{"id":3626,"date":"2002-10-15T20:12:10","date_gmt":"2002-10-16T01:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=3626"},"modified":"2002-10-15T20:12:10","modified_gmt":"2002-10-16T01:12:10","slug":"forget_me_not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/10\/15\/forget_me_not.html","title":{"rendered":"Forget-me-not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ordinarily I’d ignore the generally anti-American rantings of Robert Fisk, but given that one of the sites I regularly read actually uses an article of his <\/a>(from the Arab News<\/i>, no less) as a demonstration of “incredible hypocrisy<\/a>” in “the current ‘Damn You, Saddam!’ culture.”<\/p>\n

Since this is a pretty long one, I’m going to drop into the Extended Entry mode …<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Fisk starts off …<\/p>\n

Each day now, someone says something even more incredible \u201a even more unimaginable \u2014 about President Bush\u2019s obsession with war.<\/p>\n

Yes. Usually its someone like Fisk.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, George Bush was himself telling an audience in Cincinnati about “nuclear holy warriors”. Forget for a moment that we still can\u2019t prove Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons. <\/p>\n

Due to Iraqi shell games and intransigence.<\/p>\n

Besides, nobody is claiming that Iraq actually has <\/i>nuclear weapons. The claim is that they are seeking <\/i>to have them. The evidence seems quite clear of that.<\/p>\n

Forget that the latest Bush speech was just a re-hash of all the “ifs” and “mays” and “coulds” in Tony Blair\u2019s flimsy 16 pages of allegations in his historically dishonest “dossier”. <\/p>\n

The proof of Iraq’s obtaining of a nuclear weapon will be its detonation. That’s what’s heralded every other entry into the Nuclear Club.<\/p>\n

Does Fisk really want to wait for that? Does he have a serious suggestion of how we make certain that doesn’t happen, short of sending troops, linked arm in arm, to walk across Iraq from one end to the other?<\/p>\n

Forget that if Osama Bin Laden ever acquired a nuclear weapon, he\u2019d probably use it first on Saddam. No. We\u2019ve got to fight “nuclear holy warriors”. That\u2019s what we have to do to justify the whole charade through which we are being taken now by the White House, by Downing Street, by all the decaying “experts” on terrorism and, alas, far too many journalists.<\/p>\n

Because ad hominem <\/i>attacks are always the best way to prove your point.<\/p>\n

Does Fisk count himself as an expert on terrorism? Or as a journalist? If both professions are suspect, why should we pay any attention to him.<\/p>\n

Forget the 14 Palestinians, including the 12-year-old child, killed by Israel a few hours before Bush spoke, forget that when his aircraft killed nine Palestinian children in July, along with one militant, the Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon \u2014 a “man of peace” in Bush\u2019s words \u2014 described the slaughter as “a great success”. Israel is on our side.<\/p>\n

Aside from the gratuitous Israel-bashing, what’s the point? How many twelve year old children have been blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers, whose families are then given five-figure “life insurance” payments by Baghdad? Oh, sorry — something else we should be forgetting.<\/p>\n

Remember to use the word “terror”. Use it about Saddam Hussein, use it about Osama Bin Laden, use it about Yasser Arafat, use it about anyone who opposes Israel or America. Bush used it in his speech yesterday, 30 times in half an hour \u2014 that\u2019s one “terrorism” a minute. <\/p>\n

Perhaps it’s to make up for the “journalists” who refuse to use the word, even in the context of 9\/11, suicide bombers, and the like. And, after all, certainly nobody would ever dream of using such a word on men of peace such as Hussein, bin Laden, or Arafat. Perish the thought.<\/p>\n

By the way, France and Germany and China and Russia seem to be opposing US efforts at the moment, and are all historically hostile to Israel. Haven’t heard the Bushies calling them <\/i>terrorists.<\/p>\n

But now let\u2019s list exactly what we really must forget if we are to support this madness. Most important of all, we absolutely must forget that President Ronald Reagan dispatched a special envoy to meet Saddam Hussein in December 1983. It\u2019s essential to forget this for three reasons. Firstly, because the awful Saddam was already using gas against the Iranians \u2014 which is one of the reasons we are now supposed to go to war with him.
\nSecondly, because the envoy was sent to Iraq to arrange the re-opening of the US Embassy \u2014 in order to secure better trade and economic relations with the Butcher of Baghdad. Thirdly, because the envoy was \u2014 wait for it \u2014 Donald Rumsfeld. Now you might think it strange that Rumsfeld, in the course of one of his folksy press conferences, hasn\u2019t chatted to us about this interesting tit-bit. You might think he would have wished to enlighten us about the evil nature of the criminal with whom he so warmly shook hands. But no.<\/p>\n

