Mar 27, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Iraq doesn't follow the rules of "humane" war required by the Geneva conventions ... a chemical weapons facility has been found in Iraq, a facility never noticed by hordes of U.N. inspectors parading around the country for years ... American prisoners of war are brutally tortured ... Every day you hear of Iraq violating some sort of U.N. rule imposed on them over the last decade.
Does this mean that the U.N. didn't do its job competently? No, worse. It means that the U.N. did do its job and is worse than useless. Now the chickens are coming home to roost and American soldiers are the sacrificial victims. The U.N. aids and makes comfortable the violent and the evil, regardless of its stated intentions. How? Is it a conspiracy on the part of the U.N. against the free world? Of course not. It's called moral relativism. The U.N. treats countries like Iraq as morally equal to countries like Britain and the USA. In so doing, the morally superior countries only stand to lose and the morally evil countries gain status and power they would never otherwise enjoy.It's not that the U.N. didn't do its job properly. It's what the job of the U.N. is in the first place: to treat all countries as morally neutral and to treat conflicts between countries as nothing more than sibling spats rather than life-or-death struggles between good and evil, between dictatorship and freedom. I hope we defeat Iraq quickly -- and in the process that we defeat the premise underlying the U.N. forever.
Mar 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
AMMAN, Jordan -- A group of American anti-war demonstrators, part of a Japanese human-shield delegation, returned from Iraq yesterday with 14 hours of uncensored video, all shot without Iraqi government minders present, with Iraqis eager to tell of their welcome for American troops.
The Rev. Kenneth Joseph, a young American pastor of the Assyrian Church of the East, said the trip to Iraq "had shocked me back to reality."
Some of the Iraqis he interviewed on camera, he said, "told me they would commit suicide if American bombing didn't start. They were willing to see their homes demolished to gain their freedom from Saddam [Hussein]'s bloody tyranny."
Mar 26, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
An editorial in today's New York Sun runs down the list:
On Friday in Athens, Greece, anti-war protesters hurled Molotov cocktails--gasoline-fueled firebombs--at the American embassy, according to reports in the European press. Also Friday, an anti-war protester threw a Molotov cocktail into a McDonald's hamburger stand in a suburb of Oslo, Norway, Agence France Presse reported. In San Francisco on Friday, police discovered a backpack full of what the San Francisco Chronicle described as "about a dozen bottles filled with gasoline and equipped with makeshift fuses," left where police had earlier clashed with anti-war protesters. Even here in New York, 17 police officers were injured in clashes Saturday with anti-war protesters. One was struck in the head with a brick, one was kicked in the face, and two were knocked off their horses, police said. [New York Sun, 3/26/03]
Mar 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Here's wishful thinking for you:
There were many smiling faces in Ramallah on Monday as Palestinians celebrated the capture of American and British soldiers by the Iraqi army. "This is a big day for the Iraqi people and all the Arabs and Muslims," said a policeman at Yasser Arafat's battered headquarters.
[...] At Manara Square in the center of town, the mood was one of euphoria. "They have just shot down two Apache helicopters," an excited merchant shouted hysterically as he ran out of his shop. "This is unbelievable. The Americans are losing the war. Iraq is going to be Bush's Vietnam."
[...] "Oh beloved Saddam, bomb, bomb Tel Aviv," [a group of about 50 girls] chanted as passersby and shopkeepers greeted them with the traditional Islamic battle cry of Allahu akbar (God is great). As they marched through the streets, the girls, some younger than 10, urged Saddam to eliminate Israel: "Oh Saddam, we love you, why don't you annihilate all the Jews?"
[...] Many people said that for the first time since the war broke out, they are finally able to walk around with a sense of pride. "Until yesterday [Sunday], the feeling here was bad," said a journalist. "But when the pictures of the American prisoners and bodies of soldiers were shown on TV, there was a lot of excitement. It's very moving to watch Arab soldiers defeating American and British soldiers and killing them. Saddam is now more popular than ever. The people here adore him. The feeling here is that Saddam has restored Arab confidence and dignity." ...
[...] The sense of triumph and pride was also reflected in the Palestinian Authority media. "On the fourth day of the war, Iraq has presented to the Arabs and all the peoples of the world proof that it is possible to defeat the US," said Hasan al-Kashef, a respected columnist and senior PA official. "On this day, the Arabs and the rest of the world have come to learn that the US is not the almighty superpower that is capable of doing anything, any time. Iraq has proved that surrendering to the will of the US is the result of impotence, miscalculation, and a lack of will." [Jerusalem Post, 3/25/03]
In the future, we'll need to make sure our leaders remember not only the Palestinians' enmity but also the degree of irrationality that prevails in that culture.Mar 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The US and Britain are calling this war a liberation of Iraq. That sets the expectation that the Iraqis will welcome us, as Italy welcomed American troops as they swept northward from Sicily.
Frankly I don't suspect that will happen. The Iraqi culture is Arab culture, i.e. it is in psychosis. I expect that most Iraqis, being Arab, will hate America. It won't look like a liberation but an occupation.
Nothing is wrong with an occupation in this situation. Except for when the British and American public are told to expect a liberation. Then a successful occupation will appear to be a failed liberation--and a failed war.Mar 25, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
Diplomatic sources at the U.N. say that while members of the Security Council were working hard to find a negotiated compromise that would reunite the fractured body behind a plan to send humanitarian aid to Iraq, Russia joined Syria in its refusal to even negotiate."The Russians definitely raised their objections up a notch," said one diplomat who participated in the talks.
He said that the Russians contended that the old program should remain intact, despite the fact that all U.N. personnel who ran it were evacuated from Iraq on the eve of the war. Most of all, he said, the Russians were worried about any indication that the old Iraqi regime is not recognized as the legitimate representative of Iraq. "Any reform in oil-for-food could indicate that Saddam's regime is illegitimate," the diplomat said....
Russia ... is concerned that any change might result in loss of oil contracts signed with Saddam's regime. Oil analysts also believe that as a major oil producing nation, Russia may worry about loss of revenue as result of the revamping of post-war Iraq's oil production, which would increase output and lower global oil prices. [New York Sun, 3/25/03]
So Russia is threatened by the idea of what might happen if dictatorship ceased to be considered a legitimate form of government. Perhaps it is an option Putin doesn't wish to close off for himself?