| March
9 , 2003
Well,
this turns out to have been a poor week for the Bush Administration.
By all likelihood, the invasion of Iraq will commence, as planned
for years, just after St. Patrick's Day. How appropriate that the
unjustified invasion of a sovereign nation and possible slaughter
of tens of thousands of civilians would occur under the eyes of
God, the Saints, and condemnations from every religious group not
affiliated with the GOP.
Still,
while the President will ignore all reasonable dissent and start
bombing anyway, he will have done so at a terrible cost. The damage
to internationalism, the triumph of empire, the cost to American
legitimacy; all a result of Bush's "bite me" diplomacy.
Observe
the events of this past week. First, on Sunday, the British newspaper
The Observer revealed a diplomatic bombshell: the United States
is actively engaging in wiretapping and spying on members of the
Security Council. News of Nixon-esque "dirty tricks" against
the crucial "swing votes" - Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, Angola,
Guinea, and Pakistan -- spread like wildfire across newspapers around
the world. This news has angered not only our allies, but the very
nations the Bush Administration is trying to sway on its war resolution.
The Chile delegation, for instance, isn't too happy; I guess they're
still sore about the CIA assassinating Chile's democratically-elected
leader and installing Agusto Pinoche as dictator in 1973. The other
September 11.
That's
perfectly fine if you are among the hawks in the White House. If
everyone doesn't fall in line, just threaten a little payback. This
week, Secretary of uh, "Defense" Rumsfeld threatened to
move American troops out of Germany and into eastern European countries
like Bulgaria. Threats have even been leveled at close allies like
Mexico; Vicente Fox was once a close friend to George W. Bush. Now,
with over 70% of the Mexican public opposed to war, it looks like
Mr. Bush has lost another crucial vote in the UN.
On
Friday, Hans Blix, head of UNMOVIC, and Mohammed ElBaradei, head
of IAEA, issued their latest report on the progress of Iraqi disarmament,
showing clear evidence that their efforts are yielding results.
But they reserved some of their harshest words for the Bush Administration,
and its "evidence" of Iraq's weapons programs. Remember
Colin Powell's presentation to the UN? It turns out that the "evidence"
provided by British intelligence was Googled off the Internet, including
a report stolen from a grad student's paper; even the student's
mistakes were left in.
ElBaradei
has even accused the US of forging documents to prove their case;
Niger never sold uranium to Iraq, and those 12 aluminum tubes can't
be used as a nuclear weapon. Time after time, the UN weapons inspectors
have been given one bad lead after another, to the point where the
inspectors don't even want American intelligence anymore. Garbage
after garbage after garbage, indeed.
On
a related front, the Pentagon this week asked Congress to lift the
ban on developing small nuclear warheads; part of a nuclear arsenal
used for offensive, first-strike warfare. Can you believe this?
These people actually want to use nuclear weapons; $50 billion in
bribes have been offered to sway Security Council votes (Ari Fleisher
was literally laughed out of the room for denying quid pro quos);
and how much money did Bush leave in his budget for rebuilding Afghanistan?
Nothing.
And
what of North Korea during all of this? North Korean planes buzzed
an American spy plane over international waters, issued more threats
of impending doom, and continued to churn out material for its nuclear
program. The White House solution? Threaten a military strike if
diplomacy fails. But there has been no diplomacy, as the Administration
continues to refuse one-on-one talks.
Rumsfeld,
however, has proposed pulling American troops out of South Korea.
According to Reuters on Thursday (March 6), the Secretary suggested
moving troops away from the DMZ; he believes South Korea has "all
the capability in the world of providing the kind of up-front deterrent
that's needed."
This,
of course, is part of the Neocons' dream of war with North Korea,
which you will easily discover once you read David Frum and Richard
Peare's "An End to Evil." Heaven help us if they get their
chance to enact their bloody, fascist fantasies.
Finally,
my favorite moment of the past week, George W. Bush's press conference.
It was a lifeless, almost groggy performance where Mr. Bush repeated
the same three slogans over and over: 9/11, Saddam has not disarmed,
the region will embrace freedom. He referred to the International
Atomic Energy Agency as the "IEAE." And he made a couple
jokes about a pre-approved list of reporters and their questions;
he even made a funny about one woman who seemed to jump the script
(and lobbed a softball about his faith).
It
certainly seemed a little strange, the way Bush would keep looking
down on his podium before pointing to someone. As it turns out,
the cynicism was well earned. Ari Fleisher, the next day, admitted
that his boss was given a list of the reporters who would ask questions.
The whole event was scripted theatre. Damn them. |
