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The Real
Transgressor - by Saad Anis An extremely volatile scenario is unfolding in the Middle East, with the United States giving ultimatums, to Iraq to disarm, and to the UN to start taking stricter measures to quell the excesses of the Iraqi regime. Washington has clearly lost patience with what it deems as continuing Iraqi refusal to disarm itself of weapons of Mass destruction, and UN hesitation to militarily facilitate the proposed disarmament. The fact is that the US does not need the backing of the world community to wage a war on Iraq, but would "prefer it", as US President Bush said. The US has already built up a large presence of about 100,000 troops in the Middle East, courtesy her subservient oil-rich Arab allies. As the question of whether or not to attack Iraq continues to be heatedly debated upon, another perplexing situation has arisen in South-Asia. The communist North Korean government has recently refused to comply with UN resolutions, and has regulated its nuclear programme in blatant defiance of the world body. This poses a potential threat of a nuclear catastrophe in the region. Amazingly, the US seems more engrossed with Iraq and its status as a "threat to world stability". The US argues that Iraq is a greater danger to global peace at the moment. This despite the recent turnaround in Iraqi policy on the standoff, opening its doors once again to UN inspectors and allowing the probing of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces. At the moment, the Iraqi regime has suspended production and research of all weapons that infringe upon the UN resolutions, and has taken a positive step towards complying with the UN resolution 1441, which demands Iraqi disarmament. The chief UN weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Ahmed Al-Baradei praised Iraqi efforts for cooperation in their recent report to the Security Council. There is no doubt that a few short-comings have been spotted, such as the Al-Samoud II missile (which exceeds the UN limit of 150km, set on the range of Iraqi missiles post Gulf War), the discovery of papers of Uranium enrichment from the residence of an Iraqi physicist and the recently found 11 empty chemical war- heads at an ammunition storage area, which were not accounted for. While the US continues to exhort the world community to wage a bloody war on Iraq, it is conveniently disregarding a patently greater threat to world peace, North Korea. Compared to the transgressions of Iraq, North Korea's excesses are outrageous. It is a state that invaded the neighbouring South Korea 50 years ago, inciting a large US led UN retaliation which drove it back. Due to the fact that North Korea agreed to sign only an armistice then, it still remains technically at war with the South, inducing a torturous, seemingly interminable standoff between 2 million troops, unresolved to this day. Despite UN sanctions and persistent chastisement, North Korea continues to develop and amass chemical weapons, including capacious reservoirs of mustard gas and phosgene. It produces 4,500 tons of chemical weapons per year, a shocking figure for a nation under continuous scrutiny by the world community. North Korea is still refusing to sign the Chemical weapons Convention (CWC). North Korea also possesses long range ballistic missiles (such as the Taepodong I) with a range of up to 625 miles, easily capable of targeting neighbouring countries, including the large US military bases in South Korea and Japan. The North finally signed the NPT in 1985, but did not allow UN weapons inspection until 1992. It claimed that it had halted and "frozen" its nuclear programme in 1994. The UN observers were, however, unable to verify the validity of that claim. In December 2002, US intelligence reports contended that the North was still pursuing a clandestine nuclear programme, an assertion which was vindicated by the North Korean regime in January, 2003. Following their admission, the regime expelled the UN weapons inspectors destroyed all their observatory setup and openly re-established its nuclear programme. A similar action (of expelling UN weapons inspectors) from Iraq had resulted in "punishment" in the form of heavy UN/US bombardment in 1998. In this case, it yielded nothing, save an impotent US admonition. In December 2002, Spanish naval forces intercepted a North Korean ship loaded with Scud missiles bound for Yemen. It is an open secret that the Nodong was procured from North Korea and re-launched as the Ghauri by Pakistan. Here is the comparison. On one hand is a regime ready to cooperate with the world community in its efforts to gain respect and acceptance. On the other hand is a rigid dictatorship, endlessly flaying UN resolution and amassing weapons of mass destruction, threatening to embroil the region in nuclear turmoil. One side long ago, ceased production of chemical weapons; the other is still knee deep in the odious menace. UN weapons inspectors have not found a shred of evidence of Iraq trying to pursue a nuclear programme, whereas North Korea is shamelessly, flagrantly striving for nuclear capability. Yet, despite all out Iraqi cooperation in stark contrast with and the alarming North Korean impudence, the US is needlessly harassing the earlier with the haunting prospect of war, and turning a blind eye to the contravention of the latter. Just makes one wonder whether everything really is what it appears, and whether there isn't the sickening filth of self-interest and bias underlying the simplistic surface. Maybe that is the