[Peace] FW: Statements and Commentaries on Bush's War Plans

[Marianne Brun]

----------
Von: portsideMod at netscape.net
Antworten an: portside at yahoogroups.com
Datum: Fri, 31 Jan 2003 03:26:22 -0500
An: portside at yahoogroups.com
Betreff: Statements and Commentaries on Bush's War Plans

Mandela Blasts Bush on Iraq, Warns of 'Holocaust'
=================================================

By Toby Reynolds, Reuters
[Washington Post
January 30, 20030

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Former South African President
Nelson Mandela lashed out at U.S. President George
Bush's stance on Iraq on Thursday, saying the Texan had
no foresight and could not think properly.

Mandela, a towering statesman respected the world over
for his fight against Apartheid-era discrimination,
said the U.S. leader and British Prime Minister Tony
Blair were undermining the United Nations, and
suggested they would not be doing so if the
organization had a white leader.

"It is a tragedy what is happening, what Bush is doing
in Iraq," Mandela told an audience in Johannesburg.
"What I am condemning is that one power, with a
president who has no foresight, who cannot think
properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a
holocaust," he added, to loud applause.

"Both Bush as well as Tony Blair are undermining an
idea (the United Nations) which was sponsored by their
predecessors," Mandela said. "Is this because the
secretary general of the United Nations (Ghanaian Kofi
Annan) is now a black man? They never did that when
secretary generals were white."

Mandela said he would support without reservation any
action agreed upon by the United Nations against Iraq,
which Bush and Blair say has weapons of mass
destruction and is a sponsor of terror groups,
including Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The United States has promised to reveal evidence that
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has breached U.N.
resolutions, a charge Iraq denies.

Mandela said action without U.N. support was
unacceptable and set a bad precedent for world
politics.

"Are they saying this is a lesson that you should
follow, or are they saying we are special, what we do
should not be done by anyone," he said in his speech to
the International Women's Forum on the theme of
Courageous Leadership for Global Transformation.

Nobel Peace Laureate Mandela, 84, has spoken out many
times against Bush's stance, and South Africa's close
ties with Libya and Cuba irked Washington during
Mandela's own presidency.

He also attacked the United States's record on human
rights, criticizing the dropping of atomic bombs on the
Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagaski in World War
II.

"Because they decided to kill innocent people in Japan,
who are still suffering from that, who are they now to
pretend that they are the policeman of the world?..."
he asked.

"lf there is a country which has committed unspeakable
atrocities, it is the United States of America...They
don't care for human beings."

But he said he was happy that people, especially those
in the United States, were opposing military action in
Iraq.

"I hope that that opposition will one day make him
understand that he has made the greatest mistake of his
life," Mandela said.

© 2003 Reuters
===================

American Diary 
Yes, That Really Was the President of
the United States

by ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Counterpunch
January 29, 2003

One has to go back to the lesser Roman emperors of the
second century to find an imperial suzerain as dismal
as Bush. Tuesday's was surely the worst State of the
Union address to Congress in the past thirty years, as
the commander-in-chief stumbled through a thicket of
brazen fictions towards the proposed rendez-vous with
destiny of February 5, the day Secretary of State Colin
Powell is scheduled to make his way to the United
Nations to present the administration's latest
"intelligence" confection on the topic of Saddam's
deceits.

If you want to get a taste of how these ramshackle
"intelligence" reports are assembled, take a look at
"Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and
Propaganda, 1990-2003", recently issued by the White
House and invoked Tuesday night by the 43rd President.

By a way of illustrating the all-round deviousness of
Saddam's propaganda machine, the White House document
cites on page 23 the Pakistani news outlet Inqilab as
having reported on January 27, 1991, that "The American
pop star Madonna was in Saudi Arabia, entertaining US
troops." The White House comments triumphantly:
"Madonna never went to Saudi Arabia." Moral: if Saddam
can lie about Madonna, he can certainly bring the Big
One out of some bunker in Tikrit and drop it on
Jerusalem.

