The JvL
Bi-Weekly
James
van Luik
Publisher
& Editor
Monday,
June 30th, 2003
Volume
2, No. 12
5
Articles
1.
AS OF 061403 POLL SHOWS ERRORS IN BELIEFS ON IRAQ,
9/11
2.
THE FEDERALIST NUMBER 10, FINAL PART
1.
AS OF 061403 POLL SHOWS ERRORS IN BELIEFS ON IRAQ, 9/11
BY
FRANK
DAVIES
A third of the American public believes
US forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq according to a recent poll,
and 22 per cent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological
weapons.
But no such weapons have been found, nor is
there evidence they were used recently in Iraq.
Before the war, half of those polled in a
survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001. But most were
from Saudi Arabia. None were Iraqis.
How could so many people be so wrong about
information that has dominated the news for nearly two
years?
The poll results startled the pollsters who
conducted and analyzed the surveys.
"It’s a striking finding," said Steve Kull,
director of the Program on international Policy Attitudes at the University of
Maryland which asked which asked the weapons questions during a May 14-18 poll
of 1,265 respondents.
"Given the intensive news coverage and
high levels of public attention," he said, "this level of misinformation
suggests some Americans may be avoiding having an experience of cognitive
dissonance.
"That is, having their beliefs conflict
with the facts."
Kull noted that the mistaken belief that
WMDs had been found "is substantially greater among those who favored the
war."
Pollsters and political analysts see
several reasons for the gap between fact and belief: the public's short
attention span on foreign news, fragmentary or conflicting media reports that
lacked depth or skepticism, and Bush administration efforts to sell a war by
oversimplifying the threat.
"Most people get little whiffs and
fragments of news, not in any organized way," said Thomas Mann, a scholar at the
Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank. "And there have been a lot of
conflicting reports on the weapons."
Before the war, the US media often
reported as a fact the aerations by the Bush administration that Iraq possessed
large stockpiles of illegal weapons.
During and after the war, reports of
possible weapons discoveries were often trumpeted on front pages, while
follow-up stories debunking the reports received less
attention.
"There were so many reports and claims
before the war, it was easy to be confused," said Larry Hugick, Chairman of
Princeton Survey Research Associates. "But people expected the worst from Saddam
Hussein and made connections based on the administration's
policy."
Bush has described the preemptive attack
on Iraq as "one victory in the war on terror that began Sept. 11." Bush
officials also say Iraq sheltered and helped al-Qaeda
operatives.
"The public is susceptible to
manipulation and if they hear officials saying there is a strong connection
between Iraq and al-Qaeda terrorists, then they think there must be a
connection," Mann said.
"Tapping into the feelings and fears
after Sept. 11 is a way to sell a policy," he added.
Polls show strong support for bush and
the war, although 40 percent in the May survey found US officials were
"misleading" in some of their justifications for war. A majority, 55 percent,
said they were not misleading.
Several analysts said the murky claims
and intelligence data about lethal weapons and terrorist ties allowed most
people to see such news thorough the filter of their own political
beliefs.
And GOP pollsters said any controversy
over weapons wont change public attitudes, because ridding Iraq of an oppressive
regime was reason enough for war for many Americans.
"People supported the war for
national-security reasons, and that shifted to humanitarian reasons when they
saw evidence of Saddam's atrocities," Republican strategist Frank Luntz said.
"There's an assumption these weapons will be found because this guy was doing so
many bad things."
Several analysts said they were troubled
by the lack of knowledge about the Sept. 11 hijackers, shown in the January
survey conducted for Knight Ridder newspapers. Only 17 percent correctly said
that none of the Hijackers was Iraqi.
"That really bothers me, because it
shows a lack of understanding about other countries – that maybe many Americans
don't know one Arab from another," said Sam Popkin, a polling expert at the
University of California-San Diego who has advised Democratic candidates. "Maybe
because Saudis are seen as rich and friendly, people have a hard time dealing
with them as hijackers."
Hugick said his analysis showed those
who were misinformed were not necessarily those who had less
education.
"I think a lot of people are just
confused about the threats out there," he said.
2.
