Friday, March 28, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 4:37 PM
Another Example Of Human Stupidity
Somebody should learn a thing or two about the rest of the world
US Congressman Darrel Issa is apparently enraged that plans for the post-war Iraq, include building a mobile phone infrastructure based on the European GSM standard. He proposes instead to use the US CDMA standard (owned by the US company Qualcomm) instead. Why should the surrender monkeys (GSM was originally invented and developed in “old Europe”) benefit from the Iraqi reconstruction?
Congressman Issa obviously does not have a broad expertise on the subject. The GSM standard is used not only in Europe but also in most of the known world (except the US), including Asia and the whole Middle East. Its interoperability is one of the reasons why mobile phones have a penetration in Europe that is about ten times that of the US. Building an Iraqi CDMA infrastructure means that Iraqis would not be able to use their phones anywhere else (except when they travel to the US for groceries) and that they would be forced to buy much more expensive US phones instead of cheap GSM clones now commonly available everywhere.
This is exactly the stupid moves that the US should avoid, unless it wants to confirm the suspicions it is entering Iraq as a conqueror and not as a liberator. Somebody should tell Congressman Issa.
posted by Mooraq at 2:57 PM
New York, New York
Almost ready, if you are interested
A personal note: I almost completed the little quicktime video from my NY trip a month ago (I know it took a while, but I still have a job…), later today I will upload it on the site…I confess that with that iMovie software I feel a little Spielberg.
posted by Mooraq at 1:29 PM
The Day After
What’s the idea for post-war Iraq?
With the war in full swing, the political discussion is already geared towards the aftermath. The US hawks are again battling against the State Department and the rest of the world, advocating a US military control for the post-Saddam. I think those guys at the Defense Dept don’t have idea what that would mean or they do and couldn’t care less – an even scarier thought -.
We have already seen what happened to the outpouring of happy Iraqis in the streets cheering US GIs predicted by Rummy and his boys. Muted hostility against the foreign invaders may turn into something altogether nastier, unless the management of the post-Saddam is seen as being done by Iraqis or super-partes organizations like the UN.
Two possible scenarios are the Afghan scenario and the Japanese scenario. In the former you have a local government, supported logistically by the UN and a number of countries, and where foreign military are used to maintain the local peace but nothing else. In the Japanese scenario you have a MacArthur-like US military governor that directs the reconstruction. It is pretty clear that the first scenario works and the second causes resentment and hostility, even when it is done with the best interest of the local population in mind. The war, we have been told, is not against Iraq but against Saddam and his henchmen. If so the post-war military occupation should be kept to a minimum and the responsibility for reconstruction should lie with the UN. Doing anything else would only prove the skeptics in the Arab world (and elsewhere) that this war was really about US wanting Iraq oil and to control the country for its own purposes.
Wednesday, March 26, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 5:05 PM
Unintended Consequences
The Iraqi war results may not be as expected
Good analysis on the SF Chronicles by Joseph Cirincione. He states that 4 likely consequences of the war will be: 1) growth of instability in the Middle East 2) increase in terrorism 3) Alliance weakened and 4) WMD proliferation will grow.
On point 4, this news on India and Pakistan resuming their nuclear games is timely.
posted by Mooraq at 1:24 PM
Tony Blair’s Risk
The British PM is betting all on one number
Tony Blair has been the steadiest ally for the US during the long diplomatic debate over Iraq. Now he is even more on the frontline with a massive military commitment in the current Iraqi war.
To do all this he has acted against an overwhelming majority of his party and of his country, firmly believing to be right on Iraq and right to be engaging rather than confrontational with the US. The post war will be his biggest test, if he is able to convince Bush to support a UN-led reconstruction effort instead of a US military occupation and to re-start the Middle-Eastern peace process, Blair’s position will be vindicated. If, on the other hand, the US decides to pursue its unilateralist agenda, maybe move on to the next target country and not do anything serious about the peace process, Blair’s position will be untenable. He will either side with the US, therefore confirming his caricatures as America’s poodle, or against it, ending up with Chirac and Schroeder saying to him “I told you so”.
It was never completely clear to me what advantage the UK has ever derived from its famed “special relation” with the US. In most cases the relation seemed extremely one-sided, to say the least. Now is payback time. Blair needs the US to support his ideas or he will be politically doomed. Given the current neo-cons supremacy in the US Administration, he has a good chance to get the door slammed in his face.
Tuesday, March 25, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 3:24 PM
What To Do With Saddam
The International Criminal Court first case?
