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COMMENT
Now we're all ugly
Americans
By Gary LaMoshi
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. All rights
reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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