THE FEDERALIST NUMBER TEN
(Final Installment)
BY
JAMES
MADISON, 1787
In the first place, it is to be remarked
that, however small the republic may be, the representatives must be raised to a
certain number, in order to guard against the cabals of a few; and that, however
large it may be, they must be limited to a certain number, in order to guard
against the confusions of a multitude. Hence, the number of representatives in
the two cases not being in proportion to that of the two constituents, and being
proportionally greater in the small republic, it follows that, if the proportion
of fit characters be not less in the large than in the small republic, the
former will present a greater option, and consequently a greater probability of
a fit choice.
In the next place, as each
representative will be chosen by a greater number of citizens in the large than
in the small republic, it will be more difficult for unworthy candidates to
practice with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried;
and the suffrages of the people being more free, will be more likely to center
in men who possess the most attractive merit and the most diffusive and
established characters.
It must be confessed that in this, as in
most other cases, there is a mean on both sides of which inconveniences will be
found to lie. By enlarging too much the number of electors, you render the
representative too little acquainted with all their local circumstances and
lesser interests; as by reducing it too much you render him unduly attached to
these, and too little fit to comprehend and pursue great and national objects.
The federal Constitution forms a happy combination in this respect; the great
and aggregate interest being referred to the national, the local and particular
to the State legislatures.
The other point of difference is,
the greater number of citizens and extent of territory which may be brought
within the compass of republican than of democratic government; and it is this
circumstance principally which renders factious combinations less to be dreaded
in the former than in the latter. The smaller the society, the fewer probably
will be the distinct parties and interests composing it; the fewer the distinct
parties and interests, the more frequently will a majority be found of the same
party and the smaller the number of individuals composing a majority, and the
smaller the compass within which they are placed, the more easily will they
concert and execute their plans of oppression. Extend the sphere, and you take
in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probably that a
majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other
citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all
who feel it to discover their own strength and to act in unison with each other.
Besides other impediments, it may be remarked that, where there is a
consciousnesses of unjust or dishonorable purposes, communication is always
checked by distrust in proportion to the number whose concurrence is
necessary.
Hence, it clearly appears, that the same
advantage which a republic has over a democracy, in controlling the effects of
faction, is enjoyed by a large over a small republic—is enjoyed by the Union
over the States composing it. Does the advantage consist in the substitution of
representatives whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them
superior to local prejudices and to schemes of injustice. It will not be denied
that the representation of the Union will be most likely to possess these
requisite endowments. Does it consist in the greater security afforded by a
greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to
outnumber and oppress the rest? In an equal degree does the increased variety of
parties comprised within the Union, increase this security. Does it, in fine,
consist in the greater obstacles opposed to the concert and accomplishment of
the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority? Here, again, the extent
of the Union gives it the most palpable advantage.
The influence of factious leaders may
kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a
general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate
into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects
dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against
any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts,
for the equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project,
will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member
of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a
particular county or district, than an entire State.
In the extent and proper structure of
the Union, therefore, we behold a republican remedy for the diseases most
incident to republican government. And according to the degree of pleasure and
pride we feel in being republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the
spirit and supporting the character of Federalists.
Publius
3.
THE WAR ON FREEDOM
(How and Why America was Attacked September
11, 2001)
BY
NAFEEZ
MOSADDEQ AHMED
(I shall review through quoting extensively
from this extraordinary book, published 2002, to give readers a sense of what
has been achieved. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the Executive Director of the
Institute for Policy Research located in Brighton, UK.)
Let us begin with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
former National Security Advisor in the Carter Administration. In 1977 the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) produced a study, The Grand Chessboard:
American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. This study was authored by
Brzezinski. The CFR study goes into great detail about US interests in "Eurasia"
and the need for a "sustained and directed" US involvement in the Central Asian
region to secure these interests.
"Ever since the continents started
interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the
center of world power," he observes. Eurasia consists of all the territory east
of Germany and Poland, all the way through Russia and china to the Pacific
Ocean, including the Middle East and most of the India subcontinent. Brzezinski
notes that the key to controlling Eurasia lies in establishing control over the
republics of Central Asia.
