The neocons in general -- and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in particular -- soon may be forced to consume an enormous helping of the species Corvus brachyrhynchos:
U.S. May Be Forced to Go Back to U.N. for Iraq Mandate
WASHINGTON, July 18 — The Bush administration, which spurned the United Nations in its drive to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq, is finding itself forced back into the arms of the international body because other nations are refusing to contribute peacekeeping troops or reconstruction money without United Nations approval.With the costs of stabilizing Iraq hovering at $4 billion a month and with American troops being killed at a steady rate, administration officials acknowledge that they are rethinking their strategy and may seek a United Nations resolution for help that would placate other nations, like India, France and Germany.
Administration officials contend that they are being practical, but within their ranks are policy makers sharply critical of the United Nations and those who would consider it humiliating to seek its mantle after risking American lives in the invasion that ousted Mr. Hussein.
The piece aptly ends with a quote from Joe Nye, dean of Havard's Kennedy School of Government, and one of the most effective establishment critics of the neocons' obsession with unlateralism:
Joseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, said it would be philosophically hard for some administration officials to return to the United Nations."They'll disguise it; they'll find ways to excuse it," Mr. Nye said. "For some of them — in particular those who celebrated that we didn't use the U.N. — it will be painful."
I say apt, because Nye is the author of one of the books on my summer reading list: The Paradox of American Power. In it, he basically pegs the dilemma that the uber-hawks now find themselves in:
Given our size, the United States has more margin of choice than most countries do. But as we have seen in earlier chapters, power is changing, and it is not always clear how much we can chew. The danger poised by the outright champions of hegemony is that their foreign policy is all accelerator and no brakes. Their focus on unipolarity and hegemony exaggerates the degree to which the United States is able to get the outcomes it wants in a changing world.
And more to the point:
Even militarily, the United States should rarely intervene alone. Not only does this comport with the preferences of the American public, but it has practical implications. The United States pays a minority share of the cost of UN and NATO peacekeeping operations, and the legitimacy of a multilateral umbrella reduces collateral political costs...
Nye: Good evening Mr. Vice President, Mr. Secretary. I'll be your waiter tonight. May I recommend the crow? It's excellent this evening!
billmon - I think it would be delicious to see the US go back to the UN, simply delicious. Watching Powell squirm as other countries remind him of our hubris and insults. Oh, yes.
It will also be interesting to see how history is to be revised.....
Hmmm...I may be wrong, but I think we're about to see an international version of "read my lips" grace the news from W as part of the process of eating UN crow.
Keep the eyes and ears open, folks - as in '92, we'll want to make sure the Repug fire-breathers see it early and often, in hopes of dissuading them from thinking W's any longer one of them, and dissuading Independents that he can act sanely in the event of tough situations.
To clarify....
W is going to have to have an uber-tough-talk message on Iraq to balance a request for UN assistance in Iraq, especially if crow is to be eaten.
His dad had to do the same thing as he rose taxes (modestly, to be honest) to take a whack at growing defecits. His dad had tried "read my lips", which was shown false constantly by the comparison of words with the fiscal deeds he quietly promoted.
Likewise, unless W somehow intends to hold the UN hostage until he gets some aid and/or troops (never put it past some of his guys to think it through as an option), he will have to deliver a bellicose line or two publically while he quietly knuckles under to the demands required to get what he wants from the UN.
And the press will, again, make the comparisons.
god I love the blogs, it seems the only viable solution to our sclm corpprop ltd. inc. situ, besides, you must feel like submarine captains this week, you've been launching and launching and now you're having a couple hit home, and you're watching this finely crafted teflon battleship finally take a few admiships and she seems to be breaking up in slomo......
Practice Makes Perfect
War Is Peace: Wait Till Next Year
Preparing for War, Stumbling to Peace
By Mark Fineman, Robin Wright and Doyle McManus
LATimes Staff Writers
July 18, 2003
Still, he [Douglas J. Feith, the No. 3 official at the Pentagon] and other Pentagon officials said, they are studying the lessons of Iraq closely — to ensure that the next U.S. takeover of a foreign country goes more smoothly.
