[wgscott]

Our Amnesty International group at Berkeley was hosting an Afghan Refugee of the Soviet invasion.

Don't worry, I wasn't competing for your job.

[schrocat]

Don't make me declare yee-haa(d) on you...

[wgscott]

Well, it is interesting if you look at the Soviet justifications for their invasion, they are rather similar in many respects, except the aim of the Soviet intervention was to get rid of the Islamic fundamentalists altogether (which of course was their excuse for a mass extermination campaign.

[Ninong]

Originally posted by wgscott
Well, it is interesting if you look at the Soviet justifications for their invasion, they are rather similar in many respects...

I don't find it interesting or similar in many respects to our justification for being there at all.

I don't recall the Soviet Union being attacked by al-Qaida prior to their invasion. Maybe it's because al-Qaida didn't exist prior to their invasion. I always thought that the Soviets were upset that their communist puppet was losing control in Kabul and their invasion was intended to prop up his regime. So perhaps, in that respect, it is similar to our intervention in Viet Nam but I don't see any parallels with our current situation.

I think we should all pay more attention to exactly what has happened at the WTC and the Pentagon, and what it means to the United States, and not be so concerned with the cultural problems of a country that is ruled by a group of insane religious psychopaths from the middle ages.

Let's just take out Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and the Taliban, and then the U.N. can set up a protectorate policed by troops from Islamic countries until the Afghans can figure out what century they're living in.

Ninong

[wgscott]

If you are right that what we are currently doing in Afghanistan will decrease the probability of future terrorist attacks (massacres, in the Sept 11th case), then I agree with you completely.

However I am afraid the premise is flawed.

We are fully justified in going after whomever is responsible for the massacres in New York and Washington DC. What I am addressing is the rationale given for removing the Taliban.

We were quite happy to have paleolithic religious fanatics in Afhanistan when they were doing our bidding.

[schrocat]

Originally posted by wgscott
We were quite happy to have paleolithic religious fanatics in Afhanistan when they were doing our bidding.

Paleolithic religious fanatics can still have a place in post Taliban Afganistan.
Even the misogynists.

I'm tired of buying marginal\ to non-existant regional stability.
We as a country should sell our shares of the Middle East.
Not fund squat, pull all aid...unofficially boycot travel and business to and from the region.
Be done with it...
If they want 50.00 for a barrel of crude...cool.
1,000.00 for a bag of US grain should offset price increases.

wg,
Saddam screwed up royally.
Can you imagine the big hot turkey pot pies those kids would be eating right now in Iraq if he had embraced a sincere resolution against the attacks and offered aid? Instead of the smart a$$ offer to help clean up the WTC since they were "familiar" with the scenario?
Everybody else is getting their sanctions removed, big ole aid packages...

[Ninong]

Originally posted by wgscott
If you are right that what we are currently doing in Afghanistan will decrease the probability of future terrorist attacks (massacres, in the Sept 11th case), then I agree with you completely.

However I am afraid the premise is flawed.

We are fully justified in going after whomever is responsible for the massacres in New York and Washington DC. What I am addressing is the rationale given for removing the Taliban.

We were quite happy to have paleolithic religious fanatics in Afhanistan when they were doing our bidding.

What I said earlier in this thread, somewhere on page 1, was:

"The current bombardment of the Taliban and al-Qaida has much more than 'little, if anything' to do with preventing further acts of terrorism. It will not prevent all future acts of terrorism but it will prevent any future acts by the people whom we have assisted in achieving martyrdom status." This was in response to your argument that we were waging war to prop up the failed dot-com economy.

BTW, I don't believe war has any net beneficial effect on any nation's economy, it just shifts resources around. Unless, of course, the nation is coming out of a genuine depression; in which case the increase in employment would have a net beneficial effect. I don't believe that replacement of the 50,000 reservists called to active duty will even begin to offset the hundreds of thousands of layoffs caused by the dropoff in travel and spending that will result from lowered consumer confidence following the events of 9-11. And any increase in military spending is just shifting resources that would have been allocated to more productive purposes.

When you say that you are addressing "the rationale given for removing the Taliban" are you speaking about something I may have said or are you speaking about something the government has said?

My rationale for getting rid of the Taliban is to get even. I like to call it retribution. The Taliban and al-Qaida are intertwined. They support al-Qaida, they approve of the terrorist actions of al-Qaida, and they are equally responsible for the events of 9-11--not to mention the Cole and the embassy bombings.

As far as future terrorist attacks are concerned, they would certainly happen if we did nothing to take out Osama bin Laden and his followers and those who support them. And they will certainly happen as a result of our present military response. But whether they would be more or less doesn't even enter the picture in my mind.

Ninong

[wgscott]

I worry that we are getting even with the wrong people. The worst the Taliban have been officially accused of is harboring terrorists/criminal fugatives. No one in their right mind thinks they would have the capability to hand them over even if they wanted to, which of course they don't.

This is why it would be best to try them in a court of law.

[Ninong]

Originally posted by wgscott
This is why it would be best to try them in a court of law.

Let me be Clinton-esque here and say that it all depends on your definition of best.

