Friday, March 21, 2003
posted by Carla Passino at 5:01 PM
The Forgotten War
The hunt for Al Qaeda terrorists continues in Afghanistan amid a clamorous media silence
While all eyes are trained on Iraq, a forgotten war goes on in Afghanistan, where troops from a truly international coalition are searching for hidden members of Al Qaeda and what remains of the Taliban.
Italian reporter Pino Scaccia, who is in Kabul, writes on his weblog that American battalion known as the White Devils launched an assault on southern Afghanistan last night.
This of course is the just war, the one to which the bulk of intelligence and military efforts should be devoted to. Alas, it is also the war that Bush is struggling to win.
And no matter how many instant wars he may bag or how many blood-dripping heads of Middle-Eastern dictators he may throw to the American mob, it is Osama bin Laden and his network that pose the biggest threat to our culture. And until they are captured, the world of order and stability which Blair and Bush dream of will remain a chimera.
posted by Mooraq at 4:34 PM
Small Minds Think Alike
Examples of human stupidity continue to abound
After learning about some US patriots’ smart ideas, like changing names to French fries into “freedom fries” or trebling the taxes on French wines, I have discovered today similar brilliant initiatives on this side of the Atlantic. A colleague of mine, this time from Germany, has been telling me about local restaurants and bars boycotting American products, like that symbol of American imperialism: Coca Cola. It is a remarkable demonstration of how much the US and Europe are alike, even in their stupidity.
Personally tonight I will have a frankfurter with some French fries, mayonnaise, ketchup and a coke. I will toast to the narrow minded people which clearly abound on both sides of the Atlantic.
posted by Mooraq at 12:15 PM
Too Fast and Too Furious
Is there such thing as a “catastrophic victory”?
In the last two days I have come across several articles about the risks of a “catastrophic victory” scenario. In essence, the idea is that if the war is won very quickly and easily (relative terms if applied to a war obviously), the US may then be lulled into dangerous ideas of redrawing the world map at gunpoint.
There is some ground for these fears. Already Rummy sounds a bit too pompous and upbeat in his conferences - a more demurred and serious attitude would be welcome, considering the terrible events unfolding -. Already the minds of some are probably turning to the next name in the list of the axis of evil. But it would be a very dangerous path to thread. Tony Blair, aware of this risk, yesterday sounded more cautious and pleading rather then preaching. Conspicuous for a man of strong religious beliefs was the absence in his speech of references to God.
As I pointed out many times, I hope the US realizes that it will take more than just winning the Iraqi battle to win the war against terror and that military power does not necessarily translate in staying powerThe next fights will not be against military enemies but more subtle battles against Arab prejudices and for the liberation of minds, not territories. I sincerely hope that a successful and short war, which could be a springing board for reconciliation and reconstruction, will not turn itself instead into this catastrophic victory.
posted by Carla Passino at 9:44 AM
Anti-French Mania Soars to New Heights
(or falls to new lows, depending on your viewpoint)
The rift between France and America has inevitably deepened with the start of the war. But some bright minds across the pond are taking Francophobia to unprecedented heights when suggesting that the US should give the Statue of Liberty back to France (via News from Spain).
In a less flamboyant but perhaps more pragmatic move, "Texan legislators are backing a bill to triple state taxes on French wines," according to Decanter.com. “The bill would increase tax on French wine in Texan restaurants from 14% to 42%” and would certainly result in a healthy increase in trade for American wines. If I were in the shoes of the American Vintners Association, I’d jump at the chance and do my best to have the bill extended to as many other states as possible.
posted by Carla Passino at 8:56 AM
Old Europe Wonders
As the conflict starts in earnest so does the propaganda war, but America and Britain go about it in very different ways
As news come of troops advancing into Iraq and of the first Western casualties – a helicopter crashed during the night killing eight British marines and four American soldiers – Old Europe mulls over Donald Rumsfeld’s warning that “what will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before.”
We are, of course, a very old continent and with age comes perhaps a tendency to take words too literally, to compare and contrast with collective memories which we all hoped we had buried. So Zucconi on La Repubblica wonders whether Rumsfeld really knew what he was evoking: “It is truly war now and yet it is not, because these first 48 hours of bombing and the march towards taking Basra are only the ouverture of the drama, a taster of what Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld enthusiastically described as being beyond what has been seen before. Never seen? Worse than Coventry, London, Dresden, Hiroshima, Berlin, Tokyo? What sort of bombing has the world never seen before?”
