<nettime> [IRAQ] digest [rochkind, century, budka, desrenards, strauss x2]

["nettime's_dumptruck" <nettime@bbs.thing.net>]

Enforcing Globalization as justification for war in Iraq
      Jonathan Rochkind <j-rochkind@northwestern.edu>
Perle, Khashoggi, Homeland Security 
      "Michael L. Century" <century@rpi.edu>
US-american coalition of war
      Philipp Budka <philbu@gmx.net>
Lettre au Pr=?ISO-8859-1?B?6XNpZGVudCBkZXMgZnJhbudhaXOL?=  une
      Louise Desrenards <louisedesrenards@free.fr>
helen caldicott: the pope as a human shield in iraq
      "carolyn f. Strauss" <carolyn@dreamcapsule.com>
helen caldicott v.2
      "carolyn f. Strauss" <carolyn@dreamcapsule.com>

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 14:57:54 -0600
From: Jonathan Rochkind <j-rochkind@northwestern.edu>
Subject: Enforcing Globalization as justification for war in Iraq

If we understand 'globalization' as a New World Order that is changing the 
nature of geopolitics in fundamental ways rather too complex for me to go 
into here, then I can say I have been thinking lately that the Bush 
administration _approach_ to war in Iraq reflects a _resistance_ to (some 
aspects of) globalization. Here is a quite interesting essay by a pro-war 
military academic that suggests the _goals_ of a war in Iraq is in fact to 
enforce a globalized New World Order, and to secure the US's place in 
it.  Apparently the answer is war on the same parts of the post-colonized 
world we've always warred upon, hmm, that doesn't seem like that big a change.

Then again, he may not mean the same thing by 'globalization' as I do. The 
problem is none of us are clear on the nature of this 'globalization' 
thing---and if it takes the language of Hardt and Negri to describe it, 
then I suppose we can just give up on clarity.

********

http//www.nwc.navy.mil/newrulesets/ThePentagonsNewMap.htm

THE PENTAGON’S
NEW MAP

IT EXPLAINS WHY WE’RE GOING TO WAR,
AND WHY WE’LL KEEP GOING TO WAR.

BY
THOMAS P.M. BARNETT, U.S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE
[MAPS BY WILLIAM MCNULTY]

Esquire, March 2003 issue

Since the end of the cold war, the United States has been trying to come up 
with an operating theory of the worldand a military strategy to accompany 
it. Now there’s a leading contender. It involves identifying the problem 
parts of the world and aggressively shrinking them. Since September 11, 
2001, the author, a professor of warfare analysis, has been advising the 
Office of the Secretary of Defense and giving this briefing continually at 
the Pentagon and in the intelligence community. Now he gives it to you.
LET ME TELL YOU why military engagement with Saddam Hussein’s regime in 
Baghdad is not only necessary and inevitable, but good.

When the United States finally goes to war again in the Persian Gulf, it 
will not constitute a settling of old scores, or just an enforced 
disarmament of illegal weapons, or a distraction in the war on terror. Our 
next war in the Gulf will mark a historical tipping pointthe moment when 
Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of 
globalization.

That is why the public debate about this war has been so important It 
forces Americans to come to terms with I believe is the new security 
paradigm that shapes this age, namely, Disconnectedness defines danger. 
Saddam Hussein’s outlaw regime is dangerously disconnected from the 
globalizing world, from its rule sets, its norms, and all the ties that 
bind countries together in mutually assured dependence.

The problem with most discussion of globalization is that too many experts 
treat it as a binary outcome Either it is great and sweeping the planet, or 
it is horrid and failing humanity everywhere. Neither view really works, 
because globalization as a historical process is simply too big and too 
complex for such summary judgments. Instead, this new world must be defined 
by where globalization has truly taken root and where it has not.

Show me where globalization is thick with network connectivity, financial 
transactions, liberal media flows, and collective security, and I will show 
you regions featuring stable governments, rising standards of living, and 
more deaths by suicide than murder. These parts of the world I call the 
Functioning Core, or Core. But show me where globalization is thinning or 
just plain absent, and I will show you regions plagued by politically 
repressive regimes, widespread poverty and disease, routine mass murder, 
andmost importantthe chronic conflicts that incubate the next generation of 
global terrorists. These parts of the world I call the Non-Integrating Gap, 
or Gap.