stench that seems so rank to the senses, or maybe it's just oil. by Sophia Barkat Re: Saad's article I agree with you on everything. You show quite clearly that Nuclear Disarmament isn't the issue here. My perspective on the US led attack on Iraq is from a realist's viewpoint. Oil is a scarce commodity. Europe and Japan are the main competition for US products. American Presidents, regardless of Party affiliations must think about the US Economy. They have different approaches, however. Clinton - a Monetarist if I am not wrong - had the smarts to utilize a Monetary Business Cycle created by Volcker (FEDERAL RESERVES CHAIRMAN before Greenspan) and propagated by Greenspan. Tactics like corporate espionage to get ahead of Europe were used too. The Y2K-dotcom economy was completely fabricated and hyped by the investment banking industry and accounting firms. And yet, the economy looked good because everyone had stocks that were doing well, and I don't mean individuals. People were investing in US capital markets from the world over. Things were dandy. Obviously, Clinton didn't want to address questions that might destabilize the economy. Consequently many national threats were not addressed. I don't know about Al-Quaeda much but it seems they have been around during Clinton years and were being funded - if you consider the Taliban - by the US Government themselves. Afghannistan has oil and is rich in mineral resources. I don't know why a country which claims to be democratic would support the Taliban. Then again, who's friends of royalty in the Middle East? Bush on the other hand, as his father before him, believe in REAL BUSINESS CYCLES. They are as much two-faced as Democrats regarding their support of despots worldwide. It's foreign policy. It's not what Americans feel is right, but somehow being in office makes one shed one's morals. You immediately become a realist and start thinking like a CEO. Bush Jr.s Administration is more CEO like. Reagan's was not. Bush Sr. is called pro-UN by some, being as he was US Ambassador to UN, but I don't think he has ever been anything but a realist. You might say, but you said "YOU were a realist. Do you then support this war?" Hmm....I'd say, if I was the American President I'd probably do this - not bother with the permission of the UN and would be as gung-ho as any other American. And I don't mean Chenney and Rumsfeld would coerce me. I'd call my advisors to draw me a map of the world, point out nations with oil and natural resources and say, "lock-and-load". Saddam and any other leader of the world should and must think of their nation's well-being first. Otherwise give up your country and become part of China. And if the leaders are not maximizing the profits to the country shoot them/have a coup/why wait for the next elections. However you may argue, does a country benefit only from MONEY? How about social benefits? Like safety? Like family values? That's why you have a huge defense industry. To protect your nation. To shut up any small country who says they won't agree to your conditional foreign aid packages. "What? Bangladesh won't buy Ford cars with the money we are sending?" - hell no! Send those warships, Rumsfeld. Bomb them off the face of the Earth. However, I'm a Bangladeshi, so I don't win by supporting American Gung-ho politics, as I do not by any other country's gung-ho-ness, other than my own. So, I would have to oppose what Bush is doing. And I do. I like Bangladesh's sovereignty. I like it that people can tell a bully off. It's just how it goes. That's the realist's viewpoint. by Trevor (tebatt@chello.nl) Re: On being A realist I guess we are all "realists" at heart -it is just that our view of "reality" is often radically different. Apparently, the current academically lauded view of "reality" is to be found in the following book: Of Paradise and Power: America vs. Europe in the New World Order by Robert Kagan http://www.housecollectibles.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=1-4000-4093-0 Interestingly, on the Random House page, Francis Fukuyama calls the book "Brilliant". Perhaps it is -but then how must we rank Fukuyama's own book "The End of History?"? This was also highly popular a few years ago, even though it apparently preaches the opposite to Kagan's book. The End of History? The National Interest, Summer 1989 Francis Fukuyama http://www.wku.edu/~sullib/history.htm So should we say that "Europe" still believes in Fukuyama and "America" has moved on to a post 09-11 world? Clearly, this idea fits in neatly with American supremacist claims. The idea that America does not understand the world is of course unthinkable -until of course the unthinkable happens. In this sense, to be a "realist" (as Americans keeps claiming) we need to "understand" 09-11. Perhaps this is true -clearly American attitudes and policies have changed since then. Two countries have been invaded on spurious grounds, international law has been set aside and American security has been given top priority (although one would have assumed this was indeed a key issue for any nation state). In the meantime, America continues to rampage through the world of sensitive international relations like a wounded bull elephant in a china shop. The actions of a realist are dependent on the "reality" they see. America now claims that opponents to current American policies do not understand the "post 09-11" world. However, the outside world is forced to ask if America ever understood the "pre 09-11" world. It is not too difficult for outsiders to understand the shock of suddenly