| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon May 03, 2004 7:01 pm Post subject: Standard-Bearer of Democracy Becomes Great Satan |
| Subj: Standard-Bearer of Democracy Becomes Great Satan
Date: 5/3/04 11:50:32 AM Pacific Daylight Time
From: hectorpv@comcast.net
To: hectorpv@comcast.net
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Friend,
Standard-Bearer of Democracy Becomes Great Satan
The official fairy tale was that US had come as beneficent power to liberate Iraq and create democracy, which would then transform the entire Middle East into one harmonious prosperous democratic region. The democratic Middle Eastern peoples, ridding themselves of their evil tyrants and terrorists (just a few bad eggs) would then just get along perfectly with Israel, because everyone knows that there is no real reason for Arabs to be angry at the Jewish state, which has never caused any harm to anyone.
Reality, however, has done in the fairy tale.
As the first article by Shibley Telhami of the liberal Brookings Institution points out:
"Certainly the painful pictures from Iraq a year after the war -- including humiliating scenes of abused Iraqi prisoners -- have turned that country into a model to be feared and avoided in the eyes of many in the Middle East, and a tool in the hands of governments reluctant to change. It is a far cry from the anticipated model of inspiration the administration promised would spur demands for democracy in the Arab world."
In the second article paleocon Paul Craig Roberts takes a harsher view:
"In his war propaganda, President Bush portrays America as a morally superior country whose innate virtue is the reason we are in Iraq. America alone is willing to tax its citizens and send its sons to die in order to bring freedom and democracy to other lands. Bush describes our mission as one in which our troops are dying and we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars not to acquire a colony or to control the oil, but to liberate Iraqi women and to make Iraqis safe from torture.
"With the US now guilty of war crimes as defined by Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, our sanctimonious president will never again be able to wear American virtue on his sleeve without the entire world laughing in his face."
No one with any intelligence and knowledge of the region and its history could honestly believe the democracy fairy tale—so it could be assumed that it was not really believed by the neocons who manufactured it. And it is certainly the diametrical opposite of the position of the neocons’ friends on the Israeli Right. (Though if one looked beneath the surface, it was apparent that what the neocons proclaimed as "democracy" was anything but. Their "democracy" proposals frequently entailed minority rule, extensive censorship, and government propaganda) http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/ABOLISH/rick-halperin/apr03/0243.html
http://www.currentconcerns.ch/archive/2003/04/20030407.php http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/jg20030503.shtml
The fact of the matter is that the neocons—at least the leading neocons—never really held this roseate view of democracy, which simply served as war propaganda just like the non-existent WMD danger. Rather, the neocons believed that the war would destabilize and fragmentize the Middle East, with various little ethnic and religious groups fighting among themselves. By weakening Israel’s enemies, Israel’s security would be enhanced.. This fits in with the fundamental Likudnik view going back to Lev Jabotinsky, the ideological father of the Israeli right, that the Jewish state could only survive through force—the "iron wall."
http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2001/441/441p21.htm http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/
This Likudnik destabilization and fragmentation policy was put forth in a 1982 policy paper entitled, "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s," authored by Oded Yinon. Yinon proposed that Israel should engage in military action to bring about the dissolution of its Middle East enemies [http://www.theunjustmedia.com/the%20zionist_plan_for_the_middle_east.htm]
The neoconservatives adopted this Likud strategy. Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Douglas Feith, and others openly pushed this destabilization strategy in their 1996 study, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," which was originally prepared as a working paper for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. In this work, the elimination of Saddam's regime would serve as a first step towards eliminating the anti-Israeli governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
[The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000," "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm ]
Notably, there was no mention of democracy in these 1996 proposals (which were created by the same people who brought about the US war on Iraq). The goal was not to create stable, productive Middle East states, but instead dissolved, fragmented entities that would not be any threat to Israel. It was realpolitik pure and simple.
