Ivo Skoric on Wed, 25 Sep 2002 07:21:11 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Oil, Blood and Gore |
This thing with buldozzers - that's new in the histoty of warfare, isn't it? I mean Serbs and Croats blew up and burned buildings in their process of ethnic cleansing. Israel is bringing demolition crews with buldozzers - taking the obvious military aspect out of the operation. Ok, they digged a trench around Arafat's compound. Again! And whenever they do it, Arafat's popularity soars. Is he paying Sharon for the blockade? Why would Sharon pay for the fuel, food and soldiers to boost his enemy's ratings? Where is the logic to that? And have you heard Gore's speech yesterday? The elected president called Bushites appeal for US global dominance - un- American (hey, I am calling TIPS on Bush!). Donahue summoned Jesse Jackson to studio and they both salivated over Gore's speech. You could see a nostalgic streak in Donahue's voice: wouldn't it be nice if Gore was so assertive during the electoral campaign? One wonders can the Supreme Court reverse its decision and appoint him President now, as they did with Bush initially? Schroeder won elections in Germany. The "German way" paid well. The only problem is that the "German way" went in the opposite direction of the "American way" this time. And Schroeder nearly miscalculated the unpopularity of American pit-bull president in Europe. For example, his (former) justice minister putting Bush's name in the same sentence with Hitler's name did not really fly very well. It was a too obvious attempt to vote-grabbing by a sensationalist libel. What exactly did George do so far to deserve being put in the same file with Adolf? He used war talk to mask domestic troubles. Well, hello, most of politicians do that, and not all of them become Hitlers. But it played well for my favorite European politician: Jossca Fischer. It is absolutely hilarious to see a guy who built his political base in anti-NATO marches, defending German-US alliance against the cheap tricks of electoral politics. The result: SPD lost votes, Greens gained votes, and Schroeder remained chancellor mostly thanks to Jossca. My friend, now in Europe, thinks I've been in America too long, so now I started to think that all that's bad comes frome here. I think she's been abroad too long. This place underwent some changes. We got Comodus for an Emperor. Marcus Aurelius is long dead. This is not any more about values, it is about global dominance, and this is plainly said that way. Emperor bought the People with war games and tax breaks. I think comparation with Roman Emperors is much more apt than with the certain hated German chancellor, given at least current American position in the world. It is important to remember that all parties to the wars of Yugoslav succession were rabidly nationalistic and ready to use violence to further their political and economical goals, but that Serbs were the ones that caused Yugoslav concept to fail, and the ones that ultimately became responsible for the most gruesome of crimes against humanity committed in the course of those wars. Why? Is this because they were substantially more evil than Albanians, Croats or Bosnians? No. The evil is justly spread across the nations. There is Mohammed Atta and there is Tim McVeigh. It is the POWER. Serbs had more people, more weapons and more resources at their disposal than anybody else at the same level of evil. If evil has no power available, it is harmless. To that extent OBL is dangerous not only because he is evil, but because he is both evil and very rich. There is much more damage that can be done to the world by the U.S. than by any other nation. The unipolarity of power concentrated in the U.S. in the post-cold war period places on that country a greater responsibility for restraint. Because, while evil, indeed, is multi-polar, the real potential for it to do its unholly work lies within the most powerful of nations. I am not sure whether Bush is realizing the long-term consequences (beyond cheaper oil, of course). Milosevic also did not actually think about killing and raping thousands of people in Bosnia. He hoped of getting Yugoslavia minus Slovenia united under his dictatorial rule and move ahead as a new Tito. But it did not happen that way. He committed an act of hubris and is paying for it now at The Hague. And Bush war may go terribly wrong as well. This is just my gut feeling. Sadly, it is true that 'bazaari approach' is the rule of the road in the Middle East, and that 'horse trading' is the rule of the road of American politics, which means that Bush may get his war, regardless of potential consequences. First, the Congress: Democrats will have no chance to talk about domestic issues, which they hoped to use to win more seats in Congress this November, if the only thing Congress talks about is the war on Iraq. So, Democrats stand to gain from quick vote, that's the conventional wisdom. It is not a surprise that Gore would go against the conventional wisdom, though. The Congress still may give Bush a green light, just to get Iraq off the agenda (this is actually how Comodus handled Roman Senate, that's where I took the comparison from). Likewise, he will eventually buy the allies with spoils from war: French, Italian and Russian companies stand to gain the most from their unrealized oil interest in Iraq. Putin, who, so far politely refused to say yes on Bushites war, can still be swayed by guaranties that the new pro-US regime in Iraq will pay back $8B owed to Russia, and well, Putin is planning a war of his own in Georgia, so he may be willing to trade support. That leaves Security Council with only one possible veto: China. But the US is more than willing to forget the plight of Muslim Uighurs and Buddhist Tibet to secure China abstaining from veto. Then, there is Turkey, which is willing to do whatever Bush asks it to, for meager $10B and for control of Iraq's Kurds. What exactly would the US get out of that war, then? With developing oil fields in Iraq under a pro-Western government, there would be substantially more oil on the market, which means, oil would generally get cheaper. And we all know the great lengths the country, that consumes 25% of world's oil's production, is ready to go to get cheaper oil. I could imagine Germany being pissed because they failed to secure an interest in Iraq beforehand (but they would also profit from cheaper oil, as would any industrialized oil importing nation), and I could imagine Gulf states like Saudi Arabia being unahappy about prospects of lowering oil price, but then, they can always get to buy more American weapons to keep them in power, regardless of how bad their economies go, and the royal family won't really end up in poverty even with oil price ten times lower than it is now, given their US protected absolute control over the resource. So, it's done deal, Saddam should just shoot himself to make the ordeal of his people shorter. Of course, this all may be a hubris that the US is going to pay dearly - what if OBL anticipated this development and has taken steps for Al Qaeda to take over Iraq as Saddam is pushed out? That's where we get back to the Gore's speech: the question is not about the war on Iraq, it is abouth whether the Bushites have anything in store for the peace in the region. Is there any Marshall Plan equivalent in the works for the Middle East? How can we be sure that Saddam's fall will be followed by a pro-democracy, free market government, and not by some Taliban? ivo # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net