Globalization’s “ozone hole” may have been out of sight and out of mind 
prior to September 11, 2001, but it has been hard to miss ever since. And 
measuring the reach of globalization is not an academic exercise to an 
eighteen-year-old marine sinking tent poles on its far side. So where do we 
schedule the U.S. military’s next round of away games? The pattern that has 
emerged since the end of the cold war suggests a simple answer in the Gap.

The reason I support going to war in Iraq is not simply that Saddam is a 
cutthroat Stalinist willing to kill anyone to stay in power, nor because 
that regime has clearly supported terrorist networks over the years. The 
real reason I support a war like this is that the resulting long-term 
military commitment will finally force America to deal with the entire Gap 
as a strategic threat environment.

FOR MOST COUNTRIES, accommodating the emerging global rule set of 
democracy, transparency, and free trade is no mean feat, which is something 
most Americans find hard to understand. We tend to forget just how hard it 
has been to keep the United States together all these years, harmonizing 
our own, competing internal rule sets along the waythrough a Civil War, a 
Great Depression, and the long struggles for racial and sexual equality 
that continue to this day. As far as most states are concerned, we are 
quite unrealistic in our expectation that they should adapt themselves 
quickly to globalization’s very American-looking rule set.

But you have to be careful with that Darwinian pessimism, because it is a 
short jump from apologizing for globalization-as-forced-Americanization to 
insinuatingalong racial or civilization linesthat “those people will simply 
never be like us.” Just ten years ago, most experts were willing to write 
off poor Russia, declaring Slavs, in effect, genetically unfit for 
democracy and capitalism. Similar arguments resonated in most China-bashing 
during the 1990’s, and you hear them today in the debates about the 
feasibility of imposing democracy on a post-Saddam Iraqa sort of 
Muslims-are-from-Mars argument.

So how do we distinguish between who is really making it in globalization’s 
Core and who remains trapped in the Gap? And how permanent is this dividing 
line?

Understanding that the line between the Core and Gap is constantly 
shifting, let me suggest that the direction of change is more critical than 
the degree. So, yes, Beijing is still ruled by a “Communist party” whose 
ideological formula is 30 percent Marxist-Leninist and 70 percent Sopranos, 
but China just signed on to the World Trade Organization, and over the long 
run, that is far more important in securing the country’s permanent Core 
status. Why? Because it forces China to harmonize its internal rule set 
with that of globalizationbanking, tariffs, copyright protection, 
environmental standards. Of course, working to adjust your internal rule 
sets to globalization’s evolving rule set offers no guarantee of success. 
As Argentina and Brazil have recently found out, following the rules (in 
Argentina’s case, sort of following) does not mean you are panicproof, or 
bubbleproof, or even recessionproof. Trying to adapt to globalization does 
not mean bad things will never happen to you. Nor does it mean all your 
poor will immediately morph into stable middle class. It just means your 
standard of living gets better over time.

In sum, it is always possible to fall off this bandwagon called 
globalization. And when you do, bloodshed will follow. If you are lucky, so 
will American troops.

SO WHAT PARTS OF THE WORLD can be considered functioning right now? North 
America, much of South America, the European Union, Putin’s Russia, Japan 
and Asia’s emerging economies (most notably China and India), Australia and 
New Zealand, and South Africa, which accounts for roughly four billion out 
of a global population of six billion.

Whom does that leave in the Gap? It would be easy to say “everyone else,” 
but I want to offer you more proof than that and, by doing so, argue why I 
think the Gap is a long-term threat to more than just your pocketbook or 
conscience.

If we map out U.S. military responses since the end of the cold war, (see 
below), we find an overwhelming concentration of activity in the regions of 
the world that are excluded from globalization’s growing Core—namely the 
Caribbean Rim, virtually all of Africa, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central 
Asia, the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and much of Southeast Asia. That 
is roughly the remaining two billion of the world’s population. Most have 
demographics skewed very young, and most are labeled, “low income” or “low 
middle income” by the World Bank (i.e., less than $3,000 annual per capita).

