posted on June 16, 2003 05:15:17 AM new
Fear not 51 you don't want to hear. These people have no idea of reality. If they had to do something practical they'd die. They think you sit around the campfire playing your harmonica for the sheep and coyotes sitting on benches sharing a brew. Disney gave them their world view.
The focus on Iraq has robbed domestic security of manpower, brainpower and money, he said. The Iraq war created fissures in the United States' counterterrorism alliances, he said, and could breed a new generation of al Qaeda recruits. Many of his government colleagues, he said, thought Iraq was an "ill-conceived and poorly executed strategy."
"I continue to be puzzled by it," said Beers, who did not oppose the war but thought it should have been fought with a broader coalition. "Why was it such a policy priority?" The official rationale was the search for weapons of mass destruction, he said, "although the evidence was pretty qualified, if you listened carefully."
He thinks the war in Afghanistan was a job begun, then abandoned. Rather than destroying al Qaeda terrorists, the fighting only dispersed them. The flow of aid has been slow and the U.S. military presence is too small, he said. "Terrorists move around the country with ease. We don't even know what's going on. Osama bin Laden could be almost anywhere in Afghanistan," he said.
As for the Saudis, he said, the administration has not pushed them hard enough to address their own problem with terrorism. Even last September, he said, "attacks in Saudi Arabia sounded like they were going to happen imminently."
Within U.S. borders, homeland security is suffering from "policy constipation. Nothing gets done," Beers said. "Fixing an agency management problem doesn't make headlines or produce voter support. So if you're looking at things from a political perspective, it's easier to go to war."
The Immigration and Naturalization Service, he said, needs further reorganization. The Homeland Security Department is underfunded. There has been little, if any, follow-through on cybersecurity, port security, infrastructure protection and immigration management. Authorities don't know where the sleeper cells are, he said. Vulnerable segments of the economy, such as the chemical industry, "cry out for protection."
And, Richard Clarke, Beers' 10-year predecessor at the NSC, who quit in February, allegedly over his own disgust with the administration's utter incompetence notes,
"It's a very closed, small, controlled group. This is an administration that determines what it thinks and then sets about to prove it. There's almost a religious kind of certainty. There's no curiosity about opposing points of view. It's very scary. There's kind of a ghost agenda."
posted on June 16, 2003 06:27:35 AM new And in support of Beer's statement that the war in Afghanistan was a job begun, then abandoned, the PINR has just published this article.
"Pakistan Likely Model of What's to Come"
Drafted by Erich Marquardt on June 15, 2003
http://www.pinr.com
In October, the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), an alliance of Islamic
fundamentalist parties, was elected and given control of the provincial
government in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), located on
Afghanistan's eastern border. Since the election, the alliance has quickly
picked up where the Taliban left off; they've burned videocassettes,
discouraged music, and are attempting to place the region under Shariah, or
Islamic law. [b]The most alarming aspect of the MMA's rise is that they would
not have been elected if it weren't for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.[/b]
The U.S. military presence in Afghanistan greatly increased the anger and
resentment felt toward U.S. foreign policy in Central Asia and the Middle
East. The subsequent invasion of Iraq boosted this anger yet again. While
anger and frustration were felt throughout the world by those who had joined
in large global demonstrations to protest the preemptive invasion of Iraq,
these emotions have been traditionally most evident in Muslim-majority
countries; in many Muslim countries, populations generally feel that the
U.S. "war on terror" is actually a "war on Islam."
Pakistani society is absolutely virulent toward U.S. foreign policy, as was
seen from the results of a recent Pew Research poll. This anger has created
a backlash against the United States, making it easier for Islamic
fundamentalist parties who speak out against U.S. policies to take power
through democratic elections. As Liz Sly writes in the
Chicago Tribune, the MMA's "electoral platform of hostility to the U.S.
resonated with many ordinary Pakistanis."
The election of the MMA is causing problems for the Bush administration and is bound to further exasperate an already delicate situation. The U.S.
military is having trouble securing the unstable border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. government claims that militants in Pakistan, sympathetic to the Taliban, and hostile to the United States, are traveling into Afghanistan to mount raids on the U.S. military and the central Afghanistan government of U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai. After mounting such attacks, the militants are able to sneak back into neighboring Pakistan. In early June there was a battle in the border region near Spin Boldak between Afghan forces and suspected Taliban, which killed almost 50.
Because the MMA is sharply against current U.S. foreign policy, it is not
working to discourage such attacks. And with a population seething with
anger at the United States, it is very hard for Washington to prevent the
growing threat arising from the Afghan-Pak border. This has caused a
conundrum for Washington. The Bush administration is also aware that its
continuing pressure on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is threatening
to destabilize his regime. Continuing hatred toward the United States is
creating the possibility that other provinces in Pakistan will follow the
North-West Frontier's example and embrace Islamic fundamentalism more than
they traditionally have.
The greater danger is the threat of this political system becoming the new Islamic model: one in which parties can garner public support best through anti-Americanism. This would be a significant blow to the Bush administration, as it would solidify the already popular sentiment that U.S. foreign policy is creating hatred and disillusionment in many corners of the globe. Such a trend not only further radicalizes those on the fringe and those dedicated to violent means but also those of the mainstream, thus turning them towards groups such as the MMA. It is this gravitational pull towards a more anti-American world that the White House has been trying to combat through its assortment of public relations campaigns and its everyday rhetoric of "liberation."
The situation in Pakistan is really a specific example in a larger movement
in which current U.S. foreign policy is sowing many of the seeds it is
attempting to destroy and creating significant negative effects: a
resurgence in nationalism, a trans-Atlantic diplomatic schism, and, perhaps,
a new era of nuclear proliferation.
