The Daily Grasshopper

The "liberal" Boston Globe's editors have apparently decided, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary, that George W. Bush's claims about the need to invade Iraq don't deserve any serious scrutiny. How else to interpret their lead editorial today, "Ultimatum," which focuses on the president's speech to the world last night announcing his intention to launch a much-anticipated (and dreaded) attack?

You can read the whole editorial here:

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/077/editorials/Ultimatum+.shtml

In what may be one of their final opportunities to weigh in on Bush's highly controversial (understatement of the decade?) Iraq gambit before the bombs fall, the Globe's editors sought to spread the blame for the impending war around and focus (again) on the "ulterior motives" other nations have for opposing the U.S./U.K. Nowhere does the Globe suggest, though, that there may be "ulterior motives" on the part of the Bush administration. Here's the key paragraph:

"The failure to stitch together such a consensus was not entirely Bush's fault. Some of the governments refusing to back up the UN inspection process with a credible threat of force have had their own ulterior motives for taking the positions they took. But other countries were also alienated by Bush's high-handed assertions of unilateralism and unnerved at the prospect of an international order in which the American president would make the rules and decide how to enforce them."

Although they concede that Bush's efforts to make the case for war have been "too often incoherent," there is a fundamental assumption that the case he made to the nation last night was on the up-and-up. In fact, there are a number of questions one could raise about some of the claims the president made last night in his latest pitch to the American people (and the world), but, again, the Globe failed to do so. Remarkably, the Globe's editorial staff thinks a better salesman might have succeeded in convincing more of us about the need for war:

"Many Americans also are unnerved by their sense that this country is if not isolated, then certainly unsupported by the international community. Unlike British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush has not been up to the task of presenting a reasoned and impassioned case for the need to use military force to disarm Saddam."

It's quite likely that Blair's "reasoned and impassioned" argument would have flown here in the U.S., where critical information about what's going on in the world is routinely kept from the population by giant media corporations, even "liberal" ones. But, in case the Globe's editorial staff hadn't noticed, his rhetorical skills are not doing much for Blair back home, where a wider range of opinions can be found in the mainstream press. Maybe before they pen their next paean to Blair's political prowess, they should read reports like the one on page A29 of their own damn paper, which indicate that Blair "finds himself with precious little public support at a time when he most needs a unified nation":

"Cook parts ways with Blair, resigns over Iraq policy"
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/077/nation/Cook_parts_ways_with_Blair_resigns_over_Iraq_policy+.shtml

And as for some of the "ulterior motives" that may be guiding the Bush administration's Iraq war policy, maybe the Globe's editors can read the New York Times, which is published by the same giant media corporation that puts out the Boston Globe. Probably they could get a free subscription.

Here's a story from today's Times that Globe editors who worry about "ulterior motives" might want to investigate:

"U.S. Business Will Get Role In Rebuilding Occupied Iraq" (p. A16)

Here's the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/international/middleeast/18POST.html

For those who don't want to go to the Times site, I'll give you the best parts:

"Bush administration plans for the rebuilding of Iraq call for private American corporations to undertake much of the work, with the United Nations development agencies and other multilateral organizations sidelined, according to administration officials who have seen confidential documents outlining the plans.

With the administration offering $1.5 billion in work to private companies and just $50 million to American aid groups like Save the Children, the plan will leave out many large international organizations...

In line with the administration's goal of transforming Iraq into a democracy, those who have seen the plans said American officials will also be appointed as shadow ministers, overseeing Iraqi bureaucrats in government ministries.

The plan as outlined would be a sharp departure from reconstruction efforts in the last decade, which were largely undertaken by international peacekeeping operations.

Administration officials said it was important to give contracts to American corporations, essentially leapfrogging over the experienced development and international groups, as a way to demonstrate to the Iraqi people that the United States is a 'liberator' bringing economic prosperity and democratic institutions to their nation...

The companies asked to bid on the contracts include Kellogg Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton Company, which Vice President Dick Cheney once headed.

Since Sept. 11 the Pentagon has relied increasingly on Kellogg Brown & Root, which has built cells for detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and fed American troops in Uzbekistan."

And although the lead editorial in the Times makes a big fuss over their willingness to air "complaints about how America got to this point" (while at the same time declaring that "once the fighting begins, every American will be thinking primarily of the safety of our troops, the success of their mission, and the minimization of Iraqi civilian casualties"), they, too, offer Bush's plan a fig leaf of badly-needed credibility, calling war on Iraq "a legitimate international goal against an execrable tyranny."