"Now, America, a non-Eurasian power is
preeminent in Eurasia—and America's global primacy is directly dependent on how
long and how effectively its preponderance on the Eurasian content is
sustained…. About 75 per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and most of
the world's physical wealth is there as well, both in its enterprises and
underneath its soil. Eurasia accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP and
about three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.
"The three grand imperatives of imperial
geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the
vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians
from coming together…. Henceforth, the United States may have to determine how
to cope with regional coalitions that seek to push America out of Eurasia,
thereby threatening America's status a global power…."
The next point made by Brzezinski is
crucial:
"Moreover, as America becomes an
increasingly multi-cultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a
consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstances of a truly
massive and widely perceived direct external threat."
Long-standing US aims to establish
hegemony—the "decisive arbitration role" of "America's primacy"—over "Eurasia"
through control of Central Asia thus entailed the use of "sustained and directed
American involvement, " justified through the manufacture of a "truly massive
and widely perceived direct external threat." This should also be understood in
context with his earlier assertion that: "the attitude of the American Public
toward the external projection of American power has been much more ambivalent.
The public supported America's engagement in World War II largely because of the
shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
As September 2001 neared, multiple
authoritative intelligence warnings surfaced with increasing intensity, warning
of a terrorist attack against the US. According to Chief Investigative counsel
David Schippers, US sources had informed him as early as May that the
intelligence community had credible information f an imminent attack targeting
the "financial district of lower Manhattan," and that intelligence offices
throughout the country were frustrated by high-level blocks on investigations
and information. The FBI appears to have had specific information indicating
that the World Trade Centre was thus the most probably target. Against this
background, the multiple warnings of an impending attack by Osama bin Laden came
from a variety of credible authorities: For example these included Russian
President Vladimir Putin, a leading actor in the new international coalition
against terrorism and a close ally of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair,
informed interviewers from MS-NBC that the Russian government had warned the US
of imminent attacks on airports and government buildings in the strongest
possible terms for several weeks prior to the attacks. These warnings were quite
specific in that they indicted the hijacking of airplanes to be used against
civilian buildings. Russian intelligence had notified the US. Government of air
attacks against civilian buildings and told them that 25 pilots had been
specifically trained for the suicide missions. Similarly, French intelligence
had also warned their US counterparts of an impending attack in September. The
US also received an authoritative warning from the Egyptian President, a US ally
and close friend of the Bushes, which was based on the country's
intelligence.
Further indication of the extent of the
American intelligence community's forewarning, particularly in relation to the
specific timing of its planned execution, can be found from analysis of
financial transactions before 11th September. Only three trading days
before 11th September, shares of United Airlines—the company whose
planes were hijacked in the attacks on New York and Washington—were massively
"sold short" by as yet unknown investors.
This was done by buying dirt-cheap "put"
options, which give the owner a short-term right to sell specific shares at a
price well below the current market—a long-shot bet. When the stock prices
unexpectedly dropped even lower, in response to the terrorist attacks, the
options multiplied a hundredfold in value, making millions of dollars in profit.
These "short" options plays are a sure sign of investors with foreknowledge of
an event that would occur within a few days, and drastically reduce the market
price of those shares. The San Francisco Chronicle reported
that:
"Investors have yet to collect more than
$2.5 million in profits they made trading options in the stock of United
Airlines before the Sept. 11, terrorist attacks, according to a source familiar
with the trades and market data. The uncollected money raises suspicions that
the investors—whose identities and nationalities have not been made public—had
advance knowledge of the strikes.
"…October series options for UAL Corp.
were purchased in highly unusual volumes three trading days before the terrorist
attacks for a total outlay of $2,070; investors bought the option contracts,
each representing 100 shares, for 90 cents each [a price of less than one cent
per share, on a total of 230,000 options]. These options are now selling at more
than $12 each. There are still 2,313 so-called 'put' options outstanding
[representing 231,300 shares and a profit of $2.77 million] according to the
Options Clearinghouse Corp.
