Re: OT: why USA is a regime

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 10/23/04 

Date: Sat, 23 Oct 2004 05:01:08 -0400

David Froble wrote:
> > Humm, the USA isn't well placed to talk about the balkans. (and yes, this was
> > during clinton era). It was the USA who consistently vetoed resolutions to
> > give UN peacekeepers the right to fight back when attacked.
>
> You got references to such?

Lookup reports from canadian general John de Chastelaine on the UN web site or
elsewhere.

> to appear. There was a peace agreement, which wasn't very easy to keep going,
> but things appear to have gotten better.

The peace agreement came long after the UN got involved. It happened when the
USA stopped working against the UN and got involved in a positive fashion.
After the peace deal was signed, it was simply a question of maintaining peace
and allowed humanitarian aid to flow to the people. Prior to the peace deal,
the UN troups were barely able to defend themselves because they were not
allowed to use firearms to defend themselves. That gavce the UN plenty of
opportunity to label UN troups as incompetent and even went as far as telling
the UN that the USA would have to go into the balkans to RESCUE the UN troups.

The minute the UN mandate changed, the UN troups who were present were able to
impose the peace treaty before the USA troups landed. But the USA media still
talked about USA coming to the rescue of those pour incompetant UN troups.

So americans have one slanted view of the UN while the rest of the world has a
totally different view of the UN.

I almost found it funny when, prior to a second resolution to authorise use of
force in Iraq, the USA was saying that the use of veto power was something
that was unheard of and should be used only very rarely. (3 of 5 countries
with veto power were threathening to use it). The USA routinely uses its veto
power to block resolutions. The block almost all UN resolutions about Israel
for instance and

> That's a rather strong statement. I will agree that the religous right of the
> Republican party attempts to enforce their stupid beliefs on anyone they can,
> including dictating the actions of some UN activity.

There are two aspects where the USA is wrong with the UN. They prevent the UN
from doing its job, and then they denigrate the UN at every possible
opportunity, instead of working with the UN to get better success at lesser
cost since responability is shared. This occured under both recent democratic
and republican parties. But under Bush, it was taken to a new level of
smearing, sabotaging and defiance. (And I won't even talk about presenting
falsified evidence to the UN security council on Feb 5 2003).

> > That is very serious insult against all the countries who did step in very
> > early into the civil war there. (Canada was one of them).
>
> By step in, do you mean UN peacekeepers, or in strong terms indicate to the
> parties causing the violence that they should cease or be taken out by force?

UN peacekeepers from countries such as Canada, France Britain (and others too,
apologies for not mentioning them). There were present fairly early in the
balkan conflict, years before the USA got involved. It was during those years
where the USA vetoed UN resolutions that would have empowered the UN troups to
impose peace to allow humanitarian aid to flow to the people.

> It's my understanding that the UN will only have peace keepers in place if all
> parties agree. If shooting starts, the peacekeepers will be withdrawn.

No, the UN has often gotten involved against the wishes of the local
government and/or factions. It can do so with a security council resolution
which is legally binding on the target nation. It is legally binding because
when a nation joins the UN, it ratifies the UN charter making it its own law
of the land.

Of course, when a country uses its veto in the security council, it prevents
the UN from passing any legally binding resolutions. General assembly votes
are just a show of opinion and have no legal standing.

>
> That didn't stop the atrocities. His sons literally got away with murder. And
> much else. I doubt such stopped with his sons.

The UN's mandate in Iraq prior to the USA invasion was not to teach Saddam's
sons about morality. There were scientists to look for and ensure destruction
of any banned weapons. There were humanitarian helpers to bring food and
medecine to the people. The deal in 1991 was that Saddam could stay in power
in exchange for destroying banned weapons and allowing UN inspectors to audit
this process. So Saddam's past crimes were more or less pardonned.

Hussein refused Oil-For-Food in 1991 and waited until the country was in ruins
before agreeing to OFF in 1998 with the programme actually starting in 1999.

One would have to read the actual deal which allowed Hussein to remain in
power in 1991 before knowing why the UN didn't pursue Hussein and Sons for war
crimes, or if there was some date after which they could be pursued for such
crimes. (are there statutes of limitation ? I am not sure).

Perhaps Hussein knew he was safe from prosecution as long as the WMD
disarmement process wasn't declared complete by the UN inspectors. Perhaps
something else.

> That isn't reason to overlook atrocities. Weren't you the one complaining about
> torture and such? Do you only complain about select events? Are you blind to
> things that don't fit what you want to say?

I am not blind to what Hussein and Sons have done. They deserve prosecution.
But the sons deAD so they'll never get the public prosecution they deserved.

> Iraq isn't the main issue. With what he's done internally within the US, I
> cannot believe Bush has any chance at all.

