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September 26, 2004
Bush at the UN
I realize that the Iraq has a low presence in the current election campaign in Australia. Intervention in Iraq been a bad mistake, but we are not going to get that admission. The current spin from Senator Robert Hill is that there is no civil war, security forces are growing, infrastructure is being rebuilt, etc etc.
We should pay attention though to what is happening behind our backs. Iraq is being reinvented as the crucible for the big conflict between Islamic terror versus Western freedom. Iraq is the battleground between evil and good. And God is on our side.
President Bush's recent speech to the UN can be found here. The imperial president had returned to an institution, which embodies the rule of international law, and has said that the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein was illegal. It is worth reading as it has all the spin that will son start to come out of Canberra.
Remember Bush despises the UN, asserts that the US is above international law and has pushed the UN to one side in the Middle East. The neocon ideologues in Washington have consistently said the US does not need the United Nations, as the US can, and will, operate as a lone superpower. They have acted to cripple the UN.
Steve Bell
And there was Bush appealing to the UN to help rebuild democracy and freedom in Iraq. In doing so the imperial president made a big spin of Wilsonian idealism:
"Now we have the historic chance to widen the circle even further, to fight radicalism and terror with justice and dignity, to achieve a true peace, founded on human freedom. The United Nations and my country share the deepest commitments. Both the American Declaration of Independence and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaim the equal value and dignity of every human life. That dignity is honored by the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women, protection of private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance. "
So what did the imperial president say, apart from a cynical appeal to the human dignity of Wilsonian idealism? He pretty much defended his Iraq policy by saying a ruthless dictator had been toppled and Iraq is now on the path to democracy and freedom:
"Not long ago, outlaw regimes in Baghdad and Kabul threatened the peace and sponsored terrorists. These regimes destabilized one of the world's most vital and most volatile regions. They brutalized their peoples in defiance of all civilized norms. Today the Iraqi and Afghan people are on the path to democracy and freedom. The governments that are rising will pose no threat to others. Instead of harboring terrorists, they're fighting terrorist groups. And this progress is good for the long-term security of all of us."
Maureen Dowd reports that when he was in Washington last week the imperial president's puppet, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi of Iraq, parroted, the stock claims: that the fighting in Iraq was an essential part of the U.S. battle against terrorists that started on 9/11; that the neocons' dream of turning Iraq into a modern democracy was going well: and that the worse things got in Iraq, the better they really were. And a big military push will end the insurgency by a few dead-enders and foreign terrorists. Allawi is just an advertisement for Bush.
Give me old Hegel anyday.
Bush's discourse really is the stuff of fantasy---grandiose visions and wishful thinking says Paul Krugman. However, it is fantasy that is being used to help Bush's re-election, by defining John Kerry as being soft on terrorism.
The Bush administration blew smoke about the "tremendous" threat posed by Saddam Hussein. He was supposedly dangerous to the US because, he was trying to develop an atomic bomb. But whatever nuclear program Saddam had it was so primitive as not to be worth mentioning. Nor was there any evidence that Saddam posed any threat at all to the United States' homeland.
Iraq had very little to do with terrorism, as John Kerry pointed out:
"The president claims it [Iraq] is the centerpiece of his war on terror. In fact, Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and the battle against our greatest enemy. Iraq was a profound diversion from that war and from our greatest enemy, Osama bin Laden and the terrorists.Invading Iraq has created a crisis of historic proportions and if we do not change course, there is the prospect of a war with no end in sight."
Does not the U.S. treatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad represent a flagrant abuse of human dignity?
And Iraq burns. See Juan Cole's map. And these photos indicate how the US sees terrorists. The insurgency in Iraq is getting worse and the U.S. occupation there has increased anti-American sentiment in Muslim countries.
Where freedom is promised chaos and carnage now reign. Iraq is a dystopia, not an utopia. The poor neo-cons have got things the wrong way up. They live in an inverted world.
27th September
The imperial president's Wilsonian platitudes are matched by the rhetoric of Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister. He has defended his stance against "terror and chaos" in Iraq and compared the situation in Iraq to the darkest days of World War II.
Huh? It is the British who invaded Iraq, not Iraqi's. It is their country. It is the US trying to turn Iraq into a docile client state. The reality of Iraq's insurgency is that Iraqis are killing Iraqis. The Iraqi resistance to the US/UK occupation is resulting in the insurgents killing those who collaborate with the Americans - the police officers, would-be police officers, translators, governors and government officials.The situation there is beginning to look and feel like civil war.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at September 26, 2004 09:58 PM
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