Copyright: Eric S. Margolis, 2001
Mar 18, 2002
Last week showed the Bush Administration's crusade against evil has not been going all that well. First came hugely embarrassing news of the government-issued visas for two of the 9/11 hijackers. Next, the much ballyhooed Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan turned out to be a dud. Only a handful of Al-Qaida or Taliban fighters - and 14 civilians - were killed, at a cost of eight Americans dead and over 40 wounded. In spite of wildly exaggerated claims by the US military to have killed up to 800 foes, only a handful of bodies were found and hundreds of Qaida/Taliban once again escaped to fight another day.
Worse, exiled King Zahir Shah, whom America intends to shortly restore to the throne of Afghanistan, said the US-led war in his nation was `stupid and useless' and should be called off. The White House US media ignored this damning comment.
While the US and its allies swatted shadows in Afghanistan, the Mideast was spinning out of control. Palestinian suicide bombers killed scores of Israeli civilians. Twenty thousand Israeli troops and a hundred tanks rampaged and bulldozed through Palestinian territory, killing over 100 civilians and fighters in scenes that recalled the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising or Soviet tanks in Budapest in 1956. A recent poll showed a shocking 40% of Israeli favored ethnic cleansing of Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza.
The usually cautious UN Secretary General Koffi Anan took the unprecedented step of demanding Israel end its `illegal occupation' of Palestinian territories and to cease assassinations, bombing civilians, demolitions, and humiliation of Palestinians. He called on Palestinians to halt their suicide bombings. Anan made clear Israel was violating the Geneva Convention and international law.
This carnage came just as US VP Dick Cheney was beginning a Mideast tour to drum up support for an invasion of Iraq, which appears slated for September - when stockpiles of US precision munitions are replenished and summer heat abates. His timing was awful. Britain's Tony Blair, America's most faithful satrap, gave only half-hearted backing to the plan as his Labour Party split over a new war against Iraq. Other usually compliant allies - Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - strongly opposed war against Iraq. Cheney was told there would be no Arab coalition against Iraq unless there was relative peace in Palestine.
Accordingly, the Bush Administration for the first time openly endorsed a Palestinian state, after previously vetoing similar UN Security Council resolutions. Bush, and pro-Israel super-hawk Dick Cheney, who had previously dismissed Palestinians as `terrorists' and opposed a Palestinian state, were forced to do an about-face and promise a `viable Palestinian state' to mollify Arab allies. Bush even showed support for the sensible peace plan currently advocated by Saudi Arabia. However, cynical Arabs recall the US also promised a viable Palestinian before attacking Iraq in 1991, but failed to make good its word.
Then, another bombshell exploded under the Administration. The Los Angeles Times published a leaked Pentagon document, the secret Nuclear Posture Review, which widened the list of nuclear targets to seven nations and lowered the threshold for US use of nuclear weapons. The list included Russia and China; `axis of evil' baddies North Korea, Iraq, and Iran; Libya, and Syria.
The Review calls for use of US nuclear weapons in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan, an attack by Iraq against Israel, war in Korea, or, ominously, `surprising military developments.' It is appropriate for the US to quietly use the threat of its nuclear arsenal to deter any nation from launching nuclear, chemical, or biological attacks on America. But now, the Administration is clearly planning to use tactical nukes against underground bunkers and troops formations - in other words, moving from traditional deterrence to the kind of offensive nuclear warfighting advocated by the Pentagon's Dr Strangeloves during the Cold War.
This piece of lunacy will surely motivate nations on Bush's target list to rush to acquire nuclear and/or biowarfare weapons in order to forestall possible US nuclear attack, thus defeating the campaign to limit nuclear proliferation. China will now be forced to accelerate its nuclear missile development.
US plans to attack Iraq with nuclear weapons in the event of a war with Israel show just how deeply the Bush Administration has fallen under the spell of Israel's Gen. Ariel Sharon and his far right Likud Party. Why should the US start a nuclear war on Israel's behalf when Israel has 200 nuclear weapons and one of the world's most powerful armed forces? Why target Syria, which poses zero threat to the US, while ignoring India, which, as Secretary Don Rumsfeld has warned, is fast developing nuclear-armed ICBMs that can reach the USA?
The US previously vowed never to use nuclear weapons against nations that did not possess them. Now, Bush's crusaders are planning to not only break this pledge, but threaten to use tactical nukes to vaporize opponents around the world. This act of folly is a sign of the growing frustration of the Administration over its inability to catch bin Laden, shut down al-Qaida, and pacify Afghanistan.
Nuking Baghdad won't solve the Mideast's problems. In fact, VP Cheney may find on his trip that far more Mideasterners fear America's nuclear weapons than Saddam's non-existent ones.
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