Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Couldn't have said it better myself Michael Coleman. Wish I could have said it as well.

For me, you've touched on the crux of the thing. These interactions between countries/cultures/religions are too complex to nut out who's right and who's wrong.  As for "Good always prevails in the end, it is only a matter of time." I've never heard such naive horseshit. I guess when you've lived in a country that has been more or less stable for aeons (read 200 years) then it's hard to imagine that anything could be taken away from you. But as long as people continue to behave in such selfish, brutal, greedy, one-eyed, self-rightious  ways, anything can and will happen, even to those things we take as certainties, like peace and prosperity in Australia. What if the US wants shitloads of uranium?

Michael Coleman writes, "For those who like to think that they would have been responsible for the plight of the Iraqi people had we not invaded, I wonder how you sleep at night knowing that, by the same logic, you are responsible for the millions starved to death by the North Koreans and the multitudes oppressed and murdered by any of the other nasty, tin-pot dictators all over the planet. Similarly, how many lives could have been saved if the hundreds of billions of dollars spent in Iraq had been used to fight AIDS in Africa. Or poverty. Or hunger. Are you not responsible for these souls too?"

Good question. I think the answer is "yes." To some extent we all are.

Don't forget Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, etc.

(Apologies for the harsh tone of my responses in the "Did Israel know about the Amman bombings in advance?" exchange a while ago. A lapse into incivility on my part.)

Reading Webdiary, I am often surprised at the vanity on display. I am particularly struck by those who pretend to know the minds of others when, I suspect, most of us don't really know our own minds completely. Isn't it enough to express our own opinions without pretending to know the minds of others?

Our current crop of politicians act as if the ends justify any means at all. Worse still, the "ends" are often no more than short-term goals and the "means" have the capacity to spawn ghastly consequences. The bastards unleash DU and phosphorus weapons on civilian populations, lock up children in Gitmo for years on end, torture and murder innocent prisoners, discard judicial oversight, use the apparatus of state to spy on their opposition and loot national treasuries for their corporate mates. And they have the nerve to call it security.

Once, I did not believe my country would engage in the aggressive use of military force for purely political objectives. After all, this use of warfare was specifically proscribed by the Nuremberg Charter. Ousting Saddam and spreading democracy may well be noble "ends" but the means have been catastrophic for the hundreds of thousands killed, injured and traumatised by our actions. We have unleashed forces that we have no way of controlling and with no way to know what the result will be. All we can say for sure is that our nations have gambled with the blood and lives of the Iraqi people and we are now responsible for everything that happens.

Nowhere is the vanity of those who tell us they know the minds of others more obviously exposed. The Iraqis were supposed to throw flowers and welcome the COW as liberators. It would be "a cake walk". Yeah, sure. The same voices that tell us economies are too complex to be centrally planned can be heard supporting a centrally planned democracy implemented under force of arms. Sheer bloody vanity.

For those who like to think that they would have been responsible for the plight of the Iraqi people had we not invaded, I wonder how you sleep at night knowing that, by the same logic, you are responsible for the millions starved to death by the North Koreans and the multitudes oppressed and murdered by any of the other nasty, tin-pot dictators all over the planet. Similarly, how many lives could have been saved if the hundreds of billions of dollars spent in Iraq had been used to fight AIDS in Africa. Or poverty. Or hunger. Are you not responsible for these souls too?

Of course, any discussion of Iraq that does not mention energy security is fraudulent. Iraq has the largest, untapped reserves of light, sweet, low-cost crude oil on the planet. The profits to be made from these vast reserves are gargantuan. The suggestion that there was any altruism in the COW invasion of Iraq is ludicrous. PNAC published its military goals for Iraq in 2000: Permanent bases among the largest reserves of crude oil on the planet are critical to the energy security of the USA and the lifestyle that George Bush senior declared to be non-negotiable.

For so long as we go along with the idea that the ends can justify any means, we become what we fight; nasty, murderous, tin-pot dictators prepared to kill to achieve our objectives. Violence begets more violence and we have no way to predict where it will end when we take that path. That's why aggressive war is a crime against humanity.

Mark Sergeant: "Until the Americans withdraw, there can’t be peace in Iraq."

That, of course, is the key difference in the implications of the two surveys.  And it is actually an empirical question which can only be resolved by the passage of time.