The current "war on terrorism" is largely a war on militant Islamic
fundamentalists who may pose a threat to U.S. interests. Yet by interfering
in the affairs of Muslim-majority countries as part of the "war on
terrorism" -- often unilaterally -- the United States is indirectly giving
credence to the anti-American attitudes of the fundamentalist parties and
groups. This paradox explains why as the "war on terrorism" progresses,
attitudes toward the United States become more negative. And as attitudes
become more negative, we can also expect a heightened level of violence
directed toward U.S. interests at home and abroad.
The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication
that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various
conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches
a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral
judgments to the reader. PINR seeks to inform rather than persuade. This
report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written
permission of [email protected]. All comments should be directed to
[email protected].
posted on June 16, 2003 05:00:14 PM new WASHINGTON - Since April 14, when Pentagon officials declared major combat finished in Iraq, more US military personnel have died while occupying Iraq than in a year of occupying Afghanistan, according to Department of Defense figures compiled by the Globe.
Fifty-six US troops have died in Iraq since the fall of Tikrit nearly nine weeks ago, and the majority of those deaths have come in the past six weeks - after President Bush's May 1 speech declaring that invasion operations had ended. Since then, 46 deaths have been reported among US forces, including 11 from combat wounds.
posted on June 16, 2003 05:22:21 PM new
BBC: Nearly two-thirds of respondents to an international poll for the BBC say they have an unfavourable opinion of George W Bush.
The survey of 11 countries - for the television programme What The World Thinks of America, to be aired this week in the UK - revealed that 57% of the sample had a very unfavourable, or fairly unfavourable attitude towards the American President.
The figure rose to 60% when discounting the views of the American respondents.
Asked who is the more dangerous to world peace and stability, the United States was rated higher than al-Qaeda by respondents in both Jordan (71%) and Indonesia (66%).
America was also rated more dangerous than two countries considered as "rogue states" by Washington.
The survey - conducted for the BBC by ICM and other international pollsters - gauged opinion towards US military, economic, cultural and political influence.
posted on June 16, 2003 06:57:34 PM new
BUSH WINS NOBEL WAR PRIZE
Saddam Miffed at Oslo Snub
The Norwegian Nobel Committee honored President George W. Bush today by bestowing upon him the first-ever Nobel War Prize.
In Oslo, Nobel Committee chairman Gunnar Berge said that Mr. Bush was chosen for the award because “above all, in his words and deeds, President Bush has stood for the resolution of conflicts between nations and peoples through the use of massive and overwhelming force.”
At the White House, President Bush said that he was surprised to have received the Nobel War Prize and that he was “deeply honored and touched.”
He added that it would have been impossible to win the award without the help of Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whom the President thanked for “his tireless efforts to do absolutely nothing to hinder me.”
But even as the Oslo committee announced the first-ever prize, there was a firestorm of controversy in international circles, with some critics charging that President Bush was insufficiently bellicose to win the Nobel War Prize.
In particular, Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein expressed the view that he and not the President should have walked off with the coveted Norwegian accolade.
“I’ve been busting my hump to win the Nobel War Prize for the better part of twenty years, and he just scoops it up at the last minute?” a visibly miffed Saddam said to reporters in Baghdad. “Excuse me, but the whole thing reeks of politics.”
For his part, President Bush brushed off Saddam’s comments as “sour grapes,” and said he would use the $1 million dollar award to break ground on the Bush Center for Preemptive Armed Conflict in Houston, Texas.
Cheryl
My religion is simple, my religion is kindness.
--Dalai Llama
posted on June 16, 2003 07:06:15 PM new
Oops, forgot this interesting link: (check out petition 2 - Reject Nomination of Bush and Blair for Nobel Prize
posted on June 17, 2003 06:38:40 AM new
"What amazes me is that the President himself is not clamoring for an investigation. It is his integrity that is on the line. It is his truthfulness that is being questioned. It is his leadership that has come under scrutiny. And yet he has raised no question, expressed no curiosity about the strange turn of events in Iraq, expressed no anger at the possibility that he might have been misled. How is it that the President, who was so adamant about the dangers of WMD, has expressed no concern over the where-abouts of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?"
cont...
One senior member of the president's national security team, who was deeply involved in making the case against Mr. Hussein, said he believed weapons would ultimately be found. Even if little is ultimately discovered, the official said, "I think we can ride this out."
"The president is 99 percent safe on this one," said Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House.
"We may have gone to war because of weapons of mass destruction, but we have made our conclusions based on the reaction of the Iraqi people," said Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster. "Are we relieved? Yes," Mr. Luntz said. "Do we feel good about ourselves? Absolutely."
One senior Republican Senate aide said Republican lawmakers are . . . skeptical of the intelligence matter's overall potency as a political weapon for the Democrats.
"Every time the Democrats talk about this stuff, they run the risk of having it backfire," Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster, said. "Ultimately, voters don't believe that Democrats handle national security and the war on terror as well as they think the Republicans do."
posted on June 18, 2003 09:04:10 AM new
A new Gallup Poll shows ratings of satisfaction with the state of the nation continue their post-war decline. Forty-seven percent of Americans say they are satisfied, down from 60% immediately after the start of the Iraq conflict. For the first time since the war began, more Americans are dissatisfied than satisfied.
posted on June 18, 2003 10:41:28 AM new
The United States is at a crossroads, with neither route offering an easy journey. In one direction lies a pretend land – where tax cuts increase revenue, where war is peace, where any twisted bits of intelligence justify whatever the leader wants and the people follow. In the other direction lies a painful struggle to bring accountability to political forces that have operated with impunity now for years.
