Tag Archives: Gulf War

Political Rants

An unhealthy dose of imperial fetishism

As I’ve mentioned more times than I should have, I have had very low expectations for the Biden foreign policy since the beginning. By “the beginning”, I mean well before his election, when you couldn’t find foreign policy positions on his campaign web site for love or money. Biden’s fifty-year track record on foreign affairs is not a particularly good one. I remember him saying he was “ashamed” of Reagan’s “constructive engagement” policy towards apartheid South Africa back in the 1980s. Um …. that’s about it.

These past two weeks have done little to change my mind on this. The drone assassination of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al Qaeda leader, prompted a lot of fist-pumping on the part of mainstream Democrats and some never-Trump Republicans. A similar amount of jingoism accompanied House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, as well. I’m not certain what the expected takeaway is for either of these decisions, but it the point was to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the current Democratic leadership is well vested into America’s imperial enterprise, they certainly succeeded.

A child of bad policy

Ayman al-Zawahiri was a terrible person, there’s no question. I think, though, as we are the one global super-power, it’s probably a good idea to consider how our policy may have contributed to his no-goodness. Al-Zawahiri started down the road to al Qaeda when he was imprisoned by the Mubarak regime, where he and his fellow prisoners from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood were tortured, killed, and otherwise abused. Egypt, I will remind you, has long been a major recipient of U.S. aid, far beyond what nearly every other nation has received from us. If Egypt’s notoriously brutal prison system contributed to al-Zawahiri’s radicalism (which it most certainly did), we bear considerable responsibility for that.

Secondly, there likely wouldn’t have been an al-Qaeda for him to join up with if it hadn’t been for (1) the Afghan CIA operation during the 1980s, and (2) the first gulf war in 1990-91, when U.S. troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia for the first time, remaining there long after Iraq was driven from Kuwait. Again, these were policy choices, not forces of nature. Without multiple interventions in the middle east and southwest Asia, America might not have been such a big, attractive target for these people. Can’t be sure, but …. might have been worth a try.

Worst of the worst?

Then there’s the question of how many lives were lost at the hands of al-Zawahiri. I would argue far too many. As Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show last week, he had a long history of planning terrorist actions, including being one of the masterminds of the September 11 attacks, the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, and so on. So, thousands of live lost. Not a nice person, right?

Now, there should be some reckoning as to how that record stacks up to the record of his pursuers. All killing is intrinsically bad, so I’m not suggesting that the rapacious policies of the United States somehow lessen the severity and the cravenness of al-Zawahiri’s attacks. But if it’s bad when he does it, then it’s bad when others do it as well, right? And if others do a lot more killing than he did, well … that makes them particularly bad, right?

Let’s just stick to the wars that followed 9/11. How many people died as a result of our actions? Was it less or more than the number of al-Zawahiri’s victims? In all honesty, America’s victims through this period run in the high six-figures to perhaps seven figures. Several countries were destroyed essentially beyond recovery. Fist pump, anyone?

Unfair comparisons

Okay, I know …. it’s really not fair to compare nation states like the U.S. to non-state actors like al Qaeda or individuals like al-Zawahiri. Nation states have international obligations, responsibilities, and should at least formally be accountable to their populations. Terror networks are kind of a law unto themselves, though international law does bear on them. But honestly …. shouldn’t we expect more out of our own government then that they should be responsible for hundreds or even thousands of times the number of deaths caused by our most ruthless enemies?

Seems like kind of a low bar.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Meeting the indefensible with the unthinkable

The onslaught continues, in more ways than one. Putin’s wholly unjustified invasion of Ukraine is entering its third week with no end in sight. At the same time, the corporate media is propagandizing the living hell out of the conflict, platforming rhetoric that could lead to World War III. Nothing less than that.

The Biden Administration has thus far remained cautious with regard to involving the U.S. or NATO directly in Ukraine. They deserve some credit for that, though I’m not sure what the appropriate prize is for NOT burning down the house. Of course, the neocon wing of the Republican party and the various networks are pushing hard to get Biden to agree to some crazy shit. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how irresponsible they’re being, but it is kind of shocking.

Preaching to the choir

I can’t remember a time when the media worked so hard to convince the American people to support something they already agree with. Their coverage of Ukraine is wall-to-wall, and there’s a meme-like repetitiveness to the content they’re pushing out. I have seen that little boy crying while he’s walking up the street so many times. Then there’s the armed men in the balaclavas who talk about revenge on the Russians and demand a no-fly zone.

I’m not denying the authenticity or even the heartrending nature of some of these clips. But their repetition seems to have a point – we should be doing more. And when the corporate media talks about doing more, it’s always in the context of a conversation with a general. They have been entranced with the U.S. military since the Gulf War, and the national security state is their go-to source on how to end a conflict.