"…The source familiar with the United
trades identified Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown, the American investment banking arm
of German giant Deutsche Bank, as the investment bank used to purchase at least
some of these options…"
But the United Airlines case was not the
only dubious financial transaction indicating, in the Chronicle's words,
"advanced knowledge of the strikes." The Israeli Herzliyya International Policy
Institute for Counter terrorism documented numerous transactions related to
11th September, involving American Airlines—whose planes were also
used in the attacks—and other companies with offices in the Twin
towers.
Ernest Welteke, President of the German
Bundesbank, has concluded that it is certain that a group of speculators knew
the attack was coming. According to the New York Times, he states: "There
have been fundamental movements in these markets [i.e. the airlines], and the
oil price rise just ahead of the attacks is otherwise
inexplicable.
Richard Labeviere, well known Swiss
journalist, who draws extensively on European intelligence sources, thus
concludes in his book, Dollars for Terror (which received favorable
reviews in the European press), that the international terrorism networks
spawned by Osama bin Laden been "nurtured and encouraged by elements of the US
intelligence community, especially during the Clinton years." Al-Qaeda, he
reports, "was protected because the network was designed to serve US foreign
policy and military interest."
The US-Pakistan Alliance and the ISI
[Inter Services Intelligence]: The missing link in this increasingly sinister
web of relationships is the role of Pakistani intelligence in 11th
September. To understand this role it is necessary to understand the historic
ties between Pakistan, Al-Qaeda and the United States
Just prior to the commencement of the
Anglo-American bombing campaign against Afghanistan, Pakistani Lt. Gen. Mahmoud
Ahmad was dismissed from his position as ISI Director-General. ISI Public
Relations stated that he had sought retirement after being superseded on
8th October. But it was soon found that he had actually been
dismissed quietly, at US instigation, for far more serious reasons: the alleged
leader of the 11th September suicide hijackers, Mohamed Atta,
received funding on the General's instructions.
The Times of India reported that:
"While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI
director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on
Monday, the truth is more shocking.
"Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday,
that the general lost his job because of the 'evidence' India produced to show
his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Centre. The
US authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were
wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by Ahmad Umar Sheikh at the
instance of Gen Mahmud.
A report published on 6 January in 'The
Washington Post' said that, the bush administration is planning to abrogate a
Cold War-era bill that places conditions on a number of former Soviet republics'
trade relations with the US based on their human rights records… The planed move
has already stirred controversy among regional analysts, who believe it could
send the message that the US is ready to condone human rights abuses in some of
these countries in return for their loyalty.
The expansion of US hegemony is thus to
be accompanied by the legitimization of regional human rights abuses,
dictatorship, and general repression. The instrumental role played by
11th September in providing a justification for the anti-humanitarian
expansion and consolidation of US hegemony in Central Asia was specifically
indicated by US Senator Joseph Lieberman while speaking at Bagram air base near
Kabul.
The 11th September attacks
thus provided the crucial pretext the Bush administration needed to consolidate
its power and pursue a drastic unlimited militarisation of foreign policy on a
massive and unprecedented scale required by long-standing elite planning, while
crushing domestic dissent and criminalizing legitimate protest. What happened on
11th September constituted exactly what the Bush administration
needed, to expand and consolidate America's "global primacy" as the "truly last
superpower" by invading Afghanistan, which is a foothold to unrivalled control
of Central Asia, and thus Eurasia.
Conclusions: "In examining any crime, a
central question must be 'who benefits?' The principal beneficiaries of the
destruction of the World Trade Center are in the United States: the Bush
administration, the Pentagon, the CIA and FBI, the weapons industry, the oil
industry. It is reasonable to ask whether those who have profited to such an
extent from this tragedy contributed to bringing it about." Investigative
journalist Patrick Martin.
As far as the facts on record are
concerned, the best explanation of them in the opinion of this author [N. M.
Ahmed], is one that points directly to US state responsibility for the events of
11th September 2001. A detailed review of the facts points not only
to Kabul, but to Riyadh, Islamabad and most principally, Washington.
Furthermore, in the opinion of this author, the documentation presented in this
study strongly suggests, though not necessarily conclusively, that significant
elements of US government military and intelligence agencies had extensive
advance warning of the 11th September attacks, and were in various
ways complicit in those attacks. This is certainly not a desirable inference,
but it is one that best explains the available data.
