War & Peace: April 2003 Archives

While it's great that Saddam is out of power, and we even get to leave Saudi Arabia, it's still not clear that there was an urgent reason to invade Iraq. (And shooting protesters isn't going to play well on TV or anywhere else.)

Meantime... did the administration stretch the truth or even outright lie in order to justify this war? Even some supporters are starting to wonder.

--> www.nytimes.com/2003/04/29/opinion/29KRUG.html
--> www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,945381,00.html

American Crusade 2001 trading cards, a great (and disturbing!) parody of the "Iraq's Most Wanted" deck of cards.

The thing that annoys me most right now (OK, one of the things that annoys me) is the "nyah nyah nyah" tone to much of the rejoicing over our military success in Iraq. Yes, it's great that Saddam is out of power, but why be so childish about it? "Smugness is our greatest enemy" says this Newsweek editorial.

He castigates those of us who opposed the war for not admitting that freeing millions of people from Saddam was a good idea, but he does also skewer the Pentagon for the poor handling of the aftermath.

"I learned last week that many Army officers wanted to airlift in 3,000 MPs (military police) from Europe to protect supply lines and police Baghdad. That would have aided the drive to the capital and helped to protect institutions like hospitals and museums once forces arrived there. As it was, the main hospital wasn’t even secured until an officer was alerted to the looting by New Yorker reporter Jon Lee Anderson.

"But Rumsfeld apparently decided: no MPs. The European MPs would have had to be replaced by reservists. And if more reservists had been called up in the middle of the war, it would have reinforced the criticism that Rumsfeld hadn't sent enough troops. When the real history is written, we may find out that some ofthe world’s oldest treasures were lost to looters in part because someone at the Pentagon suffers from the oldest of human sins—pride."

Hang on a minute. An article in the Scottish Sunday Herald dated April 7 talks about the possibility that there might be looting in Iraq's museums. And it's not that nobody told the Bush administration. In fact, a group of art dealers met with them to offer their help to "preserve" Iraq's collections.

And yet, somehow, the military in Baghdad seemed completely caught off guard by the looting. And Rumsfeld laughed it off. "Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?" Well, perhaps he won't be laughing so hard now. According to international law (a concept we seem to be having a bit of difficulty with), the U.S. had a responsibility to try to prevent looting — especially to cultural treasures.

Rumsfeld also said: "Think what's happened in our cities when we've had riots, and problems, and looting. Stuff happens! But in terms of what's going on in that country, it is a fundamental misunderstanding to see those images over, and over, and over again of some boy walking out with a vase and say, 'Oh, my goodness, you didn't have a plan.' That's nonsense."

I thought about the looting and compared it to the rioting we had here in Oakland after Rodney King, and after the Raiders made it to the Super Bowl... and after they lost the Super Bowl... my initial thought was that the way people behave in the absence of order reveals something about them... not who they are fundamentally, but how they've lived and how they've been treated. Perhaps it was too warm and fuzzy and P.C. a thought. In any case, it wasn't a spontaneous mass attack on the institutions of culture; it seems more and more likely that it was the coordinated and planned work of professionals.

So. Do I think the Bush Adminstration did this on purpose? Actually... no. But I think it just shows that they didn't believe it was important to guard the museums and libraries. They didn't really think they were valuable the way the oil wells are. (Side note: I'm not convinced that this war is merely "all about oil"; I think there's more to it, but that's another story) Really, this isn't a bunch known for their appreciation of culture. (But perhaps they'd appreciate Saddam's good taste.)

One last thought: I sure hope eBay is keeping an eye on its auctions over the next few months.

Oh, and one more of the paintings Saddam liked so much!

First the museum, now the library, destroyed by looters and arsonists. Why would people do that to their own culture, their own heritage? Why would the "liberators" stand by and do nothing to help stop this? Did nobody think this might happen?

Just seems like Bush et al were so concerned about securing the oil wells, they neglected to secure other vulnerable treasures. For some reason, this upsets me much more than the Taliban destroying the buddhas. Books and ancient artifacts aren't human lives... but the Iraqi people have lost something very important in their lives, whether or not they realize it yet. (Obviously, the head librarian and chief curator do.)

--> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/ 04/15/international1522EDT0692.DTL

Just finished reading Caleb Carr's The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians. His basic thesis is that civilians have long been the target and victims of war, and that such targetting weakens the cause of those countries and organizations who engage in it, and often ultimately does them in.

The section of the book covering World War II is provocative — the blitzkrieg fighting of the Germans can actually be considered "progressive" war, though they were abandoned in favor of far more distructive tactics, and the Allies engaged in terrorism — but the really interesting part (for me, anyway) was the chapter covering the United States after the war ended; there are real parallels to what's going on now. "The world must repeatedly be made safe for the development of freedom, a word that, in postwar parlance, began to be used very loosely indeed..." and in order to fight Communism, American agencies were reorganized to serve "national security." This was done under James Forrestal, secretary of the Navy, who pushed for the passage of the National Security Act of 1947 and then succumbed to paranoid schizophrenia. That, in and of itself, is a fascinating story I'd like to learn more about.

Overall, a fascinating book that was a pretty quick read, though there were some things I wish the author had explained in more detail, like Woodrow Wilson's effort to create the League of Nations — he's contemptuous of Wilson's "criminally narcissicistic willingness to sacrifice almost any principle and any cause to his personal holy grail", but doesn't really give enough background. (Did I miss something in history class? Guess so.) Also, some of his suggestions for future policies are troubling, particularly his support of "preemptive strikes." Who gets to decide when they're justified? He doesn't say.

I thought this list of contact information, websites, and other assorted information might come in handy. While all of it is available online, it's not always easy to track down. Some of these are from the San Francisco Chronicle, About.com, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Feel free to copy and distribute this information! Also, here's a pdf version for downloading/printing.

Updated March 13, 2003 by Katherine Falk

The JTA is running a news story today on Richard Goldstone, a judge and human rights expert in South Africa who said that international law does not justify this war.

"The use of military force is lawful only in two cases — dire self-defense, when the threat of attack is so imminent there is no time to wait for the United Nations to act, or when it is authorized by the Security Council. Goldstone said neither of these applies to the invasion of Iraq. 'The self-defense argument is very weak' and it was 'quite clear that the majority of Security Council members do not authorize the use of force.'"

He also commented on the military intervention in Kosovo, saying that while it was illegal, it was made legitimate because it was right to protect the Albanians.

This doesn't mean that Bush and Blair are war criminals, but they are operating in a grey area.

"He said international law has been moving in the direction of recognizing intervention in extreme situations for humanitarian reasons, 'but this is not the same as regime change.'"

--> In South Africa, Jewish rights expert calls U.S.-led war on Iraq "unlawful"