If we draw a line around the majority of those military interventions, we 
have basically mapped the Non-Integrating Gap. Obviously, there are 
outliers excluded geographically by this simple approach, such as an Israel 
isolated in the Gap, a North Korea adrift within the Core, or a Philippines 
straddling the line. But looking at the data, it is hard to deny the 
essential logic of the picture: If a country is either losing out to 
globalization or rejecting much of the content flows associated with its 
advance, there is a far greater chance that the U.S. will end up sending 
forces at some point. Conversely, if a country is largely functioning 
within globalization, we tend not to have to send our forces there to 
restore order to eradicate threats.

Now, that may seem like a tautology—in effect defining any place that has 
not attracted U.S. military intervention in the last decade or so as 
“functioning within globalization” (and vice versa). But think about this 
larger point: Ever since the end of World War II, this country has assumed 
that the real threats to its security resided in countries of roughly 
similar size, development, and wealth—in other words, other great powers 
like ourselves. During the cold war, that other great power was the Soviet 
Union. When the big Red machine evaporated in the early 1990’s, we flirted 
with concerns about a united Europe, a powerhouse Japan, and—most 
recently—a rising China.
What was interesting about all those scenarios is the assumption that only 
an advanced state can truly threaten us. The rest of the world? Those 
less-developed parts of the world have long been referred to in military 
plans as the “Lesser Includeds,” meaning that if we built a military 
capable of handling a great power’s military threat, it would always be 
sufficient for any minor scenarios we might have to engage in the less 
advanced world.

That assumption was shattered by September 11. After all, we were not 
attacked by a nation or even an army but by a group of—in Thomas Friedman’s 
vernacular—Super Empowered Individuals willing to die for their cause. 
September 11 triggered a system perturbation that continues to reshape our 
government (the new Department of Homeland Security), our economy (the de 
facto security tax we all pay), and even our society (Wave to the camera!). 
Moreover, it launched the global war on terrorism, the prism through which 
our government now views every bilateral security relationship we have 
across the world.

In many ways, the September 11 attacks did the U.S. national-security 
establishment a huge favor by pulling us back from the abstract planning of 
future high-tech wars against “near peers” into the here-and-now threats to 
global order. By doing so, the dividing lines between Core and Gap were 
highlighted, and more important, the nature of the threat environment was 
thrown into stark relief.

Think about it: Bin Laden and Al Qaeda are pure products of the Gap—in 
effect, its most violent feedback to the Core. They tell us how we are 
doing in exporting security to these lawless areas (not very well) and 
which states they would like to take “off line” from globalization and 
return to some seventh-century definition of the good life (any Gap state 
with a sizable Muslim population, especially Saudi Arabia).

If you take this message from Osama and combine it with our 
military-intervention record of the last decade, a simple security rule set 
emerges: A country’s potential to warrant a U.S. military response is 
inversely related to its globalization connectivity. There is a good reason 
why Al Qaeda was based first in Sudan and then later in Afghanistan: These 
are two of the most disconnected countries in the world. Look at the other 
places U.S. Special Operations Forces have recently zeroed in on: 
northwestern Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen. We are talking about the ends of the 
earth as far as globalization is concerned.

But just as important as “getting them where they live” is stopping the 
ability of these terrorist networks to access the Core via the “seam 
states” that lie along the Gap’s bloody boundaries. It is along this seam 
that the Core will seek to suppress bad things coming out of the Gap. Which 
are some of these classic seam states? Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, 
Morocco, Algeria, Greece, Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the 
Philippines, and Indonesia come readily to mind. But the U.S. will not be 
the only Core state working this issue. For example, Russia has its own war 
on terrorism in the Caucasus, China is working its western border with more 
vigor, and Australia was recently energized (or was it cowed?) by the Bali 
bombing.