(1) Trial by the Hague: Gets us off the hook and we can say it was a fair, impartial decision rendered by a bunch of people who look and think exactly like us. Have there ever been any Muslims on any international war crimes tribunals? Won't fly with the bring-the-evildoers-to-justice crowd. And it would turn into a worldwide political circus that would last at least a year, probably longer.

(2) Trial in U.S. Federal Court: Would be seen as a sham by the third world and would certainly turn into theatre on a worldwide stage. Then there is the problem of what to do about the death penalty. Bush is a very strong supporter of the death penalty but we are one of the few countries in the world that still have it. We can't even get the U.K., France or Germany to extradite anyone to us for trial unless we agree not to seek the death penalty. So if we refuse to drop the death penalty, most of the rest of the world--including our allies--will accuse us of being barbarians, and if we do agree to not seek the death penalty, the bring-the-evildoers-to-justice crowd will go ballistic.

(3) Trial in U.S. Military Court: Treat them as war criminals and try them in military court. If we are going to try them in this country, this is probably the best option and the one that would result in the quickest conclusion and the least amount of disruption. Doesn't matter what the third world thinks because they won't like the decision no matter what court renders it.

(4) No trial at all: Most likely outcome. Osama bin Laden and his top aides are all killed in action and become martyrs at last. Mullah Mohammed Omar is either killed by U.S. Forces or the N.A., or he is overthrown by less extreme elements in the Taliban that are trying to survive.

The Bush administration will select from the bottom up. If that other candidate were in the White House, he might select from the top down. But he's not in the White House. We have the guy who has repeated 79 times now that we are going to "bring the evildoers to justice." All things considered, I think I'll just go with the guy since he's in charge right now and he's all we've got--at least for the next three years. And the last time we had a brainy guy in the White House, he couldn't get our hostages out of Iran and had no clue about how to handle Ayatollah Khomeini. All he could think of was screwing up the Olympics.

Ninong

[wgscott]

