War, Propaganda, and Protest

Personally, I am inclined to agree more with anti-war protestors than with pro-war ladies that call in to news shows. I think why wage war is the bigger question. Why support a mass murder? It seems obvious to me to protest it (though I am all talk and no action).

But please don't ask me about how else we could have dealt with Hitler because I have no great peaceful solutions on tap.

I've yet to see a crowd of anti-war protestors who don't look like they'd give anything to be in 1969 right now. This is not Vietnam redux.

I love it how ANSWER *brags* that they organized transportation from 200 cities around the country, and they could still only manage to find a few thousand braindead hippies and college students to drag to a protest in the nation's capital, which just happens to be a city in the middle of the eastern seaboard, the most densely populated region of the country. Maybe there are a lot of people out there who don't support a war in Iraq, but they don't appear to support a protest in DC organized by a bunch of Stalinists either. I think there's at least some comfort to be found in that.

Sarah, that is exactly what I'd like to ask these protestors. Saddam Hussein is a mass murderer. He's the guy we're going after. Why support him? Why not free the Iraqi people? Why let him get away with flagrantly ignoring international agreements he has made? Why let him develop weapons and build armies and go to war on neighboring countries, and his own people, like he has in the past? Why not show these people what it's like to live in a free and open and prosperous society? Why not rebuild Iraq as a shining example of the principles with stand for, to undermine the fundamentalist teachers in neighboring countries, who indoctrinate their children with hatred for the west, hatred for israel, and a love of martyrdom and brutal sexist subjugation? WHY continue to support that, when we saw a year and a half ago what that will get us?

We practiced stability and multicultural understanding and turning the other cheek and letting others live their own way for decades. What did it get us? Four planes, two towers, and 2700 bodies in the ground, that's what.

My dad served in the Navy for thirty years from 1962 to 1992 and just about all of that time he could have been called upon to give his life -- in potentially any number of horrific ways -- to defend the interests of the country. Those interests were not part of the rosy colored scenario you're painting here in a sense of outraged victimhood, so don't try playing that card with me.

Stuart your first para I mostly agree with - ousting Saddam = good idea. Does it have to be done through a war? Not at all convinced. I think the level of current pressure on him needs to be kept up if he's to go, which means the threat of war needs to be continuous, but I'm opposed to it being more than a threat. Obv. if Bush et al agreed with me there's no way they could say it: the anti-war protesters are right but diplomatically impractical.

Actually, I suggest we fix our OWN problems before we go killing people in other nations half-way around the world because of THEIR problems. But what does my opinion matter, I'm a no-good enemy-sympathizer "peacenik", I might as well be shot down where I sit for having such outlandishly anti-war opinions.

The scary thing is, I'm more afraid of my Dixie-flying, gun-rack-in-the-pick-up-truck "uber-patriots" who might actually up-and-shoot-me for being an "anti-American peacenik" than I am of Saddam trying to do anything that might actually affect us 'Murikkkens, which has never once happened, BTW, and probably never will, regardless of whether or not we, how y'all say, "get him".

United States killing loads of people = bad idea

United States deciding it can invade any country in the world just because it wants to = v. bad idea

United States supporters talking a load of bollocks about how Iraq is going to be reconstituted as some bright shining model of democracy and not just given to Bushi's pals = something no one believes, surely?

Oh come off it. Who helped put Hussein in power in the first place? Who armed him to the teeth during the iran-iraq war? Who sponsored & gave assistance to the mujahedein (sp?) before the soviet union even invaded afghanistan? Who put general noriega in power? Who bombed Laos? Who assisted the overthrow of the democratically elected regime in Chile in 1973? who sponsored & trained the contras in nicaragua throughout the 1980s? Who trained the Khmer rouge in "mine clearance" techniques in the 1980s ie after everyone knew what kind of people they were (ans = the british on that one BTW). That doesn't sound much like "turning the other cheek" to me. How many of the fux0red up scenes we're living w/today would have been totally avoided had people in a bunch of small countries around the world been allowed to govern themselves the way they saw fit, instead of being screwed over for the benefit of a bunch of corrupt global food concerns & armaments manufacturers? Will such lessons EVER be learned by those in power, or will they continue to store up trouble, with interest for future generations in the name of short-term profit$? For fuck's sake, man.

