I’m
sorry. This version of my
comments was intended for another online conversation, which required more
expository dialogue. Most of you
are familiar and well read about the consequences of duplicity.
Also, the
second half of my rhetorical question below When did Big Brother take over is: the afternoon of 9/11 or December
2000?
I hope some
of you are able to read Kaplan’s Stealth piece, in which he notes that “one
good (military) man is worth a thousand wonks”, referring to the training our
special forces are doing with Columbian
militia, and his nostalgia for the effectiveness of the Spartan
army. His new rules for supremacy
include Rule #3: Emulate Second Century Rome, Rule #4: Use the military to
promote democracy and Rule #5: Be light and lethal, Rule #6: Bring back the
Old Rules (pre-Vietnam), Rule: 9: Fight on every front and Rule #10: Speak
Victorian, think pagan. It is not available online.
Regards,
KWC
-----Original
Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Karen Watters
Cole
Sent: Sunday, June 22,
2003 7:52 AM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] updates on the
"Coalition of the Billing" and the Brave New World Order
Don’t you find it rather pathetic that Pres
Bush feels he must publicly address US military casualties already? This is just what happens when you get
involved in a guerrilla war, as we did in Vietnam. Did he not understand that imported
foreigner fighters would also be the enemy in Iraq? Wasn’t this supposed to be a grand
design to save America from WMD?
Were we to believe that glorious media show that portrayed the march to
Baghdad as part Olympic heroes, part Superbowl challenge? This is modern warfare, like it or
not.
I thought this was a real war with real
soldiers trained and prepared to die for the service of their country. Their families must know this. Or do they? We dishonor them to not respect their
choice, if they knew what they were doing. Politicians, unfortunately, take them
places their generals don’t always want them to go. That is the way we run this
country. Let us honor them and
not blame others incorrectly. They fought the enemy, as they were told. The administration must be honest
about who the enemy is, and what it expects will be necessary to achieve it’s
goals. Otherwise, credibility is
lost – quickly. If we choose the path to war we must be prepared to
acknowledge the personal and moral cost.
Bush’s motives are less compassionate than
they are political, trying to deflect the growing suspicions that this was an
unnecessary and costly geopolitical strategy decision that has unleashed a new
host of diplomatic, military and political consequences, and financial
burden. Since the news also
reports that experts and captured aides now conclude Saddam survived and so
did his sons, and we also we have to believe that Osama bin Laden (remember
him?) is also still alive and at large, thoughtful citizens must begin asking
if the success ratio of the military first government strategy and the Bush
preemptive doctrine are failures.
To not ask for accountability is to abdicate democracy.
For more on the next phase of our mostly
under the radar involvement in Columbia, see Robert D Kaplan’s new military
glorification piece in The Atlantic Monthly (July/August): Supremacy by Stealth in which he
pulp-fictionalizes the new leaders of tomorrow from our young lt. Colonels and
sergeants, nary a mention of any diplomatic corps and a put down for the
UN. It’s a fait accompli, some
would say, that we have become a military state.
I have always supported and honored
military troops, except briefly as a young woman during the last years of
Vietnam. But I had teachers and
friends who fought there who reminded me not to blame the soldier for the sins
of the politician and commanders they serve. I do not want America the
Beautiful to be represented by khaki and camouflage uniforms across the globe,
but that is what we are putting into place. I want the ideals of democracy and
economic opportunity to be the face of America to the world. Instead, the Bush administration
has literally attacked the non-governmental agencies (NGOs) – those are the
mostly relief and aid organizations – for not being more politically an arm of
the US government. Imagine
that! Exactly when did Big
Brother take over?
KWC
Washington Post @
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19481-2003Jun21.html?nav=hptoc_p
NYT @ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/22/international/worldspecial/22CASU.html
Atlanta Journal (Al Qaeda video promises
new bombings) @ http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/0603/22video.html
US
Enlists more countries in Iraq, at US taxpayer
expense @ http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-troops22jun22,1,2407908.story?coll=la-home-todays-times
By Paul Richter, LA Times Staff Writer,
June 22, 2003
The Bush administration has agreed to pay
for several nation’s to participate in the peacekeeping
effort
WASHINGTON — When the Pentagon proudly
announced last week that more and more countries have been signing up to send
peacekeeping troops to Iraq, one fact drew little attention: U.S. taxpayers
will be paying a fair chunk of the bill.