Rumsfeld is, of course, a liability for the Bush administration’s international relations. He may well be loved in the United States but is universally hated in every other corner of the world. His childish tone at yesterday’s press conference - peppered with jokes about journalists not having the war plans – did nothing to improve his standing or heighten his power of persuasion. It is surprising that, at the time when Bush needs to intensify the propaganda war, especially in Arab countries, his ace man for the job, Colin Powell, has strangely been muted.
As ever, though, Tony Blair came to the rescue. His speech to the nation last night – five concise minutes in which a visibly drawn Prime Minister explained his reasons for entering the conflict – did truly awe. Not for him the triumphal tone of Margaret Thatcher on the eve of the Falkland war, or the easy evangelism dear to both John Major and George W Bush.
As removed from Rumsfeld’s insensitive jokes, as far from Bush’s Christian America-centrism as it could possibly be, Blair’s statement strived to show the thinking behind a decision taken reluctantly but firmly for the greater good of his and other countries.
“This new world faces a new threat of disorder and chaos born either of brutal states like Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction or of extreme terrorist groups,” he said. “Retreat might give us a moment of respite but years of repentance at our weakness would, I believe, follow. It is true that Saddam is not the only threat but it is true also as we British know that the best way to deal with future threats peacefully is to deal with present threats with resolve.
"I hope the Iraqi people hear this message. We are with you. Our enemy is not you but your barbarous rulers. Our commitment to the post-Saddam humanitarian effort will be total.
"Neither should Iraq be our only concern. President Bush and I have committed ourselves to peace in the Middle East based on a secure state of Israel and a viable Palestinian state. We will strive to see it done. But these challenges and others that confront us: poverty, the environment, the ravages of disease require a world of order and stability.
"Dictators like Saddam. Terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, threaten the very existence of such a world.
"That is why I've asked our troops to go into action tonight. As so often before on the courage and determination of British men and women serving our country the fate of many nations rest.”
If there is any man who can convince the world to support Bush’s war, this is Tony Blair.
Thursday, March 20, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 10:22 PM
The Other War
As Marines are advancing on Baghdad, another war is unfolding
The world’s opinion has never been so divided as lately. Big anti-war demonstrations are taking place in all major cities around the world. In the Arab world, in particular, there is strong hostility, to say the least, to the war on Iraq. A colleague of mine, in Egypt, has told me this afternoon about massive protests against the US Embassy.
I hope the war in Iraq will prove short but I am afraid the battle for the hearts and minds of the Arab people will be much harder to win. The western world should set aside its differences – as it should start to happen tomorrow in Brussels – and join a strong common effort to stabilise and help Iraq recover as quickly as possible. It will be one of the two crucial steps that we will need to convince Muslims this is not a crusade but a war of liberation.
posted by Carla Passino at 1:18 PM
American Folly?
Power craze will lead America to collapse, according to a Saudi commentator. But America's real folly lies in ignoring the issue at the heart of the Middle Eastern knot: Palestine
Predictably, Arab countries have not taken kindly to the start of the conflict. On Saudia Arabia’s Arab News, for example, columnist Fawaz Turki warns that “the exercise of American power today could be leading America to wanton arrogance, or hubris, hubris to overreaching, and overreaching to collapse” along the same lines which saw the rise and fall of the great powers of the past.
To start with, he thinks that rebuilding Iraq will prove a hard task, and one hardly comparable to the Fifties’ reconstruction of Japan and Europe. The times have changed and the place is profoundly different: “The US,” he writes, “will not succeed there in effecting, or imposing, regime changes on a region with an overwhelmingly hostile tradition of opposition to outside colonial interference, a region already smarting under the humiliation of American blatant support of Israeli designs on it.”
And here - beyond the expected barbs that a paper from ‘friendly’ but profoundly un-democratic Saudi Arabia feels obliged to trade with an America which pretends to have embarked on a crusade to democratise the world - lies the crux of the matter. So long as Bush continues to favour one side over the other; So long as his administration conveniently recalls and forgets UN resolutions at leisure (Israel has a longer tradition than Iraq in defying UN resolutions); So long as the Israeli-Palestinian question is not resolved, the knot of the Middle East will never be unravelled.
posted by Carla Passino at 9:45 AM
War Has Started
As the first missiles drop on Baghdad, a militia of children takes over the streets in Iraq while peaceniks take to the streets in Europe
So we are at war. The BBC, whose correspondents are bravely defying the Defence Department’s recommendation that they leave Iraq, reports that American missiles have been fired on Baghdad through the night targeting Saddam Hussein and other top Iraqi officials.
