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May 27, 2004
War is Peace and Occupation is Sovereignty
Let me follow up with some more detail on the offical rhetoric surrounding the draft UN Security Council resolution. Not only is it vitally important, it provides a striking example of how the administration has perfected the art of saying one thing while implementing a plan for its opposite. The draft is full of fuzzy and sweet catch phrases - “sovereignty,” “freedom,” “recognizing the importance of the consent of the sovereign government of Iraq for the presence of the multinational force”- while clearly spelling out mechanisms of domination and occupation.
For example, the draft says it’s providing the “sovereign Interim Government of Iraq” with “governing authority by 30 June 2004.” It’s a funny kind of sovereign “governing authority”, however, if you read a few paragraphs down: “the multinational force shall have authority to take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of security and stability in Iraq including by preventing and deterring terrorism.”
Both the American and the British officials have perfected this double speak. They talk about consent and cooperation all the time. U.K. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry says:
“All sovereignty will be returned to the Iraqis,” said. “There will be a multinational force, but that force will operate with the consent, in consultation and in partnership with Iraqis.”
“All” sovereignty. All? All. All? All. You got that?
Same language from John Negroponte, who is about to end up as “ambassador” to Iraq (how are you an ambassador when your country has total control over the military forces occupying the country?):
"We think that we've put down a very solid resolution in terms of its conveying the exercise of sovereignty...There's just no question that we are going to operate ... with the consent and approval of the authorities in Iraq," Negroponte said. "We don't think this is a resolution that needs to be re-written."
Lest you are thinking this is just the Bush administration, be assured that Blair’s got game too:
We are both absolutely agreed that there should be full sovereignty transferred to the Iraq people, and the multinational force should remain under American command.
No, there is no contradiction between the two parts of that sentence, “transferring full sovereignty” and “multinational force under American command” because “we,” as in “George W. Bush and I,” absolutely agree. Got that too?
Meanwhile, unsurprisingly, it seems that everyone in Iraq, including the current U.S.-handpicked Governing Council, naturally wants to be able to ask foreign troops to leave. Here’s the statement by Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, current head of the governing council:
[We] want to have the right to ask that these forces leave if we deem that to be in the best interests of the country.
Back at the UNSC, the four other veto-wielding powers have a radical suggestion:
France, Germany, Russia and China insisted Wednesday that Iraq's new interim leaders be allowed to participate in Security Council negotiations on the terms of a U.S. and British resolution on the country's political transition, potentially delaying plans to put the text to a vote as early as next week
Chinese ambassador suggested that: “As far as the contents in the present draft, this has to be discussed with those guys who are being selected.” The French ambassador to the UN proposed waiting a few weeks after the naming of the Interim government before the Security Council vote to see how the people of Iraq react to those named and to ensure “that the government has broad support among Iraqis.”
Whaddya mean consult with the Iraqis? We’re transferring sovereignty as soon as possible, dammit! All this consulting with them will only delay the transfer of “sovereignty.” We’re transferring sovereignty one way or another and we sure won’t let some pesky natives get in the way.
No, serious. That’s what Negroponte said:
But Negroponte dismissed the suggestion."That just gets you up much too close to the time for the actual transfer of sovereignty," he said. "I assume our French colleague wants the resolution passed before the transfer actually takes place."
Posted by zeynep at May 27, 2004 11:36 AM
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Comments
In the UK, Queen Elizabeth is the sovereign, but she doesn't have any real power (she's entitled to vote, but convention dictates that she shouldn't). It seems that the coalition want to give Iraqis the same kind of sovereignty, it looks good to the voters back home, but they retain the control. Does anyone really think the US will let any Iraqi government (even an elected one) join OPEC?
Posted by: betelgeuse-4 at May 28, 2004 06:11 AM
The anti-war sentiment here in the US has been quashed from the get-go. The tactic of using the guard is so successful that it for all intents and purposes it accomplishes what the Nazi Youth in Hitler's Germany accomplished albeit in a different route.
Here well-known and liked sons and daughters who have established lives linked to every aspect of the community as they are police, firefighters, teachers, etc., are off to fight and shortly to return. Negative statements and active opposition to the war in which they are participating are seen as hurtful and detrimental to the immediate lives of the people involved.
So whether or not one is opposed to the war, the fact that your grandson's teacher or the nurse at the clinic is "away" serving is the only important fact. Further oppostion would damage the status of the returning individual's job and community position, and unspoken, your own status via your failure to be "part" of the community.
This interwoven dependency of the community and its family members is the masterstroke of the Bush war campaign. The fighters are not some fresh-faces youth of unknown potential and singular attachemnts but long-term, well-known, entrenched society members, liked and respected.
Not only does it quiet any anti-war statements from the non-reservists but it tends to act as a restraint on the active reservists by holding out "the carot on the stick." Don't complain (people might think you are a coward, etc.), don't do anything that might compromise the good life waiting for you in a year. Just stick it out, say nothing, get to go home.
And of course, we are offered the ready-made escuse/reason that we are fighting (and dying)for democracy. This morning I listened to the NPB commentary in which a retired Marine officer recalled a wounded recruit's questions. He asked why? and the officer gave him the patriotic speech we all know by heart now......and he said the recruit looked at him as if to say....I may die and you can't even tell me the truth now? The officer said the recruit's eyes said it all, and he is now speaking against the war, something he couldn't say when he needed to.
