Cindy Sheehan Arrested at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. + JB Iraq comment
STATE DEPARTMENT CALLS PROTEST A P.R. STUNT
by Sarah Ferguson - Village Voice*
March 6th, 2006 - Cindy Sheehan took another bust for the anti-war cause Monday. She was cuffed and forcefully dragged away from the plaza in front of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where she had marched with a delegation of Iraqi women in hopes of delivering a petition to demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces from Iraq.
Sheehan and three other women from the protest group Code Pink were charged with criminal trespass and resisting arrest for refusing to leave the plaza of the private office building at 140 East 45th Street, where the U.S. Mission, and the offices of Ambassador John Bolton, are temporarily housed.
"It's private property," said one NYPD officer on the scene. "If security or the State Department officials don't want to let them inside, it's their call."
NOTIFIED POLICE OF THE DEMONSTRATION
Activists with Code Pink, who said they had notified police of the demonstration, said they were shocked that they were not allowed to deliver the petition. "A detective called me before and I told him exactly what we were planning to do and that we'd be marching from the United Nations on the sidewalk, and he said it would be fine," said spokesperson Andrea Buffa.
'LAND OF THE FREE' = A 'PROTEST AREA' ACROSS THE STREET?
Instead, when the march got within shouting distance of the U.S. Mission, cops tried to corral the crowd of about 50 demonstrators into a protest area across the street. Sheehan and the Iraqi women pressed forward, determined to deliver the petition to the offices of Ambassador Bolton. "We come in peace!" Sheehan and the other women shouted. "We're coming in peace with a peace plan."
Police then moved in and forced the jostling media camera crews and demonstrators away from the building and onto the sidewalk, about 50 feet from the entrance, as security guards locked the doors.
"Is this what you do here? Is this the kind of democracy you're bringing to Iraq?" demanded Sureya Sayadi, a Kurdish refugee currently residing in the U.S., who complained that she'd been shoved aside by a police officer.
THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO KEEP US OUT OF IT
While the rest of the protesters were being forced out of the plaza, Sheehan and three other Code Pinkers sat down in front of the office building's revolving doors and refused to budge. "This is our delegation [to the U.N.], and they have no right to keep us out of it," Sheehan proclaimed, her arms locked to those of the demonstrators on either side of her.
After about 15 minutes, Sheehan and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin got up and approached the media. "All we want to do is deliver a piece of paper, and no one will come down," Benjamin shouted, waving a copy of the petition, which calls on the U.N. to send an international peacekeeping force to help restore order in Iraq, and also demands "the full representation of women in the peacemaking process."
IT HAS BEEN SIGNED BY MORE THAN 72,000 PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD.
"We have meetings in Washington with our Congresspeople tomorrow and we do not want to be arrested," said Benjamin, who is accompanying Sheehan and the delegation of Iraqi women on a month-long tour across the U.S. "It is absolutely absurd that they will not accept a piece of paper. We do not want to be arrested, but we are sick and tired of a government [that] will not listen to us."
As Sheehan began reading out the demands of the petition, printed on a large pink and white banner, three officers surrounded her and pulled the banner from her hand. She didn't let go willingly and at one point wound up on the ground with her shirt over her head as police strapped plastic cuffs around her wrists.
But the peace mom bore a smile as she was led into the arrest van with the three other Code Pinkers. "My son was killed in Iraq!" she shouted before the doors slammed shut in front of her face.
"SHAME!" THE DEMONSTRATORS CHIMED IN.
A STATE DEPARMENT OFFICIAL DISMISSED THE ARRESTS AS A MEDIA STUNT.
"We were absolutely willing to meet with them," said Richard Grenell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Mission. "When the group showed up, we told them that an individual or small group of individuals could come up. . . . I came down and invited them in. But they weren't interested in coming in and having a rational discussion. They wanted a media event downstairs for the cameras."
