The Progressive Response

Volume 7, Number 10
April 14, 2003

The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/, or email <feedback@fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.

John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org). He can be contacted at <john@irc-online.org>.

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I. Updates and Out-takes

POST-WAR IRAQ: ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
By Col. Dan Smith (Ret.)

(Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt of a recent Global Affairs Commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0304questions.html.)

The frustration of the American officer on the streets of Baghdad was almost palpable in the CNN report: "They've got 25 questions. I've got 5 answers."

That was Tuesday, April 8, the same date President Bush, during a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, declared: "Rebuilding of Iraq will require the support and expertise of the international community. We're committed to working with international institutions, including the United Nations, which will have a vital role in this task."

Without question, the participation in UN-sanctioned peacemaking and peacekeeping missions by U.S. military units trained in the techniques of these operations often has been vital to their success. The mere presence of strong military forces from "coalitions of the willing" frequently was enough to re-establish the security and stability that are the prerequisites for the work of international institutions and nongovernmental humanitarian relief organizations. This was clearly the case in post-civil war Bosnia, where earlier the insufficiently armed UN peacekeepers could not prevent atrocities, and in Kosovo, where the U.S. took the lead in halting Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansing campaign.

But Iraq is not Bosnia or Kosovo--nor for that matter East Timor (to which the U.S. provided materiel support but no combat forces) or Afghanistan or Haiti. Moreover, the troops who have fought their way to Baghdad over the past three-plus weeks are psychologically primed to perform traditional warfighting roles: destroying things and killing people, not peacekeeping roles. These realities raise questions of who, how, and what will be done in and for Iraq--and the region--in the post-Saddam era that is just now unfolding.

The Pentagon's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, headed by retired U.S. General Jay Garner, is to run Iraq in the initial post-war occupation phase. Its missions encompass reconstituting basic services such as electricity, water, sanitation, and medical care; screening the remnants of the Iraqi civil service for individuals acceptable for retention under a new democratic government; and coordinating humanitarian aid programs run by the World Food Program (WFP), UNESCO, the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and private aid agencies.

Difficulties with this arrangement, which is not yet even in place, are already apparent. Despite the efforts of the British forces in Basra, distribution of relief supplies--a duty of an occupying power under international law--has been a shambles. Looting has been rampant. Without the cooperation of the Iraqi public, the number of British troops in-country simply are not enough to create and maintain physical security. And this is for a city of only 1.3 million; Baghdad, which will be the responsibility of the United States, has 5 million people. Euphoria may dampen appetites for a short time, but clean water and nourishing food will soon be demanded.

Now it is time to secure full UN participation in meeting post-war Iraq's humanitarian, reconstruction, and political needs. In particular, a new UN Security Council resolution providing for a UN leadership role in Iraq would help heal the breech created in the international community in the period leading to active hostilities.

That much also would help relieve the American officer's frustration over his 5 answers for the 25 questions.

(Dan Smith <dan@fcnl.org> is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and a retired U.S. army colonel and Senior Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)

WOOLSEY'S ROLE CRUCIAL TO IMPACT OF OCCUPATION
By Jim Lobe

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new Global Affairs Commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0304woolsey.html.)

If you want to figure out whether the administration of President George W. Bush intends a crusade to "remake the Middle East" in the wake of Washington's presumed military victory in Iraq, watch what happens with R. James Woolsey. A former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Woolsey is being pushed hard by his fellow neoconservatives in the Pentagon to play a key role in the post-Saddam Hussein U.S. occupation.

Less well known than his long-time associates and close friends, Deputy Pentagon Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and the former head of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) Richard Perle, Woolsey has long believed that Washington has a mission to use its overwhelming military power and its democratic ideals to transform the Arab world. And he has pushed for war with Iraq as hard as anyone, even before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. If he soon pops up in Baghdad, you can bet that the "clash of civilizations" is imminent, if it has not begun already.

To Woolsey's mind, the United States is already engaged in what he and many of his fellow neocons call "World War IV," a struggle that pits the United States and Britain against Islamist and "Wahabi" extremists like al Qaeda's Osama bin Laden, Iranian theocrats, and Ba'ath Party "fascists" in Syria and Iraq.

