashi Tharoor, UN under secretary-general warned Britain
> > and the US against treating Iraq as "some sort of treasure
> > chest to be divvied up", but the Pentagon, which is calling
> > the shots, isn't listening. Its favoured Iraqi protege,
> > Ahmed Chalabi - scion of the old Iraqi ruling class who last
> > set foot in Baghdad 45 years ago - was flown into Nasiriya
> > by the Americans at the weekend and, almost unbelievably for
> > someone convicted of fraud and embezzlement, is being lined
> > up as an adviser to the finance ministry.
> >
> > Meanwhile, Tony Blair is once again seeking to provide a
> > multilateral figleaf for a policy set by Washington
> > hardliners. "Democratisation" in Iraq could only have
> > legitimacy if security were handed over to a United Nations
> > force of non- combatant troops and elections for a
> > constituent assembly held under UN auspices. But nothing of
> > the kind is going to happen, when even Colin Powell insists
> > on "dominating control" by the US. The "vital" UN role Blair
> > has secured from the US president appears to be no more than
> > humanitarian aid and the right to suggest Iraqi names for
> > the interim authority.
> >
> > The most that could eventually be hoped for from US plans is
> > a "managed" form of democracy in a US protectorate, with key
> > economic and strategic decisions taken in advance by the
> > occupiers. Given the likely result of genuinely free
> > elections in any Arab country, it is little wonder that the
> > US would have such problems accepting them - just as they
> > collude with torture and dictatorship by their client states
> > in the region. Anyone who imagines the US is gagging for
> > independent media in the Middle East should ponder Tuesday's
> > attacks on the al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV offices in
> > Baghdad.
> >
> > The wider global impact of this war was spelled out by North
> > Korea's foreign ministry this week. "The Iraqi war shows,"
> > it declared, with unerring logic, "that to allow disarmament
> > through inspections does not help avert a war, but rather
> > sparks it", concluding that "only a tremendous military
> > deterrent force" can prevent attacks on states the US
> > dislikes.
> >
> > As the administration hawks circle round Syria and Iran, a
> > powerful boost to nuclear proliferation and anti western
> > terror attacks seems inevitable, offset only by the
> > likelihood of a growing international mobilisation against
> > the new messianic imperialism. The risk must now be that we
> > will all pay bitterly for the reckless arrogance of the US
> > and British governments.
> >
> > s.milne@guardian.co.uk
> >
> >
> > ---
> > Richard Knoppow
> > Los Angeles, CA, USA
> > dickburk@ix.netcom.com
> >
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________
>
>
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