[Dryerase] The Alarm!--War Notes

[The Alarm!Newswire]

War Notes
A column following the developments of our new permanent war, the war 
on terrorism

By Sasha k
The Alarm! Newspaper Columnist

Selling war
A day after the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, 
President George Bush made a major speech to the UN General Assembly 
pressing for war in Iraq—from tears on September 11 to drumming for war 
on September 12.  The two, unfortunately, have gone hand and hand for 
the last year.  But Bush’s speech was also an about face in his 
advertising campaign for war.

The Bush administration seemed to be losing in its fight to push 
towards war, largely because it was seen to be too unilateral and 
flaunting international norms.  Bush has had to now turn to the UN and 
to act like a good multi-lateralist, with a little arm-twisting, of 
course.

Bush began his speech proclaiming the US war in Afghanistan a success.  
But US overseas interventions have a way of multiplying problems, not 
solving them.  The US-backed (-created?) leader, Hamid Karzai, is only 
safe with US bodyguards; the various factions of the Afghan government 
are assassinating one another; and the country has been cut up into 
fiefdoms by warlords and bandits.  A permanent, western military 
occupation is the only way there is a government of Afghanistan at all. 
  After a war in Iraq the problems will be on a much larger scale.  And 
over time we will see that more terrorists were produced in the war 
than were captured or killed.

All this reminds me of an answer given by former CIA Director 
Stansfield Turner, who served in the Carter administration, during a 
mid-80s debate with John Stockwell, an ex-CIA officer turned critic.  
When Turner was asked if he could name any CIA covert operations that 
were long-term successes, he answered “Afghanistan.”  Of course, that 
was when Osama bin Laden was called Usama bin Laden and was on our 
side.  It was only after September 11, 2001 that the US government 
officially changed the way his name was transliterated, in order to 
help us forget that the Soviets called bin Laden “USAman.”   But as 
Tariq Ali noted in this week’s Al-Ahram Weekly, “The leaders of the 
United States wish to be judged by their choice of enemies rather than 
the actual state of the world, leave alone the concrete results of the 
‘war on terrorism.’”

Although the speech was billed as offering conclusive reasons for an 
attack on Iraq, little new evidence of Iraqi offences was brought 
forth.  Along with the often repeated, vague list of Iraqi crimes—a 
hypocritical laundry list stuffed with the most unrelated of 
events—Bush even included the Iraqi war with Iran, a war in which the 
US supported Iraq.  Of course, the hypocrisy of Bush or US foreign 
policy is nothing new.  Left-wing and progressive commentators spend 
most of their time exposing it.  Yet in doing so conservative 
politicians are often made to seem as aberrations, as if some less 
hypocritical politics or US foreign policy were possible, while in 
reality this is exactly how politics now works.  In fact, politicians 
these days unabashedly admit that much of what they say is about 
creating a certain image or spin on events; it is all a matter of 
advertising, selling the policy, not about its real substance or 
reasoning.

In fact, one day after his UN speech, Bush made clear that he didn’t 
think Iraq would submit to his requirements—for him, they are a pretext 
to build legitimacy for an attack on Iraq and nothing more.

Again, this is not only the way of conservative politicians: President 
Bill Clinton did the same in Yugoslavia.  The February, 1999 
negotiations in Rambouillet, France with the Yugoslav government over 
Kosovo was rigged from the beginning by the US so that the Serbs 
couldn’t agree, thus giving war in Yugoslavia a veneer of legitimacy.  
Yugoslavia had no choice but to say no in Rambouillet, and it is likely 
that the US will make sure that Iraq has no chance of following the 
requirements set down.

On September 11, 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was already 
planning to use the attacks of that day as a pretext for multiple wars. 
  CBS’s David Martin recently disclosed notes that Rumsfled’s aides took 
quoting him commanding them to get the “best info fast.  Judge whether 
good enough hit S.H.”--Saddam Hussein—”at same time.  Not only 
UBL”—Usama bin Laden.  “Go massive,” the notes continued.  “Sweep it 
all up.  Things related and not.”  And that is just what Bush and crew 
are putting into practice.  It doesn’t matter that no connection has 
been made between Iraq and the September 11 attacks.  Those attacks 
have become an excuse to go massive with war.

Russia and Georgia
Russia is again threatening to attack the former Soviet republic of 
Georgia, claiming that “terrorists” based there are attacking the 
Russian republic of Chechnya.  Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke 
on September 11, and linked the proposed action to the US “war on 
terrorism.”  The US had criticized Russia after it bombed some Georgian 
towns on August 23.

The US has been largely silent, however, about Putin’s recent 
statement.  The silence is likely due to the fact that the US needs to 
keep Russia from vetoing any UN Security Council resolutions it tries 
to pass against Iraq.

In another instance of the diplomatic horse trading the US is taking 
part in to head off Security Council vetoes, the US recently named 
several Islamic groups in the Chinese province of Xinjiang “terrorist.” 
  The Chinese government has used the pretext of the “war on terrorism” 
to crack down on the Uyghur minority of Xinjiang.

Preparations continue
In November, the United States Central Command will send 600 of its 
officers to Qatar, in the Persian Gulf.  The staff, under the command 
of Gen. Tommy Franks, will take part in a war game, but will remain in 
the Gulf state afterwards to prepare for a possible war in Iraq.  
Shortly before the 1990 war on Iraq a similar war game was held.

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