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11-10-2005, 17:07 PM
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#1 (permalink)
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Postmaster General
Military Professional
Join Date: 08-20-03
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Iraq’s occupiers under pressure at home
Quote:
Iraq’s occupiers under pressure at home
By Mahir Ali
IS THERE any country on the globe where the world’s most powerful man can travel without attracting protests? I certainly can’t think of one, other than the United States of America — although even there George W. Bush’s immunity from public anger has steadily been eroded, and his approval rating has dwindled to less than 40 per cent.
In fact, last week’s trip to Argentina for the Summit of the Americas was supposed to be a welcome distraction from a litany of domestic woes.
Arguably the most interesting aspect of Bush’s reversal of fortune has been a steady loss of support in conservative circles. The failed nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court bench may appear to be one of the biggest blows in this respect — and it was, in the sense that it signified that the president can no longer take for granted his vital support base on the far Right.
However, this was an “error” that Bush was readily able to remedy. Although no one suspected Miers of harbouring liberal sympathies, the absence of a judicial record and the nominee’s reluctance unequivocally to address concerns raised by some senators created the impression that she had something to hide. Republican extremists feared she may secretly be pro-abortion. Bush was willing to vouch for her, but — and this is the crucial point — they were not willing to take his word for it.
Bush caved in and the White House scrambled to find an alternative with sufficiently reactionary credentials. Which didn’t prove too hard. However, the problems that perturb a wider range of conservatives are harder to tackle. House of Representatives majority leader Tom DeLay faces a criminal investigation on charges of campaign finance fraud. Senate majority leader Bill Frist has been accused on insider trading.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby has resigned as vice-president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff after being indicted for blowing the cover of a CIA operative, as a form of revenge for her husband’s refusal to toe the official line on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. And it is just possible that Bush’s Machiavellian chief adviser, Karl Rove, could fall foul of the law in the same case.
It has even been suggested that the bet could extend to Cheney himself, which would effectively destroy the Bush presidency, but that may be no more than wishful thinking. What is not in doubt, meanwhile, is that Cheney, as an editorial in The Washington Post put it, “has become an open advocate of torture” after trying to browbeat Congress into exempting the CIA from curbs on “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of prisoners. This was followed within days by a comprehensive Post report, quoting “US and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement”, which claimed that “the CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important Al Qaeda suspects at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe”.
The existence of the “black sites”, the newspaper said in its scoop, is known to very few people in the US and the host countries. The paper decided against revealing the names of the countries involved “at the request of senior US officials [who] argued that the disclosure might disrupt counter-terrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation”. Other media outlets proved less reticent however, naming Poland and Romania. Predictably, both countries have denied the charge.
The upshot of this aspect of the “war on terror” is that even the Guantanamo Bay and Bagram prisons are considered insufficiently far removed from the jurisdiction of the US legal system. Cheney’s attempt to bully Congress into sanctioning torture may have been part of a long-term plan to indemnify the torturers against possible prosecution in their homeland. And it is not inconceivable that the leak to The Washington Post came from sources chastened by the no-holds-barred approach of the administration they work for.
Amid all this comes the report that Bush has ordered all senior White House staff to take a refresher course in ethics. Let’s hope the president doesn’t intend to leave himself out of the loop, although one is also compelled to wonder what good a refresher course will do to those for whom ethics is altogether an alien concept.
Chances are that Bush is only vaguely aware, if at all, of the parallel woes besetting his close friends in the so-called Anglosphere. Tony Blair’s position seemed particularly precarious as he signalled his intention to retreat in the face of a revolt within the Labour Party that brought the government to the brink of a parliamentary defeat last week on anti-terror legislation. The British prime minister’s insistence on a 90-day period of detention without charge was considered more than likely to lead to humiliation in the House of Commons.
Another clause that has been causing consternation relates to the criminalizing of support for, or glorification of, terrorism or terrorists. As one Labour rebel pointed out, under such a law it would be possible to bring charges against the prime minister’s wife, Cherie Blair, for saying that she could understand why young Palestinians become suicide bombers. Although the proposed legislation is ostensibly intended to provide legal recourse against Muslim clerics who “preach hatred”, it is not difficult to see how it could be used to silence virtually all critics of the “war against terror” and the Iraqi occupation.
A very similar situation has arisen in Australia, where ambiguously worded sedition laws are part of an anti-terrorism package that the government of John Howard is trying to push through parliament with a minimum of debate. Howard has cynically sought to manipulate public opinion by raising the prospect of an imminent terrorist attack in Melbourne or Sydney, successfully manoeuvring to win the support of a poorly-led opposition for his drastic new laws.