Bush's speech, if one can dignify same with a word
intended to designate ordered rhetoric, was a
backhanded compliment to David Frum, the former White
House speech writer who was fired last year after his
wife proudly disclosed that he had invented the phrase
"Axis of Evil". No such exciting phrases adorned Bush's
second State of the Union address. In the first half of
the address Bush stumbled through his prescriptions to
make the rich richer with the timbre of an
inexperienced waiter reciting the Daily Specials. He
even blew the opening and most outrageous lie of all,
that "We will not pass along problems" to future
generations, a pledge launched amid a vista of red ink
as far as the eye can see, as those future generations
pick up the tab for Bush's hand-outs to the super-rich
today, to the arms companies, the drug industry and
other prime contributors.

The assembled hacks and pundits of the Fourth Estate
made haste to praise Bush for his impassioned resolve,
but across the country and around the world the speech
was a bust. Next morning CNN went searching for Hails
to the Chief in a diner somewhere along the Atlantic
seaboard, but the increasingly frayed reporter could
only elicit grumbles about Bush's unconvincing
performance on the economy and on why exactly the US
had to go to war with Iraq. In Tokyo the Nikkei sank
abruptly, followed by falls on exchanges as they came
on line in every time zone.

On the likelihood of a US attack on Iraq I've tended to
be a maybe-not type of guy. But now, after all the
hoopla and the build-up, how can G. Bush not launch his
attack in Baghdad? He's got no Exit strategy, even as
he and the mad Rumsfeld shove their feet ever deeper
into their mouths. Suppose the troops all come home
with not a missile or a bullet fired? Won't there be
pressing questions to the effect of: What was all that
about? Then people will look around and start noticing
the mess the homeland is getting itself into on the
economic front.

But is it really feasible to imagine the War Party
flouting the opinions of the UN, of NATO, of much of
the Congress and the huge slice of the American public
opposed to unilateral action without clear evidence
that Iraq is a clear and present threat? Only 29 per
cent support the What-the-Hell, Let's-Go-It-Alone path.

The coverage of anti-war protests round the world on
January 18 has been scandalously bad. Many reporters
and editors opted for demure phrases such as "tens of
thousands", which scarcely does justice to turn-outs in
excess of quarter of a million. Friends of mine at the
demonstration in Washington DC said the one last
October was double that of the first, in the spring of
2002, and that the January 18 demo had doubled the
crowd in October, giving a rough Jan 18 total of
300,000 (the estimate of a cop who'd been at all
three). There were anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000
people in San Francisco, and 20,000 in downtown
Portland. There were big demonstrations in Montreal,
Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax and others in
France, Japan, Pakistan, Britain, Sweden, Syria,
Belgium, Egypt, Lebanon, New Zealand.

Footnote: At the December meeting in London of Iraqi
exiles one Iraqi opponent of the war listened in
amazement as some Iraqis deeply involved in
Washington's plans calmly agreed that a casualty rate
of around 250,000 to 500,000 Iraqis was acceptable.
http://www.counterpunch.org/


==================================

Subject: Norwegian Confederation of
Trade Unions: No to war against Iraq


Statement from the Norwegian
Confederation of Trade Unions
(LO-Norway)

No to war against Iraq

Iraq is one of the most repressive and totalitarian
regimes in the world, with comprehensive and serious
violations of human rights and international
humanitarian law.

The UN weapon inspectors have so far not found any
evidence on Iraq having a secret stock of weapons of
mass destruction. The USA is nevertheless carrying on
its threats of war, and contributes to increased
international tension, both globally and in the region.

LO-Norway believes everything should be done to avoid
war. A war will not solve the problems the world is
facing today with regard to Iraq. A war will inflict
even more suffering on the civilian population of Iraq.
The country will be exposed to enormous destruction,
and international terror will increase rather than
decrease.

The USA has no right to act as world police in this
situation. Only the UN Security Council may make
legitimate decisions with regard to measures to be
taken against Iraq.

LO-Norway demands the Government to state clearly that
every peaceful means must be used to avoid war. The
weapon inspectors must be given the time they need to
complete their investigations. The Government must
insist that a military action against Iraq
presupposes new discussions in the Security
Council. A new and unambiguous mandate from
the Security Council is an absolute precondition
 for the use of force in relation to Iraq.

