<nettime> [IRAQ] 030331 digest #1 [garancs handby bar(ker|brook) gansing farnell]

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Map Of The World Showing Citizens For And Against War In Iraq
     Jaanis Garancs <jg@x-i.net>
Iraq: coalition confusion
     "Jason Handby" <jasonh@pavilion.co.uk>
Fw: no comment
     "johnbarker" <harrier@easynet.co.uk> (by way of richard barbrook)
Re: <nettime> Aljazeera VS. U.S
     "Kristoffer Gansing" <kgansing@hotmail.com>
<nettime> Visions of Empire
     "Gary.Farnell" <Gary.Farnell@wkac.ac.uk>

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Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 17:49:49 +0200
From: Jaanis Garancs <jg@x-i.net>
Subject: Map Of The World Showing Citizens For And Against War In Iraq

Map Of The World Showing Citizens For And Against War In Iraq
http://www.agonist.org/annex/nowar

After looking at the map, and considering the Bush Doctrine "Those who 
are not with us are against us," then the "War on Terror" may extend 
to the whole world (except of course Israel, Kuwait, and east 
Afghanistan). Source: http://www.agonist.org/annex/world3


-- 
http://www.khm.de/~jg          tel: +49 (0)221 20189-169
KHM, Peter-Welter-Platz 2, 50676 Cologne (Köln), Germany

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From: "Jason Handby" <jasonh@pavilion.co.uk>
Subject: Iraq: coalition confusion
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 00:36:50 +0100

I guess they meant "slovakia"...?


Jason

--------8<--------


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/28/international/worldspecial/28SLOV.html

In a Slip, U.S. Lists Slovenia as a Partner
By REUTERS


JUBLJANA, Slovenia, March 27 — The United States mistakenly named Slovenia
as a partner in its war against Iraq and even offered it a share of the
money budgeted for the conflict, the government said today.

One day after hundreds of Slovenians took to the streets to protest the
inclusion of their nation in the United States's war budget announced on
Wednesday, Prime Minister Anton Rop said Washington had made an error.

"When we asked for an explanation, the State Department told us we were
named in the document by mistake as we are not a member of the coalition
against Iraq," Mr. Rop said at a news conference.

Slovenia was one of the states identified in the $75 billion war budget,
which must be approved by Congress and includes grants to partners in the
United States-led military action. It was to have gotten $4.5 million from
the budget, which Mr. Rop said would not be forthcoming.

"We are a part of no such coalition," Mr. Rop said. Slovenia also said today
that it had granted an American request to allow airplanes with aid,
refugees and wounded to fly over the country to and from Iraq.

But it stuck to an earlier decision to delay action on a request to
transport military equipment through the country until the United Nations
Security Council authorized force against Iraq.

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From: "johnbarker" <harrier@easynet.co.uk> (by way of richard barbrook)
Subject: Fw: no comment
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 16:08:45 +0100

----------
from: Hilary <hilcreek@virgilio.it>

Date: 31 March 2003 14:05

"It is reported this morning that American troops are attempting to
communicate with Iraqis in the field via a hand-held electronic box known
as a Phrasealator, which was first tried out in Afghanistan. The user
points to one of 1,000 phrases on a menu - such as "come out with your
hands up" - and the box squawks out the message in Pashtu, Dari, Urdu or,
in this case, Arabic. Unfortunately, there is no way the Americans can
understand what the Iraqis say in reply."
Guardian 31.03.03
Never said a truer word
H

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From: "Kristoffer Gansing" <kgansing@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> Aljazeera VS. U.S
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 10:00:02 +0000

jay gatsby <principio_0@yahoo.com wrote:

>Al Jazirah is just about the biggest problem the U.S has in the middle 
> >east.

well, maybe that's overstating it, but it sure is a big problem for the US 
propaganda machine - a bitter taste of a global media scene.

Yesterday CNN was explaining about the different Arabic news channels 
treatment on the Iraq War. Al Jazira was labelled "tabloid" and its 
"sensationalism" was frequently referred to also when they reported on the 
other channels...

_________________________________________________________________
Få nye ringetoner til mobilen 
http://www.msn.dk/mobile/logoringetone/ringetoner/

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Subject: <nettime> Visions of Empire
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 15:15:11 +0100
From: "Gary.Farnell" <Gary.Farnell@wkac.ac.uk>

Jett's 'Visions of Empire' as a contribution to discussion of the
current war in Iraq is persuasive in its account of 'a global order that
can not be tied to any specific State' as itself a player in the present
conflict. But the recent spectacle of the raising and lowering of the
Stars and Stripes at Umm Qasr seems to militate against his conclusion
about America as 'final arbiter of armed conflict' in the world today.
Below is the text of a speech which I made recently at an anti-war
meeting in the UK. It shows clearly, I think, where it is possible to
both agree and disagree with the Jett analysis of a Bush/Blair versus
Saddam 'manifestation of a conflict within Empire'.