SHEEHAN AND HER FELLOW ARRESTEES WERE NOT AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT BECAUSE THEY WERE STILL IN JAIL.
Ann Wright, a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in protest of the American-led invasion of Iraq, said she was "horrified that the US mission had closed its doors" and was unaware of any offers made at the scene to meet with the delegation. "This was not a publicity stunt," insisted Wright, who was a senior envoy in the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan and Mongolia. "I was a diplomat for 16 years, and I received petitions from all over the world. Nobody was planning an getting arrested or anything like that. The whole point was to get the message to the U.S. Mission, that women in Iraq and around the world want peace."
And in fact, the arrests drowned out the voices of the Iraqi women the protest was intended to highlight. Before marching to the U.S. Mission, Sheehan and five Iraqi women held a news conference outside U.N. headquarters, when they blamed the presence of U.S. troops for exacerbating unrest in their country, and asked the U.N. to intervene to prevent a civil war from breaking out.
The Iraqi women denied that a civil war was already under way but said things could devolve quickly if terrorists and Islamic extremists continue to use the presence of U.S. troops to justify bombings of civilians and other targets.
"The resistance forces are using the occupation to provoke differences," said Nadje Al-Ali, a writer and founding member of Act Together: Women's Action on Iraq, which was formed in the late '90s to oppose U.S. sanctions on Iraq. "The longer the occupation continues, the greater the danger of a civil war happening."
Faiza Al-Araji, a civil engineer and mother of three, went further. "They are pushing the people to be in a civil war to justify their existence there," she said of the U.S., voicing a theory now common among Iraqis. "It is so they can build their bases and continue with their efforts to dominate the region. Who cares about the Iraqis?"
Dr. Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at one of Baghdad's largest hospitals, broke into tears as she told reporters of the deaths and hardships she witnessed daily.
"U.S. occupation has destroyed our country, made it into a prison," said Ariabi. "Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed."
She cited a report by the chief coroner in Baghdad who estimates they receive 1,600 dead bodies a month in the city, with perhaps 10 times as many injured. "Many of the injured don't survive because of the shortage of medical supplies," she said.
"Bush said he liberated Iraq. Well, thank you for liberating our country from Saddam. But now, go out! Please go out!" she pleaded.
With Sheehan and other activists still in jail, the Iraqi women and Code Pink organizers proceeded to Washington, D.C., where they will spend Tuesday lobbying Congress members against the occupation. On Wednesday, which is International Women's Day, they plan to deliver their petition to the Iraqi Embassy and then march to the White House.
The Iraqi delegation was sponsored by Code Pink and Global Exchange. It includes Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish women—some secular, some not. Two Iraqi women whose families were killed by U.S. forces were denied entry by the U.S. consulate, which claimed they had "insufficient family ties" in Iraq to guarantee that they would return home if they were let into the U.S. Two others are still waiting in Amman, Jordan, to see if their visas will come through. The women plan a 60-city tour to speak out about what's happening in their country.
"It's going to be the women who are going to lead us out of the violence and toward peace," declared Sheehan, speaking prior to her arrest.
"We have the mother in us. And I'm calling on everyone, whether they're mothers or women or not to follow us."
[andend] - Url.: http://villagevoice.com/news/0610,ferguson,72424,2.html
Fwd. by FPF - Related: ''Commentary: Biggest geopolitical blunder?'' by ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE -
UPI Editor at Large - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/lnjop
COMMENT BY JIM ON THE ARTICLE BY ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE :
The thinking people among us saw this coming before it happened. This war has come to no good but for the arms merchants and the bankers. And now the same vultures wait for more carnage to unfold on the world stage.
It's too bad that Dubya has not read the book written by his father, George Bush, Sr., and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, where on page 489 there appeared a part of the following essay which has disappeared down the Orwellian Memory Hole.