The choice is so big, so intimidating, so important that many in politics, in the U.S. news media and on Main Street America don’t want to believe that there is a crossroads or that there is a choice. They want to think everything’s okay and go about their lives without making a choice. Or they hope someone else will do the hard work so they can stay on the sidelines as bemused observers.
But more and more Americans have a sinking feeling that the institutions that they count on to check abuses – the Congress, the courts, the press – are no longer there as bulwarks. The dawning reality is, too, that what ultimately is at stake is not simply the fiscal stability of the United States or the relative comfort of the American people. Nor even the awful shedding of blood by U.S. soldiers and foreign inhabitants in faraway lands.
What may be in the balance is an era of history that many Americans take for granted, an era that has lasted for a quarter of a millennium, an era that has given rise to scientific invention, to a flourishing of the arts and commerce, to modern democracy itself. There is a gnawing realization that the United States might be careening down a course leading to the end of the Age of Reason.
This possibility can be seen best in the details that still push their way to the surface, though the powers-that-be tell the people to ignore those facts or to reject the logical conclusions that flow from the facts.
Those troublesome facts may emanate from budget bean-counters who project a U.S. federal deficit smashing records of a decade ago, soaring beyond $400 billion a year and aiming toward the bankruptcy of Social Security and other basic government programs. Or the facts may come from cold economic data about the rise of poverty and the loss of 2 million jobs in America in the past couple of years.
But perhaps the most dramatic facts that we are told to ignore represent the gap between what George W. Bush claimed about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, his chief rationale for war, and what’s been found.
Civilian Dead
Every day there are new revelations from intelligence officials that the evidence was manipulated to scare the American people into a war that the Associated Press conservatively estimates killed 3,240 Iraqi civilians, a figure culled from the records of 60 of Iraq’s 124 hospitals. "The account is still fragmentary, and the complete toll – if it is ever tallied – is sure to be significantly higher," the AP reported. [AP, June 10, 2003]
In light of that carnage and the continuing bloodshed, the reaction to Bush’s WMD deceptions can be seen as a measure of how enfeebled the U.S. political system has become. Will the American people demand serious answers from Bush and his administration over what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman calls "the worst scandal in American political history," taking the nation to war over a series of lies and distortions? Or will the "feel good" presidency roll on?
In September 2002, for instance, Bush started his march to war by going to the U.N. and demanding a tough stance against Iraq over its alleged WMD. "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons," Bush said. "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
That same month, in secret, the Defense Intelligence Agency was finding the evidence was far less precise than Bush was claiming. "There is no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons, or whether Iraq has – or will – establish its chemical warfare production facilities," the DIA said in a classified report. That information didn’t reach the American people, however, until June, two months after the war, when Bloomberg News and other news outlets disclosed it.
On another occasion in those early days of war fever, Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair cited a "new" report supposedly from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency saying Iraq was "six months away" from having a nuclear weapon. "I don’t know what more evidence we need," said Bush.
Few in the U.S. news media noted that the IAEA had issued no new report. "Millions of people saw Bush tieless, casually inarticulate, but determined-looking and self-confident, making a completely uncorroborated (and, at that point, uncontradicted) case for preemptive war," observed author John R. MacArthur in the Columbia Journalism Review. [May/June 2003]
As Bush’s pre-war drumbeat grew louder, so did the alarms about WMD. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.N. that Saddam had amassed tons of chemical and biological weapons. Blair claimed that Iraq’s WMD could be unleashed in only 45 minutes. Bush warned that Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons could be put into unmanned planes that could spray poison on U.S. cities – though it was never clear how Iraq’s short-range planes were going to fly halfway around the world. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s "Misleading the Nation to War."]
Even as the earlier IAEA claim proved inaccurate, Bush made new claims about Iraq’s plans to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program, one of the scariest nightmares to Americans. Only later was it disclosed that two key pieces of evidence were bogus. A supposed document showing Iraq seeking nuclear material from Niger turned out to be a forgery, and metal tubing that the Bush administration insisted was for nuclear production actually would fit only for manufacturing conventional weapons.
Secret Evidence
While the Bush administration didn’t repeat some of its wilder claims after they were debunked, it didn’t retract them either. It simply moved on to new questionable assertions while keeping secret evidence that challenged Bush’s shifting WMD case. On the eve of war, Bush declared that not to act against Iraq over these weapons would be "suicidal."
It should now be obvious that Bush never wanted a national debate about the need to go to war. He had reached his decision months earlier and simply wanted to herd the American people into his pro-war corral. One of his administration’s favorite techniques for silencing the scattered voices of opposition was ridicule.
Bush’s backers made particular fun of Hans Blix and his U.N. weapons inspectors for not finding any WMD. Dennis Miller, the decidedly unfunny right-wing comic, joked that Blix and his inspectors were like the cartoon character Scooby Doo as they fruitlessly sped around Iraq unable to find WMD. Other Bush supporters portrayed Blix as either incompetent or secretly sympathetic to Saddam.
Public figures who questioned Bush’s presentation of the facts, such as actor Sean Penn, were subjected to a blacklist as they lost work due to public pressure from Bush’s allies. Instead of objecting to these tactics of intimidation, which frequently sank to questioning the patriotism and even the sanity of critics, Bush and his top aides egged their followers on. [For more details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Politics of Preemption."]
Tens of millions of protesters from all over the world who marched against war in Iraq raised nuanced, articulate objections to Bush’s war policy. They raised questions about the quality of U.S. intelligence and whether U.N. inspectors should be given more time to search for WMD before resorting to armed conflict. But Bush summarily dismissed the protesters, likening the unprecedented mass demonstrations to a focus group.
"First of all, you know, size of protests – it’s like deciding, ‘Well, I'm going to decide policy based upon a focus group,’" Bush said.