It is not the intent of this author to
pretend that the conclusions outlined below are final. On the contrary, in the
opinion of this author, these conclusions are merely he best available
inferences from the available facts that have been so far unearthed. It is up to
the reader to decide whether or not to agree with this assessment. Ultimately,
this study is not concerned with providing a conclusive account, but rather is
intended to clarify the dire need for an in-dept investigation in the events of
11th September, by documenting the facts.
A summary of the facts on record as
documented in this study is presented here:
1. Both the US and the USSR are
responsible for the rise of religious extremism, terrorism and civil war within
Afghanistan since the 1980s. The US, however, is directly responsible for the
cultivation of a distorted 'jihadi" ideology that fueled, along with US arms and
training the ongoing war and acts of terrorism within the country after the
withdrawal of Soviet forces.
2. The US approved of the rise of the
Taliban, and went on to at least tacitly support the movement, despite its
egregious human rights abuses against Afghan civilians, to secure regional
strategic and economic interests.
3.The US government and military planned
a war on Afghanistan prior to 11th September for at least a year, a
plan rooted in broad strategic and economic considerations related to control of
Eurasia, and thus the consolidation of unrivalled global US
hegemony.
4. The US government has consistently
blocked investigations and inquires of Saudi royals, Saudi businessmen, and
members of the bin Laden family, implicated in supporting Osama bin Laden and
terrorist operatives linked to him. This amounts in effect to protecting leading
figures residing in Saudi Arabia who possess ties with Osama bin
Laden.
5. The US government has consistently
blocked attempts to indict and apprehend Osama bin Laden, thus effectively
protecting him directly.
6.The US government has allowed
suspected terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden to train at US military
facilities, financed by Saudi Arabia, as well as US flight schools, for
years.
7. High level elements of the US
government, military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies received
numerous credible and urgent warnings of the 11th September attacks,
which were of such a nature as to successively reinforce one another. Only a
full-fledged inquiry would suffice to clarify in a definite manner why the
American intelligence community failed to act on the warnings received. However,
the nature of the multiple warnings received, along with the false claims by the
US intelligence agencies that they had no specific warning of what was about to
occur, suggests that they indeed had extensive foreknowledge of the attacks, but
are now attempting to prevent public recognition of this.
8. In spite of extensive forewarnings,
the US Air Force emergency response systems collapsed systematically on
11th September, in violation of the clear rules that are normally and
routinely followed on a strict basis. This is an event that could only
conceivably occur as a result of deliberate obstructions to the following of
Standard Operating Procedures for emergency response.
9. To succeed, such systematic
obstructions could only be set in place by key US government and military
officials. Both President Bush and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers
displayed sheer indifference to the 11the September attacks as they were
occurring, which further suggests their particular responsibility. Once again, a
full-fledged inquiry is required into this matter.
10. Independent journalists revealed
that Mahmoud Ahmed, as ISI Director–General, had channeled US government funding
to Mohamed Atta, described as the "lead hijacker" by the FBI. The US government
protected him, and itself, by asking him to resign quietly after the discovery,
thus blocking a further inquiry and a potential scandal.
11. The events of 11th
September have in fact been of crucial benefit to the Bush administration,
justifying the consolidation of elite power and profit both within the US and
throughout the world. The tragic events that involved the murder of thousands of
innocent civilians were exploited by the US government to crack down on domestic
freedoms, while launching a ruthless bombing campaign on the largely helpless
people of Afghanistan, directly resulting in the further killing of almost
double the number of civilians who died on 9-11.
--------------------------------------------------------
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed book is 400
pages long and contains 734 citations. It is well worth the time to read this
book from cover to cover. It is very clearly written and thus moves along
easily.
4.
BUSH'S VIETNAM
(Once More, We Hear That America is Being
"Sucked Into a Quagmire". The Rapacious Adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are
Going Badly Wrong.)
