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Saturday, March 22, 2003 |
The Hard Part
Not to denigrate the dangers of war, but the fighting represents a mismatch of epic proportions. The truly difficult part (as in Afghanistan) will be the occupation. The following article is most interesting not for what it says (no surprise – Iraq is not Japan) but for who says it: Gen. Clark is considering running for the Democratic nomination for president in ’04. Failing that, if he shows well he would certainly make an attractive VP candidate, so you may be hearing a lot more from him in months to come.
OCCUPATION: No Model for This One
By Wesley K. Clark
Sunday, March 23, 2003; Page B02
He had been a hero in World War I, and a very young Army chief of staff. As a retired general, he accepted an appointment to the Philippines and was later recalled to active duty. As the commander there, he suffered the humiliation of early defeat and the loss of his force. He fought back, later accepted Japan's surrender, and, as the supreme commander of the occupation forces, set out to remake a nation. And he largely succeeded.
Under Douglas MacArthur's tutelage, Japan emerged from the grip of a belligerent military-industrial complex and became a democracy. From an aggressive imperialist power, it was transformed into a peaceful state, using its vast resources to support international institutions and diplomacy around the world.
No wonder many are searching for the next MacArthur, someone to deal with the problems of postwar Iraq. As a model for regime change, it is neater and nobler than the untidy task of sorting out bickering Iraqi factions or relying on Iraqis with obscure or dubious intentions for themselves and their country. And for an administration run by corporate executives, there must be appeal in seeking a latter-day MacArthur to act as Iraq's chief operating officer. Already last week retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner, the military's director of postwar planning, arrived at a Kuwaiti beachside resort with a large team from the Pentagon's newly created Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.
But the circumstances of Japan and its transformation bear so little resemblance to those of present-day Iraq that both the analogy and the pursuit of a new MacArthur are off the mark. Almost nothing from the lessons of postwar Japan can be applied directly to Iraq, and consequently, neither the approach nor the character of a MacArthur are appropriate for the mission in Iraq. Just consider the facts.
By September 1945, Japan was defeated militarily, culturally and economically. No fanatical defense of the home islands could save it from the devastating power America could bring to bear. Its armed forces were whipped, with remnants scattered throughout Southeast Asia, China and the Pacific. Its major cities were flattened, its vaunted pride was broken, and its economy was in shambles. It had suffered millions of casualties.
But Japan was not at odds with itself. It possessed the raw material for postwar reconstruction: an educated, industrious population; some surviving infrastructure; and modern industrial experience. Imperial Japan was also largely free of the problems of large, restive minorities. Twelve years of severe military indoctrination had united the entire population behind the "holy war." Defeat, when it came, was palpable, complete and unquestioned. As a string of islands, Japan had a strategic buffer from its neighbors. Disputes about Okinawa and the Kuriles weren't enough to foment the kind of territorial struggles so common elsewhere. Literacy was high, and the culture valued hard work and discipline.
Enter MacArthur. To appreciate how difficult it would be to duplicate his success, it's worth remembering its many facets. When MacArthur was appointed supreme commander of the allied powers, he assumed immediate control of the old power structures. His priority was the demilitarization and democratization of Japanese society. Using his authority, he destroyed the remains of Japan's war machine by organizing war crimes trials for 39 leaders, most of them members of Gen. Hideki Tojo's war cabinet, all of whom were convicted and sentenced either to prison or death. Hundreds of other officers committed ritual suicide. Then, working with the emperor and a new prime minister, he initiated a long list of reforms: rewriting the constitution, ending industrial monopolies and breaking up the industrial zaibatsu, undertaking land reform, liberalizing schools, allowing the unionization of labor and promoting women's suffrage.
MacArthur accomplished these reforms by capitalizing on the Japanese people's reverence for their emperor and respect for his authority. MacArthur himself became extremely popular with the Japanese, maintaining a regal style and personal isolation which played to their expectations of a supreme commander. He was a dedicated public servant, never taking a vacation and seldom traveling outside Japan. As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. noted, MacArthur "filled the need for faith, for mystique, for a moral revival in the midst of a moral collapse."
