[iwar] [fc:War.Talk.Reveals.U.S..Hawks.As.Policy.Amateurs]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2002-08-12 20:41:48
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 20:41:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [iwar] [fc:War.Talk.Reveals.U.S..Hawks.As.Policy.Amateurs]
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International Herald Tribune
August 12, 2002
War Talk Reveals U.S. Hawks As Policy Amateurs 
Threatening Saddam
By William Pfaff, Los Angeles Times Syndicate International 
PARIS--George W. Bush is talking himself into a position where he will have
to go to war, even though there is no convincing argument that war would be
good for the United States, or even good for Bush.
The military are certainly not convinced that war is a good idea. The U.S.
Joint Chiefs of Staff have made that clear through a series of leaks to the
press. They are wary of a war whose objectives - beyond Saddam Hussein's
overthrow - remain murky, and for whose aftermath no serious policy exists.
Generals are against war, but amateurs are for it. Who among the
neo-conservative polemicists and op-ed writers baying for war against Saddam
has personally spilled blood, or seen it spilled, or even heard shots fired
in anger?
The president himself, thanks to his father's friends, was flying a National
Guard fighter to defend the State of Texas against the Viet Cong.
The leading hawks in the administration made their records as Defense
Department bureaucrats. Donald Rumsfeld was a peacetime naval flyer, but the
only administration heavyweight who has actually fought in a war is Colin
Powell, and he is the Bush administration's leading dove.
The Defense Department's Policy Board, presided over by Richard Perle, last
week was briefed by the hitherto unknown Laurent Murawiec of the Rand
Corporation. He told them that Saudi Arabia is America's enemy, fosters
terrorism "at every level in the terror chain," is "the kernel of evil, the
prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" of the U.S. in the Middle East.
He recommended that the U.S. issue an ultimatum to the Saudi government to
"stop all anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements in the country" - a
preposterous demand - or see its oil fields and overseas financial assets
"targeted," which would seem to mean seized by the United States.
Henry Kissinger, the intelligent member of the Policy Board, was the only
one to demur, refusing to speak of the Saudi Arabians as strategic
adversaries. 
Law doesn't come much into amateur discussions since it is taken for granted
that the United States is justified in doing pretty much as it pleases. This
administration has consistently insisted on exemption from international law
and refuses the inconvenient constraints of treaties signed under previous
administrations. In internal security affairs, it claims an equivalent
exemption from constitutional restraint.
This administration seems to regard the United States as exempt from the
laws of war and from the traditional norms governing just and unjust war.
These have only philosophical or moral authority, but were taken serious in
American government as recently as the 1950s and 1960s in policy debates
over nuclear war.
Is there an alternative to this war? Have all of the alternative courses for
achieving the goal been exhausted? Is war the sole and necessary means to a
just goal? What is the disposition of those conducting the war: to do good
with a minimum of harm? Or to aggrandize their own and the nation's power
and standing at the expense of the lives or legitimate claims of others?
The Rand Corporation used to wonder about such things. It would be much
better for Rand's reputation as an intellectually responsible organization
to send briefers on just war to Washington, rather than promoters of
aggressive war and international illegality.
However, a measure of consolation for what the Bush people are up to can be
sought in what Walter Lippmann once wrote: "A policy is bound to fail which
deliberately violates our pledges and our principles, our treaties and our
laws. The American conscience is a reality."

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