The New Statesman, 15 October, 2001
*
A war in the American tradition
The ultimate goal of the attacks on Afghanistan is not the capture of a fanatic, but the acceleration of western power.
*
By John Pilger
*
*
The Anglo-American attack on Afghanistan crosses new boundaries. It means that America's economic wars are now backed by the perpetual threat of military attack on any country, without legal pretence. It is also the first to endanger populations at home. The ultimate goal is not the capture of a fanatic, which would be no more than a media circus, but the acceleration of western imperial power. That is a truth the modern imperialists and their fellow travellers will not spell out, and which the public in the west, now exposed to a full-scale jihad, has the right to know.
*
In his zeal, Tony Blair has come closer to an announcement of real intentions than any British leader since Anthony Eden. Not simply the handmaiden of Washington, Blair, in the Victorian verbosity of his extraordinary speech to the Labour Party conference, puts us on notice that imperialism's return journey to respectability is well under way. Hark, the Christian gentleman-bomber's vision of a better world for "the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of northern Africa to the slums of Gaza to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan". Hark, his unctuous concern for the "human rights of the suffering women of Afghanistan" as he colludes in bombing them and preventing food reaching their starving children.
*
Is all this a dark joke? Far from it; as Frank Furedi reminds us in the New Ideology of Imperialism, it is not long ago "that the moral claims of imperialism were seldom questioned in the west. Imperialism and the global expansion of the western powers were represented in unambiguously positive terms as a major contributor to human civilisation". The quest went wrong when it was clear that fascism, with all its ideas of racial and cultural superiority, was imperialism, too, and the word vanished from academic discourse. In the best Stalinist tradition, imperialism no longer existed.
*
Since the end of the cold war, a new opportunity has arisen. The economic and political crises in the developing world, largely the result of imperialism, such as the blood-letting in the Middle East and the destruction of commodity markets in Africa, now serve as retrospective justification for imperialism. Although the word remains unspeakable, the western intelligentsia, conservatives and liberals alike, today boldly echo Bush and Blair's preferred euphemism, "civilisation". Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the former liberal editor Harold Evans share a word whose true meaning relies on a comparison with those who are uncivilised, inferior and might challenge the "values"of the west, specifically its God-given right to control and plunder the uncivilised.
*
If there was any doubt that the World Trade Center attacks were the direct result of the ravages of imperialism, Osama Bin Laden, a mutant of imperialism, dispelled it in his videotaped diatribe about Palestine, Iraq and the end of America's inviolacy. Alas, he said nothing about hating modernity and miniskirts, the explanation of those intoxicated and neutered by the supercult of Americanism. An accounting of the sheer scale and continuity and consequences of American imperial violence is our elite's most enduring taboo. Contrary to myth, even the homicidal invasion of Vietnam was regarded by its tactical critics as a "noble cause" into which the United States "stumbled" and became "bogged down". Hollywood has long purged the truth of that atrocity, just as it has shaped, for many of us, the way we perceive contemporary history and the rest of humanity. And now that much of the news itself is Hollywood-inspired, amplified by amazing technology and with its internalised mission to minimise western culpability, it is hardly surprising that many today do not see the trail of blood.
*
How very appropriate that the bombing of Afghanistan is being conducted, in part, by the same B52 bombers that destroyed much of Indochina 30 years ago. In Cambodia alone, 600,000 people died beneath American bombs, providing the catalyst for the rise of Pol Pot, as CIA files make clear. Once again, newsreaders refer to Diego Garcia without explanation. It is where the B52s refuel. Thirty-five years ago, in high secrecy and in defiance of the United Nations, the British government of Harold Wilson expelled the entire population of the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean in order to hand it to the Americans in perpetuity as a nuclear arms dump and a base from which its long-range bombers could police the Middle East. Until the islanders finally won a high court action last year, almost nothing about their imperial dispossession appeared in the British media.
*
How appropriate that John Negroponte is Bush's ambassador at the United Nations. This week, he delivered America's threat to the world that it may "require" to attack more and more countries. As US ambassador to Honduras in the early 1980s, Negroponte oversaw American funding of the regime's death squads, known as Battalion 316, that wiped out the democratic opposition, while the CIA ran its "contra" war of terror against neighbouring Nicaragua. Murdering teachers and slitting the throats of midwives were a speciality. This was typical of the terrorism that Latin America has long suffered, with its principal torturers and tyrants trained and financed by the great warrior against "global terrorism", which probably harbours more terrorists and assassins in Florida than any country on earth.
*
The unread news today is that the "war against terrorism" is being exploited in order to achieve objectives that consolidate American power. These include: the bribing and subjugation of corrupt and vulnerable governments in former Soviet central Asia, crucial for American expansion in the region and exploitation of the last untapped reserves of oil and gas in the world; Nato's occupation of Macedonia, marking a final stage in its colonial odyssey in the Balkans; the expansion of the American arms industry; and the speeding up of trade liberalisation.
*
What did Blair mean when, in Brighton, he offered the poor "access to our markets so that we practise the free trade that we are so fond of preaching"? He was feigning empathy for most of humanity's sense of grievance and anger: of "feeling left out". So, as the bombs fall, "more inclusion", as the World Trade Organisation puts it, is being offered the poor - that is, more privatisation, more structural adjustment, more theft of resources and markets, more destruction of tariffs. On Monday, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Patricia Hewitt, called a meeting of the voluntary aid agencies to tell them that, "since 11 September, the case is now overwhelming" for the poor to be given "more trade liberation". She might have used the example of those impoverished countries where her cabinet colleague Clare Short's ironically named Department for International Development backs rapacious privatisation campaigns on behalf of British multinational companies, such as those vying to make a killing in a resource as precious as water.
*
Bush and Blair claim to have "world opinion with us". No, they have elites with them, each with their own agenda: such as Vladimir Putin's crushing of Chechnya, now permissible, and China's rounding up of its dissidents, now permissible. Moreover, with every bomb that falls on Afghanistan and perhaps Iraq to come, Islamic and Arab militancy will grow and draw the battle lines of "a clash of civilisations" that fanatics on both sides have long wanted. In societies represented to us only in caricature, the west's double standards are now understood so clearly that they overwhelm, tragically, the solidarity that ordinary people everywhere felt with the victims of 11 September.
*
That, and his contribution to the re-emergence of xeno-racism in Britain, is the messianic Blair's singular achievement. His effete, bellicose certainties represent a political and media elite that has never known war. The public, in contrast, has given him no mandate to kill innocent people, such as those Afghans who risked their lives to clear landmines, killed in their beds by American bombs. These acts of murder place Bush and Blair on the same level as those who arranged and incited the twin towers murders. Perhaps never has a prime minister been so out of step with the public mood, which is uneasy, worried and measured about what should be done. Gallup finds that 82 per cent say "military action should only be taken after the identity of the perpetrators was clearly established, even if this process took several months to accomplish".
*
Among those elite members paid and trusted to speak out, there is a lot of silence. Where are those in parliament who once made their names speaking out, and now shame themselves by saying nothing? Where are the voices of protest from "civil society", especially those who run the increasingly corporatised aid agencies and take the government's handouts and often its line, then declare their "non-political" status when their outspokenness on behalf of the impoverished and bombed might save lives? The tireless Chris Buckley of Christian Aid, and a few others, are honourably excepted. Where are those proponents of academic freedom and political independence, surely one of the jewels of western "civilisation"? Years of promoting the jargon of "liberal realism" and misrepresenting imperialism as crisis management, rather than the cause of the crisis, have taken their toll. Speaking up for international law and the proper pursuit of justice, even diplomacy, and against our terrorism might not be good for one's career. Or as Voltaire put it: "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." That does not change the fact that it is right.

[Ninong]

Well, at least Pilger makes his view of the world order crystal clear so that we can view his claims with the skepticism they so richly deserve. According to Pilger, America is responsible for millions of deaths in East Timor and the Congo, in addition to the usual charges of responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and thousands of deaths in Palestine. He also claims (9/28/01) that we were responsible for "causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths" in the Gulf War during our bombing of Kuwait and Iraq. He is very clear in that last statement that he is referring only to civilian casualties resulting from misdirected "surgical strikes" that hit civilians instead of the intended military targets. Here I go being naive again, but I find it hard to believe that there were actually tens of thousands of civilian deaths as a result of collateral damage.

He goes on (10/4/01) to accuse us of "murder" for attacking Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait during what he calls "the slaughter known as the Gulf war." The term murder is not usually associated with attacking enemy troops unless they are attempting to surrender at the time. And the "slaughter known as the Gulf war" was caused by Saddam Hussein.