When it came time for rebuilding, most of the work, from design through laying the final level of concrete, was done by the Japanese themselves, using Japanese resources mobilized under a new government, a new currency and a new economic structure. Japan eventually formed new armed services specifically equipped for and constitutionally devoted to self-defense only.
Almost none of those conditions will be present in post-Saddam Iraq. The country may have been diminished by years of sanctions and low-level conflict, and will have suffered military defeat, but strong groups appear ready to contest authority with the American force. This country has never had a unified national identity -- even under the Ottomans it was three distinct provinces. Ethnic and religious animosities have been fueled by the mechanics of Saddam Hussein's repression. Important regional cultures, wealth to be divided, and the need to resist or appease meddlesome neighbors threaten to tear Iraq apart.
Iraq's long borders also present challenges. Its Islamic neighbors are anxious to compete for Iraqi loyalties. The Saudis and the Iranians will each be pulling separately, to say nothing of independent charities, some dedicated to fostering the kind of militant fundamentalism that is the source of America's troubles in the region. And while neither Saudi oil money nor Iranian fundamentalism are quite the forces that they were a decade ago, the international network of terror and mobile bands of experienced, hardened fighters are more challenging to the conventional tools of statecraft and peacekeeping than anything MacArthur faced.
Iraq has no emperor to lend authority and cover for an American regent, who could be trapped in contradictions of our own making. Espousing self-determination for the Iraqi people, he will have to make decisions, order actions and implement changes himself. Each step will bring new winners and new losers. By establishing the institutions of democracy, such as a free press, he will be criticized as an infidel outsider. The American commander will preach the virtues of freedom of religion, while making sure that the mosques do not become centers of political resistance.
One danger: The groups that will appear most sympathetic and capable of assistance will likely be the defeated Iraqi armed forces themselves. Though these forces were former agents of repression, the United States might be tempted to call upon them for help -- just as it summoned the armed forces in Haiti and the Serbian military in Bosnia despite their ill repute.
Meanwhile, in the United States, there will always be the impatience of the public, the intensive scrutiny of the international media and the parsimony imposed by competing budget and political requirements. The administration talks of a two-year transition to Iraqi rule. MacArthur spent 51/2 years in Japan.
Finally, there is no five-star MacArthur today -- and maybe that's for the best. We have many highly capable, well-educated generals -- and Jay Garner is one of the best -- but none of them alone can "do a MacArthur" and shouldn't try. The search for such a figure is escapism, a desire to turn over responsibilities to someone, give him a title -- and few resources -- and hope the problems go away. Isn't this the height of wishful thinking?
It would be far better to recognize, as many are belatedly doing, that victory in Iraq will come not from fighting alone but rather from what happens afterward. And for this we must gather legitimacy from institutions such as the United Nations and NATO. We will need a substantial international military presence there for years. We need resources to rebuild the state structures of Iraq with new faces and skills. And we must exercise the patience to allow democracy to emerge slowly. Above all, we must not use our presence in Iraq as a launching pad for self-glorification, imperial pretenses or further expeditions but as an opportunity to strengthen the international institutions that we have spent more than 50 years developing and nourishing.
Retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark served as commander in chief, U.S. Southern Command and later as supreme allied commander in Europe during the war in Kosovo.
3:58:41 PM 
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Never Fear – the Bush Priorities are Here
That’s right – concerned about loved ones traveling on business or on active war duty in Iraq? Well, don’t be, because it all pales in comparison to coif-gate. Bush’ll make the limeys pay for their perfidy!
The Bushies are all upset - and to think BBC didn’t even show Bush pumping his fists before the broadcasts saying “feels good.” (Don’t believe it? Read it here and an interpretation of this macabre behavior here.)
Where oh where has that pit-bull media gone, the one that would linger over Clinton or Kerry’s hairstyles ad nauseum.
We Begin Combing in Five Minutes!
By Lloyd Grove
Friday, March 21, 2003; Page C03
The White House is vowing a strong retaliatory response after the BBC aired live video of President Bush getting his hair coiffed in the Oval Office as he squirmed in his chair and practiced on the teleprompter minutes before Wednesday night's speech announcing the launch of military operations against Saddam Hussein.
