catapult magazine

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"I don't think war is noble"

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mrsanniep
Feb 06 2003
03:02 am

Cuba:

We already can’t buy good cigars here anymore. What more do you want? How much more must we sacrifice??

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dan
Mar 19 2003
05:48 am

A Coalition of the Willing? Here are some statistics that show how unwilling this coalition actually is. Some governments, particularly in Eastern Europe are ignoring the will of their people in order to gain favour with the US government. Another case of democracy undermined by American military and economic pressure. Take a look at this ‘coalition of the willing’:

Britain: 86% say give weapons inspectors more time, 34% think that US and Britain have made a convincing case for invasion.

Spain: 80% opposed to war, 91% against attack without UN resolution.

Italy: 72% opposed to war

Portugal: 65% say there is no reason to attack now

Hungary: 82% opposed to invasion under any circumstances

Czech Republic: 67% opposed to invasion under any circumstances

Poland: 63% against sending Polish troops, 52% support US “politically”

Denmark: 79% oppose war without U.N. mandate

Australia: 56 per cent only backed UN-sanctioned action, 12% support unilateral action. 76% oppose participation in a US-led war on Iraq. Australian Senate voted 33-31 to censure Howard for committing 2,000 soldiers to US action.

The “Vilnius 10” is a group of 9 countries that are seeking membership in NATO and Croatia. In many cases, their future security depends on NATO membership. In Estonia, for example, there is a tangible fear that Russia will take over again, given a militaristic enough government and the right opportunity (the—thankfully past—popularity of the fascist Vladimir Zhirinovsky was a good indication of this possibility. Zhirinovsky had a map in his office showing the borders of Russia expanded to include the former Soviet Union and Alaska). In any case, it’s doubtful that these governments are supporting the US for any other reason than to get diplomatic points (or conversely, not piss away their chances of NATO membership).

Taking Estonia as an example again, we find that the government has supported war without any debate in Parliament, despite 70% of the people and major newspapers opposed to war in Iraq.

Latvia: 74% oppose taking out Hussein with military force

Romania: 38% opposed, 45% in favour

Macedonia: 10% support war on Iraq

Bulgaria: 21% support war

Estonia: 30% support war

Slovakia: 60% oppose sending Slovak soldiers

Information for Albania, Croatia, Slovenia and Lithuania was immediately available via Google news, but according to this report, Romania is the only country in the “Vilnius 10” that has a majority of the population supporting the war.

For comparison purposes:

France: 76% against war without UN support ?

Germany: 55% against war with UN support, 90% against war without UN support. 57% hold the opinion that “the United States is a nation of warmongers”.

—from http://misnomer.dru.ca/2003/02/11/a_coalition_of_the_willing.html