Re: Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000
Marvin Gandall wrote: You seriously misunderstand the nature of the conflict when you state that "the US ruling class opted for war." The US ruling class was and remains very divided over the invasion of Iraq, over whether it served or hurt US strategic interests. I think its closer to the truth to characterize the Iraq invasion as a hubristic adventure by the Bush administration, acting in maverick fashion against the wishes of a large, probably major, part of its own ruling class and the international bourgeoisie. That operation, as anticipated, turned into a debacle, and the Bushites have since been reined in and their early foreign policy doctrines discredited. If the invasion went as well as the invasion of Panama or Grenada, there would be no differences. The differences, such as they are, have not been reflected in the choice of candidates. I don't recall huge amounts of money being directed from Wall Street to Howard Dean. I don't think you would argue the "sanctions were becoming ineffective" in terms of the harm they were inflicting on the Iraqi population. It's true that they had been ineffective in fostering the hoped-for coup, and were being evaded and loosened in negotations through the UN. Nevertheless, it doesn't follow from this (and there is no evidence to indicate) that a Gore administration would have launched an invasion, especially when this would have precipitated a rupture with its traditional and would-be allies and weakened the authority of the UN, which the Democrats and many Republican leaders properly view as a useful instrument of US foreign policy. I have no idea what Gore would have done or not done. The main point I was stressing was his counter-revolutionary appetites. How such an execrable creature can be refashioned as some kind of leftist is beyond me. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000
Louis Proyect wrote: > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > Whether you think invasion/occupation versus sanctions/subversion represents > > only a nuance of difference or is more significant than that is a matter of > > judgment, of course. Certainly, you can make a case that the sanctions cost > > many lives -- perhaps as many or more than the invasion and subsequent > > occupation. But I think, if forced to choose, the Iraqis would still have > > preferred to continue contesting and evading the sanctions rather than face > > occupation by an invading American army. > > Of course. That is why the US ruling class opted for war rather than > sanctions. They were becoming ineffective. Wars are made by a class, not > individuals by the way. - You seriously misunderstand the nature of the conflict when you state that "the US ruling class opted for war." The US ruling class was and remains very divided over the invasion of Iraq, over whether it served or hurt US strategic interests. I think its closer to the truth to characterize the Iraq invasion as a hubristic adventure by the Bush administration, acting in maverick fashion against the wishes of a large, probably major, part of its own ruling class and the international bourgeoisie. That operation, as anticipated, turned into a debacle, and the Bushites have since been reined in and their early foreign policy doctrines discredited. I don't think you would argue the "sanctions were becoming ineffective" in terms of the harm they were inflicting on the Iraqi population. It's true that they had been ineffective in fostering the hoped-for coup, and were being evaded and loosened in negotations through the UN. Nevertheless, it doesn't follow from this (and there is no evidence to indicate) that a Gore administration would have launched an invasion, especially when this would have precipitated a rupture with its traditional and would-be allies and weakened the authority of the UN, which the Democrats and many Republican leaders properly view as a useful instrument of US foreign policy. As Clinton has noted, and I believe this to be so, the Democrats would have continued to work through the UN, prodding Blix and the inspectors to disarm, humiliate, and neuter Saddam -- accepting this as a less certain, but less risky, means of regime change than an invasion. They didn't have the peculiar Saddam obsession of the Bushites, nor did they think it would be easy to secure Iraq. Like you and I, the bipartisan foreign policy establishment thinks more in terms of its overall class interests than individuals. Marv Gandall
Re: Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000
Marvin Gandall wrote: Whether you think invasion/occupation versus sanctions/subversion represents only a nuance of difference or is more significant than that is a matter of judgment, of course. Certainly, you can make a case that the sanctions cost many lives -- perhaps as many or more than the invasion and subsequent occupation. But I think, if forced to choose, the Iraqis would still have preferred to continue contesting and evading the sanctions rather than face occupation by an invading American army. Of course. That is why the US ruling class opted for war rather than sanctions. They were becoming ineffective. Wars are made by a class, not individuals by the way. -- Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000
Louis Proyect quoting the New Yorker article: > The idea of overthrowing Saddam is not an idle fantasy-or, if it is, > it's one that has lately occupied the minds of many American officials, > including people close to George W. Bush. In 1998, during the period > when Saddam was resisting the international inspection team that was > trying to make sure he wasn't manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, > Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act, > which made available ninety-seven million dollars in government aid to > organizations dedicated to the overthrow of Saddam. Two of the act's > co-sponsors were Senators Trent Lott and Joseph Lieberman-not peripheral > figures on Capitol Hill. Clinton was unenthusiastic about the Iraq > Liberation Act and has spent almost none of the money it provides, but > Al Gore, during the Presidential campaign, put some distance between > himself and Clinton on the issue of removing Saddam. In the second > Presidential debate, after defending his Administration's Iraq record, > he said, "I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the > groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein." --- But this -- the Iraq Liberation Act -- is old news. It's well established that it was under the Clinton admin that the Iraq policy shifted from containment to the