[Peace-discuss] Humanitarian intervention

[Morton K. Brussel]

Haven't had the opportunity, recently, to use an old cry:

"Block that metaphor! "

--mkb


On Feb 16, 2006, at 11:00 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> [The semi-official US government television channel, PBS, devoted  
> much of its evening newscast tonight to announcing (with the help  
> of Senators Brownback and Obama) that "the international community  
> [sic] and some U.S. senators have called for increased involvement  
> in the Darfur region of Sudan to stop the violence that began three  
> years ago and has since claimed more than 200,000 lives." Some have  
> argued that there's no parallel between the media campaign against  
> what is called genocide in Sudan and a similar campaign against  
> Serbia during the Clinton administration.  Others find it odd that  
> there is today so much talk about the undoubted horrors in Darfur  
> and none about the Congo, where four million people have died in  
> the same period; or that children in southern Africa now die every  
> day at the same rate as at the height of the killing in Rwanda,  
> because Western drug companies withhold the medicines for easily  
> treatable diseases.  Can it be that the US government (as  
> represented by those bipartisan senators) chooses the Darfur  
> atrocity rather than other ones because it has useful propaganda  
> effects -- it can be portrayed (with considerable distortion, but  
> not pure lies) as chargeable to Arabs, a useful hate object?   
> Furthermore, here in what Gore Vidal calls the "United States of  
> Amnesia," why do so few recall the events of just seven years ago,  
> when Japan felt called upon to exercise its rights of humanitarian  
> intervention?  The Prime Minister of Japan set out his reasons in a  
> speech of 24 March 1999: it's translated from the Japanese, below.  
> (Some have noted that it's similar to the speech President Clinton  
> gave in the same month, announcing the US-NATO attack on Kosovo,  
> which Clinton presented as a clear instance of humanitarian  
> intervention; the Japanese PM obviously saw his actions in the same  
> light.) --CGE]
>
>    Thu, 25 Mar 1999
>    Japan bombs New Mexico
>
> The following is a translation of last night's speech by the Prime  
> Minister of Japan, explaining why the Japanese air force bombed  
> military bases and command-and-control installations in the  
> American Southwest:
>
> "My fellow citizens: Today our armed forces joined our allies in  
> the Pacific Rim Organization for National Treaty Observance in air  
> strikes against American forces responsible for the brutality in  
> New Mexico. We have acted with resolve for several reasons. We act  
> to protect thousands of innocent people in New Mexico from a  
> mounting military offensive by the `border patrol.' We act to  
> defuse a powder keg at the heart of North America that has exploded  
> twice before in the last century and a half with catastrophic  
> results, when the US invaded Mexico in 1846 and 1916. We act to  
> stand united with our allies for peace. By acting now, we are  
> upholding our values, protecting our interests, and advancing the  
> cause of peace. Tonight I want to speak with you about the tragedy  
> in New Mexico and why it matters to Japan that we work with our  
> allies to end it.
>
> "First, let me explain what it is we are responding to. New Mexico  
> is a state of the United States, in the middle of southwestern  
> North America, about 1500 miles west of Cuba -- that's less than  
> the distance from Hokkaido to Okinawa -- and only about 1000 miles  
> north of Mexico City. Its people are mostly ethnic Latino and  
> mostly Catholic.
>
> "In recent years America's leader, Bill Clinton, the same leader  
> who started the wars in Iraq and Colombia and attacked Sudan and  
> Afghanistan in the last decade, increased the authority of the  
> federal secret police, the `INS'; Mexicans are denied their right  
> to speak their language, run their schools, shape their daily  
> lives. For years, Latinos struggled peacefully to get their rights  
> back. When President Clinton sent his troops and police to crush  
> them, the struggle grew violent.
>
> "The American leaders refuse even to discuss key elements of the  
> Japanese peace proposal. America has stationed Marines along the  
> border in preparation for a major offensive. We've seen innocent  
> people taken from their homes, forced to kneel in the dirt and  
> sprayed with bullets; Mexican men dragged from their families,  
> fathers and sons together lined up and shot in cold blood. This is  
> not war in the traditional sense. It is an attack by armored  
> vehicles and high-tech weapons on a largely defenseless people  
> whose leaders speak only of peace.
>
> "Ending this tragedy is a moral imperative. It is also important to  
> Japan's national interests. Take a look at the map. New Mexico is a  
> small place, but it sits on a major fault line between North  
> America, Latin America, and the Pacific, at the meeting place of  
> Catholicism and both the liberal and evangelical branches of  
> Protestantism. To the South are our allies, Peru (whose president  
> is of Japanese descent) and Venezuela (which produces oil); to the  
> north our increasingly important trading partner, Canada. And all  
> around New Mexico there are other states struggling with their own  
> economic and political challenges, states that could be overwhelmed  
> by a large new wave of refugees from New Mexico -- California,  
> Texas, Arizona. All the ingredients for a major war are there:  
> Ancient grievances, struggling democracies, and in the center of it  
> all, a president in America of highly questionable personal  
> character who has done nothing since the Cold War ended but start  
> new wars and pour gasoline on the flames of ethnic and religious  
> division.
>
> "In neighboring Guatemala President Clinton recently acknowledged  
> that American support for torture and murder cost 200,000 lives.  
> Earlier, World War II engulfed the Pacific. In both wars, the world  
> was slow to recognize the dangers, and Japan held back from  
> entering these conflicts. Just imagine if leaders back then had  
> acted wisely and early enough. How many lives could have been  
> saved? How many Japanese would not have had to die?
>