discovering all the old certainties are no longer true. In fact most non-Americans have already experienced this in some form or another -either through terrorist action or through loss of jobs, community or cultural background as the cancer of commercial consumerism has rapidly and irresistibly spread through the global body. The question is: What caused so many unpleasant changes -and what can one do about them? Strangely enough, since 09-11, the rest of the world has seen a lot of assumptions coming from America -but not much evidence of real thought. We are told that bin Laden is responsible -but no evidence has ever been offered (in fact we heard recently that somebody else was the mastermind). However, it also seems that America was itself responsible for helping to build the terror networks which it is now so ruthlessly fighting against throughout the world. So perhaps the American government system does know how these systems work -and perhaps they are correct in their accuusations. However, even if Al Quaeda is the source of the evil -one has still not heard any serious analysis as to why exactly they should turn so ferociously against their former friends. National security and national sovereignty have been until now the basic pillars upon which international law has been built. America claims that on 09-11 it was attacked -and that its right to national defense gives it the right to attack any other sovereign nation that it mistrusts. Apart from the question if this is such a sensible strategy -if it does not create more potential dangers than it removes -one might also ask if indeed it is true that an innocent America was "attacked" -or was the "attack on America" itself a form of self-defense? 09-11 is often compared with the attack on Pearl Harbor. Perhaps there are indeed many similarities -how many Americans, for example, understand exactly how Japan got involved in international affairs? "During the early part of the 17th century, Japan's Shoganate suspected that the traders and missionaries were actually forerunners of a military conquest by European powers. This caused the Shoganate to place foreigners under progressively tighter restrictions. Ultimately, Japan forced all foreigners to leave and barred all relations with the outside world except for severely restricted commercial contacts with Dutch and Chinese merchants at Nagasaki. This isolation lasted for 200 years, until Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. Navy forced the opening of Japan to the West with the Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. " http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/4142.htm "In 1853 Perry was sent on the mission to Japan, a country that had been closed to outsiders since the 17th century. On July 8, he led a squadron of four ships into Tokyo Bay and presented representatives of the emperor with the text of a proposed commercial and friendship treaty. To give the reluctant Japanese court time to consider the offer, he then sailed for China. With an even more powerful fleet, he returned to Tokyo in February 1854. The treaty, signed on March 31, 1854, provided that humane treatment be extended to sailors shipwrecked in Japanese territory, that U.S. ships be permitted to buy coal in Japan, and that the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate be opened to U.S. commerce. Perry's mission ended Japan's isolation, a prerequisite for its subsequent development into a modern nation. Perry died in New York City on March 4, 1858." http://members.tripod.com/MickMc/perry.html So, if Commander Perry had not sailed into Tokyo Bay with a squadron of (presumably well-armed) ships then there would have been no Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor almost 200 years later. Perhaps it would be interesting for Americans to speculate over how their own government's actions might have lead to 09-11. Just as many Japanese must have felt so long ago, many people around the world feel that their national sovereignty, their culture and their way of life has been undermined by US governmental policies and commercial companies working together through puppet organizations that in theory are supposed to be neutral but in practice only support American interests. Most people are opposed to violence -but when they see the levels of violence that are used against them -violence which is often supported by people who find even "passive smoking" too dangerous for them to be exposed to -then it is difficult not to become angry. Violence breeds violence, and under ideal circumstances it is not the answer. Most people would agree there are more intelligent ways of solving problems -but as other options become systematicallyyy removed there remains a point where it appears to be the only option left. Many Americans argue that this point has arrived for them. However, for outsiders this only demonstrates how little the Americans truly understand about themselves and about the world they have created. Inside every bully lies a coward. Presumably, the bully needs to shout and bluster and throw their weight around because they fundamentally believe that they cannot survive in the world by competing as a normal person. Outsiders have seen how quickly the rules they themselves have been forced to accept -whatever the cost -suddenly get changed whhhen America cannot cope with them. As a result, the rest of the world is forced to hope that America will grow up and behave responsibly for once. Until now, the world has been sadly disappointed. When one looks around the world and sees the