IF WE STEP BACK for a minute and consider the broader implications of this 
new global map, then U.S. national-security strategy would seem to be: 1) 
Increase the Core’s immune system capabilities for responding to September 
11-like system perturbations; 2) Work the seam states to firewall the Core 
from the Gap’s worst exports, such as terror, drugs, and pandemics; and, 
most important, 3) Shrink the Gap. Notice I did not just say Mind the Gap. 
The knee-jerk reaction of many Americans to September 11 is to say, “Let’s 
get off our dependency on foreign oil, and then we won’t have to deal with 
those people.” The most naïve assumption underlying that dream is that 
reducing what little connectivity the Gap has with the Core will render it 
less dangerous to us over the long haul. Turning the Middle East into 
Central Africa will not build a better world for my kids. We cannot simply 
will those people away.

The Middle East is the perfect place to start. Diplomacy cannot work in a 
region where the biggest sources of insecurity lie not between states but 
within them. What is most wrong about the Middle East is the lack of 
personal freedom and how that translates into dead-end lives for most of 
the population—especially for the young. Some states like Qatar and Jordan 
are ripe for perestroika-like leaps into better political futures, thanks 
to younger leaders who see the inevitability of such change. Iran is 
likewise waiting for the right Gorbachev to come along—if he has not already.
What stands in the path of this change? Fear. Fear of tradition unraveling. 
Fear of the mullah’s disapproval. Fear of being labeled a “bad” or 
“traitorous” Muslim state. Fear of becoming a target of radical groups and 
terrorist networks. But most of all, fear of being attacked from all sides 
for being different—the fear of becoming Israel.

The Middle East has long been a neighborhood of bullies eager to pick on 
the weak. Israel is still around because it has become—sadly—one of the 
toughest bullies on the block. The only thing that will change that nasty 
environment and open the floodgates for change is if some external power 
steps in and plays Leviathan full-time. Taking down Saddam, the region’s 
bully-in-chief, will force the U.S. into playing that role far more fully 
than it has over the past several decades, primarily because Iraq is the 
Yugoslavia of the Middle East—a crossroads of civilizations that has 
historically required a dictatorship to keep the peace. As baby-sitting 
jobs go, this one will be a doozy, making our lengthy efforts in postwar 
Germany and Japan look simple in retrospect.

But it is the right thing to do, and now is the right time to do it, and we 
are the only country that can. Freedom cannot blossom in the Middle East 
without security, and security is this country’s most influential 
public-sector export. By that I do not mean arms exports, but basically the 
attention paid by our military forces to any region’s potential for mass 
violence. We are the only nation on earth capable of exporting security in 
a sustained fashion, and we have a very good track record of doing it.

Show me a part of the world that is secure in its peace and I will show you 
a strong or growing ties between local militaries and the U.S. military. 
Show me regions where major war is inconceivable and I will show you 
permanent U.S. military bases and long-term security alliances. Show me the 
strongest investment relationships in the global economy and I will show 
you two postwar military occupations that remade Europe and Japan following 
World War II.

This country has successfully exported security to globalization’s Old Core 
(Western Europe, Northeast Asia) for half a century and to its emerging New 
Core (Developing Asia) for a solid quarter century following our 
mishandling of Vietnam. But our efforts in the Middle Ease have been 
inconsistent—in Africa, almost nonexistent. Until we begin the systematic, 
long-term export of security to the Gap, it will increasingly export its 
pain to the Core in the form of terrorism and other instabilities.

Naturally, it will take a whole lot more than the U.S. exporting security 
to shrink the Gap. Africa, for example, will need far more aid than the 
Core has offered in the past, and the integration of the Gap will 
ultimately depend more on private investment than anything the Core’s 
public sector can offer. But it all has to begin with security, because 
free markets and democracy cannot flourish amid chronic conflict.

Making this effort means reshaping our military establishment to 
mirror-image the challenge that we face. Think about it. Global war is not 
in the offing, primarily because our huge nuclear stockpile renders such 
war unthinkable—for anyone. Meanwhile, classic state-on-state wars are 
becoming fairly rare. So if the United States is in the process of 
“transforming” its military to meet the threats of tomorrow, what should it 
end up looking like? In my mind, we fight fire with fire. If we live in a 
world increasingly populated by Super-Empowered Individuals, we field a 
military of Super-Empowered-Individuals.