overthrow of Saddam. But this was to be accomplished via an internal military coup using Iraqi exile groups as a conduit, with the conditions for such to be created by economic sanctions, acting in conjunction with the UN and the Europeans. It was also, as the article notes, a back burner issue for the Democrats. As we know, the Republicans made overthrowing the Baathist regime a foreign policy priority. They decided to invade and occupy Iraq with US forces, forcefully breaking with the US foreign policy establishment, the UN, and the Europeans over this matter. Gore, again as the article notes, continued with the Clinton line of "support to groups" inside Iraq. Whether you think invasion/occupation versus sanctions/subversion represents only a nuance of difference or is more significant than that is a matter of judgment, of course. Certainly, you can make a case that the sanctions cost many lives -- perhaps as many or more than the invasion and subsequent occupation. But I think, if forced to choose, the Iraqis would still have preferred to continue contesting and evading the sanctions rather than face occupation by an invading American army. To be sure, I haven't seen any evidence of Iraqis shrugging their shoulders and dismissing the US invasion as being "really no different" than the UN sanctions. I've only seen this view expressed by a minority of the US left which appears to dismiss that there are any differences within the American ruling class and between states which can and should be exploited in the interest of the world's peoples. Marv Gandall
Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000
The New Yorker January 22, 2001 LETTER FROM WASHINGTON THE IRAQ FACTOR; Will the new Bush team's old memories shape its foreign policy? BYLINE: NICHOLAS LEMANN Let's assume, just for argument's sake, that George W. Bush's Presidency will have certain similarities to his father's-even that it will be a continuation of his father's, with the added elements of a surer political touch (especially in dealing with the conservative wing of the Republican Party) and a predilection for settling scores with people who did the old man wrong. The Presidential term limit has automatically taken care of Bill Clinton, the dethroner of George H. W. Bush. So who else might there be who was a major enemy to Bush Administration One, and could be given a comeuppance in Bush Administration Two? Might not the first name on the list be Saddam Hussein? It is true that Bush One administered a swift and splendid thrashing to Saddam in the Gulf War, but he is still defiantly in power in Iraq. His longevity rivals Fidel Castro's-Saddam has effectively been running Iraq since the Nixon Administration. In 1993, a year when Saddam was supposed to be history and Bush was supposed to be President, Saddam tried to have Bush assassinated. For almost ten years, the Bush One team has had to endure the accusation, rich in retrospective wisdom, that it could have nailed Saddam if only it had been willing to prosecute the Gulf War for a few more days. Now two of the leading accusees, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, are assuming positions at the very top of the American government, subordinate only to the firstborn son of another of the leading accusees. Lots of other, lesser known Gulf War planners will probably be high-level officials in the new Bush Administration. The idea of overthrowing Saddam is not an idle fantasy-or, if it is, it's one that has lately occupied the minds of many American officials, including people close to George W. Bush. In 1998, during the period when Saddam was resisting the international inspection team that was trying to make sure he wasn't manufacturing weapons of mass destruction, Congress passed, and President Clinton signed, the Iraq Liberation Act, which made available ninety-seven million dollars in government aid to organizations dedicated to the overthrow of Saddam. Two of the act's co-sponsors were Senators Trent Lott and Joseph Lieberman-not peripheral figures on Capitol Hill. Clinton was unenthusiastic about the Iraq Liberation Act and has spent almost none of the money it provides, but Al Gore, during the Presidential campaign, put some distance between himself and Clinton on the issue of removing Saddam. In the second Presidential debate, after defending his Administration's Iraq record, he said, "I want to go further. I want to give robust support to the groups that are trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein." (clip) It is noteworthy that so many members of the Bush officialdom, including Bush himself, have publicly toyed with the option of toppling Saddam, because that is not the consensus position in the foreign-policy world. In January of 1999, shortly after the passage of the Iraq Liberation Act, Foreign Affairs published a devastating article called "The Rollback Fantasy," which said that arming the Iraqi National Congress "is militarily ludicrous" and "so flawed and unrealistic that it would lead inexorably to a replay of the Bay of Pigs." Still, the idea keeps coming up. Kenneth Adelman, the former head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and a member of the Cheney-Rumsfeld camp, told me, "Ideally, the first crisis would be something with Iraq. It would be a way to make the point that it's a new world." The Washington headquarters of the Iraq-liberation cause is located in the basement of a brick town house in Georgetown, where a man named Francis Brooke, who constitutes the entire (unpaid) staff of the Iraq Liberation Action Committee, lives with his wife and children. Not long ago, I spent a morning with Brooke, who calls to mind a twenty-years-older Holden Caulfield. He has neatly parted blond hair, round wire-rimmed glasses, and a boy's open face, innocent manner, and undimmed capacity for outrage. In 1992, Brooke got a job in London with a public-relations agency run by a former Carter Administration political operative named John Rendon. He was assigned to publicize atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, and was given a peculiarly high budget (including compensation for him of nineteen thousand dollars a month); Rendon wouldn't name the client. Brooke soon realized that he was working for the C.I.A. He then maneuvered himself into the most sensitive part of the operation, assisting the Iraqi National Congress. The congress had just been set up, with blessings and funding from the Bush Administration, which evidently had spent the better part of the year following the Gulf War in the hope that Saddam would fall, and then, realizing that he wouldn't, had settled on supporting an armed oppo
