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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (70495)	1/31/2003 10:30:28 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

No Beginning or End to War by Günter Grass Published on Wednesday, January 29, 2003 by the Guardian/UK War is looming. Once again war looms. Or is war only being threatened so as to stop war coming? Does the limiting word "only" mean that this is just a mock threat, this staged build-up of US and British troops and ships on the Arabian peninsula and in the Red sea, with its supply of pictures to the media of overwhelming military might? As soon as one of the world's two dozen dictators has crumbled into exile or preferably is dead, will this all turn out to be a show of force which brought peace and can vanish away again? Hardly. This looming war is a wanted war. It is already going on in the heads of the planners, in the world's stock exchanges, and in what seem to be forward-dated TV programs. The enemy target is in the sights. He has been named and - along with other enemies on the stocks who will be targeted and named next - he fits the bill for those who want to conjure a danger so grim that it undermines careful reflection. We know how people create enemies where none exists. We know, and have plenty of pictures to illustrate it, what happens in war when the target is not quite hit. We are familiar with the words for damage and casualties which we are told to accept as inevitable. We are used to the relatively small number of its own dead that the world's number one ruling power has to count and mourn while the mass of enemy dead, including women and children, go uncounted and are not worth mourning. So now we wait for the new war and the old repetitions. This time new missile systems will be even more accurate. We can be confident about the choice of pictures from this looming war. The flow of images will be sanitized of every detail of horror. Familiar TV channels will be there to give us a new installment of war as soap opera, interrupted only by ads for consumers who are living happily in peace. The only issue for discussion is whether people approach this coming, already happening war as loudmouthed or half-hearted allies, or the sort who may only make a small contribution on the sidelines like the Germans, whose time for making war is over by now, or should be. Who is the target of this war which is only being threatened? A fearful dictator. But Saddam Hussein, like other dictators, was once a brother-in-arms to the democratic world power and its allies. On their behalf, and heavily armed by the west, he waged war for eight years against his neighbor Iran, because at that time the dictator who ruled there was enemy number one. But, the argument goes on, Saddam Hussein is in possession of of weapons of mass destruction (which has not yet been proved). We are also promised that after this dictator is defeated democracy will be installed in Iraq. But this dictator's neighbors, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which are western allies and serve as launch pads for invading Iraq, are also dictatorships. Are they the next targets for wars to bring democracy? I know these are idle questions. The world power's arrogance has an answer for all of them. But everyone knows or assumes that it is all about oil. To be accurate, that it's all about oil again. The specter of hypocrisy which the last remaining superpower and its chorus of allies use to cover their true interests has become so threadbare that the drive for dominance shows right through. It stands there in its hubris, unashamed and dangerous to the rest of the world. The current US president is the perfect expression of this common danger we face. I don't know if the United Nations will be resolute enough to resist the US's clenched drive for power. My experience tells me this wanted war will be followed by other wars with the same drive behind them. I hope my country's citizens and government will give convincing proof that we Germans have learned the lesson of the wars we have caused and will say no to the oncoming madness, called war. "What should I do if in fretful sleep the ghosts of the slaughtered were to appear, bloody, pale, and wan, and weep in front of me, what should I do?" That's the question the 18th century writer, Matthias Claudius asks in his poem, Warsong. Looking back on our wars and the people we have slaughtered, this is the question we have still not answered completely. That distant, looming war which is already under way and which never stops, poses his same question yet again. "Alas, it is war, and I don't wish to carry the guilt for it." ______________________________________________ Günter Grass won the Nobel prize for literature in 1999. His new novel, Crabwalk, will be published by Faber in April. © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 commondreams.org

To: TigerPaw who wrote (70495)	1/31/2003 12:17:01 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Al-Qaeda 'was making a dirty bomb' [And our country chooses to HYPER-focus on Saddam & Iraq] news.bbc.co.uk By Frank Gardner BBC security correspondent Friday, 31 January, 2003, 00:13 GMT British officials have presented evidence which they claim shows that al-Qaeda had been trying to assemble radioactive material to build a so-called dirty bomb. They have shown the BBC previously undisclosed material backing up their claim. It includes secret intelligence from agents sent by Britain into al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Posing as recruits, they blended in and reported back. SAS officer inspects a deserted Afghan camp They revealed that Osama Bin Laden's weapons programme was further on than anyone thought. British officials said on Thursday Bin Laden now had gained the expertise and possibly the materials to build a crude radioactive bomb. The government says evidence suggests that by 1999, Bin Laden's priority was to develop a weapon of mass destruction. He had acquired radioactive isotopes from the Taleban to do this, officials said, adding that development work on the "dirty bomb" had been going on in a nuclear laboratory in the Afghan city of Herat. Evidence 'credible' The government even has al-Qaeda training manuals which detail how to use a dirty bomb to maximum effect. For a second opinion, the BBC showed some of the material to an expert on al-Qaeda. "I think this is genuine," said Dr Mustafa Alani, of the Royal United Service Institute. From nuclear weapons the threat is very, very slim "It is credible. This is proof that al-Qaeda put a lot of effort into collecting information and educating other members of the organisation. "It is possible to produce this sort of weapon." British military personnel worked with intelligence officers to gather material which was taken to Porton Down defence research centre in Wiltshire. Their conclusion was that al-Qaeda had a small dirty bomb but probably not a full blown nuclear device. "From nuclear weapons the threat is very, very slim," said Gary Samore, a former US National Security Council member. Al-Qaeda has built a lab in Herat To create one, he said, al-Qaeda would have needed to obtain weapons grade nuclear material - a difficult prospect. "On the other hand, the threat of a dirty bomb or radiological bomb, is much more plausible," he added. British officials say the "bomb" has never been recovered but at least one leading al-Qaeda weapons expert from Herat is still at large. Why the British government would release such top secret information has been questioned by some commentators in the Arabic world. Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of Al Quds al Arabi, said it was an attempt to revive fears in Britain and the US about 11 September. "They would like to prove their point that there are links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda," he said.