Bush’s conservative allies also mounted public campaigns against the French, the Germans and the U.N. Security Council for their refusal to accept Bush’s certainty about Saddam’s WMD. The suggestion often was that the unwilling Europeans were on the take because of oil or other business deals with Iraq. Only the "coalition of the willing" was sincere and hardheaded enough to recognize Saddam’s stockpiles of WMD and to take action.
Fruitless Search
American troops began scouring the Iraqi countryside for the banned weapons on the night of March 19-20 as the war started. So far the results have proved the skeptics right and left the U.S. military feeling like Scooby Doo on some comical mission.
After months of searching, Lt. Col. Keith Harrington, the head of one team tasked with finding the elusive WMD, said, "It doesn’t appear there are any more targets at this time." He added, "We’re hanging around with no missions in the foreseeable future."
In post-war comments, Blix has said none of the pre-war intelligence given him by the U.K. and U.S. was helpful in finding any secret Iraqi weapons. Blix also revealed that even on the day before the U.S. launched the invasion, the Iraqi government was answering questions about how it had disposed of its weapons stockpiles.
As criticism about his pre-war WMD claims has mounted, Bush has sought to preempt this new debate with bald assertions that he was right all along. "We found the weapons of mass destruction," he declared in reference to the discovery of two trailers that his administration touted as "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program." But again scientists who have examined this evidence are challenging the conclusion.
"American and British intelligence analysts with direct access to the evidence are disputing claims that the mysterious trailers found in Iraq were for making deadly germs," the New York Times reported. The analysts "said the mobile units were more likely intended for other purposes and charged that the evaluation process had been damaged by a rush to judgment."
The analysts said the trailers were more likely used for producing hydrogen for weather balloons that help artillery units adjust for wind conditions, just as captured Iraqi scientists had claimed.
Also it appeared the administration was continuing its pre-war practice of covering up dissent about its interpretation of the evidence. In a press briefing about the administration’s May 28 report claiming the trailers were mobile biological weapons labs, a U.S. official had told reporters that "we are in full agreement" about the WMD purpose of the trailers. The internal dissent only emerged later. [NYT, June 7, 2003]
The London Observer called the trailer flap another blow to Blair, who like Bush had cited the trailers as confirmation of pre-war WMD claims. "The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987," the newspaper reported. [Observer, June 8, 2003] [For more on the Bush administration’s rush to judgment on the trailers, see Consortiumnews.com’s "America’s Matrix."]
Bush also is seeking to subtly shift the argument about what constitutes proof. Instead of talking about "vast stockpiles" of forbidden weapons, he now predicts the U.S. will find evidence of "weapons programs," with the suggestion that proof of Iraq’s capacity to make chemical and biological weapons – a very low threshold indeed – would suffice.
Taking the Offensive
Even as the administration’s case for Iraq possessing a trigger-ready stockpile of chemical and biological warfare collapses, Bush’s aides still don’t hesitate to go on the offensive against their critics. Some top Bush aides even have the audacity to accuse the critics of manipulating the historical record.
"There’s a bit of revisionist history going on here," sniffed Bush’s national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on NBC’s "Meet the Press" as she lashed out at former CIA analysts and others who questioned Bush’s pre-war WMD claims. "As I said, revisionist history all over the place." [June 8, 2003]
In this Brave New World, up is definitely down and black is clearly white. Those who don’t agree with Bush’s false record are the "revisionists," which implies they – not Bush – are the ones playing games with history.
Besides the WMD distortions, the Bush administration pushed other pre-war hot buttons to get Americans juiced up for war. Bush and his aides repeatedly suggested that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda were in cahoots, a theme used so aggressively that polls showed nearly half of Americans polled believing that Saddam Hussein was behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Only now has it been disclosed that the Bush administration knew – and hid – direct evidence contradicting its claims about Iraqi collaboration with al-Qaeda. Before the war began, the U.S. government had captured two senior al-Qaeda leaders, Abu Zahaydah and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who in separate interrogations denied the existence of an alliance.
Abu Zahaydah told his U.S. interrogators last year that the idea of cooperation was discussed inside al-Qaeda but was rejected by Osama bin Laden, who has long considered Saddam an infidel and his secular government anathema to al-Qaeda's Islamic fundamentalism. While the Bush administration would have surely publicized an opposite answer from the captured al-Qaeda leaders, the denial of an alliance was kept under wraps. The al-Qaeda interrogations were revealed by the New York Times on June 9.
Media Allies
Rather than confess to its many errors and distortions, the administration has managed to keep control of the public debate by relying on its many media allies at Fox News, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and scores of other outlets. They continue to shout down and smirk at anyone who dares disagree with the conventional wisdom about a gloriously successful war.
Since the cessation of major fighting in Iraq, the TV networks also have shifted to other topics of supposed viewer interest, such as the Laci Peterson murder case, Martha Stewart’s indictment and Sammy Sosa’s corked bat.
In contrast to the round-the-clock coverage devoted to questions about President Bill Clinton’s trustworthiness over his personal relationship with Monica Lewinsky, the cable TV networks have treated the WMD search as more like an ongoing "hunt" that will eventually find its prey. Questions about Bush’s honesty often are treated in the context of Democratic Party partisan tactics – whether one of the candidates thinks he can score some political points – rather than as an issue of Bush’s character and integrity.
Though the U.S. news media has been more skeptical about Bush’s WMD claims now than before or during the war, the U.S. coverage pales in comparison to the far more aggressive treatment the deceptions are getting in the British press.
The U.S. pattern of soft-pedaling negative news is a continuation of the war-time pattern. During the conflict, journalists of other nations raised troubling questions and showed their viewers ghastly images of war, while their U.S. counterparts behaved more like cheerleaders trying to demonstrate their "patriotism" and keeping the worst horrors of war off the nation’s TV screens.