Gary Farnell

United States or Untied States?

That moment on Day 2 of the current war when the Stars and Stripes were
first raised then lowered over Umm Qasr has cast a revealing light on
the whole US-led invasion of Iraq. What an extraordinary event. In what
must rank among the strangest of moments in military history an invading
power has not been able to unfurl its colours at the site of victory in
battle. Notwithstanding the degree of flag fervour which the Stars and
Stripes has often been capable of arousing, US Marines lowered their own
national flag after achieving one of the first successes of the current
campaign.

What has been revealed in this moment is the end of a modern imperialism
of nations. As is well known, the United States spends as much on arms
as the next nine developed countries put together - it is militarily as
powerful as the world's next nine developed countries all combined. The
United States is the world's only superpower following the disappearance
of the Soviet Union. And yet it is not so powerful that it can raise its
flag on the edge of Iraq at Umm Qasr.

This is a matter of more than merely symbolic significance - there was
more to the whole flag episode than just a crass mistake. What we are
witnessing on our 24-hour TV screens is a revolution in today's war
culture. Recent events have confirmed what has long been suspected by
many, namely that the United States has outgrown the jurisdiction and
reach of the United Nations. But this eclipse of the UN now has the
dramatic effect of bringing into relief the ensemble of relations which
exerts a controlling influence over even the United States itself. The
world market stands forth as the form of sovereignty which has grown
dominant in our age of the end of the imperialism of nations.

The lowering of the Stars and Stripes at Umm Qasr in a way signifies an
acknowlegement of the material power articulated by this new
transnational regime, this Empire with a capital E as it is sometimes
called. This is a regime which has the power, it is no exaggeration to
say, to turn the United States into the Untied States. The decentred
nature of its constitutive global flows determines this. In particular,
the flow of oil - the lifeblood of the world economy - occupies a
privileged position in the landscape of the new world order.

The American project, since the end of the Second World War, has had two
main goals: to make the world a safer place for capitalism, and to
ensure America's primacy within this late-capitalist world. Under the
terms of this very project oil is something which is worth going to war
for. It is the one key commodity which the United States consumes more
of than it can produce for itself. Oil traded in the world market is the
Achilles heel of America as the world's superpower state.

In the spirit of the lowering of the national flag at Umm Qasr, George
Bush, echoed by Tony Blair, has said that an Iraq after Saddam will be
allowed to keep its oil - oil revenue will be put in a trust fund to
finance national reconstruction. But the generosity of this is entirely
in accord with American global strategy and with serving American
interests. There is less likelihood of disruption to the oil markets
after Saddam has gone.

Now what is so deeply unconscionable about all this is the suggestion
that war against Saddam and his Ba'athist Party in Iraq would not have
been necessary if the Iraqi people had risen up and overthrown their
oppressors. Economic sanctions against Iraq initiated in 1991 through UN
Resolution 661 has brought the country to its knees - it can be argued
that Resolution 661 has done much of the oppressive work of the brutal
Ba'athists for them. Thanks to the notorious Oil-for-Food policy a
country second only to Saudia Arabia in respect of its rich oil reserves
has now become one of the poorest countries in the world.

History will record, no doubt, that what was the right thing to have
done by Iraq in the early years of the twenty-first century was to have
lifted the economic sanctions rather than drop bombs on Baghdad. That
opportunity has passed, the war has started. And in relation to what
seems, indeed, the United States' unstoppable course from September 11th
to March 20th, 2003 - from shock and awe to the merely shocking - the
question arises as to whether or not forms of protest have in fact grown
pointless.

Those who stress the pointlessness of protest today have, it would seem,
short political memories. They forget how it was that the campaign
against the Vietnam War, though slow to develop by the standards of
today's new war culture, succeeded in shortening the length of the War
itself. And it is forgotten, indeed, how, on the occasion of the
February 15th march earlier this year, it was Tony Blair who pointed out
that the activity of protest was what differentiated us in this country
from the Iraqi people under Saddam.

The time has come to turn the irony of this remarkable utterance. The
war against Iraq is an abomination on the grounds of our own democracy.
The time has come for us through the democratic right of protest to make
war on war.

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