BY
JOHN
PILGER
America's two "great victories" since 11
September 2001 are unraveling. In Afghanistan, the regime of Hamid Karzai has
virtually no authority and no money, and would collapse without American guns.
Al-Qaeda ha not been defeated, and the Taliban are re-emerging. Regardless of
showcase improvements, the situation of women and children remains desperate.
The token woman in Karzai's cabinet, the courageous physician Sima Samar, has
been forced out of government and is now in constant fear of her life, with an
armed guard outside her office door and another at her gate. Murder, rape and
child abuse are committed with impunity by the private armies of America's
"friends", the warlords whom Washington has bribed with millions of dollars,
cash in hand, to give the pretence of stability.
"We are in a
combat zone the moment we leave this base," an American colonel told me at
Bagram airbase, near Kabul. "We are shot at every day, several times a day."
When I said that surely he had come to liberate and protect the people, he belly
laughed.
American troops are rarely seen in
Afghanistan's towns. They escort US officials at high speed in armored vans with
blackened windows and military vehicles, mounted with machine-guns, in front and
behind. Even the vast Bagram base was considered too insecure for the defense
secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, during his recent, fleeting visit. So nervous are
the Americans that a few weeks ago they "accidentally" shot dead four government
soldiers in the center of Kabul, igniting the second major street protest
against their presence in a week.
On the day I left Kabul, a car bomb
exploded on the road to the airport, killing four German soldiers, members of
the international security force ISAF. The Germans' bus was lifted into the air;
human flesh lay on the roadside. When British soldiers arrived to "seal off" the
area, they were watched by a silent crowd, squinting into the heat and dust
across a divide as wide as that which separated British troops from Afghans in
the 19th century, and the French from Algerians and Americans from
Vietnamese.
In Iraq, scene of the second "great
victory", there are two open secrets. The first is that the "terrorists" now
besieging the American occupation force represent and armed resistance that is
almost certainly supported by the majority of Iraqis who, contrary to pre-war
propaganda, opposed their enforced "liberation" (see Jonathan Steele's
investigation, 19 March 2003, http://www.guardian.co.uk/). The second
secret is that there is emerging evidence of the true scale of the
Anglo-American killing, pointing to the bloodbath Bush and Blair have always
denied.
Comparisons with Vietnam have been made
so often over the years that I hesitate to draw another. However, the
similarities are striking: for example, the return of the expressions such as
"sucked into a quagmire". This suggests, once again, that the Americans are
victims, not invaders: the approved Hollywood version when a rapacious adventure
goes wrong. Since Saddam Hussein's statue was toppled almost three months ago,
more Americans have been killed than during the war. Ten have been killed and 25
wounded in classic guerrilla attacks on roadblock and checkpoints which may
number as many as a dozen a day.
The Americans call the guerrillas
"Saddam loyalists" and "Ba'athist fighters", in the same way they used to
dismiss the Vietnamese as "communists". Recently, in Falluja, in the Sunni
heartland of Iraq, it was clearly not the presence of Ba'athists or Saddamists,
but the brutal behavior of the occupiers, who fired point-blank at a crowd that
inspired the resistance. The American tanks gunning down a family of shepherds
is reminiscent of the gunning down of a shepherd, his family and sheep by
"coalition" aircraft in a "no-fly zone" four years ago, whose aftermath I filmed
and which evoked, for me, the murderous games American aircraft used to play in
Vietnam, gunning down farmers in their fields, children on their
buffaloes.
On 12 June, a large American force
attacked a "terrorist base" north of Baghdad and left more than 100 dead,
according to a US spokesman. The term "terrorist" is important, because it
implies the likes of al-Qaeda are attacking the liberators, and so the
connection between Iraq and 11 September is made which, which in pre-war
propaganda was never made.
More than 400 prisoners were taken in
this operation. The majority have reportedly joined thousands of Iraqis in a
"holding facility" at Baghdad airport: a concentration camp along the lines of
Bagram, from where people are shipped to Guantanamo Bay. In Afghanistan, the
Americans pick up taxi drives and send them into oblivion, via Bagram. Like
Pinochet's boys in Chile, they are making their perceived enemies
"disappear".
