Jye_0

Deffo worth a read even if you dont agree with it.


UQ Wire: The United States of America has gone mad

By John le Carré

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is
the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs
and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for
in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made
America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The
combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once
more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square
is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he
who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be
trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the
first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its
reckless disregard for the world's poor, the ecology and a raft of
unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be
telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN
resolutions.

But bin Laden conveniently swept all that under the carpet. The Bushies are
riding high. Now 88 per cent of Americans want the war, we are told. The US
defence budget has been raised by another $60 billion to around $360
billion. A splendid new generation of nuclear weapons is in the pipeline, so
we can all breathe easy. Quite what war 88 per cent of Americans think they
are supporting is a lot less clear. A war for how long, please? At what cost
in American lives? At what cost to the American taxpayer's pocket? At what
cost - because most of those 88 per cent are thoroughly decent and humane
people - in Iraqi lives?

How Bush and his junta succeeded in deflecting America's anger from bin
Laden to Saddam Hussein is one of the great public relations conjuring
tricks of history. But they swung it. A recent poll tells us that one in two
Americans now believe Saddam was responsible for the attack on the World
Trade Centre. But the American public is not merely being misled. It is
being browbeaten and kept in a state of ignorance and fear. The carefully
orchestrated neurosis should carry Bush and his fellow conspirators nicely
into the next election.

Those who are not with Mr Bush are against him. Worse, they are with the
enemy. Which is odd, because I'm dead against Bush, but I would love to see
Saddam's downfall - just not on Bush's terms and not by his methods. And not
under the banner of such outrageous hypocrisy.

The religious cant that will send American troops into battle is perhaps the
most sickening aspect of this surreal war-to-be. Bush has an arm-lock on
God. And God has very particular political opinions. God appointed America
to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be
the nexus of America's Middle Eastern policy, and anyone who wants to mess
with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and
d) a terrorist.

God also has pretty scary connections. In America, where all men are equal
in His sight, if not in one another's, the Bush family numbers one
President, one ex-President, one ex-head of the CIA, the Governor of Florida
and the ex-Governor of Texas.

Care for a few pointers? George W. Bush, 1978-84: senior executive, Arbusto
Energy/Bush Exploration, an oil company; 1986-90: senior executive of the
Harken oil company. Dick Cheney, 1995-2000: chief executive of the
Halliburton oil company. Condoleezza Rice, 1991-2000: senior executive with
the Chevron oil company, which named an oil tanker after her. And so on. But
none of these trifling associations affects the integrity of God's work.

In 1993, while ex-President George Bush was visiting the ever-democratic
Kingdom of Kuwait to receive thanks for liberating them, somebody tried to
kill him. The CIA believes that "somebody" was Saddam. Hence Bush Jr's cry:
"That man tried to kill my Daddy." But it's still not personal, this war. It
's still necessary. It's still God's work. It's still about bringing freedom
and democracy to oppressed Iraqi people.

To be a member of the team you must also believe in Absolute Good and
Absolute Evil, and Bush, with a lot of help from his friends, family and
God, is there to tell us which is which. What Bush won't tell us is the
truth about why we're going to war. What is at stake is not an Axis of
Evil - but oil, money and people's lives. Saddam's misfortune is to sit on
the second biggest oilfield in the world. Bush wants it, and who helps him
get it will receive a piece of the cake. And who doesn't, won't.

If Saddam didn't have the oil, he could torture his citizens to his heart's
content. Other leaders do it every day - think Saudi Arabia, think Pakistan,
think Turkey, think Syria, think Egypt.

Baghdad represents no clear and present danger to its neighbours, and none
to the US or Britain. Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, if he's still
got them, will be peanuts by comparison with the stuff Israel or America
could hurl at him at five minutes' notice. What is at stake is not an
imminent military or terrorist threat, but the economic imperative of US
growth. What is at stake is America's need to demonstrate its military power
to all of us - to Europe and Russia and China, and poor mad little North
Korea, as well as the Middle East; to show who rules America at home, and
who is to be ruled by America abroad.

The most charitable interpretation of Tony Blair's part in all this is that
he believed that, by riding the tiger, he could steer it. He can't. Instead,
he gave it a phoney legitimacy, and a smooth voice. Now I fear, the same
tiger has him penned into a corner, and he can't get out.