Sincerely,
Ms Kate Sisco
Posted by: kathe sisco at May 28, 2004 10:31 AM
Zeynep - Firstly, I apologise if this is an abuse of the opportunity you give us to comment. I'm just shocked and appalled by your statement that the coalition is "saying one thing while implementing a plan for its opposite". You're right of course, but you seem to ignore both the west's good intentions and the obstacles placed in the way of our noble crusade by some recent events. This piece I wrote a few days ago gives the relevant background and I urge you to consider it.
***
As our glorious leaders thoughtfully remind us, the day of “full sovereignty” for Iraq draws ever closer. 30 June 2004 - Mission Accomplished. But with Iraq so tantalisingly close to nirvana it seems there are still those who would seek to vilify the Forces of Liberation.
The US Military reports that on May 19, during an operation near the Syrian Border, its forces “took ground fire and returned fire” at a village called Mogr el-Deeb. The source of the “hostile fire” was located and a gang of jihadists at a "suspected foreign fighter safe house" was put to the sword. Thanks to the US Army Iraq was another step closer to peace.
Sadly, as is becoming so depressingly familiar, the victory was being called into question even before the smoke had cleared. Doctors on the scene claimed that there were large numbers of women and children among the dozens of casualties. Video footage obtained by Associated Press appeared to depict a wedding celebration before and after the battle. Several of those seen celebrating in the first half of the film are shown lying dead in the second. One of then was Hussein al-Ali, a popular Iraqi singer. Alleged survivors spoke of how they had been targeted one by one, of how their friends and relatives had been torn to pieces by gunfire. Among these was Haleema Shihab, who described holding her crying seven-month old son in her arms as a laughing soldier kicked her to see if she was still alive. Pictures filmed by al-Arabiya showed a headless child lying next to the corpse of his or her mother.
Responding to these ridiculous allegations Major General James Mattis, commander of the 1st Marine Division was understandably exasperated. "How many people go to the middle of the desert . . . to hold a wedding 80 miles from the nearest civilisation? These were more than two dozen military-age males. Let's not be naive."
These points are worth underlining. Are we really saying that groups of Arabs are to be found in the Arabian desert? Are we really saying that when more than twenty four men aged late-teens to mid-forties are assembled in one place they aren’t quite obviously terrorists? This was such a significant gathering of militants that they’d even hired one of Iraq’s most popular singers to help celebrate the occasion. Let’s not be naïve.
When asked to comment on footage of a child’s corpse being lowered into a grave Mattis said, “bad things happen in wars. I don't have to apologise for the conduct of my men.”. Quite right too. Why should he? And who, on hearing this, can now question the moral courage of the Forces of Liberation? If the US hadn’t thwarted this sinister alliance of women, children, musicians and military-age males who knows what horrors might have been unleashed on the ordinary people of Iraq.
And this has not been the only attempt to smear the liberators. Elsewhere the slander came, shockingly, from a former soldier. Jimmy Massey had served 11 years in US Marines, received honourable discharge and full severance, and plainly had an axe to grind. Massey spoke of innocents being murdered and of corpses being robbed and desecrated. He said that as Baghdad fell last year Iraqis were told “‘Just throw up your hands, lay down your weapons’. That’s what they were doing, but we were still lighting them up [killing them]. They weren’t in uniform. We never found any weapons. [Once] I talked with my commanding officer. I said, ‘today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians’. He goes: ‘No. Today was a good day.’”. Most outrageously, when referring to the murder and mutilation by Iraqis of four US security contractors near Falluja, Massey said “we did the same thing to them”.
Massey’s superiors rightly described him as a “wimp”. Who knows why someone would discard their patriotism and their loyalty to the values they were fighting for. What we do know is that such outbursts are far from helpful.
It is clear to any right-thinking person that the US military will have to stay in Iraq for the time being in order to safeguard the population, and of course to defend America. It is therefore unfortunate that this torrent of slander has given the occupation a bad name. How should the leaders of the free world deal with this problem? Let’s return to those end-of-occupation announcements and consider the draft resolution put forward by the US and the UK. The current resolution (UNSCR 1511) states that the military occupation will cease “in any case....upon the completion of the political process”, meaning the formation of an elected government. The new draft proposes something rather different. Generously the Iraqis have been granted the right to ask the occupying forces to leave. But sensibly the final decision will rest with the security counsel, where the US holds the power of veto. In addition, occupying forces will be immune from prosecution under Iraqi law and will of course operate under their own command.
So, while the end of occupation and the transfer of full sovereignty has been announced to great fanfare, the occupation has in fact become indefinite and “full sovereignty” remains a joke. Some may call this duplicitous. But consider the ongoing security threat posed by “weddings” on the Iraq-Syria border. Consider the unreasonable view Iraqis have taken of US military actions. Consider the effect the allegations of traitors like Massey might have on western public opinion. What responsible government would not try to soothe its bewildered voters and the excitable Arab “street”, whilst at the same time standing firm to defend innocent Iraqis from harm? There will of course be those who affect disgust at seeing brutal subjugation being dressed up in shameless mendacity and pseudo-moral rhetoric. Those of us who are less naïve will take the realistic view. Western public opinion has been pacified and the Iraqis remain safe under our protection. We’re doing the right thing, and the world will respect us for it.
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