Search and destroy", the scorched-earth
tactic from Vietnam, is back. In the arid south-eastern plains of Afghanistan,
the village of Niazi Qala no longer
stands. American airborne troops swept down before dawn on 30 December 2001 and
slaughtered, among others, a wedding party. Villagers said that women and
children ran towards a dried pond, seeking protection form the gunfire, and were
shot as they ran. After two hours, the aircraft and the attackers left.
According to a United Nations investigation, 52 people were killed, including 25
children. "We identified it as a military target," says the Pentagon, echoing
its initial response to the My Lai massacre 35 years ago.
The targeting of civilians has long been
a journalistic taboo in the west. Accredited monsters did that, never "us". The
civilian death toll of the 1991 Gulf war was wildly underestimated. Almost a
year later, a comprehensive study by the Medical Education Trust in London
estimated that more than 200,000 Iraqis had died during and immediately after
the war, as a direct or indirect consequence of attacks on civilian
infrastructure. The report was all but ignored. This month, Iraq body count, a
group of American and British academics and researchers, estimated that up to
10,000 civilians may have been killed in Iraq, including 2,356 civilians in the
attack on Baghdad alone. And this is likely to be an extremely conservative
figure.
In Afghanistan, there has been similar
carnage. In May last year, Jonathan Steele extrapolated all the available field
evidence of the human cost of the US bombing and concluded that as many as
20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the
bombing, many of them drought victims denied relief.
The "hidden" effect is hardly new. A
recent study at Columbia University in New York has found that the spraying of
Agent Orange and other herbicides on Vietnam was up to four times as great as
previously estimated. Agent Orange contained dioxin, one of the deadliest
poisons known. In what they first called Operation Hades, then changed to the
friendlier Operation Ranch Hand, the Americans in Vietnam destroyed, in some
10,000 "missions" to spray Agent Orange, almost half the forests of southern
Vietnam and countless human lives. It was the most insidious and perhaps the
most devastating use of a chemical weapon of mass destruction ever. Today,
Vietnamese children continue to be born with a range of deformities, or they are
stillborn, or the fetuses are aborted.
The use of uranium-tipped munitions
evokes the catastrophe of Agent Orange. In the first gulf war in 1991, the
Americans and British used 350 tonnes of depleted uranium.
According to the United Kingdom Atomic
Energy Authority, quoting an international study, 50 tonnes of DU, if inhaled or
ingested, would cause 500,000 deaths. Most of the victims are civilians in
southern Iraq. It is estimated that 2,000 tonnes were used during the latest
attack.
In a remarkable series of reports for
the Christian Science Monitor, the investigative reporter Scott Peterson has
described radiated bullets in the streets of Baghdad and radiation-contaminated
tanks, where children play without warning. Belatedly, a few signs in Arabic
have appeared: "Danger – Get away from this area". At the same time in
Afghanistan, the Uranium Medical Research Center, based in Canada, has made two
field studies, with the results described as "shocking". "Without exception," it
reported, "at every bomb site investigated, people re ill. A significant portion
of the civilian population presents symptoms consistent with internal
contamination by uranium."
An official map distributed to
non-government agencies in Iraq show that the American and British military have
plastered urban areas with cluster bombs, many of which will have failed to
detonate on impact. These usually lie unnoticed until children pick them up,
then they explode.
In the center of Kabul, I found two
ragged notices warning people that the rubble of their homes, and streets,
contained unexploded cluster bombs "made in USA". Who reads them? Small
children? The day I watched children skipping through what might have been an
urban minefield, I saw Tony Blair on CNN in the lobby of my hotel. He was in
Iraq, in Basra, lifting a child into his arms, in a school that had been painted
for his visit, and where lunch had been prepared in his honor, in a city where
basic services such as education, food and water remain a shambles under the
British occupation.
It was in Basra three years ago
that I filmed hundreds of children ill and dying because they had been denied
cancer treatment equipment and drugs under an embargo enforced with enthusiasm
by Tony Blair. Now here he was – shirt open with that fixed grin, a man of the
troops if not of the people – lifting a toddler into his arms for the
cameras.