"We're going to get better over time," promised Lawrence Di Rita, a special assistant to Rumsfeld. "We've always thought of post-hostilities as a phase" distinct from combat, he said. "The future of war is that these things are going to be much more of a continuum.”
"This is the future for the world we're in at the moment," he said. "We'll get better as we do it more often."
Origin of the saying To eat crow is here: http://www.quinion.com/words/articles/eatcrow.htm
A UN Bailout isn't going to be Free, though who knows what the price is going to be.
My guess is that it will be some combination of tythes and getting kicked off of the permanent security council.
But since the Bushies don't care for the U.N., they won't care, right ?
-Patrick
How does one go back on previous claims of the UN being "irrelevant" and "defunct" to turning over control to the very same organization? Either way you go, you not only look like a fool, but also a weak fool who can't finish what you started.
I love it. But it's a shame our troops are bearing the brunt of it all.
I'm quite sure the UN, and specially "old Europe" will exact a heavy price for their cooperation in Iraq. For one thing, Kofi Annan is seeking a concrete timetable for withdrawal. And then there's the little matter of French and Russian oil contracts with Iraq.
While the greater necessity of going back to the UN is quite clear, I don't see how this can happen without causing a great deal of upset with BushCO's constituents (corporate and brownshirt alike). He's made way too many promises to way too many crooks and whackos, and going to the UN will not only mean eating crow, it will likely damage his 2004 campaign considerably.
Now, given that everything the Shrubbery does (publicly) is geared to domestic audiences (even the Blair speech), I think it will take more than a little while before they start speaking of French Fries again.
In any case, this is one hair that cannot be split without great cost to the junta.
So, we have an ideological "juggernaut" that can not come to grips with itself, much less a bloody war and it's incipient realities. We also have the multitude of promises made –– but cannot be kept –– to various constituencies. We have ideological priorities which, by definition, demand ignoring realities on the ground in Iraq in favor of maintaining the agenda. In the end, doing the right thing in Iraq will require the abandonment of BushCO's priorities. I don't see this happening in the short term.
Indeed, "doing the right thing" and GeeDubya's ideological priorities are anathema to each other, and have been all along.
ON the other hand, we had a window of opportunity with the Iraqi people that should have been viewed in terms of weeks, and not months. I now firmly believe the situtation is beyond repair, as that window has closed.
Imagine living in 110 degree heat every day for 5 months, with no way to escape it. No potable water for days at a time, no airconditioning, no fresh food (since that spoils almost instantly in that heat). This, and an occupation force that was so poorly trained for the task, they keep making one mistake after another. It's an untenable situation, as even one's skin feels like it is being pricked by a thousand needles. (And summer lasts until October)
That, and our own soldiers are suffering just as much as the people they are supposedly there to "help." Well, officers above the rank of captain aren't suffering too much, as they live in comfy palaces.
So, the UN will undoubtedly demand the rollback of what we call the PNAC Agenda, and the Shrubbery will lash out instead. They can't give that up, since that is their whole raison d'etre.
IMHO, BushCO's options are few. Given their ideological blinders, and the ethical/moral bankruptcy that goes with them, I would be careful to not underestimate their ferocity. Giving in to the international community will represent failure for them, and they know that.
Adding in 2004 to all this, and there's all the more reason to create further crises, to distract people from the current ones. After all, it's worked very well for them thus far.
Pyongyang, anyone?
anathema One of my favorite words.
I wonder if the UN, through back channels, would tell Bush to get rid of Rumsfeld. He is by far the one who insulted and offended the other countries the most. I find it hard to believe they would want to work with him in any capacity. I think they probably still like Collin, knowing that he tried to stop or slowdown the neo's, but Don has opened his mouth way too many times.
Emocrat;
I hope you're right - with every public outburst of rage, of making their petulent unilateralism vocal and angry, it makes things that much harder for W and his minions.
I truly wish that the military forces in Iraq (not to mention Iraqi civilians that just want to get through the day in onne piece) wouldn't suffer collateral damage as a result, though, and because they will, with evrey denial and delay, that saddens me.
Clinton: I smoked, but I didn't inhale..
