From: Brett Paatsch (bpaatsch@bigpond.net.au)
Date: Sat Aug 30 2003 - 10:30:24 MDT
Robbie Lindauer <robblin@thetip.org> writes:
> On Saturday, August 30, 2003, at 12:01 AM, Brett Paatsch wrote:
>
> > I do NOT see President Bush as an evil or Hitler-like character,
> > but I DO think that the US is now riper and more receptive for
> > the rise of a genuine Hitler-like regime than ever before.
>
> What do you think "Shock and Awe" means from below?
From below? I don't know. I interpreted it from the media as
military PR speak for "we are going to impress scare these
folks so bad with our military display of force that they will be
shocked and awed into submission.
> The pretty pictures you see on TV of nice lights lighting
> up the desert sky are really, every one of them, horrifying,
> evil and atrocious acts of murder.
>
> That we are not ALL completely horrified that there were
> two wars that didn't need to happen is a sign that in fact we
> are already living in Die Neue Reichstadt and that a
> Hitler-Like character has already taken over.
Nah Robbie, if it makes sense to put horrifying on any sort of
sliding scale I think there have been some acts in wars that
were more completely horrifying than those of the second
gulf war and of Afghanistan. The concentration camps in
WWII were more horrifying, and more depraved imo. I think
it is important to keep our sense of proportion.
Bush does not have Hilter's political and media savvy, not by
a long shot. I very much doubt he has Hitler's degree of single
minded ruthlessness either. But Hitler came to power in a set
of circumstances and using a background of propaganda and
fear that some astute political observers of modern American
might find provocative. Bush is a bungler, that he has done
great harm is because he has great power and poor judgement
not because he has great malice.
Imo Bush intended and expected to get UN support for a
second resolution. He expected to unearth WMD's. He did not
have the savvy to differentiate two key issues at the diplomatic
level and as a consequence he put many in the world offside
that might have been onside and the UN was wrecked at a time
when a brighter President might have re-invigorated it.
The problem of Iraq and the UN (after resolution 1441 was
unanimously agreed too) was two problems not one.
The second problem was the specific problem of Iraq, the
great mistake made was in seeing that as the first problem.
The first was that the Security Council was the only body
with the authority to authorise a go to war decision under
the special circumstances that prevailed. Yet the Security
Councils permanent members had no standard in place by
which any criteria to go to war in the interests of international
peace and security could be made. It still has none. Chirac
was going about saying we will never, never go to war. Such
a statement made in the context of being specifically asked
as a permanent security council member for a practical
standard would have been patently untenable in the court of
world public opinion. And Bush would have been right to
threaten to revoke the UN Charter on that basis and to
actually do it if it came to that.
A murder trial even in France must balance the risks between
sentencing an innocent man and letting a guilty one go free.
Jury decisions acknowledge this when they are asked to
decide guilty or not guilty of murder against a standard, in
this case against the standard of "beyond reasonable doubt".
The UN Security Council including France was obliged
under the terms of the Charter to make a judgement in the
interests of international peace and security and yet Chirac
of France was able to not decide because Bush did not
challenge him to come up with a standard of proof for
any go to war don't go to war to apply both to Iraq and
for the UN in the future. Had Bush pushed for such a
standard and Chirac not come up with one Bush could
have argued legitimately that the UN could not function
in its current configuration because one of the permanent
security council members, France would not agree on a
practical standard that balanced the risks in the new world
that includes terrorist organisations and actions of the scale
and sophistication of September 11. Bush had the move
(if he had the sense to play it to isolate Chirac but he did
not play it).
Pushed to come up with a standard for UN go to war,
no go to war decision Chirac would have had to come up
with a standard. A practical standard for a practical
problem. The standard could have been fair and it could
have been rational but in its absence the security council
cannot perform its task of maintaining international peace
and security.
Say the standard that Chirac had come up with was "on
the balance of probably risk". Then the various countries
could have applied that standard, the risk of a go to war
against Iraq, verses the risk of not going on the basis of
information available and factoring for urgency. Information
which could have been provided in camera.
Chances are, in hindsight, with such a standard, that the
US would not have been able to make its case for a quick
invasion as it didn't have evidence of weapons of mass
destruction. But had there been such evidence then the case
should have been able to be quickly. And the UN would
have had a working standard for dealing with Iran and
North Korea and other rogue states.
Imo history provided a moment to a US President to put
real teeth in international law, and to give the UN, in the
interests of the US as well, real power. But through poor
diplomacy Bush blue it. He missed the shot. No other
national leader was in a position to call for a standard
because Bush was controlling the clock, he had the military
in place and he was setting the timetable. He got the UN
to resolution 1441 and that is too his credit.
Only Bush could make the UN better, or if need be break
it in good faith in front of all the world because the French
or some other permanent member were being hopelessly
intractable in refusing to even come up with a standard.
Of all the options Bush could have chosen he chose the
absolute worst. He chose to keep the UN but breach
the charter. And international law has been in a state of
conspicuous farce ever since. Bush has the US in the
situation where it appears to respect international law only
when it suits it. And the world knows this. America
historically has been better than that. The world looks at
the mighty US military and thinks potential or actual
"protection racket".
The reason that Iraq was not worth the price was that
the price was America's word in international law and
the final reduction of the UN to a farce by one man.
President G. W. Bush. America still needs the UN but it
cannot imbue that body now with legitimacy as President
Bush through diplomatic incompetence (not malice imo -
he did too many other things that make malice or deep
planning a plausible explanation) took the principle role
in destroying it. It continues to exist now as a facade, that
few will dare to speak of burying but the logic of its charter,
the trust that nations especially permanent security council
members will abide by the Charter has been rent.
Brett Paatsch
[NB. The views above are those of the poster only]
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