"Regime Change" is ALWAYS an element of every country's foreign policy - the whole point of foreign policy is to influence other regimes in your interests. The last resort of this is to work to change the regime, and force is one way to do this (hopefully the last resort too).

Just to clear up some facts, even with estimates ranging btw 100-300 thousand, it was far more that a "few thousand" protestors in DC, and the largest anti-war protest since Vietnam. Also, one of the things pointed out in the recent protests was that it wasn't just a bunch of college kids, but a diverse cross-section of the population attending them.

Stuart, you might find the idealistic peace-freak protesters "mind-numbingly ignorant and depressingly absurd ", but so are the realpolitik-talking leaders who ran the cold war and are back running things today. Most of their Macheavellion schemes ended up blowing up in their faces, Iraq being a prime example. Sometimes sticking to your ideals in the long run is the best soultion.

There's also another very important oddity in Stuart's post, namely the magnificent and very western ability to imagine that in the absence of an autocratic dictator people will naturally and peacefully and easily establish happy secular American-style democracies. There are (a) a whole lot of different "Iraqi" people, many of whom have very different ideas about government, theology, and society, and (b) many of them do not like one another very much, and thus far (c) very few of them have managed to find enough common ground to really even speculate about a coherent resistance to Hussein, to which add (d) even when this has started to happen the precise kinds of alternatives they've offered have not necessarily been of a sort we'd necessarily find preferable to Saddam, nor are they guaranteed to be in future. All of which is to say that unless those Americans who are so concerned with the welfare of the Iraqi people are comfortable with the idea of a fractious unpredictable nation coming under forcible U.S. administration, then perhaps there should be some sort of discussion about how exactly our invading a nation will magically turn its residents into happy-go-lucky advocates of secular western modernity and who exactly is going to take care of things when they don't.

Of course I think Saddam and Kim Jong Il deserve whatever they get because I don't have any patience for them and I like to think I have a pretty good idea of the threat they represent in a world where asymmetrical conflict is par for the course. In my eyes wiping out the threat of proliferation of the kind of weaponry that could turn a large city into a no-man's-land comes well ahead of humanitarian action on the priority chart. People have lost sight of why we started going after these tyrants in the first place. Hint: Amnesty International had nothing to do with it.

I don't see a problem with any other Middle East states because I seriously doubt any of their leaders are stupid enough to publicly throw their lot in with a marked man like Saddam. That and the fact that while people talk about 'destabilizing' the region, nobody seems to mention that the region in question hasn't been stable in hundreds of years, unless you want to compare it with sub-Saharan Africa.

Some friends and I were actually going to see the protest this weekend but plans went south thanks to a certain part-time employer. I don't think the protests make a bit of difference, though. I think that if the American left wants to see something change they should be out there volunteering for the Democratic campaigns in 2004 and they should be fundraising. Let's not have this Green Party vote-splitting bullshit again and let's actually elect a moderate. It's been done before.

I believe there was once a time when you Brits were considered the evil empire.

There are (a) a whole lot of different "Iraqi" people, many of whom have very different ideas about government, theology, and society, and

Sounds like a (admittedly romanticized) description of colonial America.

(b) many of them do not like one another very much, and thus far (c) very few of them have managed to find enough common ground to really even speculate about a coherent resistance to Hussein, to which add (d) even when this has started to happen the precise kinds of alternatives they've offered have not necessarily been of a sort we'd necessarily find preferable to Saddam, nor are they guaranteed to be in future.

So long term authoritarianism over short term social unrest?

How do people propose we spread the wealth of the West into third world countries without exerting influence?

so you HAD to let us live our own way back when we were evil

Who says it will be short term? Most third world contries never got their shit together since gaining their independence from their colonial overlords, with or without the interference of the US.

>How do people propose we spread the wealth of the West into third
>world countries without exerting influence?

You can't spread the wealth of the first world, people should have learned this by now. Their aren't enough natural resources to do that. In fact, most third world countries are exploited by the west for their natural resources.

Yeah, back before you STOLE BLACK MUSIC AND MADE IT SOUND LIKE SCOTTISH PEOPLE WHINING

After all, you could have posed the same set of alternatives concerning the old Afghan government -- "long term authoritarianism over short-term unrest." Only what Afghanistan got with the Taliban was even worse authoritarianism plus massive instability and unrest, and in a form that could well have been long-term if not for our intervention. No one has yet unveiled to the American public the barest hint of a political agenda for a post-Hussein Iraq, which is absolutely shocking to me considering the great lingering question of the now-mostly-autonomous Kurd population in the north*: we sit here debating the justifications and finer moral points of an invasion but absolutely no attention is paid to what we think the actual effects of that invasion might be. That's my primary problem with the whole idea.

