Re: NYTimes.com Article: Powell, in Europe, Nearly Dismisses U.N.'s Iraq

Dear Moderator and WSN,
I read this NYT article earlier during the day along with the posting
Sebastian Olma on the "Letter from Baghdad"..  There are several issues
that appear to be important:

(1) In the present general climate of intense interstate competition for mobile capital (the demand conditions for the ongoing financial expansion) has the warmaking US state succesfully staked its claim on the available means of payment?  Has it in short outbid other competing claims for the available supply of overaccumulated capital, competing claims that reside perhaps in the zones of 'network power' in East Asia?   How may one estimate this if at all (I would appreciate a response from Arno Tausch on this question)?

(2)  Are the world's exterritorial elite going to continue investing in the increasingly unilateral US efforts (along with British compliance) to go to war?  How? How much? On what terms?   The "condemnation" that we read at Davos, is that all surface or is it indicative of reluctance to finance the ongoing war efforts?  In any case how effective is such reluctance?  In the past the reluctance of capitalists has not proved too much of a barrier to coercively obtaining the means of payment. 

(3) Will the forcible acquisition of Iraqi oil resources provide the basis for recouping the expenses of "past warmaking" (the 2001-2002 war waged on Afghanistan) as well as supply the majority of financial requirements for the war on Iraq, and later perhaps another war, perhaps with Iran (which borders Iraq)?

(4)  Consider the following extracts from the NYT article (27th January) written by Michael R. Gordon:

(i)  "[T]he US appears ready to carry out its new doctrine authorizing pre-emptive attacks on hostile states and terrorists who represent potential threats to the US". "Sept 11 has had a transforming effect on people's thinking", a Bush administration official said.  "There is a recognition that in this new era you need to do more beforehand, that it is much better to be proactive to prevent threats from emerging"; the Defence Planning Guidance emphasizes the need for taking "anticipatory action" even if there was some uncertainty regarding the enemy's plans.

(ii) Colin Powell's statement to the world's exterritorials: "We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military action against Iraq alone or in a coalition of the willing",  (the sovereign right referred to here is preemptive unilateralism).  Pre-emption is referred to as "a cardinal principle" with regard to "threats that are not immediate, but merely prospective, as in the case of Iraq", a doctrine that "is needed to deter potential adversaries from developing weapons of mass destruction and to reassure the American public... that the government will protect them" (p.A12). "[T]he only way to ensure that the US is defended is to go to the source: the weapon-producing state itself".  An example made of Iraq "will deter hostile states from pursuing weapons programs or supporting terrorists".

(iii) "America is admired for what it is domestically but increasingly viewed with apprehension for how it conducts itself internationally.  But our power is not so enormous that we can afford progressively to lose the element of legitimacy of that power" (Brzezinski, quoted on A12).

(iv)The contemporary relevance of the 1990s Defense Planning Guidance (authored by Dick Cheney) lies in the argument that "the US should be prepared to use force if necessary to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons,... to maintain US military primacy and discourage the emergence of a rival superpower".  During the 2000 election campaign Condoleeza Rice "even argued...that if Iraq and North Korea developed weapons of mass destruction... 'their weapons will be unusable, because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration'".

I cite these extracts to raise a few questions:  (1) Is not the US global objective today to become the sole supplier of the means of violence by premptively destroying any other possible source?  (2)  Is not this coercion-intensive objective at odds with the emerging 'spaces of flows' in East Asia?  (3)  Is not this contradiction an explosive one?  (4)  What hopes then for any peace today, tomorrow, or in the near future?  All these actions are being done in the name of supplying protection to the American people.  The only way to supply protection to Americans is by waging wars indefinitely anywhere and everywhere in the world system where there is the remotest chance that states may be engaging in the production of advanced means of violence.  The only way to find out whether this is happening is by intensifying innovations on means of surveillance and maximizing the means of discipline and punishment.  The only way to finance these innovations is to wage wars, that is if the exterritorials choose not to invest in the US warmaking.  In short the imperatives of the current conjuncture arise out of a US demand to recognize the US as the only global policeman.  To think otherwise or to argue otherwise is to go against the interests of the state.  There is the adjacent need to control thinking itself.  In the light of all this, I thank Alan Spector for posting and declaring that at least 100,000 Americans think otherwise.  In one of his relatively ambiguous asides, Gramsci expresses the need 'to live furiously, as it were, in the moment'.  I want to combine that thought with the other Gramscian quotation (courtesy S. Olma): "What comes to pass does so not so much because a few people want it to happen, as because citizens abdicate their responsibility and let things be".

threehegemons@aol.com wrote:

This article from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by threehegemons@aol.com.