Their list also includes other authoritarian rulers in the Arab world, such as Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak and the ruling Saud family in Saudi Arabia, whose "Faustian bargain" with the Muslim Wahabi sect, in Woolsey's view, is responsible for al Qaeda and much of Islamist-related terrorism throughout the world.

At a NATO conference in Prague last November, Woolsey declared "Iraq can be seen as the first battle of the fourth world war," in rhetoric that he has practiced and honed virtually since the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. "After two hot world wars and one cold one that all began and were centered in Europe," he said, "the fourth world war is going to be for the Middle East."

Like other neoconservatives, Woolsey also appears to have somewhat ambivalent views about the democratic revolution he seeks to generate throughout the Arab world. "Only fear will re-establish respect for the U.S.," he told the Washington Post when asked why U.S. conquests in the Islamic world would not incite even more support for Islamist radicals and al Qaeda. When asked last week whether he would retain his enthusiasm for democracy in the Arab world if tomorrow democratic elections were won by Islamist parties hostile to Washington, he joked, "Well, then perhaps the election should be the day after tomorrow."

(Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.)

NINE THESES ON MOVING THE PEACE MOVEMENT FORWARD
By Betsy Hartmann

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new Global Affairs Commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0304activist.html.)

As the U.S. army occupies Baghdad, the peace movement is faced with a series of strategic challenges, challenges we must face openly, and challenges for which there are no easy answers. We must develop political strategies that draw on solidarity and information from activists and analysts in diverse social movements and incorporate those into our own work.

The following reflections are offered as a contribution to the ongoing strategic debates within the peace movement.

1. We must sustain our resistance to the war. Even though we have failed to stop the war, our collective pressure may be able to prevent some of the worst military excesses, and this could translate directly into saving the lives of both civilians and soldiers.

2. We must squarely recognize the class challenges of this war and the resistance to it, and guard against the arrogance of white, middle-class entitlement in framing both resistance and a proactive program of peace and social justice.

3. If ever there were a time to integrate issues of economic justice, it is now. Not only is it costing us hundreds of billions of dollars to destroy Iraq, but it will also cost billions more to pay any number of corrupt crony corporations to rebuild it.

4. Make the links between war at home and war abroad, for the strength of the national security state depends on a highly racialized internal and external enemy. For over a decade now, the so-called war on drugs has been a war on communities of color, and repression of immigrants was intensifying well before the September 11th attacks. Unless the peace movement seriously challenges the attack on the human rights and civil liberties of all those deemed "Other," and defends the rights of those forced outside the boundaries of privileged white American citizenship, it will fail to build an enduring alternative because the militarization of domestic society is precisely what has paved the way for militarism abroad.

5. We must also understand the link between war abroad and Bush's war on women and reproductive rights. The Bush administration has already made explicit its opposition to reproductive rights for women at home and abroad through its limits on funding for reproductive health programs and its attacks on abortion rights.

6. Monitor and expose the environmental consequences of war.

7. While our eyes are trained on the situation in Iraq, we must remain vigilant and look elsewhere for repercussions. We must consider what pay-offs members of the "coalition of the willing"--or rather coalition of the killing--have received for their support of Washington. We can be sure the U.S. will turn a blind eye to human rights abuses in those countries.

8. Be prepared for the next stage--the occupation of Iraq. While the U.S. is already putting into place its own proxy rulers, the peace movement here needs to forge links and make common cause with progressive Iraqi groups. We have to be ready to engage in an informed way in the murky politics of humanitarian assistance.

9. Build a new, positive vision of peace and security that eschews both American isolationism and imperialism and strengthens the rule of international law. This isn't the place to present an outline of a whole new security agenda. But what would real security look like? My short list includes:

Dismantling weapons of mass destruction in all countries, including ours.
Supporting institutions to end the impunity of war criminals such as the International Criminal Court and stronger institutions for the protection of human rights.
Promoting economic, social, and environmental justice that reduces the risk of conflict.