"WHY WE DIDN'T REMOVE SADDAM"
GEORGE BUSH [SR.] AND BRENT SCOWCROFT - TIME (2 MARCH 1998)
The end of effective Iraqi resistance came with a rapidity which surprised us all, and we were perhaps psychologically unprepared for the sudden transition from fighting to peacemaking. True to the guidelines we had established, when we had achieved our strategic objectives (ejecting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and eroding Saddam's threat to the region) we stopped the fighting. But the necessary limitations placed on our objectives, the fog of war, and the lack of "battleship Missouri" surrender unfortunately left unresolved problems, and new ones arose.
We were disappointed that Saddam's defeat did not break his hold on power, as many of our Arab allies had predicted and we had come to expect. President Bush repeatedly declared that the fate of Saddam Hussein was up to the Iraqi people. Occasionally, he indicated that removal of Saddam would be welcome, but for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an uprising.
While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.
We discussed at length forcing Saddam himself to accept the terms of Iraqi defeat at Safwan--just north of the Kuwait-Iraq border--and thus the responsibility and political consequences for the humiliation of such a devastating defeat. In the end, we asked ourselves what we would do if he refused. We concluded that we would be left with two options: continue the conflict until he backed down, or retreat from our demands. The latter would have sent a disastrous signal. The former would have split our Arab colleagues from the coalition and, de facto, forced us to change our objectives. Given those unpalatable choices, we allowed Saddam to avoid personal surrender and permitted him to send one of his generals. Perhaps we could have devised a system of selected punishment, such as air strikes on different military units, which would have proved a viable third option, but we had fulfilled our well-defined mission; Safwan was waiting.
As the conflict wound down, we felt a sense of urgency on the part of the coalition Arabs to get it over with and return to normal. This meant quickly withdrawing U.S. forces to an absolute minimum. Earlier there had been some concern in Arab ranks that once they allowed U.S. forces into the Middle East, we would be there to stay. Saddam's propaganda machine fanned these worries. Our prompt withdrawal helped cement our position with our Arab allies, who now trusted us far more than they ever had. We had come to their assistance in their time of need, asked nothing for ourselves, and left again when the job was done. Despite some criticism of our conduct of the war, the Israelis too had their faith in us solidified. We had shown our ability--and willingness--to intervene in the Middle East in a decisive way when our interests were challenged. We had also crippled the military capability of one of their most bitter enemies in the region. Our new credibility (coupled with Yasser Arafat's need to redeem his image after backing the wrong side in the war) had a quick and substantial payoff in the form of a Middle East peace conference in Madrid.
The Gulf War had far greater significance to the emerging post-cold war world than simply reversing Iraqi aggression and restoring Kuwait. Its magnitude and significance impelled us from the outset to extend our strategic vision beyond the crisis to the kind of precedent we should lay down for the future. From an American foreign-policymaking perspective, we sought to respond in a manner which would win broad domestic support and which could be applied universally to other crises. In international terms, we tried to establish a model for the use of force. First and foremost was the principle that aggression cannot pay. If we dealt properly with Iraq, that should go a long way toward dissuading future would-be aggressors. We also believed that the U.S. should not go it alone, that a multilateral approach was better. This was, in part, a practical matter. Mounting an effective military counter to Iraq's invasion required the backing and bases of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.
At least the old man knew a little more about foreign policy. Though being an old time plutocrat, he couldn't help but do his part to advance the New World Order. This paved the way for Bill Clinton to continue the wholesale sell-out of the nation which has continued at break-neck speed under the now infamous sabotage of his son and the rest of the cabal of neocon barbarians.
