***Dave Does the Blog

So many people have already offered their two cents worth on Jimmy Carter’s op-ed in this morning’s NY Times that it seems almost pointless for me to do it. But, what the heck, pointlessness is what this blog is all about, right?

As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises …

I’m not sure how far Carter wants to lean on his foreign policy record, whether it be Iran (pre- and post-hostages), Afghanistan (reacting to the Soviet invasion with a lot of insubstantive but provocative measures), or even Camp David (which briefly got Sadat and Begin to the signing table, but didn’t really address the substantive issues that have haunted Middle Eastern negotiations before and since).

And what’s with the Christian cross-waving? Is the implication that Bush is a bad Christian? I thought there was a strain of thought that said Bush was too Christian, that the Iraq conflict was predicated on some sort of end-times mumbo-jumbo.

… I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war, and it is clear that a substantially unilateral attack on Iraq does not meet these standards.

How many countries would make it substantially multilateral? How many countries have offered their support here?

This is an almost universal conviction of religious leaders, with the most notable exception of a few spokesmen of the Southern Baptist Convention who are greatly influenced by their commitment to Israel based on eschatological, or final days, theology.

Sorry, are we knocking other Christians again? Fomenting factionalism? Arguing whose theology should be considered sound and whose shouldn’t? What prize was it that Carter was awarded with this year?

For a war to be just, it must meet several clearly defined criteria.

Never mind that there are plenty of folks who think that there is no such thing as a “just” war.

The war can be waged only as a last resort, with all nonviolent options exhausted. In the case of Iraq, it is obvious that clear alternatives to war exist. These options — previously proposed by our own leaders and approved by the United Nations — were outlined again by the Security Council on Friday.

Well, sure, there’s any number of alternatives to war. Just none that will remove the threat that Iraq presents. UN Resolutions certainly haven’t done the job up until now — are we on #17 or #18? The only thing that has worked is war and the threat of war. Does anyone seriously believe that UN inspectors would be in Iraq if the US and UK didn’t have forces massed in Kuwait?

But now, with our own national security not directly threatened and despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments in the world, the United States seems determined to carry out military and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilized nations.

I’m sorry — does the “justice” of a war depend on a majority vote of the world’s governments? Really?

The first stage of our widely publicized war plan is to launch 3,000 bombs and missiles on a relatively defenseless Iraqi population within the first few hours of an invasion, with the purpose of so damaging and demoralizing the people that they will change their obnoxious leader, who will most likely be hidden and safe during the bombardment.

Because if the NY Times leaks “The Secret Plan for the War on Iraq,” it must be true. Unlike the eleventy dozen other leaked “Secret Plans.”

Never mind that, even if there’s a shred of truth to that particular rumor, I’m pretty certain that the plan doesn’t say, “Hey, let’s bomb those relatively defenseless Iraqis over there.” It more likely says, “Here are the critical military and strategic targets. Let’s use precision munitions so that just because Saddam is building ammo bunkers next to mosques and hospitals, as few civilians get killed as possible.”

The war’s weapons must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants.

Um, we have “smart bombs,” but I don’t think anyone’s weapons are that smart. Under this rubric, has any war ever been just? Could any war ever be just?

Extensive aerial bombardment, even with precise accuracy, inevitably results in “collateral damage.” Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, has expressed concern about many of the military targets being near hospitals, schools, mosques and private homes.

Which placement is, in fact, a war crime.

Its violence must be proportional to the injury we have suffered.

So we should have ceased fire against Japan as soon as we had killed as many Japanese soldiers as US casualties at Pearl Harbor and in the Phillipines — and we should never have gone to full-fledged war with Germany, either.

Carter is famous for trying to tie human rights to foreign policy. This requirement, though, would seem to indicate that “What have they done to us?” is the only legitimate guide to international relations. Or, to put a Christian spin on it, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

The attackers must have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent.

Last time I checked, Dubya was, in fact, the President of the United States. Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of Britain. Arguably, they have more legitimate authority than, say, the leaders of China.