In the days before the invasion, there was often a giddy eagerness to get the war started. MSNBC had a nightly program called "Countdown: Iraq" and correspondents barely suppressed their anticipation for the "shock and awe" bombing that the administration promised would be the ultimate in pyrotechnics. When the initial bombing didn’t meet expectations, there was a palpable letdown. When the larger-scale attacks finally came, with mushroom clouds sprouting across the Baghdad skyline, one anchor gushed, "This is it … Absolutely awesome display of military power."
Throughout the conflict, U.S. news media outlets seemed more eager to "brand" themselves in red-white-and-blue than give the American people the fullest story possible. While images of carnage were consciously censored, happy stories were promoted endlessly, such as the hyped rescue story of Jessica Lynch.
Public Opinion
The impact of this favorable war coverage left many Americans, who originally were skeptical, feeling isolated and inclined to rally behind the troops, especially when faced with one-sided arguments about Saddam Hussein’s dangerous weapons of mass destruction. As the major conflict was ending, there was also the euphoria about victory, the hope that Iraqis would be better off without the unsavory Saddam, and the relief that U.S. troop losses were relatively light.
Now, some Americans seem to view coming to grips with the fact that Bush lied about the reasons for war to be an unnecessary downer off a pleasant high. So far, the majority of Americans indicate that they would rather keep the warm glow of victory going than hold Bush accountable.
Polls have found a kind of willful gullibility. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, taken June 9-10, reported that 64 percent said the Bush administration had not intentionally misled the people about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction while only 31 percent thought otherwise.
The poll also showed that 43 percent of Americans say they are "certain it is true" that "Iraq had biological or chemical weapons before the war," with another 43 percent saying that was "likely but not certain." Only 9 percent said it was "unlikely but not certain" and 3 percent said they were "certain it is not true."
Similarly overwhelming percentages said they believed or were certain that Iraq had ties to Osama bin Laden. Only 11 percent said that was "unlikely but not certain" and 4 percent said that unproven claim was certainly not true.
Another poll, by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, found that 68 percent of Americans continue to approve of the decision to go to war. Of those supporting the war, 48 percent believed that U.S. forces had already found weapons of mass destruction.
For Republicans, this false belief seemed to be a kind of loyalty test. Among Republicans who said they follow international affairs very closely, 55 percent said they thought WMD had been found.
Judging from the polls, it appears that many Americans have been infected with a case of collective denial or already have adjusted to the new post-Reason Age. It is somehow considered wrong to challenge the conventional wisdom, which holds that the war was an unqualified success.
Americans have sustained their support for Bush even as more and more insiders from the U.S. intelligence community quit and try to explain the weaknesses of Bush's counter-terrorism strategies. One of the latest is Rand Beers, a career counter-terrorism adviser who left Bush's White House and joined the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
"The administration wasn't matching its deeds to its words in the war on terrorism," Beers said in an interview with the Washington Post. "They're making us less secure, not more secure." Beers cited Bush's focus on Iraq as undermining the war on terror by robbing money from domestic security projects, hurting crucial alliances and creating breeding grounds for al-Qaeda.
"Counter-terrorism is like a team sport. The game is deadly. There has to be offense and defense," said the 60-year-old veteran who served on the National Security Councils of the last four presidents. "The Bush administration is primarily offense, and not into teamwork." [Washington Post, June 16, 2003]
New Paradigm
For the rest of the world, the broad American disconnect from reality must be unnerving, given the awesome power of the U.S. military arsenal. What does it mean when the most powerful nation on earth chooses fantasy over truth? What are the consequences when an American president realizes he can broadly falsify the factual record and get away with it?
The answers to these questions could decide the future of the American democratic experiment and determine the future safety of the world.
If the American people don’t demand accountability for the lies that led to war, a new political paradigm may be created. Bush may conclude that he is free to make any life-or-death decision and then unleash his conservative allies to manipulate the facts and intimidate the opposition. By inaction, the American people may be sleepwalking down a path that takes them into a land controlled by lies, delusion and fear.
Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., one of the few members of Congress to consistently raise questions about Bush’s case for war, said the discrepancies between Bush’s pre-war WMD claims and the facts on the ground "are very serious and grave questions, and they require immediate answers. We cannot – and must not – brush such questions aside."
Byrd also noted Bush’s curious disinterest in the truth. "What amazes me is that the President himself is not clamoring for an investigation," Byrd said in a Senate speech on June 5. "It is his integrity that is on the line. It is his truthfulness that is being questioned. It is his leadership that has come under scrutiny. And yet he has raised no question, expressed no curiosity about the strange turn of events in Iraq, expressed no anger at the possibility that he might have been misled. …
"Indeed, instead of leading the charge to uncover the discrepancy between what we were told before the war and what we have found – or failed to find – since the war, the White House is circling the wagons and scoffing at the notion that anyone in the administration exaggerated the threat from Iraq," Byrd said. "It is time for the President to demand an accounting from his own administration as to exactly how our nation was led down such a twisted path to war."
There is, of course, another possible answer to Byrd’s questions: that Bush feels he doesn’t need to tell the truth, that he can make up whatever excuse he wants in support of whatever action he chooses, that he is beyond accountability. Bush may believe that it is his right to deceive the American people, that it is their job to follow, that he is a modern-day emperor leading the nation into a new era – beyond the Age of Reason
posted on June 18, 2003 10:45:26 AM new
Its funny to see the sheep finnally waking up and thinking with their own minds.