JB
*********************************************************************************
* HOLOCAUST BY THE CIA: John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. ''How 6 million People Were killed in CIA secret wars against Third World countries'' (until 1987!) - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gpcg
* "Sarah, if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - George Bush Senior speaking in an interview with Sarah McClendon in December 1992. - And here's why: 'George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography' - by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin - Chapter - II - The Hitler Project - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/57qxk
* Global Predators - ‘Frauds-R-Us’ - The Bush Family Saga - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/elarx
* This is a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on US Congressional appropriations. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cfsrc
* The 9/11 drama: Anybody who after seeing this video - '9/11 revisited' - still believes the version from the 'PNAC pack' - the Washington cabal - is beyond all professional help - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/r5sx4
* The Global Elite: Who are they? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c5xv5
* White Haus drive to cover-up leaks concerning their crimes - PNAC-propaganda sheet Washington Post: ''White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/e7t6o
* Anti-propaganda: On the Net - Reporters Committee - Url.: http://www.rcfp.org/
* US War & Propaganda machine: Rumsfeld Declares War on Bad Press - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/loxqy
* ABC - US propaganda: "US military will continue to pay Iraqi media to publish reports favourable to American forces" - Url.: http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=1683768
* 'Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one' — A.J. Liebling - The infamous US 'Lie Factory' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/8ncal
* The 9/11 WTC drama was by the PNAC criminals planned terror - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b7ygk - It was an inside job - Google - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7tj9d
* Nobel Literature Prize Laureate and 'Gulag Holocaust' survivor Alexander Solzjenitsyn investigated the origin of the 'Russian Revolution' and the concentration camps: he published and was damned - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/qth6z
* Who's financing? - The 'Federal Reserve' and it's usurers is the absolute biggest crime against all humanity ever. - Url.: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm
* MSNBC - Live Vote - Concerning the "Project for a Nefarious American Century" (PNAC) - ''Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?'' - YES: 86% - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/
*Read the Fightin' Cock Flyer - Url.: http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/
* THE ONLY SOLUTION? - Help all the troops - of whatever nationality - to come back from abroad! - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE ARE FORCED TO PAY FOR BY TAXES - [http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm] - We need them badly at home in many countries to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
-0-
by Sarah Ferguson - Village Voice*
March 6th, 2006 - Cindy Sheehan took another bust for the anti-war cause Monday. She was cuffed and forcefully dragged away from the plaza in front of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where she had marched with a delegation of Iraqi women in hopes of delivering a petition to demand the immediate withdrawal of U.S. and other foreign forces from Iraq.
Sheehan and three other women from the protest group Code Pink were charged with criminal trespass and resisting arrest for refusing to leave the plaza of the private office building at 140 East 45th Street, where the U.S. Mission, and the offices of Ambassador John Bolton, are temporarily housed.
"It's private property," said one NYPD officer on the scene. "If security or the State Department officials don't want to let them inside, it's their call."
NOTIFIED POLICE OF THE DEMONSTRATION
Activists with Code Pink, who said they had notified police of the demonstration, said they were shocked that they were not allowed to deliver the petition. "A detective called me before and I told him exactly what we were planning to do and that we'd be marching from the United Nations on the sidewalk, and he said it would be fine," said spokesperson Andrea Buffa.
'LAND OF THE FREE' = A 'PROTEST AREA' ACROSS THE STREET?
Instead, when the march got within shouting distance of the U.S. Mission, cops tried to corral the crowd of about 50 demonstrators into a protest area across the street. Sheehan and the Iraqi women pressed forward, determined to deliver the petition to the offices of Ambassador Bolton. "We come in peace!" Sheehan and the other women shouted. "We're coming in peace with a peace plan."
Police then moved in and forced the jostling media camera crews and demonstrators away from the building and onto the sidewalk, about 50 feet from the entrance, as security guards locked the doors.
"Is this what you do here? Is this the kind of democracy you're bringing to Iraq?" demanded Sureya Sayadi, a Kurdish refugee currently residing in the U.S., who complained that she'd been shoved aside by a police officer.
THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO KEEP US OUT OF IT
While the rest of the protesters were being forced out of the plaza, Sheehan and three other Code Pinkers sat down in front of the office building's revolving doors and refused to budge. "This is our delegation [to the U.N.], and they have no right to keep us out of it," Sheehan proclaimed, her arms locked to those of the demonstrators on either side of her.
