[Peace-discuss] New P4P sign suggestions

[C. G. Estabrook]

Margaret--

The point of an "incubator story" is to engender hatred against an
official enemy by encouraging sympathy for his victims.  Such stories work
best, of course, when there really are victims, and you don't have to lie
about it too much.  So (perhaps) the Bush administration finds real
victims (East Timorese, oppressed Iraqis) and gets them to write about
their sufferings so that one reflects (what no one doubts) that it would
be good to get rid of the official enemy.  And this sentiment is
translated into support for a war policy.  Remember that Amnesty
International believed the original incubator story...

Neither Pilger nor VitW are to be compared with that nasty little piece in
the CSM, which astonishingly blames "you antiwar protesters" before the
fact of abandoning Iraq as the Bush administration has abandoned
Afghanistan (as Republican and Democrat administrations have been doing
for a quarter century).  In prose worthy of John Foreman, the author
sneers at the protesters returning to their "cappucino cafes" [sic] when
there are victims out there...

Both the CSM and Horta pieces look to me like the sort of thing the war
party in Washington is promoting.  Perhaps we'll find that it was written
(or "aided") by the sort of "retired State Department official" who has
recently been revealed as the author of the statement of the "Vilnius 10,"
the "New Europe" governments that leapt to Bush's defense (with a little
help from Washington) -- classic victims (of Communism, mostly) now
speaking up for the Liberator...

There were of course those who condemned Clinton (quite properly) for
bombing Iraq (twice) -- as well as Afghanistan, the Sudan, and former
Yugoslavia.  The US (and its UK poodle) has used specious "humanitarian"
language to cover its aggressions -- notably in the Gulf War and in Serbia
(to which both the CSM and Horta pieces refer -- in fact it's the climax
of both).  There was nothing humanitarian in the attack on Iraq in 1991
(the first Bush government was desperately afraid that Saddam would
withdraw from Kuwait before the US could get its war on) or the attack on
Serbia in 1999 (the Clinton administration delivered an outrageous
ultimatum to produce the war it wanted).  The Gulf War was not to protect
Kuwaitis, not was the Serbian War to protect Kosovars.  (The commander of
the latter, Gen. Wesley Clark, admitted that NATO bombing caused ethnic
cleansing rather than prevented it.)

But, you say, people really are suffering under Saddam, and what are we
going to do about that?  Here's Chomsky's answer from the article to which
you refer:

"It's useful to remember that Saddam Hussein is not the only monster
supported by the present incumbents in Washington until he did something
contrary to their interests.  There's a long list that they supported
right to the end of their bloody rule -- Marcos, Duvalier, and many
others, some of them as vicious and brutal as Saddam, and running
tyrannies that compare well with his: Ceausescu, for example.  They were
overthrown internally, despite US support for them.  That's been prevented
within Iraq by the murderous sanctions regime, which has devastated the
population while strengthening Saddam, and forcing the population to
become hopelessly reliant on him for survival."

"Solution?  Give Iraqis a chance to survive, and there's every reason to
believe that they'll get rid of him the way that others have.  Meanwhile,
strengthen measures to ensure that Saddam, or some replacement, doesn't
develop significant military capacity.  Not a very serious problem right
now, since as is well known, Iraq is militarily and economically the
weakest country in the region, but it could be down the road, and in his
hands, it would be likely, even without the US and UK to supply him."

Regards, Carl


On Thu, 27 Feb 2003, Margaret E. Kosal wrote:

> At 15:46 2/27/2003 -0600, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
> 
> >The letter that you quote (addressing "you antiwar protesters and
> >politicians"), like the piece from José Ramos-Horta in the NYT on Tuesday,
> >may be this year's incubator-baby story -- a bit more sophisticated, and
> >perhaps an indication (if they were in fact solicited by supporters of the
> >Bush Administration)
> 
> No, Carl, I respectfully disagree, particularly as far as the CSM
> piece posted by Kimberlie.  Dismissing the dissonance as "this year's
> incubator-baby story" is insulting to those who have been actively
> calling for (peaceful) interaction on behalf of the Iraqi people -
> from Pilger to Voices in the Wilderness to Amnesty International.
> 
> Where were the crowds demonstrating when Clinton was permitting US
> military bombing Iraq?  These are not the easy issues w/which to
> grapple.  If they were easy, they would be boring (like Dubya).  
> Dismissing them is not going to make them go away.
> 
> The main differences I observe are (1) intimate connections of this
> administration with oil & (2) horrifying indications w/in this
> administration that a rationalization to use a nuclear bomb is
> actively being sought.
> 
> >  of just how worried the Administration is by the
> >peace demonstrations (as one would expect them to be).
> 
> I dearly hope this is true!  It doesn not have to be an either/or.  
> Absolute binary distributions are very hard to come by.
> 
> >No one paid much attention when, say, Soviet dissidents criticized the US
> >for Vietnam or our domestic racism -- it was when they turned their
> >attention to their own government that something important was said.
> >Criticism of the official enemy is easy, and the pro-Saddam element in the
> >peace demonstrations is tiny to the point of vanishing.  Why should we
> >repeat positions that the Administration is using for propaganda?
> 
> Who is advocating this?  Who is stealing from whom? Blair & Bush are
> co-opting the humanitarian/human rights arguments because they are
> valid and useful. That does not lessen the validity of the
> humanitarian arguments.
> 
>  From today's Guardian,
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/0,6957,178327,00.html Under the title of
> "If not war, then what?"  (Also printed is a response from Chomsky and
> UN resolution 242 is mentioned)...
>