Polls still give him equal to a slight edge. So essentially another year 2000.
Those people committed to Bush are so committed that they refuse to read any
information they fear might change their mind.

Foreign media have interviewed many "regular" americans in various places in
the USA and many are really really convinced that Iraq was responsible for
terrorism acts in the USA etc. And they are convinced that the current
resistance in Iraq is not from local Iraqis, but from foreign AlQaeda
operatives wishing to attack americans.

The polarisation of Americans is such that in the end, it is the votes of some
500 peoplein some key state that will define the next 4 years not only in the
USA but all acorss the globe because the current government has decided to
extend its political/military boundaries to encompass any place on the globe
it wants.
 
> If I'm wrong, then you'll have four
> more years to whine about the US becoming less than a free country.

So far, most other countries have exercised patience, hoping Bush would be
kicked out and a sense of normality could return. If Bush stays, expect to see
wall erected fairly soon to pre-emptively prevent Bush from interfering
outside the USA.

On the other hand, the deficits and war tab may be so high that Bush may have
his hands tied and not be able to do anything during the next 4 years and thus
be far less of a danger to the world.

> Did I mention people. A free people have leaders. The people you talked to had
> rulers.

Whenever you have countries whose political boundaries were artificially set
by europeans (such as Iraq and much of africa), you then have problems with
multiple tribes present in a single country and that causes much strife
because you can't have a leader that is liked by all and have constant
fighting between tribes.

Iraq is a country that shouldn't have existed. One part should have bene given
to Turkey, one part to Saudi Arabia and one to Iran according to religious
sects. But now you have some incompatible people stuck with each other.

During the 1990s, Hussein achieved relative peace by granting the Kurds and
the Shiites in the south a large level of autonomy and local government.
(Something not mentioned in the USA media). But he was still a "strong"
leader/ruler to impose peace if necessary.

Until a certain maturity has been achieved by a population, differences inside
that population may create strife that degenerates in real conflicts.

Compare the tribal fights in Ethiopia or Sudan, to religious fights between
Kurds/Sunnis/Shiites in Iraq, to the irish republicans vs those loyal to
britain (or catholic vs protestant if you wish), the french canadians vs
english canadians and some country like switzerland where 3 languages co-exist
without much noise/strife.

the language conflict in canada reached maturity past 1970 after which,
violence hasn't really occured. Maturity was only reached recently in Ireland,
prior to which, there was real conflict between the factions.

Until the people or Iraq reach a high level of maturity, you will need very
strong leaders to keep the poeple from destroying each other. (or a very weak
leader that gives each region so much autonomy that it reduces the conflicts
and makes the national government irrelevant).

This is why imposing democracy before it is time doesn't garantee good results
and may result in a very large 20 year setback in Iraq if there is a
fundamentalist revolution.

pakistan is another good example. That is a country that is borderline mature
enough to be democratic. Attempys at democracy seemed succesful at first, then
failed and military retook control. Hopefully the next attempt will succeed.

meanwhile, next door to Pakistan is the largest democracy in the world, which
was born when indians kicked out the british imperialists but shaped their
democracy after the british model.

> Never said such. Maybe it gets back to a prior issue. The world might be much
> better off if the generals were the ones to lead the charges, while puching the
> politicians in front of them.

The movie Farenheight 911 may have some funny sides to it. But it has an
extremely serious message in it (and it all comes together at the very end).
The people who go enroll in the army are generally the poor men who can't
afford college. Meanwhile, the sons of rich people, and more importantly, the
sons of politicians, don't enroll in the army and are safe from dangerous missions.

So in the end, politicians don't have to worry about their own sons when they
decide to deploy troups on dangerous missions. But the ones who are the
proudest of their countries are not the politicans, it is the poor chaps who
volunteer their own lifes to protect their nation and they get paid nowhere
near as much as the politicians who don't have to worry about sacrificing
their own lifes.

When you sign up and are willing to sacrifice your own life to protect your
nation, you better have damned good brainwashing to convince you that killing
iraqis will protect the USA.

Already, there are defectors that are coming to Canada (vietnam again), and
even in Iraq, there are now units refusing orders because they know they are
ill prepared, ill equipped and that such mission are not worth sacrificing
their lifes because this has nothing to do about protecting the world or the USA.

This is why the unwillingness of Bush to admit strategic mistakes were made
and change the role of the US troups will backfire. The USA troups must be
given new orders from a new commander in chief to give them true peacekeeping
madates with NO RETALIATORY STRIKES and surrendering military authority to
either the UN or to the temporary iraqi govermment. They need to be told to
act as peacekeepers instead of concquerors.

