In an effort to pick up the pieces of shattered diplomacy, the last remnant of credibility in the Bush administration, soon-to-retire Colin Powell, was in The Hague yesterday speaking to a group of university students. Powell is suave, a good public speaker, a man who comes across as thoughtful, respectful of others' views and convinced of his own. He gave a good performance and most of the audience listened politely and gave him the benefit of the doubt. The most critical questions centered on Iraq – and they presented the most problems for Powell to explain away. In the end, he resorted to the "Saddam was a bad person" defense, but no one asked him why America had not attacked China, North Korea or even Pakistan. Aren't these countries also run by "bad" leaders, dictators who impose their will on their populations without respect for human rights and democratic controls? Powell's response, like his presentation at the UN, was not that of a man of reason, but rather that of the good soldier respecting the chain of command.
Experienced diplomats understand that tilting at bad guys is not going to make the world safer, more stable, more prosperous or democratic. In fact, one could argue that the course taken by Bush has made the world less safe, less stable, less prosperous and less democratic.
Powell said that President Bush would like to make amends with Europe and work together with the nations of NATO. But he failed to say how this can be done when so many nations in Europe and elsewhere distrust America, not because it attacked Iraq but because it did so by refusing to adhere to international law. As far as I know, none of the students yesterday asked Colin Powell about Bush's remark that he would invade the Netherlands if need be, if Americans were put on trail at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Too bad, it would have been interested to hear the good soldier's spin on that one.
Reason.com, a quasi-libertarian publication that is at times both supportive and critical of Bush, had something original to say on this subject recently:
President Bush claims to be confronting this problem by reaching out anew to the European leaders he ran against (even while selectively snubbing the weaseliest). But as long as he keeps stacking his Cabinet with people with contempt for international law, no amount of bon mots will paper over a gap that has become a chasm.
Perhaps surprisingly, evenbusiness interests are feeling the pain of anti-Americanism around the world:
With the reelection of George W. Bush, American voters have spoken. Now it is the turn of global consumers. That's the opinion of Simon Anholt, a nation-branding specialist who advises government officials in Croatia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as global institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank. And according to Anholt, the coming consumer backlash isn't going to be pretty.
"This is undoubtedly the worst thing that could have happened," Anholt says of the president's reelection. "Bush has presided over a period of unparalleled decline in the popularity of the United States. Global disapproval of U.S. foreign policy has become so intense that it is spilling over and contaminating the image of U.S. brands and culture."
"It is absolutely hitting profits," says Cari Eggspuehler, executive director of Business for Diplomatic Action, a New York-based organization made up of advertising executives, academics, and policy wonks. "[Anti-American sentiment] is affecting companies irrespective of region or industry. It is across the board."
Slowly but surely, long overdue criticism of the Bush administration is surfacing, now that it is too late. The damage seems to have done in Iraq – a war that was illegal, ill prepared, destabilizing, one that has already killed and maimed many thousands of people. We now know that Saddam presented no direct or immediate threat to the USA. There were no contacts or cooperation with terrorist groups and, if UN inspectors had been given a few months, they would have confirmed what American inspectors concluded: there were no WMDs in Iraq.
But the war and destruction continue in Iraq. Insurgents and perhaps foreign terrorists are slowly winning the hearts and minds of Iraqi's by default. For the first time in the nation's brief history, free elections loom on the horizon. But how free can they be if they are held under occupation of a foreign power? That is the dilemma facing Iraq's democratic future. As long as American troops occupy Iraq, the insurgents and terrorists will find safe haven among the public and continue their relentless "war of the flea" against American forces. And as long as certain segments of the Iraqi population resist American presence in their country, American military might will wreak havoc and destruction on that miserable nation.
The web blog Baghdad Burning recently wrote this about the situation in Falloojeh after the recent onslaught by U.S. troops:
Tired in Baghdad...
The situation in Falloojeh is worse than anyone can possibly describe. It has turned into one of those cities you see in your darkest nightmares- broken streets strewn with corpses, crumbling houses and fallen mosques... The worst part is that for the last couple of weeks we've been hearing about the use of chemical weapons inside Falloojeh by the Americans. Today we heard that the delegation from the Iraqi Ministry of Health isn't being allowed into the city, for some reason.
I don't know about the chemical weapons. It's not that I think the American military is above the use of chemical weapons, it's just that I keep wondering if they'd be crazy enough to do it. I keep having flashbacks of that video they showed on tv, the mosque and all the corpses. There was one brief video that showed the same mosque a day before, strewn with many of the same bodies- but some of them were alive. In that video, there's this old man leaning against the wall and there was blood running out of his eyes- almost like he was crying tears of blood. What 'conventional' weaponry makes the eyes bleed? They say that a morgue in Baghdad has received the corpses of citizens in Falloojeh who have died under seemingly mysterious conditions.
The wounded in Falloojeh aren't getting treatment and today we heard about a family with six children being bombed in the city. It's difficult to believe that in this day and age, when people are blogging, emailing and communicating at the speed of light, a whole city is being destroyed and genocide is being committed- and the whole world is aware and silent. Darfur, Americans? Take a look at what you've done in Falloojeh.
Despite the carnage taking place in Iraq and the sad state of the world engendered in part by the simplistic foreign policy of the current American president, Baghdad Burning's signature expresses a gleam of hope in an otherwise bottomless pit:
"I'll meet you 'round the bend, my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend."