It is utterly laughable that, at a time when Blair has talked himself
against the ropes, neither of Britain's opposition leaders can lay a glove
on him. But that's Britain's tragedy, as it is America's: as our Governments
spin, lie and lose their credibility, the electorate simply shrugs and looks
the other way. Blair's best chance of personal survival must be that, at the
eleventh hour, world protest and an improbably emboldened UN will force Bush
to put his gun back in his holster unfired. But what happens when the world'
s greatest cowboy rides back into town without a tyrant's head to wave at
the boys?

Blair's worst chance is that, with or without the UN, he will drag us into a
war that, if the will to negotiate energetically had ever been there, could
have been avoided; a war that has been no more democratically debated in
Britain than it has in America or at the UN. By doing so, Blair will have
set back our relations with Europe and the Middle East for decades to come.
He will have helped to provoke unforeseeable retaliation, great domestic
unrest, and regional chaos in the Middle East. Welcome to the party of the
ethical foreign policy.

There is a middle way, but it's a tough one: Bush dives in without UN
approval and Blair stays on the bank. Goodbye to the special relationship.

I cringe when I hear my Prime Minister lend his head prefect's sophistries
to this colonialist adventure. His very real anxieties about terror are
shared by all sane men. What he can't explain is how he reconciles a global
assault on al-Qaeda with a territorial assault on Iraq. We are in this war,
if it takes place, to secure the fig leaf of our special relationship, to
grab our share of the oil pot, and because, after all the public
hand-holding in Washington and Camp David, Blair has to show up at the
altar.

"But will we win, Daddy?"

"Of course, child. It will all be over while you're still in bed."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise Mr Bush's voters will get terribly impatient and may
decide not to vote for him."

"But will people be killed, Daddy?"

"Nobody you know, darling. Just foreign people."

"Can I watch it on television?"

"Only if Mr Bush says you can."

"And afterwards, will everything be normal again? Nobody will do anything
horrid any more?"

"Hush child, and go to sleep."

Last Friday a friend of mine in California drove to his local supermarket
with a sticker on his car saying: "Peace is also Patriotic". It was gone by
the time he'd finished shopping.

www.openDemocracy

NotoriousREV

A good read, thanks for sharing. I also happen to agree with it.

hotsam

Latest polls show only around ~48% of Americans support the war, and Bush's approval ratings have dropped from 88% to something like 52%.

Also, I live in America, and I have noticed no change in my rights or in the way people live.

steve G MAN

i dident read it ill do it tomorow in me dinner break but fair play to Jye_0 coz thats a big post

Jye_0

I didnt write it Steve G MAN, John le Carré did.

TheScooby

Part of me wants to agree with this guy, because some of this stuff actually makes sense, but the other part of me doesn't because he sounds like a crack-pot whiney pom with nothing better to do. Saddam is evil and must be stopped, that is pretty much the bottom line......

TheScooby

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

"Saddam is evil and must be stopped".
Wake up and smell the coffee. There are literally hundreds of dictators like him around the world, many of who are actually doing evil things at this time, rather than 10 years ago.
The only difference is that THEY AREN'T SITTING ON THE SECOND BIGGEST OILFIELD IN THE WORLD.
Get real, and stop parrotting the sort of rubbish you read in the worst sort of tabloids[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]
Alcazar

Dizzy

I'm sorry but saddam did kill loads with chemical weapons... but that was our fault. we (well Old Bush) said rise up and we will support you... so after we stop and dont invade iraq and then sign our peace treaty the kurds rebel to try to overthrow sadam and.... we do NOTHING! We even watch him slaughter them with Heli's we allow him to fly (in accordance with the treaty) in the "no fly zone" :|.

However..

Now he has control of his country again and doesn't appear to be agressive to his neighbours (appart from the ausie version ) we decide to go give him another pounding. WTF?! The US makes makes some sembalence of going through the UN (but only coz tony persuaded him ) and when that doesn't happen fast enough he'll attack.

Hold on.. look around the rest of the world. we are still sending our cricket (and thats a governmental decision not the ICC [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]) team to Zimbarbwe and Mugabi is gettin invited to tea in paris OMFG..