The British network broadcast 1 minute and 37 seconds of presidential primping to hundreds of millions of viewers in 200 countries around the world (and locally on WETA, Channel 26) before Bush's formal address at 10:15 p.m. Yesterday the BBC's White House producer, Mark Orchard, profusely and repeatedly apologized to irked staffers for airing video of an "unauthorized" portion of the pool feed while Washington anchor Mishal Husain chatted up a colleague about the significance of the moment.
CBS News Washington bureau chief Janet Leissner, whose news crew was responsible for pool coverage of the speech, also apologized to the White House, explaining that a technician accidentally flipped a switch that fed the images of a not-ready-for-prime-time Bush -- his eyes darting to and fro as a female stylist sprayed, combed and patted down his hair.
A BBC spokeswoman told us that her network promptly realized the video was not for broadcast "but they couldn't pull away because of technical difficulties." Meanwhile, we hear that in Britain, the commercial network ITV also aired the hair-raising feed.
"It was an honest mistake," Leissner told us yesterday -- but the Bushies were not impressed.
"The facts are that it was an unauthorized use of footage and video," a senior White House official told us, asking not to be named. "Both the BBC and CBS have apologized, and it would be understandable if this were the only time this has happened. I'm not suggesting it was intentional, but this kind of thing has happened more than once."
Henceforth, the official said, the White House -- not the networks -- will throw the switches that make pool feeds available to broadcast outlets. "There have been too many incidents," the official said, listing various presidential speeches allegedly marred by pool-feed glitches. "We have to make sure we are comfortable with the situation."
10:09:42 AM
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That Librul Media…
…hard at work again undermining the war effort, oops I mean promoting Bush’s unilateral war regardless of the will of the people, our treaty obligations and the UN charter….
After all, war is good for ratings….
Be sure to remind your GOP friends about this the next time they go on a rant about how librul the media is.
By Tim Jones
Tribune national correspondent
Published March 19, 2003
Some of the biggest rallies this month have endorsed President Bush's strategy against Saddam Hussein, and the common thread linking most of them is Clear Channel Worldwide Inc., the nation's largest owner of radio stations.
In a move that has raised eyebrows in some legal and journalistic circles, Clear Channel radio stations in Atlanta, Cleveland, San Antonio, Cincinnati and other cities have sponsored rallies attended by up to 20,000 people. The events have served as a loud rebuttal to the more numerous but generally smaller anti-war rallies.
The sponsorship of large rallies by Clear Channel stations is unique among major media companies, which have confined their activities in the war debate to reporting and occasionally commenting on the news. The San Antonio-based broadcaster owns more than 1,200 stations in 50 states and the District of Columbia.
While labor unions and special interest groups have organized and hosted rallies for decades, the involvement of a big publicly regulated broadcasting company breaks new ground in public demonstrations.
"I think this is pretty extraordinary," said former Federal Communications Commissioner Glen Robinson, who teaches law at the University of Virginia. "I can't say that this violates any of a broadcaster's obligations, but it sounds like borderline manufacturing of the news."
A spokeswoman for Clear Channel said the rallies, called "Rally for America," are the idea of Glenn Beck, a Philadelphia talk show host whose program is syndicated by Premier Radio Networks, a Clear Channel subsidiary.
'Just patriotic rallies'
A weekend rally in Atlanta drew an estimated 20,000 people, with some carrying signs reading "God Bless the USA" and other signs condemning France and the group Dixie Chicks, one of whose members recently criticized President Bush.
"They're not intended to be pro-military. It's more of a thank you to the troops. They're just patriotic rallies," said Clear Channel spokeswoman Lisa Dollinger.
Rallies sponsored by Clear Channel radio stations are scheduled for this weekend in Sacramento, Charleston, S.C., and Richmond, Va. Although Clear Channel promoted two of the recent rallies on its corporate Web site, Dollinger said there is no corporate directive that stations organize rallies.
"Any rallies that our stations have been a part of have been of their own initiative and in response to the expressed desires of their listeners and communities," Dollinger said.