Blogging from Baghdad, Salam Pax – who, unlike the BBC reporters, doesn’t have the choice to leave because he’s Iraqi and wouldn’t be able to get past his city checkpoints even if he wanted to – reports that he’s hearing faint explosions in the distance. He says that the streets of the Iraqi capital have been taken over by soft drink-sipping, chocolate-munching militia children who “look too clean and well groomed to defend anything.” Satellite TV service has been suspended and the Internet may follow suit, so we may not be able to hear from him for much longer.
Meanwhile in Europe more peace demonstrations are scheduled for the next few days. As La Repubblica’s American correspondent, Vittorio Zucconi says, anyone who hopes against hope to stop the strike is noble, generous but utterly self-deluded (link in Italian, summary follows).
“The war opened by the first salvo of Cruise missiles and satellite bombs dropped by the F117 on Baghdad’s dawn started at 8:52am on September 11, 2001, when a White House aide whispered in the ear of George Bush – who was reading from a book in Florida primary school – the news of the attack on Manhattan,” he writes. “All we have seen, lived and suffered in the 18 months which separate the rape of Manhattan from the revenge on Baghdad has only been the search and preparation of an alliance which would give Bush and the United States an international package to wrap a decision that had already been taken on the basis of national interest.”
“But,” Zucconi warns, “at the start of a road which will be difficult even after the foreseen, given military victory, there is a sentence uttered by Bush during his speech which will be the cornerstone on which we will measure the success of this campaign: we will do everything in our power to save innocent lives. This is the sense, the moral key of this war. Not the destruction of an army of wretches, which is a given, but the lives of those who should be liberated. And the lives of us all who, from today, are at the front against a global terror which – if it does exist – cannot wait for much longer to exact its revenge.”
UPDATE: The BBC has launched a blog-type diary compiled by its frontline reporters which makes for an interesting read.
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
posted by Carla Passino at 8:47 AM
The Clutches of Fear
A clumsy attempt to put fright into perspective
I dread reading the news these days. Stories range from war to potential terrorist attacks, not to mention a lethal virus – the new influenza pandemic? - which is spreading like wildfire across continents. It reminds me of the gloomy, charged days of the late Seventies – the anni di piombo (the leaden years) in Italy – except I was a child at the time and sheltered from disturbing news.
I am ashamed to admit I am afraid. And it appears I am not the only one: as Calpundit reported a few days ago, America itself is paralised by fear.
No matter that, as Mooraq and many others keep reminding us, many more people die in car accidents than in terrorist attacks or as a result of acute pneumonia. We will happily drive our cars to work every day but fret about taking a plane or sitting next to someone with a stiff cough. I guess it’s because we feel we relinquish control when on the plane or against the cough. I certainly feel powerless and hate it. And I guess what I feel is the same unease that has prompted half America to stock up on duct tape and gas masks, just to feel you are doing something rather than sit tight and wait for Armageddon.
But is Armageddon really coming? Despite my gut fears, I think not. We have overcome worse in the past. And this, I think, is the single largest mistake that Al Qaeda is making. They fail to grasp that we may well be vulnerable as individuals, but as a culture – the Western culture, which remains one and the same despite its infinite national and sub-national manifestations and bitter divides – we are resilient and always bounce back. We are, quite simply, stronger than wars, terror and pandemics.
Tuesday, March 18, 2003
posted by Carla Passino at 6:55 PM
Pentagon Will Try To Control Information, Says Reporter
According to Harper's Magazine publisher John R MacArthur, the military will try their utmost to censor news from the front
Harper's Magazine publisher and author of a book on censorship and propaganda in the Gulf War, John R MacArthur warns that the Pentagon may try to curtail freedom of press during the upcoming war (via Romenesko).
Hostile TV stations, such as Al Jazeera are likely to be silenced from the very beginning. And with Western journalists expected to leave Iraq on the behest of the Defence Department, “embedded” reporters will provide most of the war coverage. But, MacArthur told Barbara Bedway of Editor&Publisher, “if embedded reporters see anything important -- or bloody -- the Pentagon will interfere.” As with the first Gulf War, the key to the Pentagon’s communication strategy will be to have generals deliver news directly to American and worldwide audiences. After the invasion has taken place “the CIA will feed stories that they've found poisonous gases, and so here's evidence the invasion was justified. Reporters will find victims of Saddam's torture -- it won't be hard -- rather than victims of American bombing mistakes.”