I’ve heard this argument — that we supported Iraq in the 80s — many times , and it still doesn’t quite make sense to me. Of course, we did so with the blessing of other neighboring Arab states, and as a regional counter-balance to Iran, itself no bastion of human rights (or friend to the US). Nor were we alone in doing so. Fisk, who would argue US saber-rattling against Iraq is immoral because of its unilateral nature, would also thus argue that the multilateral nature of support for support of Iraq in the 80s was also immoral.<\/p>\n

Fisk forgets something else important. Iraq, in his eyes, and the eyes of many in the whole “Evil Empire of the US” school, is utterly passive in this equation. The US acts. The rest of the world only reacts. That why, for example, he’s willing to blame the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, not on Iraq, but on the US for not telling Iraq not to do it. Why, as another example, he has no problems placing the blame on 9\/11, not on homicidal terrorists, but on US actions that provoked them. Similarly, he’s already on record blaming the bombing of the night club in Bali, not on the folks who actually did it, but on Australia’s support of US actions provoking people into doing it.<\/p>\n

So, for example, the US acted, in his view, in a vacuum during the 80s in its support of Hussein. Nobody, especially Fisk, ever considers that Saddam might well have played the US Administrations of the time for chumps<\/i>, promising whatever he thought they wanted to hear, feeding whatever intel he thought would convince them, in exchange for support against Iran. Given the state of US\/Iran relations at the time, it wouldn’t have taken much persuasion, especially if he sweetened the pot by promising to move out of the Soviet orbit.<\/p>\n

We never hear about that idea because — well, who’s going to advance it? Saddam? Surely not. Those Administrations? Of course not. Fisk? Definitely not. In his eyes, the US is the only player — the other nations just lie back and take it.<\/p>\n

Strangely, Rumsfeld is silent about this. As he is about his subsequent and equally friendly meeting with Tareq Aziz \u2014 which just happened to take place on the day in March, 1984, that the UN released its damning report on Saddam\u2019s use of poison gas against Iran. The American media are silent about this too, of course. Because we must forget.<\/p>\n

Odd. I’ve heard about it. Maybe for “silent” Fisk means “not as loud about it as I’d like them to be.”<\/p>\n

We must forget, too, that in 1988, as Saddam destroyed the people of Halabja with gas, along with tens of thousands of other Kurds \u2014 when he “used gas against his own people” in the words of Messrs Bush\/Cheney\/Blair\/Cook\/Straw et al \u2014 President Bush Sr. provided him with $500 million in US government subsidies to buy American farm products. We must forget that in the following year, after Saddam\u2019s genocide was complete, President Bush Sr. doubled this subsidy to $1 billion, along with germ seed for anthrax, helicopters, and the notorious “dual-use” material that could be used for chemical and biological weapons.<\/p>\n

Fisk seems to think that because the US provided support to Iraq then<\/i>, that prevents us from make moral (or pragmatic) judgments about Iraq now<\/i>. By labeling it hypocrisy, he surely expects the US to collectively hang its head in shame and slink back to its own hemisphere.<\/p>\n

The US provided subsidies to Iraq to buy US farm goods. This is treated by Fisk as some sort of horrific crime, proof of our criminal intent. Of course, Fisk has been just as swift to quote statistics about how the US embargo since then has also been a horrific crime. It seems the US can’t do anything right.<\/p>\n

Besides, the US provided subsidies and commercial assistance to sell wheat to the Soviets. Does that mean that the Cold War was a great hypocrisy, that the US was complicit in the Soviet depredations of Afghanistan in the 80s?<\/p>\n

Finally — and to me, this is the compelling point — if the US was responsible for knowingly (implied but not proved) supporting Saddam’s crimes then<\/i>, what is the right thing for us to do now<\/i>? Be silent? Let him do whatever he wants, since we once enabled him to do so in the past? <\/p>\n