Clear Channel is by far the largest owner of radio stations in the nation. The company owned only 43 in 1995, but when Congress removed many of the ownership limits in 1996, Clear Channel was quickly on the highway to radio dominance. The company owns and operates 1,233 radio stations (including six in Chicago) and claims 100 million listeners. Clear Channel generated about 20 percent of the radio industry's $16 billion in 2001 revenues.
Size sparks criticism
The media giant's size also has generated criticism. Some recording artists have charged that Clear Channel's dominance in radio and concert promotions is hurting the recording industry. Congress is investigating the effects of radio consolidation. And the FCC is considering ownership rule changes, among them changes that could allow Clear Channel to expand its reach.
Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) has introduced a bill that could halt further deregulation in the radio industry and limit each company's audience share and percent of advertising dollars. These measures could limit Clear Channel's meteoric growth and hinder its future profitability.
Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said the company's support of the Bush administration's policy toward Iraq makes it "hard to escape the concern that this may in part be motivated by issues that Clear Channel has before the FCC and Congress."
Dollinger denied there is a connection between the rallies and the company's pending regulatory matters.
Rick Morris, an associate professor of communications at Northwestern University, said these actions by Clear Channel stations are a logical extension of changes in the radio industry over the last 20 years, including the blurring of lines between journalism and entertainment.
From a business perspective, Morris said, the rallies are a natural fit for many stations, especially talk-radio stations where hosts usually espouse politically conservative views.
"Nobody should be surprised by this," Morris said.
In 1987 the FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcasters to cover controversial issues in their community and to do so by offering balancing views. With that obligation gone, Morris said, "radio can behave more like newspapers, with opinion pages and editorials."
"They've just begun stretching their legs, being more politically active," Morris said.
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
9:16:48 AM
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Presidential Candidates…
…are on video at C-span. Check out some recent speeches and see who you might like in 2004 here.
8:31:25 AM
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The Anticipated Rush…
…by other nations to make “nice-nice” with the almighty US after the start of the war has simply not materialized. Despite embarrassingly inept regime efforts to paint this as a coalition war with many partners the fact is that only the US and Britain are contributing a meaningful number of troops, with the only other contribution numbering 2000 from Australia. Not Spain, not Portugal, no one else is sending in the marines.
Furthermore the US’s diplomatic isolation has if anything deepened, not lessened. The reckless irresponsibles running this regime seem to have assumed that other nations naturally look to the US to lead. They mistook the result of decades of patient diplomacy and policy for a given. And now that “given” is no longer there.
By Sonni Efron and Maggie Farley, Times Staff Writers
WASHINGTON -- After months of angry confrontations among allies over the Bush administration's drive to oust Saddam Hussein, diplomatic relations were further strained Friday amid talk of plans for rebuilding Iraq after the anticipated fall of Hussein's regime.
French President Jacques Chirac, who led the effort in the U.N. Security Council to block military action against Iraq, said that only the United Nations had the power to run postwar Iraq, and threatened to veto any resolution that would allow the United States and Britain to administer the country — even though no such resolution has been formally proposed yet.
"That would justify the war after the event," Chirac told reporters in Brussels.
U.S. and British diplomats fumed privately that the French were willing to jeopardize humanitarian aid efforts to the Iraqis in order to register their antiwar stance. A French diplomat said such criticism was "totally unfair."
The Bush administration had expected that wavering nations would rush to support the U.S.-led attack once it began, but the antiwar camp hardened its stance.
France and Russia have made it clear that they consider the U.S.-led war to be illegitimate and will fight any international diplomatic moves, even involving humanitarian aid, that might appear to justify it.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. already was contributing $105 million to the U.N. and other agencies for humanitarian relief for Iraq. He declined to say whether the U.S. would agree to give the U.N. a political mandate or limit it to a humanitarian role.
French and Iraqi opposition at the United Nations delayed a U.S.-led effort to put U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in charge of running the program that uses Iraqi oil revenue to pay for food and medicine for Iraqis. The program, run by the Iraqi government under U.N. supervision, provided daily rations to about 60% of the more than 22 million Iraqis.