After about 15 minutes, Sheehan and Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin got up and approached the media. "All we want to do is deliver a piece of paper, and no one will come down," Benjamin shouted, waving a copy of the petition, which calls on the U.N. to send an international peacekeeping force to help restore order in Iraq, and also demands "the full representation of women in the peacemaking process."
IT HAS BEEN SIGNED BY MORE THAN 72,000 PEOPLE ACROSS THE WORLD.
"We have meetings in Washington with our Congresspeople tomorrow and we do not want to be arrested," said Benjamin, who is accompanying Sheehan and the delegation of Iraqi women on a month-long tour across the U.S. "It is absolutely absurd that they will not accept a piece of paper. We do not want to be arrested, but we are sick and tired of a government [that] will not listen to us."
As Sheehan began reading out the demands of the petition, printed on a large pink and white banner, three officers surrounded her and pulled the banner from her hand. She didn't let go willingly and at one point wound up on the ground with her shirt over her head as police strapped plastic cuffs around her wrists.
But the peace mom bore a smile as she was led into the arrest van with the three other Code Pinkers. "My son was killed in Iraq!" she shouted before the doors slammed shut in front of her face.
"SHAME!" THE DEMONSTRATORS CHIMED IN.
A STATE DEPARMENT OFFICIAL DISMISSED THE ARRESTS AS A MEDIA STUNT.
"We were absolutely willing to meet with them," said Richard Grenell, a spokesperson for the U.S. Mission. "When the group showed up, we told them that an individual or small group of individuals could come up. . . . I came down and invited them in. But they weren't interested in coming in and having a rational discussion. They wanted a media event downstairs for the cameras."
SHEEHAN AND HER FELLOW ARRESTEES WERE NOT AVAILABLE FOR COMMENT BECAUSE THEY WERE STILL IN JAIL.
Ann Wright, a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in protest of the American-led invasion of Iraq, said she was "horrified that the US mission had closed its doors" and was unaware of any offers made at the scene to meet with the delegation. "This was not a publicity stunt," insisted Wright, who was a senior envoy in the U.S. embassies in Afghanistan and Mongolia. "I was a diplomat for 16 years, and I received petitions from all over the world. Nobody was planning an getting arrested or anything like that. The whole point was to get the message to the U.S. Mission, that women in Iraq and around the world want peace."
And in fact, the arrests drowned out the voices of the Iraqi women the protest was intended to highlight. Before marching to the U.S. Mission, Sheehan and five Iraqi women held a news conference outside U.N. headquarters, when they blamed the presence of U.S. troops for exacerbating unrest in their country, and asked the U.N. to intervene to prevent a civil war from breaking out.
The Iraqi women denied that a civil war was already under way but said things could devolve quickly if terrorists and Islamic extremists continue to use the presence of U.S. troops to justify bombings of civilians and other targets.
"The resistance forces are using the occupation to provoke differences," said Nadje Al-Ali, a writer and founding member of Act Together: Women's Action on Iraq, which was formed in the late '90s to oppose U.S. sanctions on Iraq. "The longer the occupation continues, the greater the danger of a civil war happening."
Faiza Al-Araji, a civil engineer and mother of three, went further. "They are pushing the people to be in a civil war to justify their existence there," she said of the U.S., voicing a theory now common among Iraqis. "It is so they can build their bases and continue with their efforts to dominate the region. Who cares about the Iraqis?"
Dr. Entisar Mohammad Ariabi, a pharmacist at one of Baghdad's largest hospitals, broke into tears as she told reporters of the deaths and hardships she witnessed daily.
"U.S. occupation has destroyed our country, made it into a prison," said Ariabi. "Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed."
She cited a report by the chief coroner in Baghdad who estimates they receive 1,600 dead bodies a month in the city, with perhaps 10 times as many injured. "Many of the injured don't survive because of the shortage of medical supplies," she said.