Also, as an inference, it sidesteps dealing with what would happen if the Coalition (essentially the Americans) were to withdraw now.

My guess is there'd be a civil war, with Iranian backed militias (alread funding and staffing the secret prisons) staging a coup and butchering the Sunnis wholesale. In the name of God.

Doubtless, this would delight the "peace" activists (whose only concern is to cock a snoot at the US no matter what the cost) almost as much as had the elections failed or had Saddam somehow got back into power.

And butchered the Shi'ites and Kurds again. In the name of God.

Popular sentiment in Iraq being against the US presence or not, I suspect most Iraqis also realise that that the consequence of an immediate withdrawl of Coalition support for the elected government would be a disastrous descent into mutual reprisals by the Shi'ite Islamist and Ba'ath Fascist (er, I mean the "resistance") militias.

Michael de Angelos: "Those on the left who opposed the Iraq War? Would that include General Norman Scwartzkopf, other 4 star US generals and Republican Pat Buchanan?"

I actually said "The real challenge for the Left and others ...", Michael.

Don't you think it odd, by the way, that Pat Buchanan and Fidel Castro be at one on this issue?

I don't personally, andI bet there's not a ready slogan in your Party manual to account for it. Must be puzzling for you.

Michael de Angelos: "Fidel Castro did some terrible things to get Cuba where it is..."

Stuck perpetually in 1959. Only without Ozzie and Harriet.

That's okay, though. Raoul will take it right back to the dark ages once he gets control. Even if he only lasts a week before Cuba's population comes back from Florida.

Met a Cuban refugee waitress at the Tropicanna the other day. Lovely girl. She's very excited about celebrating her first Christmas. It's banned in Cuba.

"My President doesn't like Santa Claus," she explained.

It's not quite as surreal as North Korea, is it?

But close.

Damian Lataan: "A big day out at the polls does not a democracy make."

As I said, the enemies of democracy in Iraq, and  their so called "peace activist" allies, will do what they can to belittle the achievement of the Iraqi people's defiance of the "resistance" murderers.

After all, they hate people.

Some "resistance" murder group or other announced a truce on the eve of the elections, saying it wouldn't be bombing voting centres this time around because the Sunnis were voting on this occasion - and it didn't want to injur any of them. Thus simultaneously revealing its racism and its fascism.

No wonder they're so popular with the "peace" movement in this country.

Bob Wall: "Bush's approval of surveillance without a court order is illegal and thus an impeachable offence."

I was amused to see how this "news", held quiet by the New York Times for over a year, was suddenly published as a front page side bar alongside the reports of the success of the elections in Iraq.

They must have been saving it up for just such a special, desparate occasion.

Regardless, there simply would have been no elections in Iraq had the "peace" movement and its "resistance" allies had their way.

By the way, Bob. Was the Anfal genocide conducted by Saddam's forces against the Kurds "an impeachable offence"?

What's the "peace" movement's line on that?

I deny it. What absolute undiluted unqualified horseshit.

God, these big guns fire a lot of CAPs. Give them water-pistols, please.

Peter Dead $ouls Woodforde.

For years, beginning at a time when the Iraqi war was just a dreamy glimmer in the eyes of Washington’s neoconservatives, I have argued that the war would, and has been, about three things: hegemony in the region, oil, and the protection generally of Israel’s interests. And for just as long a time the right-wing Israeli apologists have denied that Israel has had anything to do with it or that the US had gone to war against Iraq because of Israel.
 

Most people in the world knew that such denial was mere propaganda and that the reason for such denial was that it would detract from the other stated ‘reasons’ (lies) that the governments of US, the UK and Australia told its respective peoples. Nonetheless, the apologists, even those here at Webdiary, and the liars continued their rhetoric and, of course, their denials.
 

Bush, however, at last has revealed the truth of it and has said that “Israel's long-term survival depends upon the spread of democracy in the Middle East.” The irony is though, Israel would now prefer for some countries – particularly their immediate neighbours, Jordan and Egypt – to remain as they are for the simple reason that the current governments of these two countries are friendly toward Israel. The peoples of these two countries on the other hand are not and, if democracy were allowed to flourish, Jordan and Egypt may end up with governments that are not friendly to Israel, especially while Israel maintains its current right-wing expansionist and apartheid agenda. It seems that Israel is finally waking up to the idea that ‘democracy’ throughout the Middle East doesn’t necessarily mean peaceful co-existence with neighbours.
 