It kind of feeds my ego that Ive always seen through the BS and most of America is just now starting to see it.I always see through peoples BS before anyone else. Ive never been wrong. I can just look at someone and almost imedately read them like a book.
posted on June 18, 2003 04:12:12 PM new
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Atilio A. Boron: Looking at the recent US policies in Iraq, What do you think was the real goal behind this war?
Noam Chomsky: Well, we can be quite confident on one thing. The reasons we are given can't possibly be the reasons. And we know that, because they are internally contradictory. So one day, Bush and Powell would claim that "the single question," as they put it, is whether Iraq would disarm and the next day they would say it doesn´t matter whether Iraq disarms because they will go on and invade anyway. And the next day would be that if Saddam and his group get out then the problem will be solved; and then, the next day for example, at the Azores, at the summit when they made an ultimatum to the United Nations, they said that even if Saddam and his group get out they would go on and invade anyway. And they went on like that. When people give you contradictory reasons every time they speak, all they are saying is: "don't believe a word I say" . So we can dismiss the official reasons.
And the actual reasons I think are not very obscure. First of all, there´s a long standing interest. That does not account for the timing but it does account for the interest. And that is that Iraq has the second large oil reserves in the World and controlling Iraqi oil and even ending up probably with military bases in Iraq will place the United States in an extremely strong position to dominate the global energy system even more than it does today. That's a very powerful lever of world control, quite apart from the profits that comes from it. And the US probably doesn't intend to access the oil of Iraq; it intends to use primarily safer Atlantic basin resources for itself (Western Hemisphere, West Africa). But to control the oil has been a leading principle of US foreign policies since the Second World War, and Iraq is particularly significant in this respect. So that's a long standing interest. On the other hand it doesn't explain the timing.
If you want to look at the timing, I think that it became quite clear that the massive propaganda for the war began in September of last year, September 2002. Before that there was a condemnation of Iraq but no effort to whip people into war fever. So we asked what else happened then September 2002. Well, two important things happened. One was the opening of the mid term congressional campaign, and the Bush´s campaign manager, Karl Rove, was very clearly explaining what should be obvious to anybody anyway: that they could not possible enter the campaign with a focus on social and economic issues. The reason is that they are carrying out policies which are quite harmful to the general population and favorable to an extremely narrow sector of corporate power and the corrupt sectors as well, and they can't face the electorate on that. As he pointed out, if we can make the primary issue national security then we will be able win because people will -you know- flock to power if they feel frightened. And that is second nature to these people; that's the way they have ran the country -right through the 1980´s- with very unpopular domestic programs but accustomed to press into the panic button -Nicaragua, Grenada, crime, one thing after another. And Rove also pointed out that something similar would be needed for the presidential election.
And that's true and what they want do is not just to stay in office but they would like to institutionalize the very regressive program put forward domestically, a program which will basically unravel whatever is left of New Deal social democratic systems and turn the country almost completely into a passive undemocratic society, controlled totally by high concentration of capitals. This means slashing public medical assistance, social security; probably schools; and increasing state power. These people are not conservatives, they brought the country into a federal deficit with the largest increase in federal spending in 20 years, that is since their last term in office- and huge tax cuts for the rich, and they want to institutionalize these programs. They are seeking a "fiscal train wreck" that will make it impossible to fund the programs. They know they cannot face an election declaring that they want to destroy very popular programs, but they can throw up their hands in despair and say, "What can we do, there's no money," after they have made sure there would be no money by huge tax cuts for the rich and sharp increase in spending for military (including high tech industry) and other programs beneficial to corporate power and the wealthy. So that's the second, that's the domestic factor and in fact, there was a spectacular propaganda achievement on that. After the government-media propaganda campaign began in September they succeeded in convincing a majority of the population very quickly that Iraq was an imminent threat to the security of the United States, and even that Iraq was responsible for September 11th. I mean, there is not a grain of truth in all that, but by now majority of the population believes those things and those attitudes are correlated strongly with the commitment to war, which is understandable. If people think they are threatened with destruction by an enemy who´s already attacked them it is {delete "all"} likely that they'll go to war. In effect, if you look at the press today they describe soldiers as saying: "we are here for revenge - you know- because they blew up the World Trade Center, they will attack us", or something. Well, these beliefs are completely unique to the United States.
I mean: no one in the World believes anything like this. In Kuwait and Iran people hate Saddam Hussein, but they are not afraid of him, they know they're the weakest country in the region. In any event the government-media propaganda campaign worked brilliantly as the population was frightened and to a large extent it was willing to support the war despite the fact that there was a lot of opposition. And that's the second factor.
And there was a third factor which was even more important. In September the government announced the national security strategy. That is not completely without precedent, but it is quite new as a formulation of state policy. What is stated is that we are tearing the entire system of the international law to shreds, the end of UN charter, and that we are going to carry out an aggressive war -which we will call {delete "it"} "preventive"- and at any time we choose and that we will rule the world by force. In addition, we will assure that there is never any challenge to our domination because we are so overwhelmingly powerful in military force that we will simply crush any potential challenge.
Well, you know, that caused shudders around the world, including the foreign policy elite at home which was appalled by this. I mean it is not that things like that haven't been heard in the past. Of course they had, but it had never been formulated as an official national policy . I suspect you will have to go back to Hitler to find an analogy to that. Now, when you propose new norms in the international behavior and new policies you have to illustrate it, you have to get people to understand that you mean it. Also you have to have what a Harvard historian called an "exemplary war", a war of example, which shows that we really mean what we say.
And we have to choose the right target. The target has to have several properties. First it has to be completely defenseless. No one would attack anybody who might be able to defend themselves, that would be not prudent. Iraq meets that perfectly : it is the weakest country in the region, it's been devastated by sanctions and almost completely disarmed and the US knows every inch of the Iraq territory by satellite surveillance and overflights, and more recently U-2 flights. So, yes, Irak it is extremely weak and satisfied the first condition.