variety of experiences, images and viewpoints that it contains -the political, economic and ecological challenges that need to be faced -and then compare this diversity with the monolithic madness that America now seems to be suffering from -one can only conclude that America would profit from becoming like the rest of the world more than the world would profit from becoming like America. Perhaps the most important, and most challenging question, is how the world should be organized. How do we develop and operate structures that mediate between individual and communal interest's -on local, regional and global levels of operation? What is the meaning of human life -are we simply human slaves subject to the dictates of corporate profit, or is there some deeper meaning implicit in our existence? How do we "manage" delicate natural resources, are they for all or for the few? Do we wish to live in nation states or are there better alternatives? Once upon a time, the world believed that the American constitution was a clever basis for solving many of these problems. Several of those who fought for social justice around the world were inspired by it -Ho Chi Minh, for example: "[Note that it is no accident that Ho would mention his expectation of US support in their Declaration of Independence. After all, Ho was a big fan of the United States. Ho reportedly had a picture of George Washington on his wall, and kept a copy of the American Declaration of Independence on his desk." http://www.25thaviation.org/id766.htm. Rumour has it that even Fidel Castro initially asked America for support. Even now "The White House has rebuffed Cuban overtures to assist U.S. drug interdiction efforts, most recently fabricating charges that Cuba was obstructing the drug war. It earlier spurned Havana's offer to facilitate the U.S. detention of Al-Qaeda prisoners at Guantanamo and sheepishly stood behind invented claims that Cuba had exported biological weapons to "axis of evil" nations." http://www.lanuevacuba.com/nuevacuba/notic-02-10-1620.htm. The story of North Korea is similar: "As a rhetorical flourish, the axis of evil soared like an eagle. But in retrospect it more closely resembles a turkey, and the inclusion of North Korea, in particular, has begun to look uncannily like a chicken that in recent days has come home to roost. This is of a piece with the whole of the Bush Administration's Korea policy, which, from the beginning, has been a fairly comprehensive botch. ....... Under Bush, matters Korean headed rapidly downhill. When Kim Dae Jung visited Washington, six weeks after Bush took office, Bush humiliated him (and embarrassed Powell) by withdrawing American support for the sunshine initiatives. Before September 11th, when the Administration's foreign-policy obsession was missile defense, it almost seemed to welcome the prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea. Kim Jong Il's "rogue state" provided a convenient rationale for deploying the only kind of A.B.M. system that might be politically and diplomatically salable and technically even marginally feasible: a very limited one, based in Alaska and not overtly aimed at neutralizing China's deterrent." http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030113ta_talk_hertzberg. No wonder so many countries are beginning to question the suitability of America to continue as world leader and are becoming increasingly resentful of the way it imposes its will upon the rest of the world. When one looks at America's internal social-economic problems, one begins to wonder if the American Revolution itself has not been perverted and betrayed in some way. Certainly, one can question if other countries should universally adopt such high levels of social inequality. Perhaps America should put its own house in order before "nation building" abroad. I have just been watching a BBC TV programme on the militarisation of America's school system. One may wonder if this is an improvement on the previous sport based system. Nevertheless, it is certainly fascinating to hear an army recruiter telling school kids that life in the army is less dangerous than life in the streets. A little self-reflection might save both America and the rest of the world an awful lot of body bags. Ho Chi Minh & American Support: http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22Ho+Chi+min%22+%2B++%\ 22American+support%22&_sb_lang=nl+en Castro & Support for Revolution: http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22Fidel+Castro%22+%2B+\ +%22support+for+revolution%22&_sb_lang=nl+en Unfortunately, I couldn't find any references to Castro's request for American support for the revolution -although I believe he met Nixon before he became president. The search ""Castro's visit to Washington" did provide a result -but the sites mentioned timed out without result. http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22Castro%27s+visit+to+\ Washington%22&_sb_lang=nl+en North Korea & American Support: http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22North+Korea%22+%2B++\ %22American+support%22&_sb_lang=nl+en al Quaeda & American support: http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22al+Quaeda%22+%2B++%2\ 2American+support%22&_sb_lang=nl+en Taliban & American support: http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22Taliban%22+%2B++%22A\ merican+support%22&_sb_lang=nl+en American support for Saddam: http://www.alltheweb.com/search?cat=web&cs=iso-8859-1&q=%22American+support+for\ +Saddam%22&_sb_lang=nl+en |
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