If I were a right-wing Israeli I could see the merit in this logic, but then how does that account for the US neoconservatives’ insistence that the entire ME become ‘democratised’? Simple. The neoconservatives – particularly those that have very close bonds with Israel, with some even having dual nationality and ties to the Likud Party – are ideologues and long term strategists. They are also the ones that put together the lies via the Office of Special Plans (OSP) and the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) that got the war going in the first place. They see the long term goals of ‘democratisation’ of the entire ME as being good for Israel in the long run because, they believe, the benefits of ‘democracy’ and its accompanying spread of wealth, free capitalism and globalisation will diminish the antagonisms of the Arab nations toward Israel.
 

It will be interesting to see how these seemingly contradictory ideas are going to shape up next year when Israel has its elections. If Netanyahu gets up, which is as likely as not at this stage, we could see, due to Netanyahu being even more to the right than Sharon, an escalation in the general conflict that could end in massive loss of life, particularly if the Iran ‘nuclear’ issue isn’t resolved before then.
 

However, I digress a little from my original point. Bush’s revelations that this was about Israel after all can no longer be denied.

Consider this quote:

 The fascists have, of course, tried to put the blame for  both the war and the discomfort caused by the [war]  on to the Jews, and ... they did succeed in raising a mutter of antisemitism, though only a faint one. The most interesting development of the anti-war front has been the interpretation [sic] of the pacifist movement by fascist ideas, especially antisemitism. ... pacifism seems to have suffered a moral collapse; it has not produced any significant gesture nor even many martyrs, and only about fifteen percent of the membership of the [peace movement] now appear to be active. But many of the surviving pacifists now spin a line of talk indistinguishable from that of the [fascists] ("Stop this Jewish war" etc) and the actual membership of the [peace movement] and the [fascists] overlap to some extent.

Who could have written this and when? Norman Podhoretz  in  Commentary  two years ago? Daniel Pipes in his Newsletter last week?

It was George Orwell in London Letter to Partisan Review on 3 January 1941.   

C Parsons, the press release you quote is remarkably one-sided about the survey. There’s another article on the BBC that is rather more balanced.

The figures will provide evidence for supporters of the invasion and occupation to argue that the international media have got it wrong - that, despite everything, most Iraqis are wedded to a democratic future in a unified state and have faith it will come.

The findings are in line with the kind of arguments currently being deployed by President George W Bush.

... However critics will claim that the survey proves little beyond showing how resilient Iraqis are at a local level.

I guess we have a fair idea who’s who here at Webdiary

They will argue that it reveals enough important exceptions to the rosy assessment, especially in the centre of the country, to indicate serious dissatisfaction.

The report of the survey and slideshow at Spiegel Online shows the level of disaffection in the Central region. It also shows how distinctive the Kurdish region is.

One thing the BBC press release totally ignores is the attitude towards the occupation forces – particularly the US. For example, on the question “Are you for or against the presence of coalition troops in Iraq?” it’s 65/32 against. If you take out the Kurds, then it would be about 72/25. If you take out the British Southern region as well, it’s about 78/19 against. The American’s aren’t very popular. Are they going to leave?

The survey had 1711 respondents. The corresponding survey last year had 2737.

This figure was lower than in previous surveys because of security considerations but even so, according to ORI director Dr Christoph Sahm, it produced a result in which "Iraqi households were talking to us".

Since the international media cannot get out and about in Iraq, the findings are of particular interest, though for the same reason the results cannot easily be tested against experience.

If you have good protocols then 1711 is probably OK. “Security considerations” mean that the sampling protocols are out the window. That’s going to stuff up the weightings. Given the security considerations, the sample is going to be severely skewed towards those who are, in Iraqi terms, relatively secure. Have the weightings compensated? Maybe they have over-compensated. We don’t know.

We do know that the impartiality of the survey (not just the BBC press release) is in question. Dr Christoph Sahm is quoted as saying "We are beginning to lose the centre. The centre has gone sour. It has a siege mentality.” So a director and spokesman of the company conducting the survey identifies with a party to the conflict.

Just a further note on the survey. All we have are second hand reports. The BBC has a PDF that purports to be “full survey responses“, which is as close as I’ve been able to get to the original ORI report. It doesn’t have either the regional or income/consumer goods data that appear in the Der Spiegel and BBC articles. We have no information on sampling or weighting.