Do we not have all the greater a responsibility to act, to clean up the mess that we had a role in?<\/i><\/p>\n

And when President Bush Jr. promises the Iraqi people “an era of new hope” and democracy after the destruction of Saddam \u2014 as he did on Tuesday night \u2014 we must forget how the Americans promised Pakistan and Afghanistan a new era of hope after the defeat of the Soviet Army in 1980 \u2014 and did nothing.
\nWe must forget how President Bush Sr. urged the Iraqis to rise up against Saddam in 1991 and \u2014 when they obeyed \u2014 did nothing. We must forget how America promised a new era of hope to Somalia in 1993 and then, after “Black Hawk Down”, abandoned the country.<\/p>\n

Fisk fails to mention (since it would weaken his eliding of Bush Sr. with Bush Jr.) that it was Clinton who bailed out of Somalia.<\/p>\n

One wonders whether Fisk would have preferred a massive US invasion of Somalia, since that’s the only thing that would have rooted out the warlords.<\/p>\n

We did let Afghanistan down after the Soviets withdrew — though Fisk is one to always point out how what efforts there were by the US to work with Afghanistan were a hypocritical supporting of the Taliban, who quickly rose to dominance after the Soviets fled.<\/p>\n

But, then, what would Fisk have us do? Given that we did not fulfill all our promises of the past, should we make no more promises, commit ourselves no more to assisting regimes with democracy? Surely the US is called to provide plenty of assistance on other fronts — economic, environmental, techological — and is called to task for failing to commit. Which way would Fisk like it?<\/p>\n

We must forget how President Bush Jr. promised to “stand by” Afghanistan before he began his bombings last year \u2014 and has left it now an economic shambles of drug barons, warlords, anarchy and fear. <\/p>\n

Because Afghanistan wasn’t an economic shambles in the first have of 2001, there were no drug barons or warlords present, and certainly fear had no place there.<\/p>\n

And it’s shocking, shocking how the US as “left” Afghanistan — except for all those troops we still have there, helping to clear minefields and transport supplies and keep something resembling a non-anarchic government in place. Nope, all we just did was bomb, then leave.<\/p>\n

He boasted yesterday that the people of Afghanistan have been “liberated” \u2014 this after he has failed to catch Bin Laden, failed to catch Mulla Omar, and while his troops are coming under daily attack. <\/p>\n

How many gays have had walls bulldozed onto them since the fall of the Taliban? How many folks have been shot for blasphemy in the soccer fields of Kabul since Mullah Omar and Bin Laden fled (or were killed)? How many women have been beaten with steel rods for not wearing burqhas?<\/p>\n

Nobody will claim that life in Afghanistan is skittles and beer, or that it’s somehow been magically transformed into the wonderland that Fisk thinks it should be (whatever that is). But the people by and large seem to be a hell of a lot better off — and, yes, more “liberated” — than they were a year ago.<\/p>\n

And what’s this about troops coming under daily attack? It makes it sound like we still have a presence there, and haven’t simply “left” Afghanistan. How dare we?<\/p>\n

We must forget, as we listen to the need to reinsert arms inspectors, that the CIA covertly used UN weapons inspectors to spy on Iraq.<\/p>\n

Maybe because we were trying to — let’s see, how did Fisk describe it earlier? — “prove Saddam Hussein has nuclear weapons.” Let’s remember that a big part of that CIA activity was feeding to <\/i>the weapons inspectors suspected locations of WMD development, which led to the destruction of much (?) of what had been stockpiled at the time.<\/p>\n

And of course, we must forget about oil. Indeed, oil is the one commodity \u2014 and one of the few things which George Bush Jr. knows something about, along with his ex-oil cronies Cheney and Rice and countless others in the administration \u2014 which is never mentioned.
\nIn all of Bush\u2019s 30 minutes of anti-Iraq war talk on Tuesday \u2014 pleasantly leavened with just two minutes of how “I hope this will not require military action” \u2014 there wasn\u2019t a single reference to the fact that Iraq may hold oil reserves larger than those of Saudi Arabia, that American oil companies stand to gain billions of dollars in the event of a US invasion, that, once out of power, Bush and his friends could become multibillionaires on the spoils of this war. We must ignore all this before we go to war. We must forget.<\/p>\n