It is quite apparent that the war on Iraq has achieved positive results from the neocon/Likudnik perspective—the weakening of Israel's Middle East enemies, the US planted more firmly in the Middle East in opposition to Israel's enemies, the worsening of the Palestinian position, a firmer alliance between Israel and the US, the Middle Eastern states faced with destabilizing terror attacks, and international pressure being placed on Iran and Syria to eliminate nuclear program. Even the fact that the Arabs/Muslims now detest the US, which means the greater likelihood that the Americans will be the victims of Islamic terror attacks, is a positive achievement from the Likudnik position. In short, not only is Israel not alone as an enemy of the Arabs/Muslims, it would actually seem that the US has replaced Israel as the foremost enemy (the Great Satan)--a grand achievement from the position of Israeli national security. In short, the US is now connected with Israel against what had primarily been Israel’s Middle East enemies. And the US is now taking the brunt of the Arab/Islamic hostility and perhaps can be induced to launch the neocons’ World War IV against Islam, should a major terrorist event occur. At the very least, it appears that the US cannot escape the Middle East quagmire. Mainstream opinion holds that for the US to pull out would wreck American global credibility. Kerry, of course, supports America’s continued occupation of Iraq.
None of this is to deny that the neocons would prefer to have even greater achievements: regime change throughout the entire Middle East with pro-Israel puppet regimes installed by the US. But again it should be emphasized that from the neocon/Likudnik perspective the power situation in the Middle East has much improved since 9/11/2001.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58096-2004Apr30?language=printer
washingtonpost.com
Double Blow To Mideast Democracy
By Shibley Telhami
Saturday, May 1, 2004; Page A21
Events in Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict have dealt a fatal blow to the Bush administration's plans for Middle East reform even before they are formally unveiled. These events may come to symbolize the end of democracy as a serious policy objective in the Middle East.
Certainly the painful pictures from Iraq a year after the war -- including humiliating scenes of abused Iraqi prisoners -- have turned that country into a model to be feared and avoided in the eyes of many in the Middle East, and a tool in the hands of governments reluctant to change. It is a far cry from the anticipated model of inspiration the administration promised would spur demands for democracy in the Arab world.
But the challenge for the administration's reform plans is far greater than the pictures in Iraq convey. A year after major combat was declared over, the administration is in greater need than before of help from the very governments it seeks to reform. And the administration's support for the unilateral disengagement plan of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon necessitates yet more help from Arab governments in implementing an unpopular plan without unleashing instability.
Add to this increasing public anger in the Arab world with the United States over both Iraq and the Palestinian issue -- and with their own governments for supporting the United States. This exacerbates the rulers' insecurity and inclines them toward increased repression.
Because our strategic and political objectives are now urgent, they outweigh our desire for reform, even if we continue to pay lip service to it. In the history of U.S. foreign policy, such concessions are always portrayed as necessary short-term measures. Too often, however, long-term U.S. behavior in the region simply looks like a series of short-term concessions.
Despite our claim before the Iraq war that the prospects of democracy in the region would improve, public opinion there has gone the other way. In an opinion survey I conducted in six Arab countries on the eve of the war, majorities of Arabs expressed the view that the Middle East would be less democratic after the war. It was a seemingly puzzling view given how little democracy already existed. But there are two primary reasons for this assessment that we cannot ignore.
First, there was widespread mistrust of American intentions. When you don't trust the messenger, you don't trust the message, even if it's a good one. While the lack of trust was based on many factors, including a historical gap between what we say and what we do, the primary measure of confidence toward the United States in Arab minds remains the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. While Arabs have always complained about perceived American "bias," their level of confidence in the United States has not been constant. In the spring of 2000, for example, when it looked as if the United States was genuinely trying to mediate an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, more than 60 percent of Saudis expressed confidence in this country. Immediately after the collapse of the negotiations that fall, confidence began to slide, and it continued to do so, reaching single digits in the past year.
No matter what else we do in the region, the Arab-Israeli conflict remains the "prism of pain" for Arabs through which they read U.S. intentions, in the same way that the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, and associated terrorism are now the prism of pain through which Americans will continue to see the Arab and Muslim worlds. Regardless of the objective meaning of the administration's support for Sharon, the regional perception of that support is likely to outweigh anything we say on reform -- or even Iraq.