Following thorough discussions in the Security Council,
the Government must, according to the usual procedure,
freely consider what Norway's stand shall be with
regard to participating in a possible military action.

LO-Norway will carry on its active peace work, both
nationally and internationally, and urges its members
to participate in the large demonstration to be
organised by the Peace Initiative on February 15.

Relaterte dokumenter:
Nei til krig mot Irak
Ingenkrig.no


from:
Hunter Gray  [Hunterbear]
www.hunterbear.org
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´
and Ohkwari'
===========================

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
COMMENTARY

Our Nuclear Talk Gravely Imperils Us
Notion of a first- strike use in Iraq
carries the seed of world disaster.
===================================

By Edward M. Kennedy
Los Angeles Times
January 29 2003

A dangerous world just grew more dangerous. Reports
that the administration is contemplating the preemptive
use of nuclear weapons in Iraq should set off alarm
bells that this could not only be the wrong war at the
wrong time, but it could quickly spin out of control.

Initiating the use of nuclear weapons would make a
conflict with Iraq potentially catastrophic.

President Bush had an opportunity Tuesday night to
explain why he believes such a radical departure from
long-standing policy is justified or necessary. At the
very minimum, a change of this magnitude should be
brought to Congress for debate before the U.S. goes to
war with Iraq.

The reports of a preemptive nuclear strike are
consistent with the extreme views outlined a year ago
in President Bush's Nuclear Posture Review and with the
administration's disdain for long-standing norms of
international behavior.

According to these reports, Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld has directed the U.S. Strategic Command to
develop plans for employing nuclear weapons in a wide
range of new missions, including possible use in Iraq
to destroy underground bunkers.

Using the nation's nuclear arsenal in this
unprecedented way would be the most fateful decision
since the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. Even
contemplating the first-strike use of nuclear weapons
under current circumstances and against a nonnuclear
nation dangerously blurs the crucial and historical
distinction between conventional and nuclear arms. In
the case of Iraq, it is preposterous.

Nuclear weapons are in a class of their own for good
reasons -- their unique destructive power and their
capacity to threaten the very survival of humanity.
They have been kept separate from other military
alternatives out of a profound commitment to do all we
can to see they are never used again. They should be
employed only in the most dire circumstances -- for
example, if the existence of our nation is threatened.
It makes no sense to break down the firewall that has
existed for half a century between nuclear conflict and
any other form of warfare.

A nuclear bomb is not just another item in the arsenal.

Our military is the most powerful fighting force in the
world. We can fight and win a war in Iraq with
precision bombing and sophisticated new conventional
weapons. The president has not made a case that the
threat to our national security from Iraq is so
imminent that we even need to go to war -- let alone
let the nuclear genie out of the bottle.

By raising the possibility that nuclear weapons could
be part of a first strike against Iraq, the
administration is only enhancing its reputation as a
reckless unilateralist in the world community -- a
reputation that ultimately weakens our own security.
The nuclear threat will further alienate our allies,
most of whom remain unconvinced of the need for war
with Iraq. It is fundamentally contrary to our national
interests to further strain relationships that are
essential to win the war against terrorism and to
advance our ideals in the world.

This policy also deepens the danger of nuclear
proliferation by, in effect, telling nonnuclear states
that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter a potential
U.S. attack and by sending a green light to the world's
nuclear states that it is permissible to use them. Is
this the lesson we want to send to North Korea,
Pakistan and India or any other nuclear power?

The use of nuclear weapons in Iraq in the absence of an
imminent, overwhelming threat to our national security
would bring a near-total breakdown in relations between
the U.S. and the rest of the world. At a minimum, it
would lead to a massive rise in anti-Americanism in the
Arab world and a corresponding increase in sympathy for
terrorists who seek to do us harm. Our nation, long a
beacon of hope, would overnight be seen as a symbol of
death, destruction and aggression.

In the introduction to his national security strategy
last fall, the president declared: "The gravest danger
our nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism
and technology." On that he was surely right -- and the
administration's radical consideration of the possible
use of our nuclear arsenal against Iraq is itself a
grave danger to our national interests, our nation and
all that America stands for.

*

Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy represents Massachusetts.



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