Annan suspended the program Monday and evacuated U.N. staff in anticipation of the U.S.-led attack on Iraq. At a Security Council meeting, the chief of the oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, said that he had people waiting at the border to revive food distribution once authorities give him approval.
"The question is, which authorities?" asked Chilean Ambassador Juan Gabriel Valdes.
Diplomats expect to resolve the matter by next week.
That France and, to a lesser extent, Russia are fighting is a sign of their continuing resentment that the U.S. and Britain skirted the United Nations to wage war.
"You have some countries saying, if America wants to invade, make them pay" for Iraq's reconstruction, said Jeffrey Laurenti, executive director of the United Nations Assn. of the U.S.A., a U.N. think tank in New York.
The U.S. and Britain are considering three resolutions to address humanitarian relief and postwar rebuilding for Iraq.
The first, being prepared in the council for a vote next week, would transfer the authority for the oil-for-food program from the Iraqi government to the U.N. secretary-general.
Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri read a statement from the Iraqi government slamming Annan, accusing him of doing the bidding of the United States and Britain and violating the U.N. charter.
A second resolution, which hasn't been proposed yet, would address longer-term humanitarian issues. The third is the one that worries Chirac. It would address who should govern Iraq and oversee reconstruction, including politically sensitive — and potentially lucrative — oil and construction contracts.
The U.S. ambassador to the U.N., John D. Negroponte, dismissed claims that the U.S. and Britain wanted to control Iraq's oil. "We will ensure that Iraq's natural resources, including its oil, are used entirely for the benefit of the people of Iraq," he said.
In Moscow, Russia's foreign minister told parliament that an American occupation of Iraq would be illegal. President Vladimir V. Putin said the war could destabilize Russia and the former Soviet republics.
"The crisis has spilled beyond a local conflict and is now a potential source of instability in other regions," Putin said.
In another setback, the U.S. request to nations to expel Iraqi diplomats triggered an angry backlash from two Muslim countries and polite rejection from an American ally, the Netherlands.
Washington earlier had asked nations to expel Iraqi diplomats deemed spies or security threats, and many complied. But the U.S. request went further, asking countries to suspend relations with the Hussein regime, kick out Iraqi diplomats, close embassies and freeze their assets and documents "so the people who are there now can't steal them," Boucher said.
By Friday, at least seven nations had rejected the request: Indonesia, Malaysia, Algeria, Finland, the Netherlands, France and Russia.
"The U.S. can't dictate to other countries," Indonesian Vice President Hamzah Haz was quoted as saying in reports from Jakarta. "It is only us who can decide our own foreign policies."
The Netherlands said it had no plans to expel Iraqi diplomats — in part because flights from Amsterdam to Kuwait have been suspended — but would "keep a close eye on them."
Two nations, Australia and Bulgaria, said they would follow Washington's lead in kicking out diplomats. Other nations were considering the request.
"That is their choice," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said. "We believe that as we watch this regime come to an end, it would be appropriate to let all of our friends know that it was time to cease the activity of the Iraqi missions in their countries."
The U.S. maintained diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, fascist Rome and militarized Tokyo until the outbreak of World War II in December 1941, even though American allies had been at war with those nations for years, Laurenti said.
Iraqi ambassador to the U.N., Al-Douri, said that the three Iraqi diplomats in Washington already have left the country, but vowed he will not go.
"I will be here for days, for months, maybe years," he said. "I belong to the United Nations, not the United States."
Strained relations between European leaders appeared to sour further on Friday. A summit of European Union leaders in Brussels ended with the three antiwar members, France, Germany and Belgium, agreeing to hold a summit on integrating their armed forces and did not invite pro-war Britain.
Paris and Berlin rejected any EU resolution that included references to the war as having been provoked by Iraqi leader Hussein. In the end, the summit produced only a tepid joint statement on the need to help Iraq rebuild after the war.
Efron reported from Washington and Farley from the United Nations. Times staff writers Henry Chu in Berlin and David Holley in Moscow contributed to this report.
1:00:55 AM
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