According to Pilger the "World Trade Center attacks were the direct result of the ravages of imperialism." Sure, and poverty causes crime, ergo all people who are poor are to be forgiven if they happen to shoot the clerk behind the counter at the local 7-11 while addressing their asymmetrical economic status.

Speaking of the four Afghan U.N. mine clearing workers who died when one of our bombs hit their barracks, which was located next to another target, Pilger says: "These acts of murder place Bush and Blair on the same level as those who arranged and incited the twin towers murders." Let's dissect that charge very carefully. According to Pilger, it is an act of murder if civilians are accidentally killed during warfare, even if it was unintentional. But his most ridiculous claim is that the unintentional deaths of these four men places "Bush and Blair on the same level as those who arranged and incited the twin towers murders" of thousands of innocent civilians who were the actual intended targets of their deranged attackers.

It is obvious that Pilger is not a fan of globalization, internationalism, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, NATO, privatization, structural adjustment, free trade, the elimination of tariffs, and the list goes on, only he spells them with an "s" instead of a "z." So I guess he's either a strong union man or a socialist, or both. I always thought all the peaceniks would be in favor of globalization and the new world order since that would move the world in the direction of one-world government, which many think is the only chance of lasting world peace.

I don't believe that "the attacks on Afghanistan" represent "a war in the American tradition" as Pilger puts it nor a pre-planned campaign of military aggression to boost the sagging U.S. economy as you put it in a previous post. I believe it represents a legitimate response to acts of war perpetrated against the United States by Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and other terrorists organizations that are supported by the Taliban, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and other states that sponsor terrorism. And as for the motivations of the attackers, we need look no further than the published words of Osama bin Laden himself. His main grievance is the way the British and the French carved up Arabia in 1921 and the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924--by Ataturk, a Muslim, BTW. And Osama bin Laden is a religious zealot more than anything else. His religious views were intensified during the years his older brother Mohammed was in charge of the restoration and expansion of the two holy mosques in Saudi Arabia, one of the multi-billion dollar projects that made his family fabulously wealthy. It is understandable that most of his 50+ syblings are extremely nervous that he is trying to bring down the royal family that is the source of their wealth. I wonder if his four wives, two ex-wives, and 42 children are concerned that his terrorist activities might have an impact on their future welfare.

In his latest video release bin Laden described the attacks as "the sword that fell upon America after 80 years." Obviously a reference to what happened in 1921. I don't see how he can blame us for that one. After all, Wilson was completely ineffective in the negotiations following World War I and finally let the British and French have their way in just about everything. If he's unhappy with the "royal families" that were annointed by the British and the French to rule Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, he should blow up the Eiffel tower or Big Ben. It is bin Laden's extreme religious intolerance combined with his hatred of the Saudi royal family that led him to rail against the "evil" U.S. troops that were invited into Saudi Arabia in 1990 by the royal family to protect their kingdom against the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The sanctions against Iraq were just added to the list to increase audience participation (he can't stand Saddam Hussein personally) and it is only recently that he began mentioning Palestinians.

Ninong

[wgscott]

Originally posted by Ninong
Well, at least Pilger makes his view of the world order crystal clear so that we can view his claims with the skepticism they so richly deserve. According to Pilger, America is responsible for millions of deaths in East Timor and the Congo, in addition to the usual charges of responsibility for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq and thousands of deaths in Palestine.

I believe the number of people killed in East Timor was 250,000, a direct result of the Indonesian invasion that was authorized by Ford and Kissinger, who flew into Jakarta for the purpose of doing so. The finances and the weapons were provided to the Indonesians to carry out their mass-extermination campaign. This after the CIA had provided hit lists to the Indonesians that allowed them, with generous US financing, to exterminate approximately 500,000 of their own suspected leftists, labor leaders, etc. Pilger also holds Britain (where he lives) and Australia (where he is from) responsible.

[bold]
He also claims (9/28/01) that we were responsible for "causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths" in the Gulf War during our bombing of Kuwait and Iraq. He is very clear in that last statement that he is referring only to civilian casualties resulting from misdirected "surgical strikes" that hit civilians instead of the intended military targets. Here I go being naive again, but I find it hard to believe that there were actually tens of thousands of civilian deaths as a result of collateral damage.

[/bold]

The number of civilians killed in the US attack on Iraq is on the order of 100,000, according to most credible sources. According to the Pentagon, approximately 7% of the bombs totalling nine times the explosive power of all of the bombs dropped in World War II were so-called "smart" weapons. The city of Basra, for example, was carped-bombed in the usual manner with the B-52s based in Diego Garcia.

[bold]

He goes on (10/4/01) to accuse us of "murder" for attacking Iraqi troops fleeing Kuwait during what he calls "the slaughter known as the Gulf war." The term murder is not usually associated with attacking enemy troops unless they are attempting to surrender at the time. And the "slaughter known as the Gulf war" was caused by Saddam Hussein.

[/bold]

The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq was caused by Saddam Hussain (and possibly April Galaspie). If you napalm and cluster-bomb retreating armies and civilians indescriminently and do not give them the chance to surrender, it is murder by any international standard you might want to choose.