This makes the watchdog role of US-based reporters all the more important, according to MacArthur, because unfiltered war stories are much more likely to break at home than at the front. But rather than challenging the military head-on, journalists “should make friends with Pentagon contacts, who can help you figure out what kind of bombs we're dropping and how many.”
That MacArthur has a point there is no doubt. Press curbs during the first Gulf War are very well documented and there is no reason to believe the Bush administration and the Pentagon will behave any differently this time round – after all, home front propaganda has always been a crucial factor in any conflict. But, speaking as a journalist who will never be brave enough to play soldier, I cannot help but wonder whether MacArthur’s bashing of embedded press is partly motivated by his desire to pander to people who, like me or indeed himself, “are not willing” to risk their lives as war correspondents.
posted by Mooraq at 6:23 PM
Clear And Present Danger
Tony Blair is fighting his own personal war
You have got to respect Tony Blair. This is a guy who has been accused more than any politicians in living memory (well…except for Silvio Berlusconi, that is) of ruling by polling public opinion, of being a master of style over substance. Proving his critics wrong, however, is costing him dearly.
On the war on Iraq, Blair has took a stance at odds with his own party and with the people of his country at large. Regardless of public outcry, overwhelming popular opposition and a fractured party, Blair is sticking to his conviction and supporting the US against Saddam. Tonight a vote in the Commons could spell trouble for him (click here for the live video of the debate) if a significant portion of his party vote against the war. Much will, of course, depend on the final outcome of the conflict, but it is ironic to see the politician that was charged of pampering too much to public opinion being so in trouble for going against it.
posted by Mooraq at 6:09 PM
The Other Pillar
The peace roadmap in the Middle East goes through the Damascus Gate
In President Bush’s view, the removal of Saddam will be the first building block of a peaceful and democratic Middle East. That may be so, but only if progress is made on the Palestinian-Israeli front. On the Palestinian side something is slowly moving but on the Israeli side the Sharon’s Government seems intent to sabotaging the discussion even before its start.
If the US is serious about the message it wants to send the Arab world, it should not allow Sharon to use the war on Iraq as a cover for increased military violence on the Palestinians. Otherwise, the TVs in each Arab country (and the rest of the world) will be showing images of American tanks rolling in Iraq together with Israeli tanks rolling in Gaza and the message will clearly be the opposite of what the US President is preaching.
Monday, March 17, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 3:35 PM
War Is Coming, But What’s Next?
A lot of rebuilding needs to be done after the war
Unless something very surprising happens, the war will start within the next few days. Even before the beginning of the hostilities, there has been already a big casualty: the transatlantic US-Europe relationship. All players will do well to try their best at mending it as the US needs Europe and vice versa.
The US needs Europe (despite what many neo-cons think) because of the costs of making war and then the even bigger costs of making peace, because the war on Al Qaeda is far from over and, last but not least, because we are all on the same economic boat. Europe needs the US (despite what Chirac thinks) because the US influence in Europe has always been positive, because the US is realistically still the only hyperpower in the world and nothing can be accomplished internationally without its blessing/aid and, last but not least, because we are all on the same economic boat, if you haven’t noticed. In short we need each other, not for some fancy notion of shared roots etc., but for the hard reasons of confronting a nasty enemy (Al Qaeda) and ensuring economic prosperity.
On both sides of the Atlantic some efforts will be needed. Europe should, the moment the war starts, throw away its doubts (many) about it and support those who are and always have been its allies. Even if one does not agree with the war, there is no doubt where Europe’s interests and hearts should be in the struggle between the US and Saddam Hussein. After the war, serious multilateral efforts should be wholeheartedly supported for a swift reconstruction of Iraq.
On the other hand, the US should not gloat in a successful campaign on Iraq but learn some hard lessons in diplomacy, to avoid fighting the next war without even the UK at its side. Donald “acid mouth” Rumsfeld and some of the nastiest neo-cons should be reined in as much as possible before they do further damage with their comments as well as their policies. A serious peace effort in Israel should be pushed for as well.
Finally, the UN role and structure should be re-thought, it is clear that the current set-up is not able to cope with a post-cold war world. I personally would be in favout of an expanded role for the G7 plus Russia and China, but I will reserve this discussion for a future blog.
posted by Carla Passino at 9:05 AM
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