The impending invasion of Fallujah is very very very wrong. Not only will
civilian casualties be very high (as well as infrastructure), but the USA will
become even more hated by iraqis, arabs and the rest of the world. The fact
that the iraqi government is not telling the USA to stay put and forget about
invading Fallujah also causes that govermment to lose any credibility with
Iraqis since it makes it look even more like some puppet govermnment that
essentially acts as a spokesperson/translator for Bush/Rumsfeld

> You might try to say the same about China, but it seems that the rulers are able
> to hang on and continue to tell people how to live.

Au contraire. China is undergoing a quiet revolution. Commerce is striving,
and the Chinese government even had to put brakes on the chinese economy
because it was growing too fast. Many countries would love to have such problems.

Fact is that the more affluent the people are, the more independant (both
financially and in their mind) they become and the more they are in contact
with the rest of the world. China is becoming a very strong economic power in
the world economy, and it will have to quickly lose its "developping nation"
status. When that happens, China will have to work hard to reform to more
democratic governance and more market driven economy. Note that you can still
be quite socialist and still be market driven.

Democracy will eventually come to China. It only came recently to Taiwan. The
current government in china is seeing itself transformed from a ruler to a
leader as citizens gain more independance. China may officially be communist,
but chinese people are very much hard working capitalists.

Foreign companies are investing in China. China has allowed a privately held
airline to start in China. There are a lot of changes going on. China's move
from communism into the capitalist world will be far more succesful than Russia's.

Companies aren't fighting to buy plastic widgets from China. They are fighting
to sell aircraft, computers to chinese. they are fighting to invest to build
car plants in china.

China used to be just a place to make cheap parts. It is now a very large
consuming market.

> Saddam isn't there to restrain them. I'd suggest that this distasteful
> actifvity a result of the US removing surpression. Is this a failure of
> freedom. Or is it a tolerance of those who preach hate against others?

Right now, the extremism you are seeing in Iraq is hatred against the USA
invasion and attempts to make anything the USA tries to do fail.

Once the USA widthdraws its military authority and its forces are transformed
into peacekeepers, then we can START to see what Iraq will look like later on.
The USA really has to stop meddling into Iraq's affairs. It must stop
controlling rebuilding efforts, and using oil revenus to pay for its
activities. Reconstruction contracts must go to Iraqi companies first. Let
them subcontract with foreign firsm if they want special expertise. But
reconstruction must be done by them, although all damage done by the illegal
invasion must be paid for my the invading nations, just like Iraq had to pay
damages to Kuwait.

With extremely high unemployement, how do you think Iraqis feel when they see
their oil money going to Haliburton who brings in americans to do work that
iraqis could have been doing ?

In other words, the USA, like the others, must just be neutral low level
policemen that operate from orders given by the Iraqi government. And they
could have simple rules that for every Iraqi soldier/policement that has
achieved training and adequate level of experience, they will widthdraw one
foreign soldier. That would give a LOT of incentive to Iraqis to allow the
Iraqis to cooperate and get trained by foreign troups.

People talk about when US troups will widthdraw from Iraq. It cannot be
something that is just done at the press of a button. It must be a smooth
GRADUAL transition. The Bush leadership has given no guidance on how they
foresee the future. They just stated "business as usual".

The USA *could* have already begun to SLOWLY widthdraw troups if the US
military had been given the mission on the day following end of official war
(when Bush was bragging on that aircraft carrier).

And had the USA not decimated the country with the invasion, there would still
be active police forces which would have made life much easier in the early weeks.

The USA had a goal to decimate the country and rebuild it from scratch. Like
leukemia: destroy the cancerous bone marrow and let totally new one regrow.

But you don't have to destroye all of the bone marrow when you just have 3
cancerous cells at the very top to excise.

> your solution, other than supporting the monster that shot and tortured those
> who didn't follow his dictates?

Once the current sanctions against Iraq were ready to be lifted (assuming full
compliance with post 1991 resolutions), you then start to get countries to put
some conditions for trade deals.

Lybia abandonned terrorism a long time ago. But like Iraq, it took forever to
abide to sanctions (admit to certain acts and pay damages). The real reason
Lybia paid its debt this year isn't because of the Iraqi invasion, it is
because Lybia saw a window of opportunity open: by admitting to various
WMD/nuclear stuff and officiially giving up and pretending it was all because
of the Irqai invasion, it would give Bush/Bliar a lot of political capital and
would put Lybia on a fast track to get all sanctions lifted against it.

Had it just paid its debts, nobody would have noticed and it would have taken
forever for the US and Britain to lift their sanctions. I wouldn't be
surprised if the nuclear stuff they "found" in Lybia was actually brought in
for the photo ops so that Lybia could pretend it was giving it all up.

To finish, the night before the election, the one movie they should show is
"WAG THE DOG".