This may sound like additional responsibility for an already overburdened 
military, but that is the wrong way of looking at it, for what we are 
dealing with here are problems of success—not failure. It is America’s 
continued success in deterring global war and obsolescing state-on-state 
war that allows us to stick our noses into the far more difficult 
subnational conflicts and the dangerous transnational actors they spawn. I 
know most Americans do not want to hear this, but the real battlegrounds in 
the global war on terrorism are still over there. If gated communities and 
rent-a-cops were enough, September 11 never would have happened.

History is full of turning points like that terrible day, but no 
turning-back-points. We ignore the Gap’s existence at our own peril, 
because it will not go away until we as a nation respond to the challenge 
of making globalization truly global.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 08:15:23 -0500 (EST)
From: "Michael L. Century" <century@rpi.edu>
Subject: Perle, Khashoggi, Homeland Security 

New Yorker March 17, 2003

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact

Perle is present chair of the U.S. Defense Policy Board,
pro-war hawk, and investor in 'homeland security industires.

Khashoggi is the  Saudi  arms dealer, who supplied Iran during
Reagon Administration.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 12:52:23 +0100 (MET)
From: Philipp Budka <philbu@gmx.net>
Subject: US-american coalition of war

so called coalition under pressure of the US:

http://www.ips-dc.org/coalition.htm


-- 
Philipp Budka
email: ph.budka@philbu.net

+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more  http://www.gmx.net +++
Bitte lächeln! Fotogalerie online mit GMX ohne eigene Homepage!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 19:00:28 +0100
Subject: Lettre au Pr=?ISO-8859-1?B?6XNpZGVudCBkZXMgZnJhbudhaXOL?=  une
	citoyenne contre la guerre en Irak
From: Louise Desrenards <louisedesrenards@free.fr>

Monsieur le Président,

Tout d¹abord nous savons que cela détruirait-il autant et plus vite qu¹une
guerre et pour plus longtemps encore, n¹est pas une guerre au sens moderne
et dialectique de Klausewitz. Néanmoins nous l¹appelons guerre. Nous ne
connaissons pas encore d¹autre mot... Pour partie indirecte et pour partie
directe toute fraîche, voici une expérience que je voudrais transmettre en
essayant de la comprendre concernant la situation à propos de l'Irak.

A avoir travaillé une bonne partie de la nuit dernière, après avoir vu et
écouté le président Chirac dans son allocution télévisée sur la question du
veto, j¹ai entendu des avions passer au-dessus de ma tête dans le ciel de
Paris : on peut dire que le passage des avions en quelque sorte s¹est
succédé toute la nuit. Ce n¹était peut-être qu¹une hallucination sonore,
malheureusement une information vient de m¹être donnée de source de Presse
selon laquelle la guerre en Irak ne commencerait pas officiellement après le
vote du 17 à l¹ONU, mais dès le 13 mars... (on sait que des troupes
américaines dont nombre d¹Israéliens sous uniforme américain se trouveraient
déjà en Irak du nord depuis plusieurs semaines).

Dernièrement, on restait perplexe devant Bernard Kouchner présent lors d¹un
débat, là encore, télévisé, aux fins de dire qu¹il était pour la paix mais
contre Saddam (on se demande bien qui pourrait être ³pour² Saddam), tel le
baron gouverneur provisoire de l¹Irak future, après le désastre humain et
écologique. 

Presque en même temps, on apprenait que les américains eux-mêmes le
suggéraient comme favori pour tenir ce poste volant (toujours les sources de
la Presse) et l¹on put se demander alors, n¹ayant pas encore entendu le
président français dans sa dernière prestation, en quoi ceci n¹eut pas été
contradictoire avec cela en perspective d¹une cohérence ci-nationale quoique
désunie à la Chambre ;-)... S¹agissait-il d¹un ³jaune² dans le giron attaché
à l¹ancien groupe présidentiel, jouant contre les intérêts du gouvernement
actuel dans sa propre région? A moins qu¹il n¹eut pété les plombs a force de
jouer dans la cour du monde? Tout de même on ne pouvait le croire.