You can read the editorial, "War in the Ruins of Diplomacy," here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18TUE1.html

The Times refers to "broad domestic opposition" throughout Europe, but the Wall Street Journal shows exactly how "broad" it is. In its "International" section, on page A14, the nation's business newspaper published an incredible set of poll numbers. The article, which I unfortunately am not able to link to, is entitled "'New Europe' Wary of U.S., Too." The numbers come from an EOS Gallup Europe poll conducted in January. The survey compares political attitudes in European Union countries with those of countries that are prospective members. Check it out:

"The United States should intervene militarily in Iraq even if the U.N. does not give its formal agreement."

EU Members: 80% disagree
EU Candidates: 74% disagree

"Oil is the main motivation for which the U.S. wants to intervene militarily in Iraq."

EU Members: 73% agree
EU Candidates: 72% agree

The Journal story tells of a TV commercial that's running in Eastern Europe:

"A television ad shown here features a cheery young mother driving into a gas station to fill up the family van. Instead of gas, the pump spurts blood-red fluid. A message in black letters flashes onto the screen: '80% of our people don't want an oil war. Leaders, Listen!'"

I'm sure the editorial staffs of the Globe and the Times would dismiss such speculation about this country's "ulterior motives" as the stuff of rabid conspiracy theories cranked out by people spending too much time doing research in the remote reaches of cyberspace. Here's the simple truth: 3 out of 4 people in Europe (the whole continent) think our nation's desire to control the oil in the Persian Gulf is the main reason why we're going to invade. And that's why none of them, with the exception of the "reasonable" and "passionate" Tony Blair, is committing troops.

There's not a whole lot to be hopeful about right now, but there's some good news to be found in all this madness. A few weeks ago, I wrote that the international framework that is needed to support global trade agreements, particularly the World Trade Organization, is being jeopardized by the U.S.'s insistence on unilateral action and "pre-emptive" foreign policies. The Wall Street Journal acknowledges the danger in its paper today, in a page A2 story called "WTO Faces Standoff on Agriculture." Here are the best parts:

"The World Trade Organization's current round of trade talks, already behind schedule on several fronts, appears headed for its biggest setback yet: missing a key deadline for agreement on agricultural liberalization.

Agriculture is widely viewed as the linchpin of the Doha Round of talks. Many poor countries complain that their rich counterparts spend $1 billion a day on trade-distorting subsidies, and they say freeing up farming is one of the best ways to help emerging economies. What's more, developing countries are reluctant to make trade concessions in areas important to rich nations until they feel that the agricultural playing field is leveling...

All the while, faith in the WTO may be weakening. Some in the U.S., frustrated by Europe's refusal to allow imports of genetically modified crops, are asking if the WTO is necessary. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas said last month that if the EU doesn't liberalize its farm sector, there would be strong support for leaving the WTO when lawmakers vote on renewing U.S. membership in 2005."

So Bush's contempt for international bodies like the U.N. (at least when they don't see things his way) is going to have an impact on the so-called "free trade" agenda that some of his corporate buddies still long to impose on the developing world. Isolationism and unilateralism may be convenient when you want to wage a war that no one else supports, but it's going to make it much harder for Bush & Co. to advance the rights of global corporations, as enshrined in treaties like the WTO.

And then there's the fact that the media is finally reporting on its own failures to do any real reporting - and the predictable results. Check out this paragraph from Paul Krugman's column in today's New York Times:

"What scares me most, however, is the home front. Look at how this war happened. There is a case for getting tough with Iraq; bear in mind that an exasperated Clinton administration considered a bombing campaign in 1998. But it's not a case that the Bush administration ever made. Instead we got assertions about a nuclear program that turned out to be based on flawed or faked evidence; we got assertions about a link to Al Qaeda that people inside the intelligence services regard as nonsense. Yet those serial embarrassments went almost unreported by our domestic news media. So most Americans have no idea why the rest of the world doesn't trust the Bush administration's motives. And once the shooting starts, the already loud chorus that denounces any criticism as unpatriotic will become deafening."

You can read the whole thing, ominously titled "Things To Come," here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/18/opinion/18KRUG.html

Of course, the "domestic news media" includes Krugman's bosses at the Times, who are the same people who own the Globe. Ever on the alert for "ulterior motives" when seeking to explain some other country's foreign policy, the Globe editors give Bush a pass, despite blatant conflicts of interest and deep international suspicion about what our government is really doing in Iraq. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting today released a very timely study of just how one-sided the coverage of the lead-up to the war has been. You can read about it at their website:

"In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views"
http://www.fair.org/activism/iraq-sources-networks.html

Sorry for the interruption in service. The Daily Grasshopper is back, and, hopefully, getting people to think about what's going on.

Much more tomorrow,
PK