As it has sought to spread the peacekeeping burden, the Bush
administration has agreed to help underwrite the participation of such
countries as Poland, Ukraine,
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
India, which the United States
has asked to provide thousands of troops, has been asking for financial help
as well.
These deals, which by one estimate could cost
$250 million over the next
year, will enable the United
States to relieve some of its overworked troops and give
more of an international face to the American-led
undertaking. But they may also draw
criticism that the U.S. partners in the reshaping of Iraq are those whose
support can be bought — the "coalition of the
billing," as some wags have put
it.
Pentagon officials say it remains unclear what the total tab will
be, because they are still trying to work out arrangements with the nearly
50 countries that they say
have expressed interest. But it is already clear that the bills will
substantially add to U.S. troop expenses that, by one congressional
estimate, are currently running $3 billion a month.
Between 20,000
and 30,000 troops from more than a dozen nations will arrive in the next two
months to augment a force of about 146,000
troops from the United States and
12,000 from
Britain and seven other
countries.
In most major
peacekeeping missions, the United
Nations has taken the lead and covered most of the expenses of countries that
contribute troops. In this case, because
the Bush administration did not want to surrender its lead role in Iraq to the
U.N., the United States had little choice but to build and underwrite the
peacekeeping coalition itself.
The U.S. will be helping out with
contingents large and small. The Poles, who have become one of the United
States' staunchest military allies, have committed 2,300 soldiers and will
oversee a division-size force that will patrol a large section of
south-central Iraq. But with Poland's government budget under stress and
unemployment at about 20%, Warsaw asked for assistance.
The United
States is also going to pick up most of the tab for 840 doctors, nurses
and engineers from Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican
Republic who are going to Iraq
for a year, according to diplomats from Central
America.
Western European countries
such as Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands will pay the full cost of their
participation, diplomats said. U.S. financing makes participation
politically easier for countries that opposed the war or pushed to give the
United Nations a lead role in the aftermath. The government of Indian Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, for example, has been eager to build good
relations with Washington by taking part, yet faces strong pressure at home to
turn down the American request.
Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at
the Brookings Institution, estimated that it might cost the administration
$250 million to fund the estimated 20,000 troops for the next year. That assumes that about
half the countries would require help and that the United States would have to
put up less than half as much money per soldier as the $10,000 to $20,000 it
costs to support an American in the field for a month. Many foreign troops are
far less expensive than the highly trained, elaborately equipped U.S.
forces.
O'Hanlon noted that even
when the United Nations finances peacekeeping missions, the U.S. Treasury
covers about 25% of the cost, through U.N. dues. The deals are
worthwhile, in his view, because they ease the burden on U.S. troops and
bring other countries into the mission. Word of these arrangements has emerged
at a time of increasing congressional concern about the staffing and financial
burdens of the military mission in Iraq.
At a hearing of the House
Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) said
that at the present level of U.S. troop commitment, it would cost $54 billion
to pay for the efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq for a year. He noted that although allies covered
most of the cost of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, in this war, allies have agreed
to put up only about $3 billion. "Surely we can't sustain the burden of being
the world's only superpower, protecting region after region, without some
well-developed alliances or allied participation," Spratt said.
Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, asked whether the Pentagon would soon be
seeking a special supplemental budget request, said he believes that the
burden in Iraq "can change a lot over the
next few months, hopefully change for the better." Yet he acknowledged that the costs are
hard to predict.
There are signs that, in
the face of the mission's mounting costs, the administration is rethinking its
foreign policy spending priorities.
The
fight against guerrillas
and drug rings in Colombia has been one of the U.S. government's top
priorities, and it has spent nearly
$2 billion in mostly military aid to the Latin nation's armed forces. But last
week, U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson signaled that the United States now wants
to shift the burden.