Bernard Kouchner, gouverneur volant devant l¹Eternel depuis la Yougoslavie,
lui à l¹instigation de Danièle Mitterand qui avec elle fut à l¹origine du
droit d¹ingérence, droit pervers ouvrant maladroitement la porte d¹entrée au
plus fort non au plus juste, sur les malentendus bafouant tous les droits
chez soi et hors soi, comme on le voit aujourd¹hui possible : qui était-il
devenu? Où en était l¹Europe ‹ et le monde? La cour pénale internationale
enfin instituée ces jours-ci sera peut-être un meilleur pas :
http://www.un.org/french/news/iccfact.htm

A moins que navigant pas mal à l¹ONU l¹ex ONG (ne pas confondre avec les
OGM) ne se fut suggéré lui-même, ce qui semblait tout de même peu probable
quoique bienvenu après la déclaration de La ligue des Etats arabes : notre
gouverneur volant serait donc, dès à présent et sans doute pour un pire mais
pas pour le pire, le candidat favori de la ligne d¹arrivée avant même le
grand départ médiatique de la guerre elle-même (bien sûr déjà commencée, on
peut en présumer précisément à ces ³symtômes²).

On en revient à l¹analyse du non événement meurtrier programmatique
substitué à la guerre symbolique des adversaires dialectiques telle que
Baudrillard tentait de l¹expliquer dès la première guerre du Golfe...  Mais
passons pour revenir au désastre humanitaire et ³écologique² annoncé, que
certes l¹on n¹aurait plus à redouter du fait de l¹armée Irakienne elle-même,
maintenant fort dépourvue aux dires du Président Chirac en personne, hier,
mais de l¹armée américaine en tout son potentiel matériel et virtuel visible
ou invisible et dont on sait bien que les GI ne seront pas les derniers à
pâtir, compris les soldats anglais.

Un autre point est que Chirac hier rassura ses deux journalistes, leur
affirmant qu¹il était en contact téléphonique direct avec les intervenants
de l¹ONU et également avec le président Bush lui-même... Pas de problème :
passée l¹épreuve et le ciel restant ouvert, Kouchner en proue,
rassurons-nous: tout ira bien et cela en dépit du veto, ou disons inclus le
veto, tout était donc prévu.

 A ce terme, je voudrais alors faire remarquer un point délicat de la morale
de la guerre quant au rétablissement bienveillant du président français, roi
du surf par grande lame à propos de son contradicteur américain et lequel,
puisque décidément tout cela ne serait qu¹une affaire de nuance, certes loin
de Gaulle qui nous sortit de l¹OTAN, ici nous y ramène derechef et s¹en
tenant à la singularité alternative (donc non dialectique) à savoir (on a lu
ça également dans certains journaux ainsi la rumeur circule bien, mais on
ignorait la source jusqu¹à hier soir, à moins que la presse n¹inspirât le
président): 
    ‹ pourquoi les Etats-Unis feraient-ils la guerre puisqu¹ils ont déjà
gagné aujourd¹hui !? C¹est grâce à la pression de la menace de guerre
assortie de la présence de leur armée pour partie d¹elle-même, mais déjà en
nombre sur place, si les inspecteurs de l¹ONU ont pu travailler aussi
efficacement ! 
C¹est sous la pression des armes menaçant aux frontières si les dossiers et
les portes se sont ouverts, si nous avons pu détruire la quasi totalité des
armes de destruction massive de l¹Irak qui ne représente absolument plus une
menace aujourd¹hui ni pour la région ni pour le monde.

Ici, où Derrida évoquait le Pakistan, Etat dangereux n°1, Chirac évoque
plutôt la Corée du Nord.