I think the line that was most interesting was "We [the usa] will hold the oilfields in trust for the IRAQI people"

skipjack

and professor john keegan writes for the entirely opposite argument in a far more convincing way.

both arguments have merits but only time will tell who is right.

i don't think we can chance it.

bin laden and hussein may be at opposite ends of the religious spectrum - one fundamentalist, one secular - and therefore not natural allies. but put two arabs together against the despised infidel and you have a dangerous alliance of convenience on your hands.

as to saying that hussein poses no clear and present danger to his neighbours, sorry john but that's wrong.

he's been to war with iran, invaded kuwait, dropped scud missiles on tel aviv. he has, arguably, biological and chemical weapons. his neighbours revile and fear him. his people dread him.

time for him to go: give the inspectors more time, they need it. when they find the concrete evidence, then follow through hard under the auspices of the UN and finish the job.

alcazar, don't bother fizzing. i know what you're going to say.

NotoriousREV

Skipjack, do you he a link to the opposing view, just for balance?

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Fizzing???:
Actually, I was going to say that you have a point, but I won't if you say not:
I have to agree that the time may be right for him to go, but why now, and why HIM, and not Mugabe, Sharon, etc etc.
Alcazar

merkin

"he has, arguably, biological and chemical weapons"


how could anyone possibly argue he hasn't??

or did they all just disappear magically when you consider tonnes of the stuff are still unaccounted for?

Katana

Well you ain't no Ay-rub are ya?

skipjack

sorry alcazar, i did you a disservice there.

merkin - quite. he's got 'em & that's a fact.

below is keegan's excellent piece from yesterday's Daily Telegraph comment section as requested: works for me. he's a highly respected military historian and an emeritus prof. at the institute of strategic studies.

be interesting to see what you all think.

"Hans Blix's interim report must have brought great comfort to the Prime Minister. Tony Blair is commonly said to have no sense of history. That may be so. But were there not echoes from the past in his words to the Commons a fortnight ago about the perils of not confronting Saddam? "The threat is real," he said, "and, if we do not deal with it, the consequence of our weakness will haunt future generations."

He spoke apparently spontaneously and with evident passion. For a moment he sounded almost Churchillian. The sentiment was certainly Churchillian in its exasperation with those who seem ready to find any excuse for not facing the danger of a rogue state acquiring weapons of mass destruction and may continue to do so despite Mr Blix's damning interim report on Saddam Hussein.

The opponents of war are unlikely to deflect Mr Blair in his current mood. His response may have lacked the awful majesty of Churchill's speech to the House on the abandonment of Czechoslovakia on October 5, 1938. "This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup," Churchill said then. "Which will be proffered to us year by year . . . unless we arise again and take our stand." The idea, nevertheless, is the same. Churchill was denouncing appeasement. So, without using the word, was Mr Blair.

Appeasement is certainly in the air and has taken possession of a large number of British opinion makers - perhaps a third of the Labour Party, all the Anglican bishops and even some generals and diplomats. Their disaffection has a strong influence on public opinion.

There are differences, however, between the new appeasement and the old. It is not simply that appeasement was then official policy, and that those who denounced it were out of power. More important, the appeasement of the inter-war years was certainly understandable and even justifiable.

The fear of a new European war, likely to be brought on by standing up to Hitler, affected almost every family in the land. Britain had suffered 750,000 battle deaths in the First World War. Only 15 of England's 10,000 villages had not lost a son, husband or father. It was wholly explicable that families would support almost any diplomatic concession that staved off war.

There lies another difference. The dictators, Hitler foremost, were immensely powerful. Their armed forces were huge. Moreover, they made their demands clear and were cunning at representing them as trifling surrenders. The dictators made it easy for their potential victims to buy time or respite of a threat. A little slice of someone else's territory, a relaxation of disarmament laws. What, the appeasers asked, was really being given away?

The new appeasers seem to recognise that the arguments of the 1930s will not wash today. First, the democracies have all the power, enjoying both nuclear and conventional supremacy. Second, the dictators, in this case Saddam, are men of straw. Saddam is certainly a master of diplomatic trickery, but a huff and a puff will blow his house down.