Second, while Arab and Muslim public views of the United States are often wrong and unjustified, their skepticism about our policy toward reform is reasonable. We have not been fully honest in our own public discourse about where democracy ranks in our priorities. It is true that many in our government and media have come to believe that democracy is now a strategic priority, because its absence fuels terrorism. But we fear anarchy and instability even more in areas where we have strategic interests, and we fear the emergence of unfriendly governments, even if democratically elected.
In Pakistan, our strategic priority is to get maximum support from the besieged government of Pervez Musharraf for fighting our top strategic threat, al Qaeda. We fear most the disintegration of a nuclear state in an area where al Qaeda is strong. In Iraq today, we would like to see democracy, but our priority is to limit the casualties of our troops, to ensure an outcome that favors our other interests, especially oil. We want democratic rulers, but only if they are sure allies. The result is that what we say and what we do are visibly in conflict.
The difficulty in bringing stability, let alone democracy, to Iraq, where we have direct control and are spending enormous resources, should be a sobering example of the limits of our power. Above all two conclusions must be drawn: First, it is impossible to succeed in our reform policy without having in place a robust Arab-Israeli peace process that commands regional trust. Second, we cannot succeed if we continue to ignore public opinion in the region. The gap between governments and publics increases the rulers' incentive to repress at the same time that it decreases our leverage with them.
The writer is Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland and a senior fellow at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
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http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=2455
May 1, 2004
The Great Satan
by Paul Craig Roberts
The current issue of National Review advocates that the US adopt Saddam Hussein’s policies toward Iraqis. Nothing less will subdue them, says the conservative publication. To beat them, National Review says, we must become like them.
No sooner said than done. The US has appointed Saddam Hussein’s Republican Guard General, Jasim Muhammed Saleh to deal with the Fallajuh insurgency. And, judging from news reports and photographs of tortured Iraqis, the US has put Saddam Hussein himself back in charge of the notorious prison, Abu Ghraib.
US prestige will never recover from the photos of Americans abusing Iraqi detainees. With no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, with no terrorist link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, President Bush’s last remaining excuse for his invasion of Iraq was his boast that the torture prisons have been closed.
In his war propaganda, President Bush portrays America as a morally superior country whose innate virtue is the reason we are in Iraq. America alone is willing to tax its citizens and send its sons to die in order to bring freedom and democracy to other lands. Bush describes our mission as one in which our troops are dying and we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars not to acquire a colony or to control the oil, but to liberate Iraqi women and to make Iraqis safe from torture.
With the US now guilty of war crimes as defined by Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, our sanctimonious president will never again be able to wear American virtue on his sleeve without the entire world laughing in his face.
The US military is making a big show of dealing with the Saddam Hussein imitators in its ranks, but the sickening fact is that both the US government and the American media sat on the story for one month, keeping it a secret until the photos began circulating independently.
The neocons, whose war this is, were quick to say that the US should be judged by what it proclaims, not by what it does. What’s a little torture after all, compared to building freedom and democracy?
It was ten minutes into the news hour on the day the story broke before the Ministry of Propaganda, a.k.a. Fox News, could bring itself to mention, fleetingly, the torture story. Americans who rely on Fox News for their understanding of the war must be scratching their heads.
By showing the true nature of the US occupation, the photos may have broken the rush to wider war and the return to military conscription. Polls released at the end of April show that a majority of Americans had soured on the war prior to the torture story. The photographic evidence that US troops are committing atrocities will further reduce support for the war.
The impact on the Muslim world will be different. For decades extremists have called the US "the Great Satan." The US invasion and violent occupation of Iraq have given credibility to this characterization of America. Our Middle Eastern puppets are sending us frantic signals that unprecedented hatred of America is endangering the stability of their countries. One thing is certain: the photographs showing a female US soldier laughing at the sexual humiliation of Muslim men will not make Americans safer.
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