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The war that Bin Laden is winning
(Saad al-Fagih, The Guardian, May 13, 2003)
If the decision to pull US forces out of Saudi Arabia had been announced before the war on Iraq, it would have been seen, correctly, as a major victory for Osama bin Laden and his supporters. Al-Qaida began its campaign with the demand for a withdrawal of American troops from the country. Timing the announcement for the aftermath of the war has been clearly calculated to minimise that perception. . . . the majority would concede that invading and occupying Iraq has made the presence of a few thousand troops in the kingdom a less significant issue. It is also clear that this will not be a real departure. Although troops in uniform will leave, the overall establishment - including bases and non-uniformed personnel - is to stay. . . . Nor is the decision to withdraw likely to reduce Muslim hostility towards America. Many Muslims regard US actions since the September events as far more oppressive to them than the presence of their forces in Arabia. The invasion and occupation of Iraq will never be seen as a liberation. The sight of US tanks in Baghdad has been regarded as the most humiliating event for Arabs and Muslims since 1967. Baghdad, the capital of the Islamic Caliphate for 600 years, occupies a central place in the Muslim memory and means more even than Riyadh or Cairo. . . . The US invasion of Iraq has been a gift to Bin Laden. He had argued that Muslim countries are the main target - and Iraq was attacked, not North Korea. Bin Laden argued that the US was bent on occupation, not simply intimidation - and that has proved to be the case. He argued that most Arab leaders, and especially the Saudis, would side with the US against their fellow Arabs - as it has turned out. He argued that Ba'athism and Arab nationalism do not work and that only Islam and jihad can deliver for the Muslims and Arabs. The collapse of the Saddam regime has strengthened that argument. . . . US ruthlessness in killing civilians, destroying infrastructure and the encouragement it gave to the destruction of valuable heritage and public records has also bolstered the al-Qaida message. The same goes for US public support for the invasion of Iraq, because Bin Laden has said his problem is with all Americans, not only the government.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 6:17 PM

 

Minister resigns and makes a withering attack on Tony Blair's "presidential" style
Ms Short resigned as Secretary of State for International Development on the ground that the Prime Minister had broken his promises to her by backing US proposals to give the United Nations "only a minor role" in post-war Iraq. . . . And she widened her criticism into a personal attack on Mr Blair when she made an 11-minute resignation statement in the Commons. She bluntly warned the Prime Minister he was "in danger of destroying his legacy as he becomes increasingly obsessed by his place in history". . . . "In the second term, the problem is centralisation of power into the hands of the Prime Minister and an increasingly small number of advisers who make decisions in private without proper discussion," she said. . . . Blairites were worried that her scathing criticism would reignite the debate over his leadership style and public-sector reforms at a difficult time. Mr Blair has suffered a series of backbench revolts over Iraq, foundation hospitals and the fire dispute in recent weeks, and his Cabinet is openly split over the euro. As the mood at Westminster becomes more rebellious, Ms Short could form part of an influential group of critical former cabinet ministers including Mr Cook, Chris Smith and Frank Dobson. . . . She disclosed that she had offered her resignation to the Prime Minister on a number of occasions during the run-up to the war Iraq but was persuaded to stay. In the Commons, Ms Short said she was ashamed Britain had backed a draft UN resolution on the running of Iraq which, she said, had been drawn up in "secrecy" and without consulting Whitehall departments including her own. . . . She said Britain and the US were trying to bully the Security Council into accepting a resolution giving the Allies the power to establish an Iraqi government and control the use of oil for reconstruction. "The only body that has the legal authority to do this is the UN Security Council," she said. . . . Michael Howard, the shadow Chancellor, said the manner of Ms Short's departure showed the Government was "split from top to bottom" over issues including Iraq, foundation hospitals and the euro.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 4:15 PM

 

Is The Bush Administration Behind a National Strike Being Planned for Iran?
Friends tell me that representatives of the White House have been quietly meeting with leaders of several large Iranian communities in the U.S. to encourage them to support a national strike in Iran, which is scheduled to begin on May 15th. According to our sources, Iranian-Americans are being encouraged to send money to their relatives in Iran with the proviso that they stay home from work during the strike. This information is not first-hand, and so must be taken as no more than a rumor . . . but it will be interesting to see what, if anything, develops along these lines.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 9:38 AM

 