On balance, I’d say it’s probably a reasonably accurate survey of Iraqi feelings. There is a lot of optimism. With a new constitution and the elections, optimism is a lot more attractive than pessimism. There is also a deep animosity to the occupying armies – particularly the Americans. Until the Americans withdraw, there can’t be peace in Iraq. Given the loss of Imperial face, strategic position and of the oil that withdrawal would mean, I don’t think it will happen. So I think that the optimism is, unfortunately, unlikely to be justified. I hope I’m proved wrong.

At least by 2010 no one under 35 will remember why Keating got the boot and we might be in with a chance *sighs* though what will happen when the generation thats grown up under the Libs comes into power in society?

Jay White: "Good always prevails in the end, it is only a matter of time."

Does it? Which 'good' Jay? New Jerusalem? The dictatorship of the proletariat? Arcadia? Geist? Perfect equilibrium in the market?

I'm probably wrong to direct this at you Jay, or anyone in particular, because probably many here believe that, "Good always prevails in the end," in one way or another, but it is essentially a theological idea and has never served us because it just ain't necessarilly so.

It has as much certainty about it as dialectical materialism or the coming of the Lord.

There ain't no God mate, and if there's such thing as 'good', or more accurately, 'better than now', then it's something that's up to humans to define and strive for.

Bob Wall: "He is a strident supporter of criminal governments, ie., the Bush administration and the Howard government. In addition to all the evidence previously evidence posted on WD, I have just posted an article on Irises that claims Bush's approval of surveillance without a court order is illegal and thus an impeachable offence".

I am a supporter of democratically elected Governments, something Bob Wall does not understand much about. I will also support the Government that Iraq elects. Nobody knows who Bob Wall supports because he is not saying.

Although with his second rate propaganda thread he could get a job with a deviant and corrupt Government such as the Cuban one. I wonder if they pay more than Australian unemployment benefits?

ed Hamish: got any content regarding Bob's claims Jay? If so, let's have it. This is merely abuse.

Michael De Angelos, Damian Lataan, just to remind you that by his own criteria, Jay White, should not be taken seriously. He is a strident supporter of criminal governments, ie., the Bush administration and the Howard government. In addition to all the evidence previously evidence posted on WD, I have just posted an article on Irises that claims Bush's approval of surveillance without a court order is illegal and thus an impeachable offence.

Paul Kelly in today’s The Australian asserts: “Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had no plan for post-war Iraq for an excellent reason: the US would not be there.”

Is that so? Then why did the US military begin to build permanent bases in Iraq within months of Bush’s ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech? Indications are that there are at least 14 permanent bases going up, being built rather unsurprisingly by Halliburton and/or it subsidiaries.

The US has no intention of leaving Iraq any day soon.

It never did have.

Michael de Angelos, many of the journalists you speak of such as Fisk and Pilger have been known to support evil such as the Cuban Government. Therfore their opinion is of little to no value. Although they have the right to express it.

I find it hard to have any respect for people who would not openly depise the often criminal and deviant Governments such as the one Cuba now suffers. Perhaps they would like to see similar things take shape in Iraq and inflict even more pain on the long suffering people.

For democracy to take shape in Iraq is indeed a great day. Congratulations the US, Britain, Australia and most importantly Iraq itself. The anti-democrats amongst us in all our nations have surely felt a well deserved loss today. Good always prevails in the end, it is only a matter of time.

A big day out at the polls does not a democracy make. An election day in Iraq has been misrepresented as ‘democracy’ by those eager to vindicate the deaths of several tens of thousands of innocent civilians in the Coalition of the Killing’s invasion, occupation and plundering of Iraq.

A big turnout at the polls is simply that, a big turn out at the polls; nothing more. All it will achieve is a changing of the seating arrangements of the existing government. The only candidates the people got to vote for were proffered groupings of criminals or self-interest religious and regional parties who once in power will use their power for their own interests rather than the overall good of the Iraqi people.

The civil war between the resistance/insurgents and the US and their lackey Iraqi army and police will continue after a brief respite while the re-arranging of the seats happens as the results come in, and then it will be back to business as usual – killing, militia attacks, death squads, US/Iraqi wholesale attacks on towns and villages that resist, more innocent deaths, car bombs, and, of course, all of this will be blamed on the ‘Scarlet Pimpernel and his al Qaeda in Iraq’.