And secondly, it has to be important. So there will be no point invading Burundi, you know, for example, it has to be a country worthwhile controlling, owning, and Iraq has that property too. It´s, as mentioned, the second largest oil producer in the world. So it's perfect example and a perfect case for this exemplary war, intending to put the world on notice saying that this is what we´re going do, any time we choose. We have the power. We have declared that {delete "there"} our goal is domination by force and that no challenge will be accepted. We've showed you what we are intending to do and be ready for the next. We will proceed on to the next operation. Those various conditions fold together and they make a war a very reasonable choice in taking to a test some principles.
Atilio A. Boron: According to your analysis then the question is: who is next? Because you don´t believe that they are going to stop in Iraq, wouldn't you?
Noam Chomsky: No, they already made this clear. For one thing they need something for the next presidential election. And that will continue. Through their first twelve years office this continued year after year; and it will continue until they manage to institutionalize the domestic policies to which they are committed and to ensure the global system they want. So what's the next choice? Well the next choice has to meet similar conditions. It has to be valuable enough to attack, and it has to be weak enough to be defenseless. And there are choices, Syria is a possible choice. There Israel will be delighted to participate. Israel alone is a small country, but it´s a offshore US military base, so it has an enormous military force, apart from having hundreds of nuclear weapons (and probably a kind of chemical and biological weapons), its air and armed forces are larger and more advanced that those in any Nato power, and the US is behind it overwhelmingly.
So Syria is a possibility. Iran is a more difficult possibility because it´s a harder country to dominate and control. Yet there is a reason to believe that for a year or two now, efforts have been under way to try dismantle Iran, to break it into internally warring groups. These US dismantling efforts have been based partly in Eastern Turkey, the US bases in Eastern Turkey apparently flying surveillance over Iranian borders. That´s another possibility. There is a third possibility that can not be considered lightly, and is the Andean region. The Andean region has a lot of resources and it´s out of control. There are US military bases surrounding the region, and US forces are there already. And the control of Latin-America is of course extremely important. With the developments in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia it´s clear that US domination is challenged and that can´t be accepted, in particular in a region so close and so crucial because of its resource base. So that is another possibility.
Atilio A. Boron: This is really frightening. Now the question is, do you think that all this situation in Iraq, the invasion and the aftermath would affect in a non-reparable manner the political stability of the region? What are likely to be the side effects of this invasion in countries with a very fragile political constitution like the South Arabia or even Syria, Iran or even the Kurds? What may be the future of the Palestine question, which still is of paramount importance in the area?[b]
Noam Chomsky: Well, what's going to happen in the Arab world is extremely hard to predict. I mean: it´s a disorganized and chaotic world dominated by highly authoritarian and brutal regimes. We know what the attitudes are. I mean, the US is very concerned with attitudes in the region so they have pretty good studies made by US Middle East scholars on the attitudes in the region, and the results are pretty dramatic. One of the more recent ones, a University of Maryland study covering from Morocco to the Gulf to Lebanon, the entire area, shows that a very large majority of the population wants religious leaders to have a greater role in government. It also shows that approximately another 95% believe that the sole US interest in the region is taking its oil, strengthening Israel and humiliating the Arabs. That means near unanimity. If there is any popular voice allowed in the region, any moves toward democracy, it could become sort of like Algeria ten years ago, not necessarily radical Islamists but a government with some stronger Islamist currents. This is the last thing the US wants, so chances of any kind of democratic opening very likely will be immediately opposed..
The voices of secular democracy will also be opposed. If they speak up freely, about violation of UN resolutions for example, they will bring up the case of Israel, which has a much worse record than Iraq in this respect but is protected by the United States. And they will have concerns for independence that the US will not favor, so it will continue to support oppressive and undemocratic regimes, as in the past, and as in Latin America for many years, unless it can be assured that they will keep closely to Washington's priorities.
On the other hand these chaotic popular movements are so difficult to predict. I mean, even the participants can't or don't know what they want. What we know is this tremendous hatred, antagonisms and fear -probably more than ever before- On the Israel-Palestine issue that is, of course, the core issue in the Arab world, the Bush administration has been very careful not to take any position, though there are actions, which undermine the prospects for peaceful resolution: funding more Israeli settlement programs, for example.
They don't say anything significant. The most they say is that we have a "vision," or something equally meaningless. Meanwhile the actions have been taken, and the US had continued to support the more extremist positions within Israel. So what the press describes as George Bush's most significant recent statements, then later reiterated by Colin Powell, was the statement that said that settlement in the occupied territories can continue until the United State determines that the conditions for peace have been established, and you can move forward on this mythical "Road Map."
The statement that was hailed as "significant" in fact amounts to a shift in policy, to a more extremist form. Up until now the official position has been that there should be no more settlements. Of course, that's hypocritical of the United States because meanwhile it continues to provide the military, and economic, and diplomatic support for more settlements, but the official position has been opposed to it. Now the official position is in favor of it, until such time as the US determines unilaterally that the "peace process" has made enough progress, which means, basically indefinitely. Also it wasn't very well noticed that last December, at the UN General Assembly, the Bush administration shifted the US policy crucially on an important issue. Up until that time, until last December, the US has always officially endorsed the Security Council resolutions of 1968 opposing Israel's annexation of Jerusalem, and ordering Israel to withdraw the moves to take over East Jerusalem and to expand Jerusalem, which is now a huge area.
