....LMB: "War, Doom, Nausea"....

February 25, 2003

The War Behind Closed Doors- PBS documentary that looks behind the "WMD" and "oil" reasons for the war on Iraq to what I feel is the core: the desire to reshape Middle Eastern politics to favor the U.S. I missed it on TV, but the entire broadcast is on this site in streaming video. If you can't handle that kind of bandwidth, I'd at least recommend reading this analysis, keeping in mind that the U.S. frequent defines "democracy" as "any pro-U.S. government, no matter how corrupt or repressive, that has elections."

Bush Set to Be Pivot in Diplomacy- "The president is scheduled to give a major speech Wednesday laying out his vision of a new Middle East, beginning with the disarmament of Iraq ... The goal is to portray Iraq as only a piece in the broader U.S. plan to reconfigure the Middle East political map and make it conform to democratic changes that have swept much of the rest of the world over the past 15 years." See my comment above about the U.S. definition of "democracy."

Iraqis will not be pawns in Bush and Blair's war game- "An American attack on my country would bring disaster, not liberation," says Iraqi intellectual in exile Kamil Mahdi.

Disquiet on the Northern Front- this should be one of the more disturbing stories you read about the pending Iraq war. The Iraqi Kurds of northern Iraq want their own autonomous state. The Turks don't want them to have one, because it may incite Turkish Kurds to try to fight for their own independence. So as part of their deal to cooperate with the U.S. on the war, Turkey wants to send 80,000 of its own troops into northern Iraq. It is unclear whether or not these troops are intended to get between the two forces, preventing the Iraqi and Turkish Kurds from joining forces, or if it is an actual plan by Turkey to crush the Iraqi Kurds and prevent their independence. The Iraqi Kurds have announced that any Turkish troops sent into Iraq's Kurdish regions will be seen as invaders. Meaning that the war to overthrow Saddam Hussein could easily blossom into a Turkey-Kurdistan war within weeks or months.

The other part of the article is also a bit disturbing. Iran has sent a proxy army (5000 Iraqis who are loyal to Iran) into Iraq. No idea how that will play out. Not surprisingly, with Iraq about to be rent asunder, Iran wants to have some forces there to nab some of the pieces.

U.S. on Diplomatic Warpath- could it have been any more blatant that America was buying Turkey's cooperation for the war? I also found it intriguing that Turkey demanded that the deal be spelled out in writing because they were promised aid in 1991, but did not receive it.

The Bush administration's actions are ridiculous from a reasonable, objective point of view. What incentive does any country in the world have to join the U.S. in a seemingly pointless war? Why should any world leader risk their political position by taking an incredibly unpopular stand on the issue? For example, 94% of the Turkish population is against the war. In a democratic regime, that could mean losing an election. In a non-democratic regime, that risks the possibility of a coup. The common sense reaction for most world leaders is to "respectfully disagree," to steal a recent Bush quote, and not join in the war effort.

The U.S. knows this, and has now jumped into both the bribery and intimidation games (hmm, kinda like the mafia). Not only is the U.S. paying huge amounts in aid and loans to get regional cooperation and Security Council votes, the U.S. is now threatening to withhold or end aid to countries that don't support the war. Motherfuckers.

U.S. Officials Say U.N. Future At Stake in Vote- "You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not," the [senior Russian] diplomat said U.S. officials told him. "That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not." That's a little shaky due to the quasi-anonymous sourcing, but it's pretty much what I've felt since August. The U.S. has always intended to invade Iraq, and everything else was just a sideshow.

Missile Defense Waiver Sought- "The Bush administration is proposing to exempt the Pentagon's controversial missile defense system from operational testing legally required of every new weapons system in order to deploy it by 2004." That's right. The Bush administration wants its missile defense system so badly that they don't even care if it works. And evidence from previous tests shows that it doesn't. And in the few tests where the missile defense system does work, it is usually rigged.