catapult magazine

i was reading an article in sunday’s chicago tribune which explained that if the united states were to invade iraq for the reasons currently cited by our government, we could be charged with violating an international law under which seven top nazis were found guilty at nuremberg.

the tribunal in the nazi war crimes case quoted 19th century US secretary of state, daniel webster, in its decision: “Preventive action in foreign territory is justified only in case of ‘an instant and overwhelming necessity for self-defense, leaving no choice of means, and no moment of deliberation.’” so, if we were to pre-emptively attack iraq, we would not be doing so to stall an imminent iraqi attack, but to prevent a possible attack in the future. essentially, our actions would be contradictory to international law.

then i remembered all of the US wrangling over the international criminal court (ICC) this summer. essentially, the US agreed to the ICC only after the UN security council granted a year-long immunity period for US citizens, during which US troops could not be charged with war crimes.

hmmmm . . . interesting.

(where are all of the females in this discussion? i could speculate, but i won’t.)

i guess i’m resistant to focus on why we should or shouldn’t go to war when i feel like we’re being manipulated by the White House to focus on war in Iraq instead of the shady business practices of our own leaders. that’s my theory, anyway. did bush even mention anything significant in his campaign speeches about bombing the pants off Saddam? what was on the front page of the newspaper the day BEFORE he identified Iraq as being part of the axis of evil?

i just don’t buy it that the administration is sincere in pursuing its threat to annihilate Saddam and they must be deflecting attention from something pretty embarrassing if they’re willing to become the impetuous teen-ager of the world community. i guess being an American is all about tough love, when it comes down to it.

Grant v. *cino—quite boxing match.

Skillen was at Dordt a week or two ago and he spoke about this and he took much of his arguments from a New Republic article (sorry I don’t have the date or title) calling for forcible inspections, which would mean UN weapon inspectors entering Iraq backed by a large multinational military force allowing them to look whereever they please. It’s a plan other nations can get behind, and it would function in removing the only clearly stated reason for invading Iraq: preventing the production of nukes.
How does that sound?

the carnegie endowment for international peace originally published the report and i think it may have been adapted for the New Republic piece. it’s really long, but if you’re into this kind of stuff, here it is:

http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/Iraq-Report.asp?from=pubdate

I agree that diplomacy would be ideal, but in this case, I think Bush views diplomacy as a potential weapon used by Saddam Hussein and others to stall the U.S., to take the momentum out of the people’s commitment to war or to delay attacks until Iraq can boost its defenses or gather enough support from other nations and his own people. (What appears to be taking place now though is more U.N. involvement and diplomatic activity, perhaps as a result of the sense of urgency induced by Bush’s “drums of war”.)

In another matter, I realized after talking to Rob and Kirstin the other evening that my former comments might have been taken as defenses of Bush or that someone might think I’m merely playing devil’s advocate in this discussion in order to take the noble position of one against many.

To sum myself up, I would say that I’m mostly bothered by the tendency on this stream to blame Bush and the U.S. for operating selfishly/politically/with our own interests in mind as if this is strictly an American evil, as if our individualist consumerist culture or Bush or American cowboyism alone is to blame for the growing conflict. This conflict is a genuine one; it’s not manufactured by Bush or spun a certain way in the media only to make people think they are being threatened. This conflict has been growing as the so-called overlooked world has discovered ways to assert itself (subterfuge terrorist tactics, nuclear weapons, biological weapons, world diplomacy, economics (oil) etc.), proving once again that wars occur because all nations are made up of wicked people. In sum, let’s start from this realization and debate the issues of the conflict itself (not to say that we haven’t been doing this on this stream, but it seems like much of the blame has been falling on the U.S. without mentioning the U.S.’s own (sometimes) legitimate concerns).

now you boys can talk about what’s really going on in the white house:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/836189.asp

Yeah, I saw Woodward interviewed on 60 Minutes. I couldn’t believe how much information he had gathered about the leadership style of Bush and the inner-workings of the White House throughout the “War on Terrorism”! 60 Minutes aired excerpts from Woodward’s interview with Bush and recordings of White House staff meetings. I felt like I got a better sense of who our leaders really are behind the scenes.

Woodward’s new book seems to confirm what New Yorker Magazine said about Bush, that his leadership style is decisive and business-like. It’s interesting that Bush runs a war like a businessman, practically buying victory over the Taliban, as Woodward tells it. I wish I had time to read the book. But this article seemed to sum up many of the main points.

These tactics are certainly effective in the short term, but dubious in the long run. As they’ve done oodles of times before (notably in the Americas), in winning their war they are undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan government for decades to come. The patterns of corruption are reenforced and the loyalty purchased is a tenuous one. No wonder Karzai is having a hard time pulling the country together, not to mention that the promised funding for Afghanistan hasn’t come through.

In Iraq, the allies of the US will again be purchased allies. Those without scruples. Money-hungry future dictators. But at least they’ll be friendly to the US right? The future of this region looks bleak. We’ve seen it all before: Nicaragua, Columbia, Bolivia, Panama, Guatemala . . . . Those countries are still recovering from American “victories” against popular communist movements.