Such positive visions are perhaps the hardest thing to contemplate at times like these. But we must look forward, and not allow the pictures of tanks and bombs and death and destruction on TV to colonize our imaginations, preventing us from imagining a better world. We must stay firmly rooted in our sense of possibilities despite the grim days ahead.

(Betsy Hartmann <ehartmann@hampshire.edu> is the director of the Hampshire College Population and Development Program and a member of the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment. This is a revised version of a presentation she made at a public forum at Hampshire College sponsored by the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies on March 24, 2003.)

IRAQ WAR UNLEASHES BARBARISM
By Ian Williams

(Editor's Note: The following excerpt is from a Global Affairs Commentary commissioned under the auspices of the Project Against the Present Danger and is available in full at http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0303barbarism.html.)

So much for winning the cold war. And so much for a world united behind the War on Terror. A poll this weekend showed that 80% of Russians want Iraq to defeat the United States. Polls across the Arab world show the same, and it is likely that in much of the world outside the Western democracies there would be similar numbers rooting for the victory of a blood-thirsty tyrant and certified aggressor.

Such reactions should give pause to the ideologues around the White House engaged in trying to build a new American World Order, and even to those gullible Americans who bought the presidential rhetoric about the attack being part of the War on Terror.

The global coalition forged to fight the War on Terror after 9-11 is dead, strangled and dismembered by the Bush administration, which has created a worldwide reservoir of passive, and indeed quite possibly active, support for future anti-American deeds. Even more frighteningly, the president may have unleashed a worldwide shock wave of nationalism, in which people no longer notice atrocities as long as they are perpetrated against the "other," let alone the "enemy."

This is not a matter for gloating by anti-war protestors. How many of those Russians cheering on the Iraqis also cheered on atrocities by their armed forces against the Chechens? Chinese outraged at the bombing of Baghdad may be insouciant about what happens to the Tibetans or the Uighurs. How many of the Arabs demonstrating would have applauded suicide bombers blowing up busloads of Israelis? Many Americans who are rightly appalled at images of airliners plunging into New York buildings may well cheer at pictures of cruise missiles hitting Baghdad.

Thanks to George Bush and his entourage, we are seeing a reversion to barbarism of the kind that George Orwell saw happening by the end of World War II and that depressed him into writing 1984, in which nationalist crowds cheer atrocities on screen.

For the last decades of the twentieth century, there were increasing signs of a genuine globalization, one of empathy, in which people across the world related to each other's sufferings as television and print brought them images of human distress. That was the impulse for the intervention in Iraqi Kurdistan when what Saddam Hussein's forces were doing to the Kurds reached the media of the world. Once the Indonesians were seen massacring the Timorese in Dili on television, it was the beginning of the end for their occupation.

In response, we saw an efflorescence of international law and institutions: Human rights inside countries became an issue for all of us. The creation of international tribunals, the belated interventions in the Balkans and the liberation of Kosovo, for all their messiness and faults, were supported by people across the world who saw them as an expression of our common humanity. Bush has set all of this back.

Bush devalued the United Nations by invoking Security Council decisions against Iraq, but expediently not allowing critical resolutions and enforcement action against friends like Morocco and Israel, and then by ignoring the majority of the Council when it tried to implement its own resolutions about inspections. His administration's top figures have culminated a decades-long campaign against the United Nations and multilateralism with a froth of vituperation against the organization, crowing about its demise and making plain that in their eyes, any reference to the organization was unprincipled and expedient.

President Bush has savaged multilateralism and enhanced nationalism worldwide with his assertion that the U.S. can take action regardless of the UN. In assembling a "coalition of the willing" in support of the invasion, Bush has not only taken liberties with the truth, he has also encouraged the Turkish military to pressure its elected government, pressured other governments to ignore their parliaments and electorates, and enlisted as allies some of the most repressive regimes in the world, such as that in Uzbekistan.

Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator, whose passing should be mourned by no one. Nothing could be more telling about the record of President George W. Bush than that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, people worldwide are praying for the success of the only leader ever to use chemical weapons against civilians, and who had active plans to unleash anthrax and botulinin on others. Saddam Hussein bears much blame, of course, but President Bush will be the one whom history will blame for unleashing a highly infectious epidemic of nationalism and barbarism on the world.

(Ian Williams <uswarreport@igc.org> contributes frequently to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) on UN and international affairs.)

II. Outside the U.S.

THE FORGOTTEN WAR SHOWS NO SIGN OF ABATING
By Mark Sedra

(Editor's Note: The following excerpt is from an FPIF Policy Report available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/afghan2003.html.)

Less than an hour before the initial bombs and cruise missiles rained down on Baghdad in the first volleys of the Iraq war, the U.S. military launched a major attack in its other war in Afghanistan. Pentagon spokespersons insisted that the timing of the attack was "a coincidence" and that planning for the operation had been going on for months. However, it seems clear that this escalation of U.S. military activity serves a dual purpose: to assuage the fears of those concerned that the U.S. would lose interest in Afghanistan after the onset of the war in Iraq and to send a clear signal to anti-American forces in Afghanistan and the wider region that the war on terror would not lose momentum. More than anything, though, the operation illustrates that the ongoing war in Afghanistan--involving 11,000 coalition troops, 8,000 of which are American--is far from over.

"Sporadic acts of terror continue to occur all too frequently," according to a report by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan released on March 18, 2003. The report went on to state that events "in the first months of 2003 point to increased activity by elements hostile to the government and to the international community in Afghanistan." Recent statistics bear out this picture. In the past eight weeks, there has been more than one rocket attack per day targeting coalition forces and 50 civilians and government soldiers have been killed or wounded in insurgent violence in the South of the country, where sympathy for spoiler groups--including the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-I-Islami party--remains robust. Under such conditions it hardly seems accurate to refer to Afghanistan as a post-conflict society.

The deterioration of security in Afghanistan, coupled with the emerging reality that the war in Iraq may last months rather than weeks, casts a shadow of uncertainty on Washington's commitment to Afghanistan. With U.S. forces increasingly bogged down and overstretched, the added strain of a continuing low-intensity war in Afghanistan may become prohibitive in the months ahead. Although U.S. political and military figures have vigorously reaffirmed a long-term commitment to Afghanistan, the specter of disengagement haunts Afghan policymakers, who recall similar assurances made during their struggle against the Soviet Union. Those promises proved hollow after the Soviet withdrawal, when the U.S. and the world turned their backs on Afghanistan. To avoid a recurrence of this tragic episode in history, it is essential that the threat posed by spoiler groups be confronted now, before it develops into a movement capable of undermining the post-war order. Contrary to the underlying premise driving U.S. planning and operations, a strategic shift in Washington's approach rather than an intensification of military operations is the most effective means to achieve this goal.

(Mark Sedra <sedra@bicc.de> is a research associate at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) and writes regularly for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

WE'RE ALL AMERICANS: WHY THE EUROPEANS ARE AGAINST THIS WAR
By Martin Schwarz

(Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from a new Outside the U.S. commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0303americans.html.)

Shortly before start of the war against Iraq a cartoon appeared in a Dutch newspaper. It showed the headquarters of the United Nations in New York and an airplane about to crash into the building. On the plane is the "Air Force One" logo. Nothing could better express the feelings of "old Europe." (©Donald Rumsfeld)

The continent has witnessed an unprecedented political attack on the authority of the United Nations, committed by a clan that--in the opinion of a predominant majority of Europeans--occupies the White House illegally. Regardless, if the majority of Europeans are against this war it isn't because of sympathies for a murderous dictator like Saddam Hussein and it's definitely not because of anti-Americanism. The massive demonstrations in Europe, which brought approximately eleven million Europeans onto the streets in the middle of February, are an expression of the disappointment with a country--the USA--which until now has represented an ideal for all committed democrats and has enjoyed unrestricted sympathies after the terrible attacks of 9/11.