The new appeasers cannot therefore terrify the public with warnings of a battlefield holocaust. Nor can they advocate direct appeasement of the troublemakers, who clearly do not merit it. Appeasement therefore takes a new form.

The objection to war now stated is not the danger it threatens to one's own side, but, paradoxically, that it threatens against the other. It has become commonplace for the appeasers to speak of "millions of deaths" among the opponents' civilian population and to warn of widespread ecological and economic disaster. War itself, not the suffering to Britain that it might bring, is now the enemy. So the blacker the horrors painted, the better the new appeasement's cause is served.

Most of this horror is spurious. Western armed forces are now so efficient and their weapons so precise that, as was demonstrated in Kosovo, even an intense bombing campaign kills very few civilians and does the minimum of damage to the opponents' infrastructure.

The appeasers, with half their minds, know this to be the case. That produces a dilemma. If a war to deprive an opponent of his weapons of mass destruction will not harm our own side, will do little harm to the other's population and is unlikely to cause material disaster, what is the point of appeasement?

Here the new appeasement takes on its second form. It does not seek, as in the 1930s, to appease dictators. The object now is to appease other objectors to war - half-hearted allies such as Germany, the "Arab street", liberal opinion at home and, above all, the legalists in the UN and other international organisations.

The new appeasers' cry today is for a "second" (but implicitly a third and fourth) Security Council resolution authorising military action against Saddam and, without that, no intervention. The appeasers believe that they have found, in the UN Charter, means to prevent the democracies resorting to force in almost all circumstances.

Article 2 (4) of the Charter outlaws war unless authorised by the Security Council, or in self-defence. That seems to win the appeasers' case. Except that Article 51 makes states the judges of what constitutes self-defence. President George W. Bush - and Mr Blair - take the view that Saddam's secret development of weapons of mass destruction breaches the right of their countries, but also of all other law-abiding states, to defend themselves. They think a war against Saddam is justified under the Charter.

How can the new appeasers argue otherwise? They would say that nothing has been proved against Saddam. They would dispute that they are appeasing him. They represent Saddam as a weak little man, wicked perhaps, but not worth any violation of their interpretation of international law to bring down.

The history of appeasement does not change. Hitler was once a weak little man - and it was the concessions of the appeasers of his day that allowed him to grow strong. Once Saddam has his nuclear weapons, he will beat the drum of war. It will be a war that the new appeasers, like the old appeasers who rallied to Churchill after Hitler's first blitzkrieg, will bitterly regret that they did not fight when they had the chance to win."

TelBoy

Interesting reading. Both articles have their valid points.

But doesn't this whole situation, as i've asked before, and as alcazar mentioned, boil down to one thing?:

OIL

And the fact that Americans are generally a war-mongering nation, who are relishing the prospect of following all the dramatic bombings and fireworks on CNN, safe in the knowledge no-one's going to threaten their shores?

Personally, i don't know why this war has to be fought. The potential downside is bigger now that at any time before. If Saddam really has got WOMD's, he'll use them this time, make no mistake.

And what happens afterwards? Who asked me if i was happy to pay my taxes to fund a new regime in Iraq? When does that stop?

My bet is the start date is Feb 17th, a US holiday. It will give the Americans something to watch, and Bush the opportunity to make his pivotal election-winning speech.




[Edited by TelBoy - 1/29/2003 12:26:14 PM]

merkin

I honestly don't think this does come down to oil (although i can see how easy it is to blame it on that)

Its a votewinner, that much is for sure, and I think there lies at least part of the motive. As you say, the americans can watch the good ol US of A 'kicking saddams butt' on tv in real time...

However... doesnt mean it isnt the right course of action, if for the wrong reason (cue flaming..yawn)

Jye_0

--Part of me wants to agree with this guy, because some of this stuff actually makes sense, but the other part of me doesn't because he sounds like a crack-pot whiney pom with nothing better to do--

LOL, sorry if this sounds rude, but I just cant believe how ignorant some people are. John le Carre was educated at the universities of Berne and Oxford, he taught at Eton and spent five years in the British Foreign Service. he wrote the Spy Who Came In from the Cold, his third book, which secured him a 'worldwide reputation'.