"Bush said he liberated Iraq. Well, thank you for liberating our country from Saddam. But now, go out! Please go out!" she pleaded.
With Sheehan and other activists still in jail, the Iraqi women and Code Pink organizers proceeded to Washington, D.C., where they will spend Tuesday lobbying Congress members against the occupation. On Wednesday, which is International Women's Day, they plan to deliver their petition to the Iraqi Embassy and then march to the White House.
The Iraqi delegation was sponsored by Code Pink and Global Exchange. It includes Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish women—some secular, some not. Two Iraqi women whose families were killed by U.S. forces were denied entry by the U.S. consulate, which claimed they had "insufficient family ties" in Iraq to guarantee that they would return home if they were let into the U.S. Two others are still waiting in Amman, Jordan, to see if their visas will come through. The women plan a 60-city tour to speak out about what's happening in their country.
"It's going to be the women who are going to lead us out of the violence and toward peace," declared Sheehan, speaking prior to her arrest.
"We have the mother in us. And I'm calling on everyone, whether they're mothers or women or not to follow us."
[andend] - Url.: http://villagevoice.com/news/0610,ferguson,72424,2.html
Fwd. by FPF - Related: ''Commentary: Biggest geopolitical blunder?'' by ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE -
UPI Editor at Large - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/lnjop
COMMENT BY JIM ON THE ARTICLE BY ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE :
The thinking people among us saw this coming before it happened. This war has come to no good but for the arms merchants and the bankers. And now the same vultures wait for more carnage to unfold on the world stage.
It's too bad that Dubya has not read the book written by his father, George Bush, Sr., and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed, where on page 489 there appeared a part of the following essay which has disappeared down the Orwellian Memory Hole.
"WHY WE DIDN'T REMOVE SADDAM"
GEORGE BUSH [SR.] AND BRENT SCOWCROFT - TIME (2 MARCH 1998)
The end of effective Iraqi resistance came with a rapidity which surprised us all, and we were perhaps psychologically unprepared for the sudden transition from fighting to peacemaking. True to the guidelines we had established, when we had achieved our strategic objectives (ejecting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and eroding Saddam's threat to the region) we stopped the fighting. But the necessary limitations placed on our objectives, the fog of war, and the lack of "battleship Missouri" surrender unfortunately left unresolved problems, and new ones arose.
We were disappointed that Saddam's defeat did not break his hold on power, as many of our Arab allies had predicted and we had come to expect. President Bush repeatedly declared that the fate of Saddam Hussein was up to the Iraqi people. Occasionally, he indicated that removal of Saddam would be welcome, but for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an uprising.
While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.
We discussed at length forcing Saddam himself to accept the terms of Iraqi defeat at Safwan--just north of the Kuwait-Iraq border--and thus the responsibility and political consequences for the humiliation of such a devastating defeat. In the end, we asked ourselves what we would do if he refused. We concluded that we would be left with two options: continue the conflict until he backed down, or retreat from our demands. The latter would have sent a disastrous signal. The former would have split our Arab colleagues from the coalition and, de facto, forced us to change our objectives. Given those unpalatable choices, we allowed Saddam to avoid personal surrender and permitted him to send one of his generals. Perhaps we could have devised a system of selected punishment, such as air strikes on different military units, which would have proved a viable third option, but we had fulfilled our well-defined mission; Safwan was waiting.