(* E.g. I would certainly like to know how we're pitching this with Turkey, who appear to have major boot-quaking fears of any Kurdistani independence action landing them with a major separatist movement within their own borders.)

NB: I am no historian but I don't think the pre-Revolutionary U.S. was anywhere near as fractious as Iraq is right now. For one thing its political splits centered on what were briefly organized and clearly delineated nation-states, not blood-linked tribes with negotiable territorial claims; for another its chief ethnic minority was neutralized by slavery, not operating an autonomous mini-state within its borders.

Saddam is the creation of the west and yes we can remove him but meddling always begets unintended consequences, some of which may impact back in the west.

As far as North Korea goes, the softly softly approach appeared to be working until Bush put his size 10s in. Relations were improving with the South and Japan, the nuclear programme had been halted and North Korea was moving towards a more normal position.

BBC news, in the light of this development, is saying the US and UK are declaring their willingness to 'act alone'. They continue to send troops to the region -- over 200,000 and counting.

In response to the 'why should I care?' posters on this thread, you should care if you care about anybody in the US or the UK. Unilateral Anglo-American military action would endanger thousands of people in both those countries, because it would consolidate an image in the muslim world of Anglo-American imperialism, and lead to terrorist reprisals. 'Bin Laden' has already been on Al Jazeera this week calling for muslim nation solidarity against 'the enemy', which is increasingly being defined as UK-US. Tony Blair repeated today Al Queda attacks on Britain are 'inevitable'. What he should add is '...because of the policies I am imposing on Britain, through my own twisted sense of doing what's right.'

I am currently very glad to be outside USUK. Your unilateral policies suck, USUK!

Analogously, the Death Penalty is always an element of the judicial system. It's just an element that some nations don't exercise. You know, the civilised ones.

I am a Scottish person and I am very adept at whining. Surprisingly I've never had my whining compared to "Black Music", strange that...

Related question: is USUK unilateralism the end of this myth of 'the international community'? If so, and if US and UK are going to stand isolated and alone from now on, at the very least people in the UK should get the vote in the US.

And it's pretty clear that people mean Regime Change to mean Regime Replacement, rather than just having some effect on it.

the problem with the UN has always been that the member states able to police its laws and decisions are automatically able i. to flout same, or ii. to hardwire same (this is a lot more obvious now that the US is top dog, bcz under-the-counter agreements between the superpowers no longer need to be under the counter)

Surely this is a rather narrow(selfish?) view to take of the merits or otherwise of millitary action in the region. It would be equally easy to offer that in the long term not taking millitary action would endanger thousands of people in both countries...but such crystal ball gazing is a little wasted. The focus should not be on the possibilty of future terrorist attacks on UK or USA as the motivation of caring about war but with the outcomes for the Iraqi people. I already said I opposed war, and I dont think this is a "just war" if such a thing exists but if it wipes out Saddam its not all bad surely- "peace in our time" and all that.

Tony Blair of course is saying precisely that not taking military action will endanger thousands, but he's using as proof unpublishable secret service reports. So his crystal ball is not being shown to us.

the protests against the vietnam war came from two combined streams of urgent self-interest: black americans only too aware that the the civil rights project could no longer adequately be financed, even though black youth was hugely disproportionately represented in the GI massive, and student youth threatened by the draft, which meant that instead of nice quiet lives as academics or business or the professions, they were going to have to go far away somewhere and kill people, or be killed themselves

you can't extend democracy by applying a moral means test on who's allowed to participate in it: if you actually want to stop the war, instead of just announcing loudly that you're against it, you have learn tactics to convince people who are suspicious of your motives, and if you write them off as moral second-raters from the outset, then your chances of convincing them are surely very much less

(it isn't as if demos and strikes and marches and sit-ins and shut-downs whatever aren't also appeals to self-interest: if you don't pay attention to us, we'll fuck up the settled routines of your life)

The immediate deployment of some 26,000 troops is considerably more than the largest number expected, and will cost the British taxpayer at least $8 billion. It comes at a time when anti-terrorist action and strikes across the nation by Britain's firefighters for better pay and conditions are stretching military resources to the limit, and when public opinion is running massively and increasingly against war with Iraq.