> "We learned some of the same lessons in Nicaragua and El Salvador a  
> decade ago. The world did not act early enough to stop those wars,  
> either. And let's not forget what happened: Innocent people herded  
> into concentration camps; children gunned down by snipers on their  
> way to school; soccer fields and parks turned into cemeteries; a  
> quarter of a million people killed not because of anything they had  
> done but because of who they were. Two million Central Americans  
> became refugees.
>
> "This was genocide in the heart of the Americas, not in 1945 but in  
> 1985, not in some grainy newsreel from our parents' and  
> grandparents' time, but in our own time, testing our humanity and  
> our resolve.
>
> "At the time, many people believed nothing could be done to end the  
> bloodshed in Central America, They said, `Well, that's just the way  
> those people in the Americas are.' But when we and our allies in  
> the UN joined with courageous Central Americans to stand up to the  
> aggressors, we helped end the wars. We learned that in the Americas  
> inaction in the face of brutality simply invites more brutality,  
> but firmness can stop armies and save lives. We must apply that  
> lesson in New Mexico, before what happened in Central America  
> happens there too.
>
> "Today we and our PRONTO allies agreed to do what we must do to  
> restore the peace. Our mission is clear: to demonstrate the  
> seriousness of PRONTO's purpose so that the American leaders  
> understand the imperative of reversing course; to deter an even  
> bloodier offensive against innocent civilians in New Mexico; and if  
> necessary, to seriously damage the American military's capacity to  
> harm the people of New Mexico. In short, if President Clinton will  
> not make peace, we will limit his ability to make war.
>
> "Now, I want to be clear with you, there are risks in this military  
> action -- risk to our pilots and the people on the ground.  
> America's air defenses are strong. It could decide to intensify its  
> assault on New Mexico or to seek to harm us or our allies  
> elsewhere. If it does, we will deliver a forceful response.  
> Hopefully Mr. Clinton will realize his present course is self- 
> destructive and unsustainable.
>
> "If he decides to accept our peace proposal and demilitarize New  
> Mexico, PRONTO has agreed to help to implement it with a  
> peacekeeping force. If PRONTO is invited to do so, our troops  
> should take part in that mission to keep the peace. But I do not  
> intend to put our troops in New Mexico to fight a war.
>
> "Do our interests in New Mexico justify the dangers to our armed  
> forces? I thought long and hard about that question. I am convinced  
> that the dangers of acting are far outweighed by the dangers of not  
> acting -- dangers to defenseless people and to our national  
> interests. If we and our allies were to allow this war to continue  
> with no response, President Clinton would read our hesitation as a  
> license to kill. There would be many more massacres -- tens of  
> thousands more refugees, more victims crying out for revenge. Right  
> now our firmness is the only hope the people of New Mexico have to  
> be able to live in their own country without having to fear for  
> their own lives.
>
> "Imagine what would happen if we and our allies decided just to  
> look the other way as these people were massacred on PRONTO's  
> doorstep. That would discredit PRONTO, the cornerstone on which our  
> Pacific security rests.
>
> "We must also remember that this is a conflict with no natural  
> national boundaries. Let me ask you to look again at a map. The  
> arrows show the movement of refugees -- north, east, and west.  
> Already this movement is threatening the unstable democracy in  
> Texas, which has its own Mexican minority and an Indian minority.  
> Already American forces have made forays into Mexico, from which  
> New Mexicans have drawn support. Mexico has a Mayan minority. Let a  
> fire burn here in this area, and the flames will spread. Eventually  
> key Japanese allies could be drawn into a wider conflict, which we  
> would be forced to confront later only at far greater risk and  
> greater cost.
>
> "I have a responsibility as Prime Minister to deal with problems  
> such as this before they do permanent harm to out national  
> interests. Japan has a responsibility to stand with our allies when  
> they are trying to save innocent lives and preserve peace, freedom,  
> and stability in North America. That is what we are doing in New  
> Mexico. If we have learned anything from the century drawing to a  
> close, it is that if Japan is going to be prosperous and secure we  
> need a North America that is prosperous, secure, united, and free.  
> We need a North America that is coming together, not falling apart,  
> a North America that shares our values and shares the burdens of  
> leadership. That is the foundation on which the security or our  
> children will depend. That is why I have supported NAFTA and the  
> economic unification of North America.
>
> "Now, what are the challenges to that vision of a peaceful, secure,  
> united, stable North America? The challenge of strengthening a  
> three-way partnership with the EU, that despite our disagreements  
> is a constructive partner in the work of building peace. The  
> challenge of resolving the tension between Latin and indigenous  
> peoples, and building bridges with the Christian world. And finally  
> the challenge of ending instability in the United States so that  
> these bitter ethnic problems are resolved by the force of argument,  
> not the force of arms, so that future generations of Japanese do  
> not have to cross the Pacific to fight another terrible war. It is  
> this challenge that we and our allies are facing in New Mexico.  
> That is why we have acted now, because we care about saving  
> innocent lives, because we have an interest in avoiding an even  
> crueler and costlier war, and because our children need and deserve  
> a peaceful, stable, free North America.
>
> "Our thoughts and prayers tonight must be with the men and women of  
> our armed forces who are undertaking this mission for the sake of  
> our values and our children's future. May God bless them, and may  
> God bless Japan."
>
>   ###
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