There’s a reason why a majority of Americans support a no-fly zone in Ukraine: they hear it talked about incessantly on T.V. Even when the commentators say it’s a bad idea, the conversation continues as if there’s some controversy.

The planes, boss, the planes

Then there’s the debate over delivering fighter planes to the Ukrainians. Someone cooked up a plan to have Poland give them 26 old MIGs in return for new planes from the United States. The Poles reasonably considered this a bad idea, as it would make it seem as though they were directly involved in the conflict. Then they doubled back and suggested the United States do the transfer via a base in Germany. Not so good.

This story has been hashed over by the press almost incessantly. Very few, however, have questioned the utility of this effort on Ukraine’s behalf. Where would they base these planes, or keep the Russians from bombing them to bits on the first day? How would these 40-year-old MIGs fare against a far larger, modern Russian air force? This is totally beside the fact that such an obvious move would be tantamount to joining the fight in earnest. And yet, the conversation continues, in part because the Ukrainians want the planes, like they want the no-fly zone.

Backing away from the brink

It is incumbent upon those of us who are still sane to encourage the administration and the political class more generally not to make the mistake of becoming a combatant in this war. While many have seemingly forgotten that we are living on a nuclear powder keg, the rest of us need to encourage our fellow Americans not to play with matches.

This is not 1939, folks, Churchill allusions notwithstanding. There were no nukes in 1939. Russia is not prewar Germany, which was the world’s greatest industrial and military power at the time. This is more like 2003, when a rogue superpower decided to defy the world and invade another country for no good reason. There can be no Russo-American war – not now, not ever. Not if the world is to survive. It’s that simple.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Albright: He always told the truth

Former General Colin Powell died this week of complications from COVID-19. I’m sure you’ve heard this about a million times by now. You’ve probably also heard that he was a hero, a man of great stature, an inspiration, etc. I can tell you that a lot of hagiographic remembrances came floating up from the television on Monday and Tuesday.

I don’t think it will surprise any readers of this blog that I was not a fan of the former Secretary of State. Yes, like many on the left, I never forgave him for his Feb 5, 2003 performance at U.N. headquarters in New York – a key moment in the rush to the Iraq invasion. (Some may recall that they draped Picasso’s Guernica during Powell’s presentation, which was just a little too on-the-nose.) But his career had a lot of bloody patches.

Spinning from the beginning

Powell was a Vietnam veteran. He did, actually, play a small role in concealing the My Lai massacre, suggesting that the story was unrealistic because Americans and Vietnamese had such a great rapport. What? (For more on that love fest, I suggest Nick Turse’s Kill Everything That Moves.) This has been kind of a consistent pattern in Powell’s career – deflection from the facts and subservience to power.

He served in various capacities during the Reagan administration, working closely with Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. When Weiberger was under scrutiny by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor, Powell helped the Secretary conceal his knowledge of that operation by initially supporting Weinberger’s contention that he didn’t keep a diary. (Powell later admitted that he observed Weinberger writing in a book or tablet that he kept on his desk.)

Worthy adversaries

One of the Powell sound bites the corporate media never tires of playing is the General’s comments at the start of the Gulf War: “First we’re going to cut it off. Then we’re going to kill it.” The “it” he’s talking about was a third-world army principally comprised of conscripts. The U.S. military did just what Powell said, killing thousands of Iraqi soldiers in full retreat along Route 80 from Kuwait – the “Highway of Death”.

Of course, his most notorious failing was in laying out the case for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Most of the media describes this case as having fallen apart in the years that followed. Actually, the cobbled-together garbage that Powell handed out that day was debunked almost immediately, and the truth was available to anyone willing to see/hear it. That was immaterial to Powell – like many senators, he was thinking of his political future, not the human cost of what was being contemplated.

Mythmaking in America

The Trump phenomenon has brought many political dynamics into stark relief. But one of the most troubling effects of his presidency is the tendency to frame any conservative alternative to him as virtuous. This is what’s been done with regard to Liz Cheney, Mitt Romney, etc. Powell was ahead of all of them, frankly. It largely involves reputation laundering on the part of media figures. We saw a lot of that this week.

When Madeleine Albright appeared on Morning Joe a few days back, her closing comment was that Powell “always told the truth.” It’s a little hard to know what to do with that. It made me think back to that moment I saw at the start of the Iraq war, when Powell mischaracterized the testimony of an Iraqi defector, Hussein Kemal. I had just read the transcript, and I have to think he had seen it in some form. The man just freaking lied about what it said, straight up.

If you can make Colin Powell into a man of peerless virtue, what value does truth have?

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.