As the conflict wound down, we felt a sense of urgency on the part of the coalition Arabs to get it over with and return to normal. This meant quickly withdrawing U.S. forces to an absolute minimum. Earlier there had been some concern in Arab ranks that once they allowed U.S. forces into the Middle East, we would be there to stay. Saddam's propaganda machine fanned these worries. Our prompt withdrawal helped cement our position with our Arab allies, who now trusted us far more than they ever had. We had come to their assistance in their time of need, asked nothing for ourselves, and left again when the job was done. Despite some criticism of our conduct of the war, the Israelis too had their faith in us solidified. We had shown our ability--and willingness--to intervene in the Middle East in a decisive way when our interests were challenged. We had also crippled the military capability of one of their most bitter enemies in the region. Our new credibility (coupled with Yasser Arafat's need to redeem his image after backing the wrong side in the war) had a quick and substantial payoff in the form of a Middle East peace conference in Madrid.
The Gulf War had far greater significance to the emerging post-cold war world than simply reversing Iraqi aggression and restoring Kuwait. Its magnitude and significance impelled us from the outset to extend our strategic vision beyond the crisis to the kind of precedent we should lay down for the future. From an American foreign-policymaking perspective, we sought to respond in a manner which would win broad domestic support and which could be applied universally to other crises. In international terms, we tried to establish a model for the use of force. First and foremost was the principle that aggression cannot pay. If we dealt properly with Iraq, that should go a long way toward dissuading future would-be aggressors. We also believed that the U.S. should not go it alone, that a multilateral approach was better. This was, in part, a practical matter. Mounting an effective military counter to Iraq's invasion required the backing and bases of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.
At least the old man knew a little more about foreign policy. Though being an old time plutocrat, he couldn't help but do his part to advance the New World Order. This paved the way for Bill Clinton to continue the wholesale sell-out of the nation which has continued at break-neck speed under the now infamous sabotage of his son and the rest of the cabal of neocon barbarians.
JB
*********************************************************************************
* HOLOCAUST BY THE CIA: John Stockwell, former CIA Station Chief in Angola in 1976, working for then Director of the CIA, George Bush. ''How 6 million People Were killed in CIA secret wars against Third World countries'' (until 1987!) - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gpcg
* "Sarah, if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - George Bush Senior speaking in an interview with Sarah McClendon in December 1992. - And here's why: 'George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography' - by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin - Chapter - II - The Hitler Project - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/57qxk
* Global Predators - ‘Frauds-R-Us’ - The Bush Family Saga - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/elarx
* This is a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on US Congressional appropriations. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cfsrc
* The 9/11 drama: Anybody who after seeing this video - '9/11 revisited' - still believes the version from the 'PNAC pack' - the Washington cabal - is beyond all professional help - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/r5sx4
* The Global Elite: Who are they? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c5xv5
* White Haus drive to cover-up leaks concerning their crimes - PNAC-propaganda sheet Washington Post: ''White House Trains Efforts on Media Leaks Sources, Reporters Could Be Prosecuted'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/e7t6o
* Anti-propaganda: On the Net - Reporters Committee - Url.: http://www.rcfp.org/
* US War & Propaganda machine: Rumsfeld Declares War on Bad Press - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/loxqy
* ABC - US propaganda: "US military will continue to pay Iraqi media to publish reports favourable to American forces" - Url.: http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=1683768
* 'Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one' — A.J. Liebling - The infamous US 'Lie Factory' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/8ncal
* The 9/11 WTC drama was by the PNAC criminals planned terror - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b7ygk - It was an inside job - Google - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7tj9d
* Nobel Literature Prize Laureate and 'Gulag Holocaust' survivor Alexander Solzjenitsyn investigated the origin of the 'Russian Revolution' and the concentration camps: he published and was damned - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/qth6z
* Who's financing? - The 'Federal Reserve' and it's usurers is the absolute biggest crime against all humanity ever. - Url.: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm
* MSNBC - Live Vote - Concerning the "Project for a Nefarious American Century" (PNAC) - ''Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?'' - YES: 86% - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/
*Read the Fightin' Cock Flyer - Url.: http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/
* THE ONLY SOLUTION? - Help all the troops - of whatever nationality - to come back from abroad! - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE ARE FORCED TO PAY FOR BY TAXES - [http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm] - We need them badly at home in many countries to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/
FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl
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