The initial impression conveyed by a handful of arrests in those two cities is that they may well be just another scaremongering tactic. Although the threat of terrorism is not exactly a figment of someone’s imagination, it is far from clear how effectively it can be reduced through laws that sharply increase the powers of intelligence agencies and the police force while reducing the rights of individuals.
To cite but one example, anyone picked up for questioning cannot, if subsequently released, tell anyone, including their closest family members, how or why they went missing, let alone reveal details of any interrogation. And journalists who publish or broadcast anything about the ordeals of such detainees could themselves end up behind bars. The sedition laws, meanwhile, prescribe a prison term of seven years on vague charges ranging from giving succour to an enemy, regardless of whether Australia is formally at war, to advocating the overthrow of, or promoting disaffection against, the government of the day.
This goes beyond a recipe for a police state. There is a hint of creeping fascism about it, compounded by the fact that the Howard government is simultaneously bulldozing through parliament an industrial relations package that strips trade unions of most of their remaining powers and tips the marketplace balance sharply in favour of employers. The opposition Labour Party has been somewhat more vocal in challenging the government’s intentions on this score, but stands little chance of throwing up any serious hurdles — not least because its objections are mainly for public consumption rather than matters of principle.
Although the involvement in Iraq was never popular in Australia, Howard has been less adversely affected by the war than Bush or Blair, partly because the Australian contingent is minuscule, and perhaps also because the irrationally pro-war Rupert Murdoch owns much of the press. But there are indications that with the blatantly regressive industrial relations “reforms”, Howard may have bitten off more than he can chew.
For the time being, though, his authority — for whatever it’s worth — is intact, unlike that of Bush and Blair. The latter lost one of his senior-most ministers last week for the second time in a year. And this week, apart from being forced to compromise on his anti-terror plans, faces criticism in a memoir penned by a former British ambassador to Washington. Sir Christopher Meyer claims Blair enjoyed sufficient influence in the White House to have successfully bargained for at least a delay in the war against Iraq, but chose not to exercise it.
Of course, neither Blair nor Howard can aspire to the level of animosity that Bush manages to stir up on his infrequent foreign jaunts. They must have looked upon his performance in Mar del Plata with a degree of envy, mingled perhaps with a hint of schadenfreude. The US president failed to convince a sizeable bunch of Latin American heads of state (including his Argentinean host) that rapid moves towards a Free Trade Area of the Americas would be in the best interests of their nations.
Not surprisingly, the most vociferous — and coherent — critique of the corporate capitalist plot came from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who not only attended the summit but also fraternized with the protesters. The best known among the latter was the former football star Maradona, who wore a “Stop Bush” T-shirt (with the letter “s” styled as a swastika) and declared: “I’m proud as an Argentine to repudiate the presence of this human trash.”
Blair and Howard cannot expect to attract a vehement reaction of that sort almost anywhere in the world because their nations are not directly associated with the neoliberal economics that has exacerbated suffering in so many countries. But in the unlikely event of Bush ever ending up in the dock, they should be right beside him, charged with crimes against the people of Iraq. And with cynically whipping up fears to consolidate their power. And with lying to their people. Systematically, relentlessly, remorselessly.
E-mail: mahirali1@gmail.com
http://www.dawn.com/2005/11/10/ed.htm
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The most sane viewpoint of the Moslem world is from Pakistan, being an ally in the forefornt in the global War on Terror.
This op ed is from the DAWN, which is a balanced newspaper from Pakistan.
Any comments? |
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11-10-2005, 18:50 PM
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#2 (permalink)
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Military Professional
Moderator
Join Date: 02-23-05
Location: Krblachistan
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Sir,
There was a factual error in the op-ed:
Libby was indicting for obstruction of justice and perjury, not for blowing the cover of a CIA.
I don't think it detracts from the point that is being made - the Bush Administration is under fire.
However, I think you have point in this presidency where the administration no longer has the initiative due to a whole host of factors. However, I haven't seen the Democrats really gain the initiative. You can point to Tuesday's elections, but the Democrats really didn't gain anything. Judge Alito appears to be headed towards confirmation. Elections next month in Iraq will relieve some of the pressure and DoD recently released the OIF IV rotation plan which may put the numbers at under 100K. Gas prices are already below pre-Katrina levels, but this is mixed since heating costs will be more expensive this winter.
On the balance, I think that the administration has been caught behind the power curve, but its situation isn't tenuous. There's still a year from mid-term elections, so until then, there's plenty of time to re-energize the Republican base and the nation.
__________________
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3
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