Democracy in Iraq? Good idea, but not for a decade or so yet or, at least, not until all the oil has been pumped out of the ground!

Those on the left who opposed the Iraq War? Would that include General Norman Scwartzkopf, other 4 star US generals and Republican Pat Buchanan? The only pretence I can see is that "democracy is taking root in Iraq". Elections are one thing - they did have them even in Saddam's time, but democracy quite another. Apart from the dictator's fixed presidential election, there was a council elected from all areas to advise him - a little like a democratic parliament. Of course they had no power and he ignored anything he didn't want to hear but isn't that the case elsewhere?

When Iraq is run by Iraqis  with no occupying force we may see democracy "take root", or we may not. Far from "fulminating and ranting," journalists who report  like Fisk and Pilger as opposed to the majority of the US media holed up in hotels with steel re-inforced walls, never venturing outside, do just that. They tell it like it is, not how we'd like it to be. (Does someone actually read Richard Neville? How quaint.)

I think anyone who claims victory in present day Iraq should travel there first and ask the relatives of those who have died if  they think it was all worth it before celebrating their passive role on the sidelines as a cheerleader for war.

It's odd how noone actually points to the only real democracy in the Middle East which is and has been a great success - Israel. Other countries that are feverant US supporters like Jordan and Saudi Arabia don't seem to be lining up to join the democratic experiment despite the example of their successful neighbour for 60 years.

The so called "peace activists" hate democracy deep down. They cannot admit it to themselves but it can be seen by any who look close enough.

For one reason or another they have become fearful and irrational regarding this strange thing called democracy and an equal say by all. Their deep seated fear and hatred of it in their own nations is subdued because it cannot gain traction yet it shows itself through the excuse of Iraq. What better way to hide what you are really about by pretending it is something different.

Unfortunatly for many of these people they do not have the ability to carry off their fraud and in the end only end up conning themselves. This is indeed a great, great day for Iraq and should be celebrated as such. Malcontents and anti democrats should not be allowed the opportunity to spoil the party in attempting to bring people down to their level.

"An opinion poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and other international media organisations suggests that security is a major concern in the lives of most Iraqis, two and a half years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - although it also reveals a high level of optimism about the future.

An overwhelming majority of those questioned said they considered improved national security to be the main priority for the next 12 months, although many felt secure in their own neighbourhoods.

And while many wanted to see American and other foreign forces leaving Iraqi soil, a majority said they should not go until security had been restored, or until the Iraqi security forces were able to operate independently."

I told you so. Repeatedly.

The real challenge for the Left and others who opposed the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath Fascists will be how to take credit for this startling outcome in the future.

My guess is they'll just lie about their role in support of the so-called "resistance", in the same way as they now lie about their support for Communism in the 20th century.

And pretend "it would have happened, anyhow", though clearly it wouldn't have.

The really "horrible thing" from their perspective is it appears democracy is taking root in Iraq.

Their initial impulse will be to somehow belittle it, trivialise what has happened, call it a fraud, insist it serves no practical good, deny that it is actually happening, denounce it as illegal, and so on.

Ignoring all along the immense cost of living beneath a tyranny like the Ba'athist Fascist regime of Saddam Hussein.

People like John Pilger, Robert Fisk, Bob Brown, Noam Chomsky, Arandhati Roy, Germaine Greer, Richard Neville, Tariq Ali and so many others like them will fulminate and rant, and go on castigating George W Bush and Tony Blair for years to come, doubtless.

In vain.

Because if in the long run, if democracy fluorishes in Iraq, the history books will note that George W Bush, and not they, brought democracy to Iraq. And Afghanistan. And that Bush may have also played a crucial role in the liberation of Lebanon.

While they, the "peace" activists, did everything in their power to prevent this.

In this they express a tendency that was evident throughout the 20th and early 21st Centuries, exemplified in such movements as the pro-German 'Peace Party' of David Lloyd George, the pro-Appeasment lickspittles of the Oxford Union Society in the 1930s, the useful idiots that lined up behind the 'Non-Alligned' Movement on the 1950s and 1960s, and those like Klaus Fuchs and the Rosenbergs who simply sold democracy down the road at the behest of Joe Stalin.