[bold]
According to Pilger the "World Trade Center attacks were the direct result of the ravages of imperialism." Sure, and poverty causes crime, ergo all people who are poor are to be forgiven if they happen to shoot the clerk behind the counter at the local 7-11 while addressing their asymmetrical economic status.

[/bold]

Although I am not in agreement with him on this one, I think the point that needs to be recognized here is that not all resistance to US domination (imperialism is a stupid word for it) is going to take a pleasant, touchy-feely heartwarmingly liberal form like that manifested by the Zapatistas in Mexico. Rather, it plays into the hands of some of the ugliest forces on the planet. We saw that before with the NAZI rise to power. It does not logically follow that we caused fascism, but rather that we helped create fertile conditions for fascists to come to power. Similarly, we have created fertile conditions in the Middle East for people like bin Laden to recruit people for his terrible crimes. To understand how something like this comes about is not to explain it away or to forgive it. Understanding does not equal apologetics, but it is the first step toward ensuring that it doesn't happen again.

[bold]
Speaking of the four Afghan U.N. mine clearing workers who died when one of our bombs hit their barracks, which was located next to another target, Pilger says: "These acts of murder place Bush and Blair on the same level as those who arranged and incited the twin towers murders." Let's dissect that charge very carefully. According to Pilger, it is an act of murder if civilians are accidentally killed during warfare, even if it was unintentional. But his most ridiculous claim is that the unintentional deaths of these four men places "Bush and Blair on the same level as those who arranged and incited the twin towers murders" of thousands of innocent civilians who were the actual intended targets of their deranged attackers.

[/bold]

You won't get disagreement from me on this one, but again I think what he is trying to say is that if you bomb in violation of international law, which is what we are doing, those killed have been killed illegally. It does lower us to the standards of being killers, though not the standards of those who arranged and incited the Sept. 11th crime. I think he is wrong to say that. But to the extent that he is correct, it is a victory for the terrorists.

That is why I said before the best way to counter terrorism is through legal channels, rather than stooping to illegal means just to make the population at home feel better. I also think these feel-good bombings will do little to hamper the terrorists, and a lot to incite more of them.

[bold]
It is obvious that Pilger is not a fan of globalization, internationalism, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, NATO, privatization, structural adjustment, free trade, the elimination of tariffs, and the list goes on, only he spells them with an "s" instead of a "z." So I guess he's either a strong union man or a socialist, or both.

[/bold]

Clearly he is incapable of providing the sensible balanced coverage that we come to expect on PBS.

[bold]
I always thought all the peaceniks would be in favor of globalization and the new world order since that would move the world in the direction of one-world government, which many think is the only chance of lasting world peace.

[/bold]
Been reading those little black helicopter web pages again?

[bold]
I don't believe that "the attacks on Afghanistan" represent "a war in the American tradition" as Pilger puts it nor a pre-planned campaign of military aggression to boost the sagging U.S. economy as you put it in a previous post.

[/bold]

The attack was pre-planned as reported on the front page of the Guardian (London/Manchester) on Saturday Sept. 22, 2001.

The SV database folks and chipmakers are already drooling over the profits to be made with the new identity card system and readers. The military industries are already salivating over the new military hardware sales.

I wouldn't go so far as to say they caused this or even allowed it to happen, but they sure are taking quick advantage of something that came along at a VERY convenient time.

[bold] I believe it represents a legitimate response to acts of war perpetrated against the United States by Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida, and other terrorists organizations

[/bold]

If indeed that is what happened, though they have hardly provided compelling proof. Still, "legitimate" implies legal, and by the standards of the UN, this is legal only if it is immediate self-defense against an attacking country. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. We may have been attacked by the minions of someone who resided (I am using the past tense deliberately here) in Afghanistan.

[bold]
Iraq, Iran, Syria, and other states that sponsor terrorism.

[/bold]

Like Israel?

[bold]
And as for the motivations of the attackers, we need look no further than the published words of Osama bin Laden himself. His main grievance is the way the British and the French carved up Arabia in 1921 and the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924--by Ataturk, a Muslim, BTW. And Osama bin Laden is a religious zealot more than anything else. His religious views were intensified during the years his older brother Mohammed was in charge of the restoration and expansion of the two holy mosques in Saudi Arabia, one of the multi-billion dollar projects that made his family fabulously wealthy. It is understandable that most of his 50+ syblings are extremely nervous that he is trying to bring down the royal family that is the source of their wealth. I wonder if his four wives, two ex-wives, and 42 children are concerned that his terrorist activities might have an impact on their future welfare.

In his latest video release bin Laden described the attacks as "the sword that fell upon America after 80 years." Obviously a reference to what happened in 1921. I don't see how he can blame us for that one. After all, Wilson was completely ineffective in the negotiations following World War I and finally let the British and French have their way in just about everything. If he's unhappy with the "royal families" that were annointed by the British and the French to rule Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, he should blow up the Eiffel tower or Big Ben. It is bin Laden's extreme religious intolerance combined with his hatred of the Saudi royal family that led him to rail against the "evil" U.S. troops that were invited into Saudi Arabia in 1990 by the royal family to protect their kingdom against the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. The sanctions against Iraq were just added to the list to increase audience participation (he can't stand Saddam Hussein personally) and it is only recently that he began mentioning Palestinians.

