-Caveat Lector- http://www.sundayherald.com/29930
>>>Sounds a lot like BillJeff and the Lewinsky about the time of Yugoslavia. A<>E<>R <<< Sunday Herald - 15 December 2002 Don't Mention The War The whole country is obsessed by Cherie's silly property scandal, which is rather unfortunate given that her husband is blindly walking into a nuclear conflict that Ian Bell almost certainly doesn't understand Trivial as it may seem after a week of comedy-drama chez Blair, I thought I should probably mention that the United States might be dropping a nuclear bomb or two sometime soon. Nothing serious, you understand -- neither the Prime Minister's wife nor the Daily Mail have been informed -- but America's aperitif to war on Iraq runs something like this: if Saddam happens to think of deploying one of the chemical weapons he might (or might not) happen to possess, the Pentagon promises faithfully to respond with one of the dinky new nukes it is dying, by pure coincidence, to test. I have struggled to find the United Nations resolution that would sanction this behaviour, much as I have struggled to find the resolution that even justifies the threat, but the chances are I should know better. While the country is transfixed by faxes, fixers and fitness trainers, a genuine massacre is being prepared. Will it be just, legal, or rational? Who cares? The important thing is that Cherie is not a superwoman. America is barking, so to speak, while Britain wags an obedient tail. The logic that sent UN inspectors into Iraq has been turned on its head. As of last week, chief inspector Hans Blix and his boys in blue no longer have to demonstrate that Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction. Instead, Saddam has somehow to prove that he owns nothing of the sort. His 12,000-page personal report card has been appropriated by the Americans -- who have turned the UN into a wholly-owned subsidiary for the purpose -- and the very fact that it contains nothing incriminating is being treated as conclusively incriminating. Why trust a liar just because, at the point of a gun, he tells the truth? The argument is going by default. In Washington and in London there is a tacit, sometimes explicit, admission that the inspectors will find nothing of consequence in Iraq. America has forced the UN to reverse its own rulings several times and hand over the unedited weapons report. The US is desperately seeking to find a single falsehood in all of those thousands of pages, thus far with no success whatever. But is the Pentagon downhearted? Not with a new generation of 'bunker-busting' nukes ready for field trials. This would be baffling enough even if the purpose of America's campaign was clear. It would be baffling even if North Korea -- a much bigger fish in the stinking pool -- was not simultaneously boasting that its nuclear programme is again up and running. But when the White House cannot even say whether it wants Saddam disarmed or replaced, the farce of UN inspections begins to resemble an insult to the intelligence. In order to defeat the lying Saddam, it seems, the democracies of the West must tell multiple lies of their own. Officially, Britain and the US insist they know, as a matter of fact, that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. So why bother with inspections? Why all the machinations (revealing in themselves) over those 12,000 pages? If the 'allies' claim certain knowledge then they also, by definition, possess evidence. Why not simply produce the evidence? The excuse that by doing so they would compromise intelligence sources wears thin when they are so quick to distribute -- and leak -- unedited versions of the Iraqi report. Deceit, it appears, is a prerequisite for this war. That, in itself, is another baffling aspect of America's obsession. If it simply declared that Saddam is a demonstrably vicious blight on the planet who really should have been extinguished years ago, precious few people would argue much. Some of us might quibble over international law. Some might fret, not for the first time, over America's growing taste for unilateralism. But only genuine pacifists and Saddam's mouthpieces would claim there was a serious moral problem in ridding the world of one of its worst remaining dictators. Instead, America pretends that there is a link between Iraq and the September 11 murders. Instead, the US says it is deeply worried about weapons which in all probability do not exist. Instead, it encourages Iraqi dissidents to prepare -- in a London hotel, even as you read this -- for a change of regime that the Americans will not even admit to desiring. What does the US really want? Oil provides one obvious answer. Even now, in certain circles, the real criticism of Britain's government turns on the perception that Tony Blair has failed to secure a decent slice of the action if -- or rather when -- Saddam is destroyed. Russia has been bought off; France has been promised a share; America's conglomerates know exactly which Iraqi wells they will be able to call their own; only Blair has been slow, allegedly, on the uptake. Yet even that explanation, patently true as it may be, does not solve all the riddles. Why did George Bush bother with the UN in the first place? Apologists for Blair claim credit for their man and argue that the Americans required 'credibility' for their war. So why does America then treat the UN and its inspectors with contempt, with British acquiescence? The most plausible answer must be that the US is using the UN in order to destroy the UN. Bush and his people have an instinctive dislike for the world's forum. Pushed to argue the point, they would undoubtedly say that there can be no higher authority, for Americans, than the constitution of the United States. In any legal or moral argument they would subordinate the UN and its deliberations to their own fundamental law. And in this young century the clique of governing Republicans has a single ideological point to make: there can be only one global government, a single superpower. As every recent US foreign policy document has emphasised, America can brook no rivals. Who really loses, then, if the inspections in Iraq turn out to be an abject failure? Who is discredited, who humiliated? Not Saddam; not Bush; not Blair. Since hard evidence is no longer the issue in any case, the Americans will feel entitled to say that the UN is a waste of time; that the US, like a good democracy, tried the consensual approach and found it wanting. Some in the White House were making that very judgement of Blix before his teams even arrived in Baghdad. Ultimately, the Iraq affair is an exercise in freeing the US from the tiresome bonds of multilateralism. Not for the first time, you find yourself asking if Blair understands much, or any, of this. In relative terms a war on Saddam will cost Britain more than it will cost the US. In terms of global influence, the pitiful remains of our power are vested in our seat on the Security Council. Yet here we have Blair, Jack Straw and the rest agreeing like nodding dogs to the humiliation of that same council. Nato is a busted flush; the European Union's defence forces are notional, at best. Yet here, to repeat, we have the closest thing to an impartial international authority the planet possesses being undermined with Blair's connivance. Is that really what they mean by 'the national interest'? Here's a parlour game: ask yourself what Bush will say when Blix is forced to admit that there are no horrible weapons, to speak of, in Iraq. Deduct 10 points for imagining that George might apologise to all concerned. Deduct another 10 if you think that the US will be swayed, even in the slightest, from its course. And deduct 10 more points if you are foolish enough to harbour the hope that Blair will disagree with anything Bush then happens to say. The president will call it a victory and tell us that Saddam still has to be dealt with -- just in case. In the meantime, North Korea will go on turning out Scuds for any dirt-poor country hoping to make a few dollars in the arms trade. Soon enough, the Koreans will be able to offer nuclear warheads with which to decorate their Scuds at a special discount rate for anyone inclined to make their bit of the world a safer place for dictatorships. But don't fret: America will probably have tested its new mini-nukes by then, and Hans Blix will be able to report fully on the effects of proper weapons of mass, democratic destruction. Web report: Iraq News in focus: The talented Mr Foster Iain MacWhirter: Time For Panto To Clean Up Its Act Muriel Gray: Spare us the devoted working mother act, Cherie Copyright © 2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd. no.176088 Back to previous page <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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