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http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/opinion/2002/0312/1281359636OP12LAFFERTY.html The Irish Times March 12, 2002 Marking Sept 11th by beating drums of war President Bush and the US military do not miss a single opportunity to tout and promote what detractors call a war machine and what others call mayday preparedness, writes Elaine Lafferty Last Sunday night, March 10th, 2002, the streets of New York City were empty. Restaurants had plenty of available tables. Empty yellow taxis prowled the streets in search of fares, but there were few on this bitterly cold evening, and the cabs themselves had no worries about traffic. The reason was a two-hour television programme broadcast that night on CBS. Last summer, Jules and Gedeon Naudet, two French filmmaker brothers, moved into a local firehouse to make a documentary about New York City firefighters. They lived with the men, ate with them, recorded the details of their lives. By early September, they had enough footage for "a good cooking show", said one, referring to the daily mealtimes. But alas, no serious fires had occurred in lower Manhattan. On the morning of September 11th, the brothers were with several firemen as they investigated a gas leak just two blocks from the World Trade Centre. The roar of an aircraft is heard overhead and the crash into the first tower is recorded on film as the stunned men look up. The cameras continued to roll as the firemen went into the towers; the sound of bodies crashing is heard as those on the upper floors jumped to their deaths. One of the Naudet brothers is with the firemen inside the lobby of tower one as tower two collapses. The riveting footage records blackness, dust, cursing and chaos as the enormity of what is happening dawns on everyone at the scene. The documentary, called 9/11 and narrated by Robert De Niro, was the highest rated programme of the week, gaining a 34 per cent share of television viewers in the US and a 51 per cent share in New York City. The six-month anniversary of the attacks on New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania is being observed mightily here. Just before dusk last night, twin beams of blue light pointed skyward from Ground Zero in commemoration of victims, 2,830 of whose bodies are still buried in the rubble. President Bush marked the day with a ceremony at the White House. "Every terrorist must be made to live as an international fugitive, with no place to settle or organise, no place to hide, no governments to hide behind and not even a safe place to sleep," Mr Bush said. The event included about 1,300 people, including members of Congress, more than 100 ambassadors and about 300 family members who lost relatives. But these ceremonies, public and private, are not simply sentimental tributes. Mr Bush and the US military establishment are not missing a single opportunity to tout and promote what detractors call a war machine and others call mayday preparedness. Yesterday, Mr Bush was addressing the world: "America encourages and expects governments everywhere to help remove the terrorist parasites that threaten their own countries and peace of the world." He said the United States was actively assisting the governments of the Philippines, Georgia and Yemen to quell militants linked to al-Qaeda and said Yemen in particular was vulnerable. "In Yemen, we are working to avert the possibility of another Afghanistan," he said. Instead of signing off with his customary "God bless America", Mr Bush said, "God bless the coalition". This is what passes for multilateralism these days. Despite the simultaneous drum- and chest-beating, the Bush administration is engaged in these days, scaring the bejasus out of almost all clear-thinking people with threats of nuclear war against half a dozen countries, the fact is that an invasion of Iraq especially is not imminent. Yes, the vice-president, Mr Dick Cheney, is on a 10-day trip to Europe and the Middle East trying to sell a war against Iraq to its Arab neighbours. But remember that Mr Cheney has done this same trip before; except it was more than a decade ago when he was peddling war against Saddam Hussein as a member of the cabinet of George Bush snr. One of the reasons the US is fighting so hard, using troops on the ground in Afghanistan, is to try and counter the notion that it is unwilling to sustain casualties. By insisting on victory and showing that it is prepared to risk American lives, by bringing up the spectre of nuclear war, Washington is delivering a message to the world; this time, the US is prepared to do whatever is necessary to topple Saddam. "If you have any doubt about the depth of our commitment, look at Afghanistan and what we did there," a senior Bush administration official said. Thar is all well and good, but there are problems. Former national security council staff member Kenneth Pollack, writing in the current issue of Foreign Affairs, estimates that an all-out US invasion of Iraq, one which would really defeat Saddam, would require 200,000 troops that would seize oil fields and missile sites and eventually occupy the country after a five-month "conservative" battle. That IS a very different scenario to the one which is playing out on American televisions. There are 1,000-1,500 US troops in the snow-capped mountains near Gardez. None of those "dead-ender" al-Qaeda fighters about which the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, likes to talk, is likely to launch Scud missiles at Israel next week, plunging the already desperate region into a wider war. Saudi Arabia has not turned off the flow of oil to US consumers and Iran has not started seizing hostages again. In other words, the US is waging a small seemingly proportionate war in Afghanistan, one which at this point seems aimed at getting the terrorists who attacked America on September 11th. Americans support Mr Bush. They even support his rhetoric about widening the war, but only because they believe it to be exactly that - rhetoric. If Mr Bush gets any closer to something as serious and consequential as 200,000 troops in the Iraqi desert without overwhelming evidence that Saddam threatens the US in a real way, he will likely face the same future as his father - a pleasant life lived outside the White House. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/ --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9617B Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