Ninong [/b]

Actually, his main points in the 1997 Interview with Robert Fisk that I posted on reefs.org (things weren't working here then) that you replied to (and therefore I presume read) were

1. The Israeli occupation and the Palastinians
2. US troops in Saudi Arabia
3. The US sanctions on Iraq.

I think we can safely assume he also hates Israel ipso facto, but the fact of the matter is that this attack, for the first time, was taken home to the policy-makers, rather than on Israel, which would have been the typical cowardly response up till now. Like it or not, most of the world sees these three things as legitimate grievances.

If we (a) continue to support the Israeli occupation, settlements and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank and Gaza, (b) a murderous policy of sanctions on Iraq, and (c) US/UK installed and/or maintained client regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and yes, Syria and Iraq, then I think we have not seen the last of this, even if we successfully exterminate bin Laden and his followers.

Now, if we are serious about reducing the probability of future massacres like the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, then we should probably start by taking a very careful look at the morality of our foreign policy in the Middle East. I disagree with Schrocat that we should just pull out altogether, because this (a) would abandon Israel after we have set it up as a target, and (b) would prove to the terrorists that terror works. But I think some revisions of a fundamental nature are in order.

[Ninong]

Originally posted by wgscott:

You won't get disagreement from me on this one, but again I think what he is trying to say is that if you bomb in violation of international law, which is what we are doing, those killed have been killed illegally. It does lower us to the standards of being killers, though not the standards of those who arranged and incited the Sept. 11th crime. I think he is wrong to say that. But to the extent that he is correct, it is a victory for the terrorists.

On Sept. 12, 2001, the U. N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1368, defining the attacks on New York and the Pentagon as acts of war and allowing the U.S. to respond appropriately.

"In U.N. history, this is the most sweeping declaration of support for the right to self-defense for a member state," said David Malone, head of the International Peace Academy, a New York-based think tank.


Been reading those little black helicopter web pages again?

Nope. That argument has been floating for about 2,400 years now--that it is a choice between world government and peace or world anarchy and war. It's just been updated lately by the people who favor a stronger U.N. The Romans saw it as their moral obligation to humanity to rule the world to secure the peace. Then, after they became Holy Romans (Christians), they added the need for enforced spiritual unity to political unity.

Would true one-world government secure peace? Yes. Is it going to happen anytime soon? No. In fact, I can't see it happening anytime in the next 250 years. The problems involved in combining such vastly disparate economic classes, religions, cultural differences, languages, etc., under a single world government are too great to be solved anytime in the forseeable future. The first barrier to fall will probably be language... sometime within the next hundred years or so. But I don't see much hope for overcoming the other barriers unless there is a cataclysmic intervening event, such as a nuclear World War III, that enables the surviving major power to enforce its will on the rest of the world.

In my mind, saying that one-world government would work is about as true as saying that pure communism is the ideal form of government. Both may look good on paper but that's about as far as it gets--unless you're a Trappist monk who has taken vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and especially silence. Catholic religious orders are the purest form of communism, but even they only work well if everyone is another Mother Teresa.

Human nature being what it is, people will form social groups--families, tribes, villages, cities, states, nations. And these social groups will be in conflict with each other for a number of reasons: perceived inequities in resources, cultural differences, differences in religious belief systems, differences in population pressures, differences in political systems, etc. War is a natural state of affairs at this particular point in the evolution of Homo sapiens and peace is just a temporary interlude between wars. It would be nice to believe otherwise, but to do so requires that we attribute a higher level of moral development to our species than the historical record will sustain.

Actually, his main points in the 1997 Interview with Robert Fisk that I posted on reefs.org (things weren't working here then) that you replied to (and therefore I presume read) were

1. The Israeli occupation and the Palastinians
2. US troops in Saudi Arabia
3. The US sanctions on Iraq.

Yes, but my point is that his original grievance predates U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia or the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and he has only started mentioning the poor Palestinians in the past few years. "Osama bin Laden made his explosions and then started talking about the Palestinians. He never talked about them before."--Hosni Mubarak, Oct. 2001.

His true vision is the reestablishment of the Caliphate with himself as Caliph. This theme, which obviously includes his anger at the restructuring that followed the fall of the Ottoman Empire, was his battle cry twenty years ago. U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia just gave him something tangible to focus the hatred of his extremist followers on. Besides, he wouldn't mind it if the Saudi royal family were overthrown and he was "drafted" to be "emir" of the new Islamic Emirate of Arabia.

Israel and the Palestinians have to work things out between themselves and I am beginning to think that neither side is willing to do that in my lifetime. Barak offered Arafat about 95% of what he wanted and he rejected it.

We have already discussed the U.N. sanctions on Iraq and the fact that they have not worked. IMO they have not worked because Iraq is a totalitarian regime ruled by a megalomaniac who couldn't care less about the welfare of his own people. I don't see how we can completely lift all of the sanctions without Iraq agreeing to inspections.