Never mind that US oil interests could make a killing by have the US take a friendly <\/i>approach to Iraq, dropping the embargo. Or, if they want to keep the price of oil up<\/i>, the US could simply keep the embargo in place. Either strategy could help Bush make a case that we have to develop more domestic reserves, such as in ANWR — an activity that would clearly provide lots of profit to US oil interests.<\/p>\n

No, that makes too much sense. We know Bush is just in it for the money. Fisk just told us so.<\/p>\n

And never mind (or, as Fisk would put it, we must forget) that much of the “principled opposition” to US unilateralism comes from nations such as France and Russia and Germany that have large contracts for oil field (and industrial) development in Iraq, too.<\/p>\n

But that’s not hypocrisy. That’s just good, multilateral business acumen.<\/p>\n

Fisk’s main point, though, remains hypocrisy. The US supported Iraq in the past, therefore it is disqualified from acting against it now. The US stands (perhaps) to economically gain from a war on Iraq, therefore it is disqualified from acting against it, regardless of whatever other reasons there may be. The US has not always kept its promises, therefore it should not (in this instance at least) be making promises about democracy in Iraq, since that would be hypocritical in the extreme.<\/p>\n

(Unlike the nature of democracy in Iraq today. Did Saddam manage to pull 100% of the vote this time?)<\/p>\n

US support of Iraq in the 80s was, in retrospect, stupid. It was even shameful. Depending on what you choose to believe, it even bordered on criminal. US failures to follow up on commitments it made (wisely or not) during the Cold War are also shameful.<\/p>\n

And, yes, to be fair, it makes me angry. And sad. And even ashamed.<\/p>\n

So what? What does that have to do with the current <\/i>situation?<\/p>\n

Iraq — by which I mean Saddam Hussein’s regime — has developed WMDs in the past, and used them both on enemy combatants and on his own citizenry. Iraq has brutally invaded its neighbors. Iraq has attempted to develop nuclear weapons, and there’s every indication that it will continue to do so. <\/p>\n

Will Fisk be happier when Iraq becomes a nuclear power? How does he think Saddam will act once that happens? <\/p>\n

Or will that simply be a reaction to US aggression, too, and so not anything anyone should plan on holding Baghdad responsible for?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ordinarily I’d ignore the generally anti-American rantings of Robert Fisk, but given that one of the sites I regularly read actually uses an article of his (from the Arab News,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitical-brouhaha"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":127,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/06\/10\/wmds.html","url_meta":{"origin":3626,"position":0},"title":"WMDs","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 10-Jun-03 6:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As Stanley Kurtz points out, not only did Iraq have WMDs, the New York Times has reported on them. The United States has discovered weapons of mass destruction in Iraq....","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":498,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/04\/07\/still_more_of_w.html","url_meta":{"origin":3626,"position":1},"title":"Still more of what I’m not blogging about","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 7-Apr-03 7:27pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm not blogging about chemical weapons finds, drums of this, warheads of that. Wait for a week. The lab results will be back. The finds will be confirmed, one way...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2770,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/09\/24\/the_case.html","url_meta":{"origin":3626,"position":2},"title":"The Case","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 24-Sep-02 10:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"The UK has released its case for the danger posed by Iraq. What I believe the assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt is that Saddam has continued to produce chemical...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3985,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/03\/04\/eggs_in_one_bas.html","url_meta":{"origin":3626,"position":3},"title":"Eggs in one basket","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 4-Mar-03 11:34am","format":false,"excerpt":"Has Kim Jong Il offered Saddam Hussein asylum? Maybe. Maybe not. If he has, maybe he could give the Iraqi leader a personal tour of one of his nuclear weapons...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2945,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/08\/30\/iraq.html","url_meta":{"origin":3626,"position":4},"title":"Iraq","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 30-Aug-02 1:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"UPDATE: Blogatelle says nice things about this post, and much of the debate continues over there in the comment section. I've not commented much on the impending war on Iraq....","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4114,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/03\/that_about_sums.html","url_meta":{"origin":3626,"position":5},"title":"That about sums it up","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 3-Feb-03 5:13pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The New Republic has an excellent editorial out today on the moving bar for war, as Bush has complied with each objection of the anti-war left (\"Gotta get Congressional approval!\"...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3626\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}