When I returned to London, I read "After
Lunch", by Harold Pinter, from a new collection of his called 'War' (Faber &
Faber).
And after noon the well-dressed creatures
come
To sniff among the
dead
And have their
lunch
And all the many well-dressed creatures
pluck
The swollen avocados from the
dust
And stir the minestrone with stray
bones
And after lunch
They loll and lounge
about
Decanting claret in convenient
skulls
5.
THE MYTH OF WAR PROSPERITY
BY
REP.
RON PAUL
There is a longstanding myth that war
benefits the economy.
The argument goes that when a country is
at war, jobs are created and the economy grows. This is a myth. Many argue that
World War II ended the great Depression, which is another myth. Unemployment
went down because many men were drafted, but national economic output went down
during the war.
Economic growth and a true end to the
Depression did not occur until after World War II. So it is wrong to think there
is an economic benefit arising from war.
There are many economic shortcomings
during a war. During wartime it is much more common to experience inflation
because the money presses are running to fund military expenses. Also, during
wartime there is a bigger challenge to the currency of the warring nation, and
already we see that the dollar has dropped 20 percent in the past year. Although
there are many other reasons for a weak dollar, the war certainly is
contributing to the weakness in the dollar.
Also, during wartime the country can
expect that taxes will go up. I know we are talking about cutting taxes, and I
am all for cutting taxes; but in real terms taxes will go up during wartimes.
And it is inevitable that deficits increase. And right now our deficits are
exploding. Our national debt is going up nearly $500 billion per
year.
The other shortcoming economically of
wartime is that funds, once they are borrowed, inflated, or taxed, once the
government spends these, so much of this expenditure is overseas, and it takes
away from domestic spending. So this is a strong negative for the domestic
economy. Another thing that arises during wartime so often is the sentiment for
protectionism and a weak economy in wartime will really build an incentive for
protectionist measures, and we are starting to see that, which I think is a
danger.
During wartime, trade is much more
difficult; and so if a war comes, we can expect that even our trade balances
might get much worse. There are a lot of subjective problems during wartime too.
The first thing that goes is confidence. Right now there is less confidence in
the stock market and literally hundreds of billions of dollars lost in the stock
market in the last year or two, again, due to other reasons but the possibility
of war contributes to this negative sentiment toward the stock
market.
It is hard to judge the future. Nobody
can know the future because of the unintended consequences of war. We do not
know how long the war will last. How much it will spread? So there are a lot of
uncertainties about this. There is fear. Fear comes from the potential for war
and a lot of confusion. And unfortunately, when wars are not fought for national
security reasons, the popularity the war is questioned- and this may alienate
our allies. And I believe we are seeing some of that
already.
There is no doubt that during wartime
government expands in size and scope. And this of course is a great danger. And
after war, the government rarely shrinks to its original size. It grows. It may
shrink a little, but inevitably the size of the government grows because of war.
This is a danger because when government gets bigger, the individual has to get
smaller; therefore, it diminishes personal individual
liberty.
So these are the costs that we cannot
ignore. We have the cost of potential loss life, but there are also tremendous
economic costs that even the bet economists cannot calculate
closely.
War should always be fought as the very,
very last resort. It should never be done casually, but only when absolutely
necessary. And when it is, I believe it should be fought to be won. It should be
declared. It should not be fought under UN resolutions or for UN resolutions,
but for the sovereignty and the safety and the security of this country. It is
explicit in our Constitution that necessary wars be declared by the Congress.
And that is something that concerns me a great deal because we have not declared
war outright since 1945, and if you look carefully, we have not won very many
since then.
We are lingering in Korea. What mess! We
have been there fore 58 years, have spent hundreds of billions f dollars, and we
still have achieved nothing- because we went there under UN resolutions and we
did not fight to victory. The same was true with the first Persian gulf War.
Went into Iraq without a declaration of war. We went there under the UN, we are
still there, and nobody knows how long we will be there. So there are many
costs, some hidden, and some overt. But the greatest threat, the greatest cost
of war is the threat to individual liberty. So I caution my Colleagues [here in
the Congress] that we should move much more cautiously and hope and pray for
peace.