Ninong

[wgscott]

I'll have to reply in detail later (sorry!), but I thought the following was apropos to the discussion:

Say What You Want, But This War is Illegal by Michael Mandel Published on Tuesday, October 9, 2001 in the Toronto Globe & MailÊA well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the express words of the United Nations Charter. ÊDespite repeated reference to the right of self-defense under Article 51, the Charter simply does not apply here. Article 51 gives a state the right to repel an attack that is ongoing or imminent as a temporary measure until the UN Security Council can take steps necessary for international peace and security. The Security Council has already passed two resolutions condemning the Sept. 11 attacks and announcing a host of measures aimed at combating terrorism. These include measures for the legal suppression of terrorism and its financing, and for co-operation between states in security, intelligence, criminal investigations and proceedings relating to terrorism. The Security Council has set up a committee to monitor progress on the measures in the resolution and has given all states 90 days to report back to it. Neither resolution can remotely be said to authorize the use of military force. True, both, in their preambles, abstractly "affirm" the inherent right of self-defense, but they do so "in accordance with the Charter." They do not say military action against Afghanistan would be within the right of self-defense Nor could they. That's because the right of unilateral self-defense does not include the right to retaliate once an attack has stopped. The right of self-defense in international law is like the right of self-defense in our own law: It allows you to defend yourself when the law is not around, but it does not allow you to take the law into your own hands. ÊSince the United States and Britain have undertaken this attack without the explicit authorization of the Security Council, those who die from it will be victims of a crime against humanity, just like the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. Even the Security Council is only permitted to authorize the use of force where "necessary to maintain and restore international peace and security." Now it must be clear to everyone that the military attack on Afghanistan has nothing to do with preventing terrorism. This attack will be far more likely to provoke terrorism. Even the Bush administration concedes that the real war against terrorism is long term, a combination of improved security, intelligence and a rethinking of U.S. foreign alliances. Critics of the Bush approach have argued that any effective fight against terrorism would have to involve a re-evaluation of the way Washington conducts its affairs in the world. For example, the way it has promoted violence for short-term gain, as in Afghanistan when it supported the Taliban a decade ago, in Iraq when it supported Saddam Hussein against Iran, and Iran before that when it supported the Shah. ÊThe attack on Afghanistan is about vengeance and about showing how tough the Americans are. It is being done on the backs of people who have far less control over their government than even the poor souls who died on Sept. 11. It will inevitably result in many deaths of civilians, both from the bombing and from the disruption of aid in a country where millions are already at risk. The 37,000 rations dropped on Sunday were pure PR, and so are the claims of "surgical" strikes and the denials of civilian casualties. We've seen them before, in Kosovo for example, followed by lame excuses for the "accidents" that killed innocents. ÊFor all that has been said about how things have changed since Sept. 11, one thing that has not changed is U.S. disregard for international law. Its decade-long bombing campaign against Iraq and its 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia were both illegal. The U.S. does not even recognize the jurisdiction of the World Court. It withdrew from it in 1986 when the court condemned Washington for attacking Nicaragua, mining its harbors and funding the contras. In that case, the court rejected U.S. claims that it was acting under Article 51 in defense of Nicaragua's neighbors. For its part, Canada cannot duck complicity in this lawlessness by relying on the "solidarity" clause of the NATO treaty, because that clause is made expressly subordinate to the UN Charter. ÊBut, you might ask, does legality matter in a case like this? You bet it does. Without the law, there is no limit to international violence but the power, ruthlessness and cunning of the perpetrators. Without the international legality of the UN system, the people of the world are sidelined in matters of our most vital interests. We are all at risk from what happens next. We must insist that Washington make the case for the necessity, rationality and proportionality of this attack in the light of day before the real international community. The bombing of Afghanistan is the legal and moral equivalent of what was done to the Americans on Sept. 11. We may come to remember that day, not for its human tragedy, but for the beginning of a headlong plunge into a violent, lawless world.ÊMichael Mandel, professor of law at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, specializes in international criminal law.

[wgscott]

Since the UN sanctions were placed on Iraq to get them to withdraw from Kuwait, it is hard to say that they haven't worked, since Iraq withdrew from Kuwait in March of 1991. The US has subsequently justified keeping them in place for other reasons that are debatable (and that we have debated before).

But if we look at what the sanctions have done, I think we can all agree on the fact that:
1. They have killed half a million innocent people (whether the US is responsible for 100%, 50% or 2% we could debate forever).
2. They have not helped to remove Saddam Hussain.
3. they have helped him in fact consolidate power
4. They have not limited his development of weapons, some of which may now have been used on us (i.e., anthrax).
So I think it is fairly clear to say that either the sanctions policy is irrational or it is designed to do the following above four things. I don't believe the policy is irrational. The US need Hussain (or a Ba'ath party Saddam-clone) in power for the same reason they need Assad in power, the Egyptian government in power, the Saudi Government in power, the Algerian government in power, and why they originally supported the Shah of Iran until the bitter end. Saddam Hussain is useful to us because he will keep the Muslim fundamentalists out of power. His presence is integral to the US-backed balance of terror in the middle east.

[Ninong]

Originally posted by wgscott:

Say What You Want, But This War is Illegal by Michael Mandel Published on Tuesday, October 9, 2001 in the Toronto Globe & Mail. A well-kept secret about the U.S.-U.K. attack on Afghanistan is that it is clearly illegal. It violates international law and the express words of the United Nations Charter.

Is he related to Howie Mandel? Both are Canadians and both are funny.