"There was little indication that Mr. Powell had changed the minds of people at the World Economic Forum, which assembles a rarefied fraternity of government leaders, business executives and other notables. The audience applauded the loudest for those who rose to condemn American policy."

Keep in mind that what is being described is a gathering of the capitalist elite and their friends.

Steven Sherman

threehegemons@aol.com

Powell, in Europe, Nearly Dismisses U.N.'s Iraq Report

January 27, 2003
By MARK LANDLER and ALAN COWELL
 
 

DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan. 26 - Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell came close to dismissing a crucial United Nations
report on Iraq weapons today on the eve of the report's
publication, and said the United States would go to war
against Iraq alone if its divided European allies would not
join the fight.

While Mr. Powell promised that the Bush administration
would study the findings of the report when it is submitted
on Monday, he indicated that it would be useless to give
the weapons inspectors more time.

Bringing the case for military action to a deeply skeptical
audience of political, business and religious leaders at a
conference in the Swiss Alps, Mr. Powell said Saddam
Hussein of Iraq had "repeatedly violated the trust of the
United Nations, his people and his neighbors." He renewed
an administration contention that Mr. Hussein had ties to
Al Qaeda terrorists. [Excerpts, Page A8.]

His remarks at the conference, the annual World Economic
Forum, deepened a sense of inevitability among people here
about a conflict. Speaking after Mr. Powell, King Abdullah
of Jordan said the prospects for a peaceful resolution were
fading.

"We are a bit `too little, too late' to see a diplomatic
solution," said the king, whose land borders Iraq. "Let us
hope that whatever happens between Iraq and the
international community is as quick and painless as
possible."

Though the United States had hoped to forge a consensus
among its allies, Mr. Powell said, the lack of a coalition
would not deter the Bush administration. "When we feel
strongly about something, we will lead, we will act, even
if others are not prepared to join us," he said.

By promising to study the report and consult with other
members of the Security Council before acting, the
secretary made a modest concession to the qualms of
Europeans about what many here describe as Washington's
stampede toward war.

But he also recited a litany of failures and unanswered
questions in Iraq's cooperation with the inspectors, who
have been looking for biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons in Iraq for two months.

"To those who say, why not give the inspection process more
time, I ask, how much more time does Iraq need to answer
these questions?" Mr. Powell said.

"We're in no great rush to judgment tomorrow or the day
after, but clearly time is running out," he said. "We will
not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of
its weapons of mass destruction."

Mr. Powell's speech is part of a campaign by the White
House, culminating in President Bush's State of the Union
address on Tuesday, to rally public opinion at home and
abroad. While the secretary did not produce new evidence of
Iraqi weapons, he insisted that the burden of proof was on
Mr. Hussein, not the inspectors, to give an accounting of
Baghdad's munitions.

Administration officials declined to say what time line
they have in mind for a decision about any invasion.

European diplomats suggested that they would continue to
press for more time for the inspectors. Speaking on the ABC
News program "This Week," Javier Solana, the European
Union's foreign policy chief, said that if Hans Blix, the
head of the chemical and biological weapons inspection
team, asked the Security Council for more time when he
submitted his report on Monday, he should get it.

"I don't think that we are talking about an infinite amount
of time," Mr. Solana said. "Time has been given to Saddam
Hussein before. So we are talking about a question of
weeks, perhaps months."

Speaking on French television, the French foreign minister,
Dominique de Villepin, called for an extension of the
inspections for "several weeks, or for a few months."

