| Now
we're all ugly Americans
If the US
can demand "regime change" in Iraq, why shouldn't other
countries insist on deposing an illegitimately seated leader who
unleashes war on innocent people in defiance of diplomacy and
world opinion, based on radical religious beliefs and ideology? In
short, why shouldn't regime change begin at 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue?
By Gary
LaMoshi: 03/19/03
DENPASAR, Bali - For US citizens living overseas, President George
W Bush's unilateral ultimatum to Iraq makes us all ugly Americans.
We were potential targets for terror and abuse, like our fellow
citizens back home; now we are representatives of the world's
leading bully. Our flag, which stood for the hopes of humankind
now stands for disdain for diplomacy in favor of military
intimidation.
As they say in the cartoons, "Thanks a lot, George, thanks a
lot."
It remains an incredible feat that the United States has forfeited
all of the world's goodwill it won after the September 11, 2001,
attacks, barely 18 months ago, and legitimized the view that Bush,
not Saddam Hussein, not Osama bin Laden, not Kim Jong-il, is the
greatest threat to world peace. It's hard to imagine a term for a
US attack on Iraq, as threatened by Bush, except for
"terrorism".
Speechless; if only he was, too
When our friends ask us why the US wants to attack Iraq, we don't
have any better answers than the weak, shifting case the Bush
administration offers. Its arguments lack credibility, just like
the president himself and his policies.
I used to think that Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa had
the worst ear for public relations of any leader on the world
stage. But Bush topped him easily with Monday night's naked threat
with the same sensitivity shown when he declared his war on
terrorism a "crusade".
First, Bush demanded, "Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave
Iraq within 48 hours." Only an idiot would have included the
reference to "sons" given the perception that this
President Bush is finishing Poppy's war. Moreover, Dubya owes his
presidency largely to the Florida governorship of his brother Jeb,
the supposedly more clever son of a Bush. Jeb didn't have the
popularity or political skills to ensure his brother could win the
vote in Florida, but his control of the administrative processes
guaranteed that the votes in Florida wouldn't get counted
properly. The US Supreme Court, packed with Poppy Bush's acolytes,
endorsed Jeb's subterfuge.
Then, Bush warned Iraqi troops, "Do not blow up oil
wells", even before he admonished them not to deploy weapons
of mass destruction, ostensibly what this war is about. He added
that the wells are "a source of wealth for the Iraqi
people". Let's see how that statement plays downstream as US
oil companies swoop in to drill with equipment from Halliburton,
Vice President Dick Cheney's former employer.
If there were two terms that Bush shouldn't have evoked in his
speech, they were "sons" and "oil". Naturally,
he did. As an American, I'm filled with pride. Indeed, a numbskull
can grow up (provided he's in the right family) to become
president.
Putting the dip in diplomacy
If there was a third word Bush should have avoided, it was
"diplomacy". Bush's ultimatum is the result of the
failure of US diplomacy, not just in gaining support for its
wrong-headed attack on Iraq, but for its overall goals. Rather
than using the United States' unique position as the world's only
superpower to create a better world, the Bush administration's
goal centers on world domination. "You're either with us or
against us" is its mantra. To expect the rest of the world to
help the US pick up the pieces of the mess it makes in Iraq is a
dream.
No matter how much lipstick the White House's right-wing
ideologues put on this pig, there is no denying that the
administration has short-circuited an inspection process that
renders Iraq militarily impotent and unable to threaten its
neighbors. The war clique has failed to demonstrate a link between
Iraq and al-Qaeda or to find a smoking gun regarding weapons of
mass destruction, at least any developed without the complicity of
the US during the Iran-Iraq war, when Saddam Hussein and Donald
Rumsfeld were pals.
While the French have proved to be nearly as much of a caricature
as the US leadership has, they make an important point, as have
the millions of protesters around the globe: vigorous inspections
would accomplish the goal of disarmament.
Instead, the US has opted for a military attack, underscoring the
point that the Bush people don't want to disarm Iraq (this time, they
stopped the process, not Saddam Hussein), they want to get rid of
Saddam Hussein. The argument, echoed by British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, that US troops have gone too far to turn back, is
ridiculous on the face of it. Restraint from strength wins respect
while bullying wins approbation.
If the US can demand "regime change" in Iraq, why
shouldn't other countries insist on deposing an illegitimately
seated leader who unleashes war on innocent people in defiance of
diplomacy and world opinion, based on radical religious beliefs
and ideology? In short, why shouldn't regime change begin at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue?
History lesson
The vision of re-creating Iraq as model of Middle Eastern
democracy is a pipe dream, either an exercise in cynicism or
self-delusion, qualities the Bush administration has shown in vast
quantities with its economic policy that has turned a comfortable
budget surplus into a huge deficit, all the time denying that US$1
trillion in tax cuts tilted heavily toward the wealthy have
anything to do with the fiscal reversal.
The White House, which pledged to rebuild Afghanistan after
bombing it out of the Stone Age a year and a half ago, neglected
to put a dime for that nation's reconstruction into its budget for
this year. There is no reason to believe that the Bush people will
show any greater interest and staying power in the equally
difficult and more dangerous business of rebuilding Iraq.
Moreover, a quick browse through US history shows that no
Republican administration has ever found the right way to end a
war. We don't know what Abraham Lincoln would have done after the
US Civil War, but his successors failed to reunify the nation
effectively and, except for a brief interlude, secessionist racial
politics held sway in the former Confederacy for the next 100
years. Theodore Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the
Russo-Japanese War, but he couldn't stop the insurrection in the
Philippines; indeed, it took a Japanese invasion to get the US out
of its bush war there. Dwight Eisenhower's Korean War armistice,
without a real peace, set the stage for Kim Jong-il's nuclear
blackmail today. Despite their war crimes, Richard Nixon and Henry
Kissinger couldn't win the Vietnam War, leaving it to Gerald Ford
to strike the colors on the US Embassy in Saigon as communist
forces marched in. President Bush I shied away from finishing off
the Iraqi regime in the first Gulf War, leaving the uneasy
situation that has persisted for the past dozen years. The current
Bush people have neither the diplomatic savvy nor the experience
of their failed predecessors.
An attack on Iraq without any credible threat to US security will
make the world a more dangerous place for Americans at home and
overseas. It is already the best recruiting tool al-Qaeda could
wish for, and it will make it far more difficult for the United
States to advance its legitimate interests diplomatically in the
foreseeable future. The Bush administration has forfeited the high
ground in foreign policy for generations for reasons it still
cannot articulate convincingly.
As an expatriate, I often feel compelled to wave the American flag
and defend our core values. But this decision to attack Iraq
undermines those values of democracy, responsibility and working
for a peaceful and just world. I hang on the thin reed that
someone with some sense will stop this madness before the US
betrays everything it should stand for and proves its worst
critics absolutely correct.
More immediately, I hope that my neighbors will make the
distinction between American values and the outlaw administration
currently running the country. That would take subtlety of thought
and degrees of wisdom that the people in the White House lack.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
|