The likely appointment of Luis Moreno Ocampo as first prosecutor at the newly established ICC is a welcome development. If the US was worried by the idea a politically motivated prosecutor, Senor Ocampo, a respected Argentinian human rights lawyers and Harvard professor, should dispel those fears. It will be at least another year before the court is fully functioning but we can already predict who should be its first high profile case: Saddam Hussein.
Obviously the Iraqi tyrant will need to be defeated and captured alive first. But assuming the US troops are able to achieve the first (highly probable) and second (bets are open on the subject) objectives, the question will be what to do with him. He will have to be tried for the crimes against humanity he is accused of, but where?
A US court would not have, I believe, proper jurisdiction on the subject. An ad-hoc tribunal would sound suspiciously inquisition-like to all observers. That leaves the UN, and therefore the ICC, as the most likely and appropriate forum for this trial. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the US, after trying to boycott the ICC in every possible way, ended up giving it its first major case?
posted by Mooraq at 1:33 PM
Flowers And Sweets
The Iraqis are not as jubilant as expected
Images of a jubilant population, receiving the US troops with flowers and sweets and thanking them for being liberated from Saddam, have not materialized so far. It may have something to do with the fact that the US troops have avoided all major urban centers in their run for the regime heart in Baghdad. Or with the still vivid memory of Bush sr. betrayal ten years ago, when Shias and Kurds were encourage to raise against the regime only to be abandoned later when other political concerns prevailed.
In any case the absence of strong popular Iraqi support for the US must not be playing well with the neo-cons chicken-hawks. What about the spreading of democracy and the war of liberation if these people maybe do not really want democracy and being liberated? Maybe the overwhelming majority of Arab is not so ready to be liberated. Yes, of course, everybody in those countries would probably subscribe to the idea of democracy – especially since it is inevitably linked to images of improved economic fortune – but scratch below the surface and touch on subjects like gender-equality and we’ll probably discover that the same people are not really willing to embrace the concepts that make a democracy possible. Where would that leave us and our crusade for importing democracy wholesale in the Middle East, with the help of a few hundred thousands marines?
Monday, March 24, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 4:03 PM
The Importance Of Al Jazeera
An Arab voice talking to us, even if we don’t like what we hear
If the first Gulf War was the CNN’s war - who could forget Peter Arnett’s commentaries from Baghdad? – this second war seems very much Al Jazeera’s (in Arabic, I’m afraid). The Arab news channel has taken the place of the CNN as the most important source of unseen footage for all TVs around the world. Al Jazeera privileged access to Iraq is obviously paying off in media terms.
Most importantly the entire Arab world is tuning in to hear about the war on the Qatar-based TV, offering them an Arab voice they trust over the international news channels too often perceived as western propaganda machines or the national broadcasters always – and rightly – seen as loudspeakers for the local dictators.
Some, in US and Europe, are attacking Al J as a tool of Bin Laden or, now, Saddam. I think there is a lot of hypocrisy in these accusations. In the same way western networks are more in tune with western sensibilities (look at the different coverage reserved for 10 US and British soldiers’ death and for 1000 Iraqi soldiers who suffered the same fate), Al Jazeera reflects the Arab point of view: we may not often like it but we have to learn to accept it. Problem is, we want to spread democracy in the Middle East but most of the time we don’t want to accept its results. It is not surprising therefore that the most democratic country in the region, Turkey, has been the least supportive of this war.
Al Jazeera, with all its faults, it’s a new and important presence in the Arab world. With all its limitations, it is one of the most independent and free voices of the entire Middle East. We should listen more to it if we want to understand what a democratic Middle East will be like. A free and democratic Iraq could very well turn up to be a less secular and open country than we are hoping for.
Sunday, March 23, 2003
posted by Mooraq at 9:37 PM
On The Geneva Convention
Some POWs are more equal than others
While the real war is heating up, the propaganda war is not far behind. The scenes of US POWs on Iraqi TV have caused denunciation and outcries from Rumsfeld about the Geneva Convention. The Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoner of War regulates how enemies and non-combatants are to be treated in case of capture. Among the provisions, in Article 13, the convention states that “[POWs] should not be subject to public curiosity”.
Having seen the footage – I cannot say if it was the entire footage or only an edited version – it did not seem to me different from several images of Iraqis soldiers that we have seen on newspapers and TV in the last few days. If the Iraqi TV footage was in violation of the Geneva Convention so were all these other pictures, but I haven’t seen any US commentators point this out.
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