[Edited by Jye_0 - 1/29/2003 12:29:08 PM]

Jye_0

TelBoy, couldnt agree more.

NotoriousREV

The bottom line is: we're going to war, like it or not (and I don't).

The US and UK are about to attract themselves a whole new set of fanatical enemies while losing the respect of former allies.

They'd better get in, do a quick, clean job and get out again, but they won't, they'll use it as an excuse to show the world how great America is and guarantee retribution from terrorists for years to come.

Middle East (using unknown quantaties and types of WOMD) vs Western World (tryng to avoid using WOMD), very, very messy.

Jye_0

Skipjack, slightly different arguments me thinks. I still think a shed load of Iraqis will die if/when it all goes **** up. What happens when one of these 'precise' missles of ours hits a building containing VX or some other biological agent?

The part about very view civilians dying in Kosovo doesnt make me feel any better, partly due to Suddam having this huge stockpile of WOMD hidden 'somewhere'.

skipjack

jye_0

the stockpiles will be underground. only a moron would store them in an above ground site open to satellite detection and missile and/or air strike.

Jye_0

Bunker busters anyone?

I dont think it will remain underground for long if he is attacked, he will have nothing to lose and he 'is' a moron.

skipjack

one thing he ain't is a moron and we'd be foolish to assume that he is.

mining. they'll be deeper than a bunker buster can go, complete with laboratories in hardened ferro-concrete shelters 1,000 feet+ underground. the iraqis are reknowned for their skill in camouflaged construction works: taught them by soviet advisers in the 70s and 80s, designed to beat spy satellites and reconnaisance overflights.

losing their above-ground nuclear reactors at osirak to israeli air strikes in 1981 taught them the value of hiding and safeguarding strategic assets.

remember, he's had four years to do it since the last UN inspectors were ejected.

Jye_0

Moron comes from Greek moros meaning `foolish, stupid.' Id say that right now he's being a wee bit foolish, especially by endangering his entire nation when faced by the slavering super power that is the USA atm.

Jye_0

--mining. they'll be deeper than a bunker buster can go, complete with laboratories in hardened ferro-concrete shelters 1,000 feet+ underground. the iraqis are reknowned for their skill in camouflaged construction works: taught them by soviet advisers in the 70s and 80s, designed to beat spy satellites and reconnaisance overflight--

Hmm, and why has no one mentioned this to the inspectors, havent heard of any mines being visited tbo......

merkin

moron he certainly isn't

I'm not sure i've ever seen such superb brinkmanship, the power to take the worlds biggest superpower right to the edge, including god knows how many billions of $ in time and costs, and the ability to end it all at the very last minute by declaring where all weapons are and rolling over, who would look stupid then?

Jye_0

Ahh, but he hasnt done that 'yet' merkin, and I doubt he ever will. That would be the end for him in his own country imo. I doubt Bush is just gonna say, "hey ok thats fine then" after mobilising such a huge amount of troops etc.

skipjack

merkin - bang on.

jye-0 - go and research "maskirovka" - the fine russian art of deception and camouflage - cross-ref it with iraq, additional cross-refs with construction and concealment and you'll see what i mean.

in the nicest possible way, i *think* you'll find that the UN inspectors, plus western intel analysts, are considering and assessing sites, suspect sites and locations that aren't privy to the media....we are only getting snippets and not the full picture.

if you want a fuller picture that sheds light on some of the intricacies, go digging.

Jye_0

skipjack, will do m8. Cheers.

skipjack

here you go ...

an example of industrial-strength construction maskirovka would be the iraqi's H-3 desert airbase, the second biggest air force facility outside of baghdad: built entirely underground with space for 200 aircraft. bomb and weapons storage underground 20km away, connected by underground rail link.

aircraft would taxi below ground and take off via a gently inclined runway up to the surface, shielded by blast doors to protect from air strikes.

this was 13 years ago in 1990: taught them by the russians. total genius. it enabled the iraqis to get the cream of its frontline fighters airborne quickly - and almost undetected - and over the border into iran, where they were impounded undamaged.

this gives you an indication of their thinking and how they approach protecting strategic military assets.