The US had always officially opposed that, although, again hypocritically. As of last December the Bush administration came out in support of it. This was a pretty sharp change in policy, and it is also significant that it was not reported in the United States. But it took place. So this is the only concrete act, and continues like that. The US has in the past vetoed the European efforts to place international monitors in the territories, which would be a way of reducing political, violent confrontations. The US undermined the December 2001 meetings in Geneva to implement the Geneva conventions and as almost all the other contracting parties appeared the US refused and that, essentially, blocked it. Bush then declared Sharon to be "a man of peace" and supported his repressive activities, as was pretty obvious. So the indications are that the US will move towards a very harsh policy in the territories, granting the Palestinians at most some kind of meaningless formal status as a "state". Of course, this would dress up as democracy, and peace, and freedom, and so on. They have a huge public relations operation and it would be presented in that way, but I don't think the reality looks very promising.
Atilio A. Boron: I have two more question to go. One is about the future of the United Nations system. An article by Henry Kissinger recently reproduced in Argentina argued that multilateralism is over and that the world has to come to terms with the absolute superiority of the American armed forces and that we've better go alone with that because the old system is dead. What is your reflection on the international arena?
Noam Chomsky: Well you know, it's a little bit like financial and industrial strategy. It is a more brazen formulation of policies which have always been carried out. The unilateralism with regard to the United Nations, as Henry Kissinger knows perfectly well, goes far back. Was there any UN authorization for the US invasion of South Vietnam 40 years ago? In fact, the issue could not even come up at the United Nations. The UN and all the countries were in overwhelming opposition to the US operations in Vietnam, but the issue could literally never arise and it was never discussed because everyone understood that if the issues were discussed the UN would simply be dismantled.
When the World Court condemned the United States for its attack on Nicaragua, the official response of the Reagan administration, which is the same people now in office, the official response when they rejected World Court jurisdiction was that other nations do not agree with us and therefore we will reserve to ourselves the right to determine what falls within the domestic jurisdiction of the United States. I am quoting it. In this case, that was an attack on Nicaragua. You can hardly can have a more extreme unilateralism than that. And American elites accepted that, and so it was applauded and, in fact, quickly forgotten. In your next trip to the US take a poll in the Political Science Department where you are visiting and you will find people who never heard of it. It's as wiped out as this. As is the fact that the US had to veto the Security Council's resolutions supporting the Court's decision and calling on all states to observe international law. Well, you know that is unilateralism in its extreme, and it goes back before that.
Right after the missile crisis, which practically brought the world to a terminal nuclear war, a major crisis, the Kennedy administration resumed its terrorist activities against Cuba and its economic warfare which was the background for the crisis and Dean Acheson, a respected statesman and Kennedy advisor at the liberal end of the spectrum, gave an important address to the American Society of International Law in which he essentially stated the Bush Doctrine of September 2002. What he said is that no "legal issue" arises in the case of a US response to a challenge to its "power, position, and prestige." Can't be more extreme than that. The differences with September 2002 is that instead of being operative policy now it became official policy. That is the difference. The UN has been irrelevant to the extent that the US refused to allow it to function. So, since the mid 1960's when the UN had become somewhat more independent, because of decolonization and the recovery of other countries of the world from the ravages of the war, since 1965 the US is far in the lead in vetoing Security Council resolutions on a wide range of issues -Britain is second- and no one else is even close. All that renders the UN ineffective. It means, you do as we say or else we will kick you in the pants. Now it is more brazen.
The only correct statement that Kissinger is making is that now we will not conceal the policies that we are carrying out.
Atilio A. Boron: OK. Here is my last question: What has been the impact of the Iraqi War on the freedoms and public liberties of the American public? We have heard horrifies stories about librarians been forced to indicate the names of people checking out books regarded as suspicious or subversives. What has been the real impact of the war in the domestic politics of the US?
Noam Chomsky: Well, those things are taking place but I don't think they are specifically connected with the Iraq War. The Bush administration, let me repeat it again, they are not conservatives; they are statist reactionaries. They want a very powerful state, a huge state in fact, a violent state and one that enforces obedience on the population. There is a kind of quasi-fascist spirit there, in the background, and they have been attempting to undermine civil rights in many ways. That's one of their long term objectives, and they have to do it quickly because in the US there is a strong tradition of protection of civil rights. But the kind of surveillance you are talking about of libraries and so on is a step towards it. They have also claimed the right to place a person -- even an American citizen -- in detention without charge, without access to lawyers and family, and to hold them there indefinitely, and that in fact has been upheld by the Courts, which is pretty shocking. But they have a new proposal, sometimes called Patriot Two, a 80 page document inside the Justice department. Someone leaked it and it reached the press. There have been some outraged articles by law professors about it. This is only planned so far, but they would like to implement as secretly as they can. These plans would permit the Attorney General to remove citizenship from any individual whom the attorney general believes is acting in a way harmful to the US interests. I mean, this is going beyond anything contemplated in any democratic society. One law professor at New York University has written that this administration evidently will attempt to take away any civil rights that it can from citizens and I think it´s basically correct. That fits in with their reactionary statist policies which have a domestic aspect in the economy and social life but also in political life.
Atilio A. Boron: Professor Chomsky, it was a great pleasure to have you expressing your words for the Argentine audience. I want to thank you very much for this interview and I hope that we can be in touch again in the future. Have a good day!
Wolfowitz said the size of the supplemental funding request will be determined in the fall. But he did not dispute an estimate by Rep. John Spratt (news, bio, voting record), D-S.C., that the military would need an annual budget of $54 billion -- $1.5 billion a month for Afghanistan, $3 billion a month for Iraq.
posted on June 21, 2003 05:21:20 AM new
When recruitment dries up because the potential inductees see American troops killed every few days in the various occupied territories how long will it take them to start the draft up again?
People came here from Europe because they didn't wantto send their soins off to senseless wars of political greed. Wouldn't it be ironic if the flow goes the other way now?
