From: "Anthony Crifasi" <crifasi-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Truth as propaganda
Date: Thu, 03 Apr 2003 19:15:04 +0000


Henry wrote:

> >1. Hussein's violation of UN resolutions 687 and 1441.
> >2. Hussein's crimes against humanity surpass those of Milosevic.
> >3. Just over 3 months ago, North Korea was in a very similar >situation 
>as Iraq.
>
>well they all three apear as such to me, drunken ravings of a madman intent
>on bloodthirsty war and the massacre of innocents.  they are excuses for an
>illegal war against the people of Iraq (much as the illegal "war" against 
>the
>Serbian and Kosovar peoples).

First, thank you for addressing my reasons.

Now, "illegal"? According to what "law" exactly? The only international 
"lawmaking" body (and that is a stretch of the term "lawmaking") is the UN, 
and according to that criterion, it is Hussein's policies that have been 
explicitly "illegal." And that is to put aside the entire question of 
whether the resolutions produced by the UN are genuinely "laws" in the first 
place.

>UN violations are relative, some treated like parking tickets other like
>capital crimes, dependng on the political polemic at the time.

Yes, which is even more evidence that the UN is not a legitimate government 
or lawmaking body. It is therefore tenuous to label an action that is not 
explicitly authorized by the UN as "illegal."

>It is not true at all that 3 mos ago NKorea was "in a very similar 
>situation"
>(although that language begs for clarification:  in what ways very 
>similar?)
>NKorea had nuclear capacities/facilities up and running and (alledgedly)
>nuclear weapons stockpiled--assuming this is the "very similar situation"
>datum that you are concerned about.

No that is not the very similar situation. North Korea did NOT have nuclear 
weapons stockpiled up to 3 months ago, and probably does not have a 
"stockpile" now, though they may have some. What North Korea did explicitly 
admit was that it had had an active program to produce nuclear materials, 
even after the 1994 agreement. That is similar to what defecting Iraqi 
nuclear scientists have said Iraq has been doing, even under UN resolution 
687. That is the first similarity. Secondly, North Korea was missing only 
the active nuclear element, which it now has begun to produce. That is also 
similar to what defecting Iraqi nuclear scientists have said. That is a 
second similarity.

>Iraq has none of the above, has had none
>of the above since a certain israeli bomber pilot who perished in the 
>Shuttle
>disaster a month or two ago, took out their facility years ago.

Nuclear materials can be obtained by many other means than simply producing 
them within the host country. For example, from a producing country, like 
North Korea. For example, from Russia, where a shocking percentage of their 
nuclear materials are unaccounted for. That was the urgency. According to 
defecting Iraqi scientists, it was only a matter of time before Hussein 
would obtain the active material. Luckily, his time is now up.

>All three of these factoids can indeed be interpreted as ravings of a 
>madman,
>as I have done. (Nota bene: This does not in any way disqualify me from 
>being
>a madman myself.)

On the contrary, this post was quite reasonable.

>What I am more interested in:  despite Milosevic comparisons, what would be 
>a
>better way for this country to manage/negotiate the strongmen and warlords
>(like Hussein, like the Shah, et al) than what we have been doing.  The US
>seems to be completely passive or supportive when the crimes of these 
>people
>does not effect our greater foreign policy, but only when we have a bigger
>goal than the criminal strongman that contravenes his goal, do we go in and
>kill innocent peolle by way of war and replace these people.  isn't that
>rather barbaric, with examples down thru history of this empiric behavior?
>
>And even more interesting:  How would the US help alleviate the injustices,
>oppressions, horrors and holocausts that are the result of the ongoing
>reprocussions of the history of European and US colonial, empiric and
>neo-colonial manipulations?

Ah, those unjustices, oppressions, horrors, and holocausts MUST be the 
result of US colonial manipulations. That MUST be the only explanation of 
them. Ok, let's take an example that is often brought up from the 80s: 
Nicaragua. Was the US opposing a communist infiltration of Central America, 
or was it imperialistically defending criminal strongmen (the Contras, who 
certainly were not clean as snow)? Noam Chomsky agrees with your analysis:

"Any such development, whether libertarian or authoritarian in tendency, ... 
would lead to unremitting hostility on the part of the great powers — in the 
domains of our influence, to an attack by the United States. The primary 
goal would be to prevent any infringement on private privilege linked to 
U.S. power, to abort these efforts by subversion or direct attack or 
economic pressures that no weak and underdeveloped country can withstand. 
Or, second best, to drive the perpetrators of this iniquity into the hands 
of the Soviet Union; then further attacks can be justified in terms of 
"defense" and the revolutionary leadership will be compelled to institute 
harsh and authoritarian measures under duress, so that popular discontent 
will mount and the endeavor will fail for that reason. Nicaragua today is a 
case in point."

Chomsky goes so far as say that any "harsh and authoritarian measures" by 
the Sandanistas were done "under duress" due to US pressure against it, 
which would "DRIVE" them "into the hands of the Soviet Union"! Never mind 
that Daniel Ortega and his comrades were devotees of the Eastern block long 
before they came to power in Nicaragua. Forget that Ortega, rather than 
looking to the USSR as a last resort, wooed the Soviets from the beginning. 
Proof?:

Former Sandinista official Arturo Cruz, Jr.: "From 1979 to 1981 I was the 
Sandinistas' man in Washington in charge of handling Congress. It was my 
task to negotiate the $75 million assistance package the Carter 
Administration was arranging for the Sandinista regime. It provided crucial 
balance of payments support on very generous terms. The money came from the 
Special Support Funds which were reserved only for very close allies of the 
United States like Israel or Egypt. Not only was the U.S. government giving 
us economic aid, but quality aid. And not only Special Support funds, but 
also PL 480 — food for peace funds — and loans for development projects from 
AID. The U.S. government was also supporting us in our requests to 
renegotiate our national debts with the private New York banks. Finally, the 
Carter Administration was using its good offices with the World Bank, the 
Inter-American Development Bank and other multinational organizations to be 
very generous with the revolutionary regime. With enemies like this, one 
doesn't need friends. The line I took as the Sandinista representative in 
Washington was that if the U.S. was generous with us we would not go to the 
Soviets for aid. But in reality, even while the U.S. was providing us this 
generous financial support, we were signing every possible agreement under 
the table with the U.S.S.R. and the other Communist governments for military 
support and to establish Party to Party relations. What we Sandinistas 
wanted was to establish a division of labor: the west would provide the 
money for socialist economic development, while the Communist states would 
provide us with the weapons and technical support in setting up the 
institutions of power — the army, the police, the 'block committees' charged 
with spying on the population. So while America and the other western 
democracies supplied advisers to our economic ministers, the internal and 
external security ministers and the ministries responsible for the new 
ideological apparatus — communications, education — were reserved for 
foreign advisors from the Soviet Union, Cuba, East Germany, Bulgaria, North 
Vietnam and North Korea." In Peter Collier and David Horowitz, eds., Second 
Thoughts (Madison Books, 1989).

So when you dig deeper, Henry, your attribution of oppressions, holocausts, 
injustices, and horrors to US colonial manipulations is by no means as clear 
as you thought.

Anthony Crifasi

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