Asked for evidence to back up Mr. Powell's assertion that
Mr. Hussein has "clear ties" to Al Qaeda and other
terrorist groups, Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief
of staff, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the Iraqi leader
"has had a history of a relationship with terrorist
organizations in the past, and it would be horrible if his
weapons of mass destruction got into the hands of
terrorists."

Mr. Card was asked on another program, the NBC News "Meet
the Press," about reports that the United States was
prepared to use nuclear weapons if need be against Iraq. He
answered, "Should Saddam Hussein have any thought that he
would use a weapon of mass destruction, he should
anticipate that the United States will use whatever means
necessary to protect us and the world from a holocaust."

Even as the administration struggles with its allies, it is
also facing pressure at home to go slow in confronting
Iraq.

Mr. Powell's speech did little to change the view of the
Democratic leadership in Congress that Mr. Bush is acting
in "a very precipitous way," as Senator Tom Daschle, the
minority leader, put it today on the CBS News program "Face
the Nation."

There was little indication that Mr. Powell had changed the
minds of people at the World Economic Forum, which
assembles a rarefied fraternity of government leaders,
business executives and other notables. The audience
applauded the loudest for those who rose to condemn
American policy.

Still, at a meeting marked by relentless antagonism toward
Washington, Mr. Powell offered a muscular, unapologetic and
at times emotional defense of the nation's exercise of
power.

"I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of, or
apologize for, with respect to what America has done for
the world," he said in response to a question asking why
the United States always falls back on the use of "hard
power" instead of the "soft power" of diplomacy.

Mr. Powell noted that the United States had sent its
soldiers into foreign wars over the last century, most
recently in Afghanistan, without having imperial designs on
the territories it secured.

"We've put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of
whom have lost their lives," he said, his voice growing
hoarse. "We've asked for nothing but enough land to bury
them in."

At other moments, his tone was more conciliatory. He
acknowledged the split between the United States and two
key European allies, France and Germany, which last week
said they would oppose military action now. Mr. Powell
likened it to the bumps in a marriage.

"One or two of our friends, we have been in marriage
counseling with for over 225 years nonstop," he said. "And
yet the marriage is intact, remains strong, will weather
any differences that come along."

Still, the speech laid bare stark differences in how
Europe, Arab nations and the United States view the threat
from Iraq.

King Abdullah said he was "concerned that we are being
diverted onto another track" by the crisis in Iraq,
distracting attention from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
as the main hurdle to regional peace.

That theme was taken up by Prince Turki al-Faisal al-Saud,
a member of the Saudi royal house, who said American policy
- seen in the Arab world as pro-Israel - was the principal
reason for Arab hostility toward Washington.

A poll of the audience conducted during a panel debate
found that 81 percent believed a war with Iraq was
inevitable. Fifty-six percent said it would drag on for six
months and ignite urban warfare in Baghdad.

Earlier, the former archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey,
confronted Mr. Powell, saying the American insistence on
military power had created "a credibility gap of trust in
American politicians, and it's a very grave problem."

A Dutch banker, Hubertus Heemskerk, seemed to speak for
many in the audience when he challenged Mr. Powell to
produce evidence of Iraq's transgressions before going to
war.

"I think the evidence is there, the evidence is clear," Mr.
Powell replied. He said the United States would present
more evidence of Iraqi weapons programs "in the days and
weeks ahead."

The White House may not be helped by the International
Atomic Energy Agency, which assisted in weapons inspections
in Iraq, and said today that it would not produce a
"smoking gun" in its report.

Mr. Powell, however, argued that Security Council
Resolution 1441 placed the onus on Iraq to "come clean" by
disclosing its weapons, rather than obliging the inspectors
to root out arms in a country "the size of California."

"This is not about inspectors finding smoking guns," he
said.

The British head of Amnesty International, Irene Khan, was
applauded when she questioned whether the Iraq threat
"risks provoking a massive humanitarian and human rights
catastrophe."

Mr. Powell said the United States was "sensitive to the
plight of the Iraqi people, not only in case of conflict
but also right now."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/27/international/middleeast/27IRAQ.html?ex=1044638089&ei=1&en=1fbebeb73b18c520

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