Under the U.N. Charter, a nation may not use force against another member state unless either it is acting in its self-defense or the action has received the authorization of the U.N. Security Council. I believe that we are acting in self-defense and that Security Council Resolution 1368 is the required authorization.

But the question is: Does the President have a constitutional duty to obey international law?

When we attacked Serbia it was a NATO sanctioned action--we control NATO--but it was not authorized by the U.N. Security Council. So we were in violation of international law.

To quote John C. Yoo, Professor of Law,
University of California at Berkeley School of Law:

"Kosovo demonstrates that international law imposed little restraint upon presidential action, and that federal courts were not about to enforce treaty obligations so as to restrict the Commander-in-Chief power. What was striking in the American public debate over Kosovo was the almost complete absence of any arguments, especially from international law scholars, that the war’s apparent violation of international law should pose any domestic legal difficulties for President Clinton. Kosovo demonstrates why these theories about the domestic effects of international law are flawed. The constitutional text nowhere brackets presidential or federal power within the confines of international law. When the Supremacy Clause discusses the sources of federal law, it only enumerates the Constitution, 'the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof,' and treaties, not international law. If the inclusion of treaties in the Supremacy Clause does not render treaties automatically self-executing in federal court, not to mention self-executing against the executive branch, then certainly non-treaty international law cannot bind the President as a constitutional matter."

"Practice during the Kosovo war indicates, contrary to the claims of many international law scholars, that the President gains little additional constitutional authority when acting pursuant to treaty, but that he remains free to violate international law in the national interest."

"Putting aside whether the Constitution requires the President to enforce international law, it is not clear that obeying international law is always in the best interests of the nation or of the larger cause of world peace. Relying upon international law and treaty obligations to block presidential warmaking could undermine the President’s control over foreign relations, his Commander-in-Chief authority, and even his freedom to participate in the making of new, progressive international norms. At the level of democratic theory, conceiving of international law as a restraint on presidential warmaking would allow norms of questionable democratic origin to constrain actions validly taken under the U.S. Constitution by popularly accountable national representatives. International law might prevent the United States from using methods that further its security interests, which, as was made clear in Kosovo, also serve broader international goals of peace and stability."

"Achieving the progressive goals of international law – ending human rights violations, restoring stability and peace based on democratic self-determination – often requires powerful nations to violate international law norms about national sovereignty and the use of force. This seems to be not just one of the lessons of the American victory in the Cold War, but of our continuing post-Cold War military interventions. On the one hand, NATO action in Kosovo violated the U.N. Charter and, hence, international law. On the other hand, NATO acted to vindicate international human rights, a cause that has become international legal scholars’ bete noire. In its early interventions, the Clinton administration sought to escape this paradox by acting through the United Nations, as in Somalia and Haiti. Kosovo, however, provided little recourse to international law because the U.N. Security Council failed to act and it was difficult, with a straight face, to claim that the use of force was necessary for our self-defense. If the United States is to play the role of world policeman, it may increasingly be the case that American efforts to promote world order and stability will come into conflict with international law norms. These norms, however, might not exist in any meaningful sense unless international peace is guaranteed first, and that might only come about through American political and military leadership."

"Wars that promote goals long sought by international lawyers, such as the advancement of universal human rights, do not provoke such criticism. Supporters of international law have failed, however, to apply these principles in a uniform manner. International law has not required intervention in many other situations, most notably the Russian offensive in Chechnya or the Chinese suppression of domestic political dissent, not to mention the wholesale violation of human rights by communist nations before and during the Cold War. This suggests either that enforcement of human rights depends upon power relationships, or that international law has yet to fully embrace a norm of humanitarian intervention. Indeed, international law scholars have shied away from clearly declaring that nations may use force to stop human rights abuses that wholly occur within other sovereign nations. Rather than articulate a doctrine that contradicts the basic principles of the U.N. Charter and much of Western history since the Peace of Westphalia, international legal scholars in Kosovo chose the course of silence. If international law is so contingent on our normative agreement with the results of international politics, however, it should impose no constraint on American actions to maintain world order."

"When international legal analysis becomes so results-driven, it undermines the very nature of international law as law. Arguing that constitutional and international legal rules prohibit wars only when they pursue undesired political goals only reinforces the notion that these rules represent nothing more than moral or political preferences. Further, it undermines the idea of a universal law that applies equally to every nation and human being. When scholars replace rules that are the product of decades, if not centuries, of state practice with vague notions of 'justice' and 'fairness,' international law becomes subject to the competing interpretations of those terms by different cultures and value systems. Intervening in Kosovo to defend international human rights, at the cost of state sovereignty, may represent 'justice' to our Western sensibilities. But it certainly does not achieve 'justice' in the minds of the Russians and Chinese, at least not yet."

"Basing international law on justice or fairness, rather than the U.N. Charter system or the practice of states, provides no basis for concluding that Western concepts of justice should govern in international law, and Russian or Asian or Islamic understandings should not. Instead, overriding territorial sovereignty and non-intervention principles only opens up international law to multiple, conflicting interpretations, precisely because they are rooted in fundamental differences in culture, even religion. By failing to be consistent on Kosovo, international law undermines its own goal, the rule of law in world affairs. If this is the modern state of international law today, international law certainly is not a body of principles that ought to constrain the decisions of American leaders in their decision to use force abroad."