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Hello, all. The Nowar Collective's international "crisis" listserv is being revived. We will be bringing you timely analysis, news, and suggestions for action regarding the war on terrorism, in particular the currently planned war on Iraq.
- On October 7, George W. Bush made a nationally broadcast speech purporting to lay out the case for war on Iraq. Within 12 hours, the Institute for Public Accuracy had assembled a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of the speech, involving over 50 points by a panel of a dozen experts, with numerous links to useful background material. This remarkable, invaluable resource is available on the web at www.accuracy.org/bush
- The Guardian in Britain published an article in which numerous U.S. intelligence sources attacked Bush's claims, including a quote by Vincent Cannistraro, former head of counterintelligence for the CIA, saying, "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements." That can be found at http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/1009-01.htm
- Intelligence sources also said in Congressional testimony that an attack with biological or chemical weapons by Iraq was unlikely, except possibly in the event of a U.S. war for regime change. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20021008/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
- The White House remains adamant on these questions despite the evidence of its own agencies in the executive branch.
- One part of Bush's speech that some picked up on was the statement that war is not unavoidable. According to the New York Times, many countries in Europe and the Middle East are grasping at that straw. Of course, the global antiwar movement won't get fooled again. The statement is almost certainly simply a tactical retreat and does not signal any change of plans. There will simply be more effort put out to make it look as if the United States is forced into war. We will have more on this later, but the general outlines of the plan are clear -- demand that the new inspections regime be essentially an indefinite, roving military occupation, with inspectors accompanied by troops, with arbitrary abilities to make use of and quarantine roads and public facilities, and with the ability to go anywhere anytime without warning or any possibility of demurral by Iraqi authorities. The first incident of less than complete obedience would trigger the war. This would be a demand to Iraq to surrender its sovereignty completely. There is historical precedent -- the demands the United States made of Yugoslavia in the Rambouillet draft accords amounted to allowing an indefinite U.S. military occupation, as did the demands made of Afghanistan last year. They will be deliberately pitched so high that no sovereign state could possibly accept them, and then the United States will claim diplomacy has failed and war is necessary. They will hope that people will forget that Iraq has not only agreed to let inspectors back in unconditionally, but has actually invited the United States to visit alleged weapons sites http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=564&ncid=564&e=1&u=/nm/20021010/ts_nm/iraq_dc_132. So the war plans move forward.
- October 7 is also the anniversary of the war on Afghanistan. For an analysis of that war, supposedly the great "success" of the war on terrorism, see "The Other 'Good War:' Afghanistan One Year Later".
- For an analysis of the official justifications for war on Iraq, from democratization to weapons of mass destruction, and of the real reasons for the war, see "Iraq and the New Great Game"
- For an analysis of George W. Bush's speech to the United Nations on September 12, 2002, see "Bush at the UN: 'Diplomacy in the Age of the American Empire"
- For those who want to get more into the details, there is excellent information on the likely state of Iraq's WMD in the British Labour Party's counter-dossier to Tony Blair's dossier (just as Bush is being contradicted by his own agencies, Blair is being contradicted by his own party) at http://www.labouragainstthewar.org.uk/link5.html. Also of interest are Glen Rangwala's notes further to the counter-dossier -- http://middleeast.reference.users.btopenworld.com/iraqncbfurther.html
More information will be made available shortly, along with resources posted on the website of the Nowar Collective
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In Solidarity,
the Nowar Collective
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