The day after a group of unscrupulous terrorists hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the French daily newspaper Le Monde published a front page headline, which perfectly reflected feelings of Europe: "We all are Americans." We were. Indeed.

Contrary to all expectations, alliances in the region were built after the attacks to support the war in Afghanistan. George W. Bush and especially Secretary of State Secretary Colin Powell used the sympathies in order to assure themselves of the political backing of Russia, France, and Germany. Both did a good job of it.

We can be skeptical about the results of the Afghanistan expedition. We can doubt that president Hamid Karzai, whom the majority of the Afghans might not trust, was used as a pawn in preparation for the Iraq war, but it was a practice piece of diplomacy and multilateralism.

On the other hand the Iraq war represents a unique failure of American diplomacy. A president, who loses all European sympathy only 18 months after the attacks of 9/11 and who nearly loses the popularity competition with a murderer like Saddam Hussein clearly must have done something wrong. A Secretary of State who works for months in the UN to build a "coalition of the willing" with obviously falsified "proof" of Iraqi deceptions, clearly failed as well.

Weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found. The weapons inspectors were possibly hindered more by the incorrect tips from the USA than by the Iraqis. No connections between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein have been proven. This leaves Europeans with the feeling that this is not a necessary war, but a war of choice.

The United States appears willing to use the Security Council only if it subjugates itself to American demands. For Europeans, the United Nations is the last tool of diplomacy available to slow U.S. intentions. Now Kofi Annan is just the overseer of a war that wasn't approved by his organization, but by the White House.

President Bush would be well advised not to damage his high office further. For us Europeans the U.S. remains the political ideal. It's time for the president to end the disillusionment of our confidence in that nation.

Actually we still want to be Americans.

(Martin Schwarz <martin_schwarz@stories-texte.tk> is the Editor of Stories & Texte (online at www.stories-texte.tk) and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

III. Letters and Comments

SAD TO BE AN AMERICAN

Re: An Annotated Critique of President George W. Bush's March 17 Address Preparing the Nation for War

I appreciate a scholarly mind and one used for the promotion of individual thought, however, your grasping rebuttal of every two sentences of this speech makes me sad to be an American. I do not want war, I love my country, and I am proud of our 250,000 plus young men and women who are willing to risk their lives to defend it.

- Ben <nebdrof@aol.com>

THANKS

Re: An Annotated Critique of President George W. Bush's March 17 Address Preparing the Nation for War

Thank you for being a source of truthfulness in a sea of deceit and rhetoric. I can no longer trust our mainstream media which continues to propagate the lies and misrepresentations coming from our administration. Your article educates and informs. I appreciate how thorough and rational you have been.

- Pamela B. Pride <pride@montanadsl.net>

ON TARGET

Re: Neoconservatives Enlist Democrats for Post-War Goals

Jim Lobe is right on target, as usual. I was alarmed yesterday as well when I saw Ivo Daalder and Dennis Ross sign on to the PNAC proposition that "The successful disarming, rebuilding, and democratic reform of Iraq can contribute decisively to the democratization of the wider Middle East."

I see this as the crux of the matter. If moderates like Daalder and Ross can be persuaded that the deep resentment spawned by war creates insuperable obstacles to any post-war effort to rebuild Iraq--witness the absence of an expected Shia uprising for example--then maybe they will come around. Though now that they have committed themselves, that seems unlikely.

I do hope that you are being invited on the Hill to give testimony. It would be terrible if some House and Senate Democrats were swayed by the pipe dreams of Messrs. Daalder and Ross.

- Deborah Diamond-Kim <diamkim@attbi.com>

HUMAN RIGHTS OF THE U.S.

Re: A Coalition of Weakness

Thank you for documenting the nature of our so-called "coalition of the willing" partners. The only thing you left off that I feel is worthy of input is the human rights record of the United States and its ranking. I think it is important for everyone to see this information for all of the "coalition" partners.

- Janice Graef <StudyTime4Mom@aol.com>

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The Progressive Response

Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

II. Outside the U.S.

III. Letters and Comments

I. Updates and Out-takes

II. Outside the U.S.

III. Letters and Comments

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