The Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
31/10/2003
- Opinión
Establishment critics of the war on Iraq restricted their comments
regarding the attack to the administration arguments they took to
be seriously intended: disarmament, deterrence, and links to
terrorism.
They scarcely made reference to liberation, democratization of the
Middle East, and other matters that would render irrelevant the
weapons inspections and indeed everything that took place at the
Security Council or within governmental domains.
The reason, perhaps, is that they recognized that lofty rhetoric is
the obligatory accompaniment of virtually any resort to force and
therefore carries no information. The rhetoric is doubly hard to
take seriously in the light of the display of contempt for
democracy that accompanied it, not to speak of the past record and
current practices.
Critics are also aware that nothing has been heard from the present
incumbents -- with their alleged concern for Iraqi democracy -- to
indicate that they have any regrets for their previous support for
Saddam Hussein (or others like him, still continuing) nor have they
shown any signs of contrition for having helped him develop weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) when he really was a serious danger.
Nor has the current leadership explained when, or why, they
abandoned their 1991 view that "the best of all worlds" would be
"an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" that would rule
as Saddam did but not make the error of judgment in August 1990
that ruined Saddam's record.
At the time, the incumbents' British allies were in the opposition
and therefore more free than the Thatcherites to speak out against
Saddam's British-backed crimes. Their names are noteworthy by their
absence from the parliamentary record of protests against these
crimes, including Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Geoff Hoon, and other
leading figures of New Labour.
In December 2002, Jack Straw, then foreign minister, released a
dossier of Saddam's crimes. It was drawn almost entirely from the
period of firm US-UK support, a fact overlooked with the usual
display of moral integrity. The timing and quality of the dossier
raised many questions, but those aside, Straw failed to provide an
explanation for his very recent conversion to skepticism about
Saddam Hussein's good character and behavior.
When Straw was home secretary in 2001, an Iraqi who fled to England
after detention and torture requested asylum. Straw denied his
request. The Home Office explained that Straw "is aware that Iraq,
and in particular the Iraqi security forces, would only convict and
sentence a person in the courts with the provision of proper
jurisdiction," so that "you could expect to receive a fair trial
under an independent and properly constituted judiciary."
Straw's conversion must, then, have been rather similar to
President Clinton's discovery, sometime between September 8 and 11,
1999, that Indonesia had done some unpleasant things in East Timor
in the past twenty-five years when it enjoyed decisive support from
the US and Britain.
Attitudes toward democracy were revealed with unusual clarity
during the mobilization for war in the fall of 2002, as it became
necessary to deal somehow with the overwhelming popular opposition.
Within the "coalition of the willing," the US public was at least
partially controlled by the propaganda campaign unleashed in
September. In Britain, the population was split roughly fifty-fifty
on the war, but the government maintained the stance of "junior
partner" it had accepted reluctantly after World War II and had
kept to even in the face of the contemptuous dismissal of British
concerns by US leaders at moments when the country's very survival
was at stake.
Outside the two full members of the coalition, problems were more
serious. In the two major European countries, Germany and France,
the official government stands corresponded to the views of the
large majority of their populations, which unequivocally opposed
the war. That led to bitter condemnation by Washington and many
commentators.
Donald Rumsfeld dismissed the offending nations as just the "Old
Europe," of no concern because of their reluctance to toe
Washington's line. The "New Europe" is symbolized by Italy, whose
prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, was visiting the White House. It
was, evidently, unproblematic that public opinion in Italy was
overwhelmingly opposed to the war.
The governments of Old and New Europe were distinguished by a
simple criterion: a government joined Old Europe in its iniquity if
and only if it took the same position as the vast majority of its
population and refused to follow orders from Washington.
Recall that the self-appointed rulers of the world -- Bush, Powell,
and the rest -- had declared forthrightly that they intended to
carry out their war whether or not the United Nations (UN) or
anyone else "catches up" and "becomes relevant." Old Europe, mired
in irrelevance, did not catch up. Neither did New Europe, at least
if people are part of their countries.
Poll results available from Gallup International, as well as local
sources for most of Europe, West and East, showed that support for
a war carried out "unilaterally by America and its allies" did not
rise above 11 percent in any country. Support for a war if mandated
by the UN ranged from 13 percent (Spain) to 51 percent
(Netherlands).
Particularly interesting are the eight countries whose leaders
declared themselves to be the New Europe, to much acclaim for their
courage and integrity. Their declaration took the form of a
statement calling on the Security Council to ensure "full
compliance with its resolutions," without specifying the means.
Their announcement threatened "to isolate the Germans and French,"
the press reported triumphantly, though the positions of New and
Old Europe were in fact scarcely different. To ensure that Germany
and France would be "isolated," they were not invited to sign the
bold pronouncement of New Europe -- apparently for fear that they
would do so, it was later quietly indicated.
The standard interpretation is that the exciting and promising New
Europe stood behind Washington, thus demonstrating that "many
Europeans supported the United States' view, even if France and
Germany did not."
Who were these "many Europeans"? Checking polls, we find that in
New Europe, opposition to "the United States' view" was for the
most part even higher than in France and Germany, particularly in
Italy and Spain, which were singled out for praise for their
leadership of New Europe.
Happily for Washington, former communist countries too joined New
Europe. Within them, support for the "United States' view," as
defined by Powell -- namely, war by the "coalition of the willing"
without UN authorization -- ranged from 4 percent (Macedonia) to 11
percent (Romania).
Support for a war even with a UN mandate was also very low.
Latvia's former foreign minister explained that we have to "salute
and shout, 'Yes sir.' . . . We have to please America no matter
what the cost."
In brief, in journals that regard democracy as a significant value,
headlines would have read that Old Europe in fact included the vast
majority of Europeans, East and West, while New Europe consisted of
a few leaders who chose to line up (ambiguously) with Washington,
disregarding the overwhelming opinion of their own populations.
But actual reporting was mostly scattered and oblique, depicting
opposition to the war as a marketing problem for Washington.
Toward the liberal end of the spectrum, Richard Holbrooke stressed
the "very important point [that] if you add up the population of
[the eight countries of the original New Europe], it was larger
than the population of those countries not signing the letter."
True enough, though something is omitted: the populations were
overwhelmingly opposed to the war, mostly even more so than in
those countries dismissed as Old Europe.
At the other extreme of the spectrum, the editors of the Wall
Street Journal applauded the statement of the eight original
signers for "exposing as fraudulent the conventional wisdom that
France and Germany speak for all of Europe, and that all of Europe
is now anti-American."
The eight honorable New European leaders showed that "the views of
the Continent's pro-American majority weren't being heard," apart
from the editorial pages of the Journal, now vindicated. The
editors blasted the media to their "left" -- a rather substantial
segment -- which "peddled as true" the ridiculous idea that France
and Germany spoke for Europe, when they were clearly a pitiful
minority, and peddled these lies "because they served the political
purposes of those, both in Europe and America, who oppose President
Bush on Iraq."
This conclusion does hold if we exclude Europeans from Europe,
rejecting the radical left doctrine that people have some kind of
role in democratic societies.
Noam Chomsky is the author, most recently, of Hegemony or Survival:
America's Quest for Global Dominance, from which this commentary is
adapted. For more information on the book, published by
Metropolitan Books, see http://www.hegemonyorsurvival.net.
* This message has been brought to you by ZNet
(http://www.zmag.org). Fri, 31 Oct 2003
https://www.alainet.org/de/node/108725
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