Oui tout cela infiniment plus dangereux pour le monde que le bouleversement
tectonique qui se prépare de l¹Europe au Pacifique, causé entre autres par
l¹ensemble de la stratégie et de ses conséquences en masse critique
développés par la politique américaine au Moyen Orient, notamment dès la
première guerre du Golfe (invasion du Koweit manipulée, on le sait
maintenant) comme après la mort de Rabbin (arrivée de Netanheyou), mais
avant puis ensuite, à l¹autre bout du monde (le commencement de l¹Europe
serait-il l¹Asie du Sud-Est et l¹Asie Pacifique pour l¹Amérique?) sur le
plan économique, pour prévenir puis accompagner la rétrocession de Hong-Kong
à la Chine par les Anglais, en deux dévaluations successives du dollar qui
entraînèrent, via la monnaie japonaise et la sauvegarde coréenne de la
monnaie flottante, l¹effondrement de tous les pays émergents environnants
(aujourd¹hui fiefs du fondamentalisme islamique), où les intérêts américains
prennent néanmoins place territoriale notamment au Sud : on ne le répètera
jamais assez.

Alors surgit un point d¹éthique dirons-nous, toujours la question symbolique
relative aux droits de l¹homme, une question posée à Chirac: si réellement
les pressions militaires américaines localement jouèrent leur rôle au point
que le désarmement de l¹Irak fut possible, ce point radical où l¹armée de
Saddam ne puisse plus menacer la région (ni le monde) tel qu¹enfin on nous
l¹annonce maintenant : alors, monsieur le président, pourquoi laisseriez
vous la guerre totale, celle d¹un seul peuple contre le droit des autres,
passer néanmoins par votre ciel?

Car enfin, sauf à être complice secrètement dans une partie d¹échec où vous
seriez sinon le roi du moins la reine, au jugé des suites préalablement
annoncées pour l¹issue de la catastrophe déjà ouvrable et conclue (normal,
puisqu¹il n¹y aura pas d¹armes adverses pour répondre): de qui vous
moquez-vous? Ou alors, toute morale vous aurait-elle à ce point abandonnée
dans la course au marché, voulant sauver les meubles du moins quand la
maison aurait brûlé (pourquoi voudrions-nous, nous citoyens du peuple non du
pays, qu¹un territoire pétrolifère demeure écologiquement vivable pour les
hommes puisque le pétrole on n¹en mange pas et il faut peu d¹hommes pour
l¹exploiter) ?

D¹un autre point de vue, en double voir en triple jeu ‹ seriez-vous d¹accord
avec des lobbies alternatifs à l¹intérieur de l¹Irak elle-même ‹ on voit mal
comment votre contradicteur ne pourrait en être informé ni avoir négocié
avec vous là-dessus: que lui avez-vous laissé faire en échange? Que
prendra-il pour vous laisser administrer à coup de ³nos² intérêts
loco-économiques et de nos savoirs administrativo-héroïques ?

Pensez-vous vraiment que les Kurdes y regagneront la liberté, eux autrefois
abandonnés quand ils n¹étaient pas encore la proie d¹un fondamentalisme
religieux, bien au contraire une vitalité pluraliste potentielle, si peu
émergeante aujourd¹hui dans toutes les régions de l¹Islam, de même qu¹en
Palestine où le Hamas fait ses propres ravages croissant avec le nombre des
colons et la folie de la répression.

Mais pourquoi auriez-vous désarmé le tyran sinon pour assurer loin de la
paix au contraire la réalisation de la guerre totale contre le peuple
irakien? ³Rendez-vos armes non pour obtenir la paix, même pas pour vous
soumettre, mais pour vous laisser tuer²: et de cela ‹ de votre aveu, ‹  vous
seriez donc complice, mieux, vous auriez été le premier administrateur
machiavélique en prétendant défendre le droit des peuples ?

Expliquez-nous, monsieur le président, en cette fin d¹après-midi à Paris,
tant j¹entends encore les avions passer en nombre, au vrombissement
incessant de leurs moteurs. J¹ai honte. J¹ai peur.

A Paris, le 11 mars, 18 heures heure locale.