Labor's Blair is also being seen as too close to President Bush, to the extent that he is handing any leadership credibility of Europe to French President Jacques Chirac, and also of overriding rising domestic concerns such as asylum seekers, social welfare, transport and rapidly rising college tuition fees.'

$8 billion!!!! Enough to give London the best public transport system in the world!

Going back to spain, you dismissed my comments by saying "Spain didn't border Iran and Syria and invading Spain wouldn't have reduced US dependency on Saudi Arabia". Well, duh. My point was something else, basically, the reasons that the american public is being given for intervention in Iraq are the same reasons we should have fought franco. We didn't do it then; what is different about this situation? Obviously there is a lot different, and not intervening in the Spanish civil war does not say you cannot try to get rid of saddam: I just don't trust the motivation being given and because i don't trust the motivation i have doubts about the outcome. Anyway, gotta run...

Still, it says 'cunter-productive', which is pretty good.

Deluge the Decision Makers in the week of Monday 20th January.
Big demonstrations are important. But between them, how can
people make their voices heard? Imagine this for a moment: Next Monday, Jack Straw's office is swamped with ten thousand letters, with each envelope containing a handful of rice. The letters are from members of the public sending rice as a symbol of the humanitarian consequences of war. It's worth taking a moment to picture the space and time that the delivery of ten thousand small packets of rice
would take up. Imagine if your own office received such a deluge;
and somewhere in the middle of it all is your usual mail. Someone
in the corridors of power will have to open all those letters. For the people who are deciding to launch this unnecessary, immoral war, the letters would be a nuisance, a nag. But importantly they would also be a noticeable demonstration that there are thousands of people out there opposed to their policy.

Voices UK is calling for people across the country to send a
handful of rice to Jack Straw at the Foreign Office. A suggested text for an accompanying letter is below. Please send the rice and your letter in the week of Monday 20th January. This is the week immediately prior to the UN Weapons Inspector's report, which many commentators expect will be used by Bush and Blair as a pretext for war. If our voices are to be heard, they have to be heard now!

". peaceful, well-focused and widespread nuisance forces
the issue to the front of people's minds, and ensures that no one can contemplate the war without also contemplating the opposition to the war. All this will, of course, be costly. But there comes a point at which political commitment is meaningless unless you are prepared to act on it. . if our action is confined to shaking our heads at the television set, Blair might as well have a universal mandate. Are you out there? Or are you waiting for someone else to act on your behalf?"
George Monbiot, Guardian, 7th January 2003

10,000 letters is an achievable target. Nearly 4,000 people have
pledged to take direct action in the event of war. Websites and email lists reach thousands more. And of course, no one is limited to sending only one letter.

Voices will be calling similar actions focused on Tony Blair,
Geoff Hoon and others over the coming weeks. For each participant it's
a small effort.
If thousands make that effort, the effect can be impressive.
Please take part!

Suggested text

Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary
Foreign & Commonwealth Office
Whitehall, London SW1A 2AH

Dear Mr Straw

I am writing to express my opposition to the likely war with
Iraq. I consider it unnecessary, illegal, immoral and inevitably cunter-productive.

Save the Children, who have long worked in Iraq, predict that
a war there will lead to a "humanitarian disaster". Many thousands
of innocent Iraqis suffered and died in the last Gulf War, and in the years of bombing and economic sanctions since then. For their sake, I urge you to pull back from war and instead pursue peaceful means of promoting peace in the Middle East.

I enclose a handful of rice as a symbol of the human needs that
should be our prime concern especially in time of war. Real people are
under these bombs, and real people will die when we destroy the things they need to survive. I welcome your reply.

Yours sincerely,

I think this idea of war has already produced enough cunts.

Yours

Nick

Either way it's a waste of good rice.

i suddenly remembered nixon's and kissinger's madman theory

I think I'd take a life of luxurious exile in the Mediterranean somewhere over going to war with the United States any day.

I initially read this as 'a life of humorous exile.'

Coming this fall!

That Wacky Saddam!

Guest starring Tom Bosley as 'Bosley.'

mark s, which part? no, really.

g

(i wz possibly being a bit harsh w.the "slackjawed", as that better describes me during the hour every day it now takes to travel what five years ago wz a 20-minute bus journey)