Robert Fisk: An Anti-Colonial War Against The Americans May Have Already Begun
(Robert Fisk and Amy Goodman, ZNet, April 22, 2003)
I think that’s what’s going to happen with the Americans in Iraq. I think a war of liberation will begin quite soon, which of course will be first referred to as a war by terrorists, by al Qaeda, by remnants of Saddam’s regime, remnants (remember that word) but it will be waged particularly by Shiite Muslims against the Americans and the British to get us out of Iraq and that will happen. . . . We claim that we want to preserve the national heritage of the Iraqi people, and yet my own count of government buildings burning in Baghdad before I left was 158, of which the only buildings protected by the United States army and the marines were the Ministry of Interior, which has the intelligence corp of Iraq and the Ministry of Oil, and I needn’t say anything else about that. Every other ministry was burning. Even the Ministry of Higher Education/Computer Science was burning. And in some cases American marines were sitting on the wall next to the ministries watching them burn. . . . After the Koranic Library was set on fire I raced to the headquarters of the Third Marine Force Division in Baghdad and I said there is this massive Koranic Library on fire and I said what can you do? And under the Geneva Conventions the US Occupation Forces have a moral, whatever occupations forces there are, and they happen to be American, have a legal duty to protect documents and various embassies. There was a young officer who got on the radio and said “there was some kind of Biblical library on fire,” biblical for heavens sake, and I gave him a map of the exact locations, the collaterals on the locations to the marines and nobody went there, and all the Korans were burned, Korans going back to the 16th Century totally burned. . . . So, somebody has an interest in destroying the center of a new government and the cultural identity of Iraq. . . . But let’s go back to the hospitals. The Americans used cluster bombs in civilian areas, where they believed there were military targets. Near Hilla, I think the Iraqis probably did put military vehicles. That does not excuse the Americans; there are specific references and paragraphs in the Geneva Conventions to protect what are called ‘protected persons’, that is to say civilians, even if they are in the presence of enemy combatants. But I think the Iraqis did put military positions amongst civilians. . . . My feeling is that there will be a war – it may already have begun – against the Americans by the Iraqis. The Kurds will play a different role for all kinds of reasons, but the Sunnis and the Shiias may well find some unity in trying to get rid of their occupiers. . . . We now have American troops occupying the wealthiest Arab country in the world. And the shockwaves of that are going to continue for decades to come, long after you and I are in our graves, if that’s where we go. And I don’t think we have yet realized – I don’t think that the soldiers involved or the Presidents involved have yet realized the implications of what has happened. We have entered a new age of imperialism, the life of which we have not attempted to judge or assess or understand. . . . I’ve never seen such historical acts take place in the 27 years I’ve been in the Middle East. And the results cannot be good. I don’t believe we’ve gone to Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction. If we’d done that, we would have invaded North Korea. I don’t believe we’ve gone there because of human rights abuses because we connived at those abuses for many years when we supported Saddam. I think we’ve gone there for oil. And though we may get the oil, I think the price will be very high.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 9:54 PM

 

The US: Rogue Nation
(Richard DuBoff, Centre for Research on Glabalisation, 22 December 2001)
The following are a few of the 22 items listed in this report:
In December 2001, the United States officially withdrew from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, gutting the landmark agreement-the first time in the nuclear era that the US renounced a major arms control accord. . . . 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention ratified by 144 nations including the United States. In July 2001 the US walked out of a London conference to discuss a 1994 protocol designed to strengthen the Convention by providing for on-site inspections . . . UN Agreement to Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms, July 2001: the US was the only nation to oppose it. . . . Land Mine Treaty ... The United States refused to sign, along with Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Egypt, and Turkey. . . . Kyoto Protocol of 1997, for controlling global warming: declared "dead" by President Bush in March 2001. . . . Refused to join 123 nations pledged to ban the use and production of anti-personnel bombs and mines, February 2001 . . . September 2001: withdrew from International Conference on Racism, bringing together 163 countries in Durban, South Africa . . . Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty. Signed by 164 nations ... The US is one of 13 nonratifiers among countries that have nuclear weapons or nuclear power programs. . . . 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The only countries that have signed but not ratified are the US, Afghanistan, Sao Tome and Principe. . . . Is the status of "we're number one!" Rogue overcome by generous foreign aid to given less fortunate countries? The three best aid providers, measured by the foreign aid percentage of their gross domestic products, are Denmark (1.01%), Norway (0.91%), and the Netherlands (0.79), The three worst: USA (0.10%), UK (0.23%), Australia, Portugal, and Austria (all 0.26).

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 11:56 AM