Louise Desrenards
Citoyenne française.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 22:13:40 -0500
Subject: helen caldicott: the pope as a human shield in iraq
From: "carolyn f. Strauss" <carolyn@dreamcapsule.com>

for any nettimers haven't heard about the following yet...
dr. helen caldicott is a nobel prize nominee and a consistently=20
dedicated advocate for peace and justice.
carolyn

-----------------------------

An Appeal from Dr. Helen Caldicott to the Pope

Dear Friends,

I write this appeal for your help as a pediatrician, a mother, and a
grandmother =A0-- and I am writing about the lives of tens of thousands
of children.

Although the current administration has demonstrated it has no
reservations about slaughtering up to 500,000 innocents in Iraq, there
is one person whose life they absolutely will not risk. That person is
Pope John Paul II.

The Pope has already formally denounced the proposed war, calling it
a defeat for humanity, and also has sent his top =A0spokesperson.
However, to stop the war, he now must take a historically
unprecedented action of his own and travel to Baghdad. The Pope's
physical presence in Iraq will act as the ultimate human shield,
during whi! ch time leaders of the world's nations can commit
themselves to identifying and implementing a peaceful solution to a
war that the world's majority clearly does not support.

To persuade the Holy Father to take this unusual but potent action,
he must hear from you and millions of others around the world who
have already been inspired to stand up and speak out for peace.
A mountain of surface mail, email, faxes, and phone calls are our
devices to inspire him.

Please understand that your taking just a few minutes right now to
communicate with him =A0may ultimately spare the lives of =A0thousands
of innocent people who at this moment live in complete terror from
the threat of an imminent U.S.-lead military strike on their
homeland.

So here is what you can do to be a part of this powerful final action to
stop the march to war in Iraq.

1. Do not simply "forward" the letter below. Its power depends upon your
sending it directly, as a personal communication to the Pope.

2. Simply cut and paste the letter below into a new email. Also cut
and paste the Vatican email address we have provided.

3. At the close of the letter, type in your name, city and state--no
need
to include your address.

4. Either email, =A0<accreditamenti@pressva.va>, FAX ([from USA] 011-
39-06698-85378--from other countries drop the 011 prefix -- =A0or send a
hard copy of this letter to the addresses in the letter below. DO NOT
put "Italy" anywhere on the envelope, as this will send your mail
into the Italian mail system which is separate and independent of the
Vatican system. Should you wish to phone the Vatican directly, (from
USA) dial 011-39-06-69-82--all other countries must use their
appropriate international prefix.

5. Pass this original email on to as many people you can so as to
assure a critical mass! is reached in this action.

6. Note that as you and others begin sending your letters, faxes and
emails, there will be a simultaneous effort to alert the media of this
action, so as to be sure it is publicly known throughout the world.

Thank you for participating in this formal request of the Pope. We
just may stop this war in Iraq -- and save these children's' lives.

Dr. Helen Caldicott

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 23:18:15 -0500
Subject: helen caldicott v.2
From: "carolyn f. Strauss" <carolyn@dreamcapsule.com>

sample letter from helen caldicott:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

--- Sample letter:


His Holiness John Paul II
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City State
Europe

Your Holiness:

I write to you today out of a sense of =A0great urgency. As you know the
United States of America is on the verge of launching what may be
one of the most cataclysmic wars in history using weapons of mass
destruction upon the Iraqi people, fifty percent of whom are less than
15 years of age.

Conservative estimates are that such a war will result in the death
of 500,000 Iraqis. It seems clear that, at this time, you are the only
person on Earth who can stop this war. Indeed, your physical
presence in Baghdad, will prevent the impending slaughter
of hundreds of thousands of human beings, and force the
international community of nations to identify and implement
a truly peaceful resolution to this unprecedented, preemptive
aggression.

I implore you to travel to Baghdad and to remain there until a
peaceful solution to this crisis has been implemented. The lives of
the people of Iraq rest in your hands - as does the fate of the world.

With hope and holding a vision of Peace,

Your name,
Your City,
State, Country

-------
Be sure to sign the UN petition:
http://www.moveon.org/emergency/

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net