Bush: I got the intelligence, but I didn't read it..
Hey, check this out. Great material for conspiracy buffs.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3080795.stm
Kelly 'warned of dark actors' games'
Iraq weapons expert Dr David Kelly reportedly warned of "many dark actors playing games" in an e-mail sent hours before he bled to death from a slashed wrist.
The message, sent to a journalist, appeared to refer to officials within the Ministry of Defence and British intelligence agencies with whom he had sparred over interpretations of weapons reports, according to the New York Times.
Dr Kelly disappeared two days after being questioned by the Commons foreign affairs select committee.
But his e-mail gave no indication he was depressed and said he was waiting "until the end of the week" before judging how his appearance before the committee had gone, the newspaper said.
The 59-year-old had told MPs he had spoken to BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan but denied he was the main source for his report that Downing Street communications director Alastair Campbell "sexed up" a dossier setting out the case for war in Iraq.
His body was found at 0920 BST on Friday in a wooded area at Harrowdown Hill, near Faringdon.
'Stress'
On Thursday, before leaving his Oxfordshire home for the last time, Dr Kelly had worked on a report he said he owed the Foreign Office and sent some e-mails to friends, his wife, Janice, told the New York Times.
The newspaper said a second e-mail, sent by Dr Kelly to an associate, was "combative".
In it, the Ministry of Defence adviser said he was determined to overcome the scandal surrounding him and was enthusiastic about the possibility of returning to Iraq.
Mrs Kelly told the paper her husband had been under enormous stress "as we all had been", but she had no indication he was contemplating suicide.
Police investigating Dr Kelly's death have taken away his home computer for examination.
I'm betting that if ShrubCo. Inc. does seek help from the UN, there will be a reluctance on the part of most members to come to our aid, given the way Bush dissed them pre-war. So they will likely reject our pleas for help, and then the right wingnuts will exclaim, "See, we told you the UN is useless...."
This crow would have to come with a piece of humble pie for dessert. However, as emocrat's post eluded to, people like Cheney and Rumsfeld are patholigical in many ways and do not think in the same rational terms that most people do. I fear that when these people are backed into a corner and failure is looking them in the eye, they will lash out or blame others, but never ever will admit they are wrong. It is this part of their personalities that makes them so dangerous, especially when they have so much power.
Would BushCo now deserve the label "Crow-eating surrendering chimps"?
Going to the UN and asking for help would be the death knell for this incarnation of neoconservatism. The whole point of the neo movement is for America to consolidate and enhance it's position as the *only* superpower, to say "screw you" and impose our will on the rest of the world. Well, so much for being a macho superpower. If they are forced to rely on the sensitive rainbow coalition at the UN there is no spin in the world that will cover up the fact that a Norwegian bailed their asses out. They may as well go home and write their memoirs now.
Personally, I'd like to see the United Nations show some backbone and demand three non-negotable preconditions before offering support:
1) Vice-President Cheney must resign.
2) President Bush must nominate Al Gore as the new VP
3) President Bush must resign, thus restoring the government to the actual winner of the 2000 election.
I'm deeply sceptical about Bush/PNAC going back to the UN.
The political cost would be so high for Bush, that it will just not happen. I can imagine Powell will go back and ask for some help that he knows is impossible to get. And then scapegoat the UN for not being able to get that help.
In case Bush returns to the UN to eat crow, then the ozone layer treaty ain't a bad place to start.
If there is any god up there, please fry this bastard with a lightning bolt.
We broke it, after the UN specifically not to mess with Iraq, and now we think we can just invite them to help? That's insane.
The UN should tell BushCo to go to hell unless they admit they were wrong, turn over Iraq to the UN, sign an agreement not to engage in any action without UN approval for five years and pay all dues to the UN through 2008.
Hey...I thought the U.N. was...irrelevant! :) What's next, help from Old Europe? What is the world coming to?!?
"Cheese eating surrender monkeys was it not, President Bush? Fortunate are we that there happens to exist this 22 episode series on La Belle France's glorious history, cuisine and culture, suitable for playing in entirety on ze Fox network, no?"