The unanimous vote of approval in the Security Council to eliminate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction can still be honored, …

Oh, he means that the Security Council — the self-appointed five “winners” of WWII, plus a rotating roster of partial members (sans veto power), which other members can be full-blown democracies or (more likely) bloody dictatorships themselves — are the “legitimate authority” of the world’s (?) “society.” Right.

And as to honoring the vote of approval, 1441 itself notes that Iraq has already thumbed its nose at other resolutions, reaffirms that there’s only a cease-fire with Iraq (based on their full compliance), recalls that member states can use “all necessary means” to force compliance, and gives Iraq a “final opportunity” to comply fully. The current course of action by the UNSC — that anything is prefereable to actually following through on the conditions and consequences of 1441 — is what is “dishonoring” the UNSC’s resolution.

… but our announced goals are now to achieve regime change and to establish a Pax Americana in the region, perhaps occupying the ethnically divided country for as long as a decade. For these objectives, we do not have international authority.

But if China and France and Russia say it’s okay, then it’s okay (and “just”)?

Other members of the Security Council have so far resisted the enormous economic and political influence that is being exerted from Washington, and we are faced with the possibility of either a failure to get the necessary votes or else a veto from Russia, France and China. Although Turkey may still be enticed into helping us by enormous financial rewards and partial future control of the Kurds and oil in northern Iraq, its democratic Parliament has at least added its voice to the worldwide expressions of concern.

Because the only economic interests involved here are the bribes being offered by Washington. Right.

The peace it establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists. Although there are visions of peace and democracy in Iraq, it is quite possible that the aftermath of a military invasion will destabilize the region and prompt terrorists to further jeopardize our security at home.

So as long as there’s a possibility of destabilizatoin and terrorism, we should never do anything. That’s bold international leadership for you.

Besides, it’s difficult to think about what sort of peace would be worse than this, or this, or this.

Also, by defying overwhelming world opposition, the United States will undermine the United Nations as a viable institution for world peace.

Conversely, by letting its own sternest warnings be ignored, the United Nations will undermine itself as a viable institution for world peace.

What about America’s world standing if we don’t go to war after such a great deployment of military forces in the region? The heartfelt sympathy and friendship offered to America after the 9/11 attacks, even from formerly antagonistic regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral and domineering policies have brought international trust in our country to its lowest level in memory. American stature will surely decline further if we launch a war in clear defiance of the United Nations. But to use the presence and threat of our military power to force Iraq’s compliance with all United Nations resolutions — with war as a final option — will enhance our status as a champion of peace and justice.

So it’s okay to threaten war, as a “final option,” but not to actually engage in war unless everyone on the UN Security Council agrees. Right.

Oh, and, by the way, we should keep footing the bill, both for the UN and for the hovering troops waiting for an authorization that seems likely never to come.

Chumpion of peace and justice sounds more like it.

Many thanks to Blaster for reminding me of this particularly inane question during the President’s press conference:

Mr. President, millions of Americans can recall a time when leaders from both parties sent this country on a mission of a regime change in Vietnam. Fifty thousand Americans died and that regime is still there in Hanoi and hasn’t harmed or threatened a single American since the war ended. What can you say tonight, sir, to the sons and daughters of the Americans who served in the Vietnam to assure them you will not lead this country down a similar path in Iraq?

“Well, I can point out to you that we actually went to Viet Nam to prevent a regime change — the overthrow of the Saigon government by the Soviet-backed one in Hanoi.

“And I can also point out that the concern was not that North Vietnam was going to nuke its neighbors, or sell biowarfare weapons to terrorists to use against us, or dominate all of the surrounding nations and so blackmail the world’s oil supply, so noting that the Hanoi regime hasn’t ‘harmed or threatened a single American since the war ended’ (except for those folks who are now Americans who fled South Vietnam) doesn’t really mean much of anything, now, does it?

“Would that suffice to convince anyone we’re not going down the same path in Iraq? Then how about I mention Yugoslavia and Afghanistan? Next question.”

Not that that’s what he did say. But he could have.

There have been big anti-US demonstrations in South Korea, and the newly elected regime there has made a lot of noises about resenting US troops there, wishing they were fewer in number, less obtrusive, and how US diplomatic efforts were getting in the way of South Korean rapprochement with the North.

Which makes it a bit amusing (in a dark way) that the South Koreans are now in a tizzy that the US is considering withdrawing some troops.

Alarmed South Korean officials said Friday that Washington had ignored them in suggesting a realignment of U.S. forces in Korea and demanded that American troops stay where they are at least until resolution of the North Korean nuclear issue.
.Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday that the United States was studying ways of either withdrawing 37,000 U.S. troops from the Korean Peninsula or moving them farther south from the Demilitarized Zone.

(via Blaster)

This one will take some pondering, but I think this is one of the better explanations I’ve read for the rift between (roughly) the US and Europe over Iraq and UN resolutions: a difference of opinion as to what the purpose of the UN is for.

For the US (the author writes), the purpose of the UN is to ensure security. If it fails to do so, then it’s irrelevant at best, a danger itself at worst.

For the Europeans, the purpose of the UN is to quash nationalism, the bane of European history culminating in two World Wars in the 20th Century. By that point of view, acting in national interests outside of or against the UN is the greatest danger.

And they see the UN’s role now, in this dangerous time, as reining in America – not out of fundamental anti-Americanism but out of anti-nationalism. Sovereignty, in this way of looking at the UN’s purpose, must be constrained by transnational institutions. Unfettered sovereignty is dangerous, and the more powerful the country, the greater the danger. America is the most powerful country in the world, and its president is saying in so many words that America’s decisions regarding its security will not be limited by UN mandates and that in this matter we do not have to ask anyone’s permission to defend ourselves. This doesn’t sound unexceptionable to an American ear, but to a European who sees limiting nationalism as the UN’s sine qua non, it strikes at the heart of the entire UN project and all it embodies. America’s willingness to ignore UN wishes and UN procedures, if need be to protect itself, is not just pragmatism in this view. It’s almost blasphemous.

I think the situation is a bit more complex than that. Various European countries — France, ironically, in particular — have been more than willing to act unilaterally and in their own national interests, over the last 50 years, with or without UN approval. And there are many in the US for whom the UN, as a proto-world government, is, in fact, a great hope against nationalism, including (or especially) American nationalism.

Nonetheless, I think there’s a lot to chew on here.

(via SDB)

There’s not a lot of suprise from me that the UN has uncovered an Iraqi unmanned drone program, complete with a drone with an 8m wingspan; Colin Powell talked about it last month, complete with noting that it had been tested for much further than the UN-dictated 150km range.

Nor is it surprising that the UN report also mentions that Iraq has plenty of chemical spraying tanks and other equipment that could be easily mounted on such drones.

Nor, further, is it surprising that the UN inspectors say that there is “credible evidence” that Iraq had much more biowarfare material — in the thousands of liters, most of it anthrax — at the end of the Gulf War than has been declared so far, and that it probably still has all or much of it.

No, what’s surprising is that the UN saw fit to bury the information in their normally-secret written report, and that Hans Blix didn’t see fit to mention it during his oral briefing to foreign ministers yesterday.

Odd thing that. Also odd that it’s getting very little media play.

Poor Fidel Castro. Sure, he was elected to a sixth term as president of Cuba, but with only 97% — far behind the 100% enjoyed by Saddam Hussein.

I suppose it’s only a matter of time, with numbers like that, the press starts to question the legitmacy of his reign …

Shortly after a new UN resolution was proposed that would give Iraq yet another opportunity — by 17 March — to show “full, unconditional, immediate, and active cooperation with disarmament obligations, the French foreign minister Villepin rejected it:

France, which has Security Council veto power, rejected the ultimatum minutes after Straw spoke. Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said: “We will not accept a resolution that will lead to war. We would not accept any ultimatum.”

We will not accept a resolution that will lead to war. That would seem to settle any need for further discussion, then. After all, iraq has only complied to the token extent it has thus far because of the growing and credible threat of war. Iraq did not invite “inspectors” in out of the goodness of their hearts. It was the build-up of troops, threatening to do their own “inspection” that forced matters.

If France will not approve of any resolution “that will lead to war,” why should Saddam Hussein cooperate any further?

Or, rather, why should the US wait any longer for France?

The intent is to have a vote on this proposal next Tuesday.