Ein ganz besonders trauriges Kapitel der Geschichte der vermeintlichen Freiheitsverschaffung hat die FAZ gestern als Titel der Rubrik “Bilder und Zeiten” veröffentlicht. In Syrien, das sich nach dem erneuten Ausfall von Beirut als “Paris des Nahen Ostens” offenbar zum Rotlichtviertel der Region entwickelt, müssen nun Flüchtlingsfamilien aus dem Irak ihre Töchter reichen Arabern andienen, damit die Familien durch den nahenden Winter kommen.

Lesenswert: Der Tanz der traurigen Gazellen.

I doubt Blair will lose his case tomorrow, but chances are, a majority will clearly depend on Conservative votes. I guess no explanation is needed as to why it is a huge problem for a PM to be backed by the opposition instead of his own Parliamentary party.

But even in case the rebellion will be less pronounced than commentators expect, and even if the war will take a favourable course – I doubt Blair’s decision to invest almost all his political capital into supporting the US government’s case for regime change will ever pay off. Even without a possible future leadership challenge, Blair will never again be the political star he used to be. Governing will be a lot harder for him in the future than it has been before.

Isn’t it great that blogs have archives?

Stress, anxiety, guys stewing in their own testosterone for extended periods of time. That’s one of the, sometimes intended, but always terrible consequences of war: it hardly ever creates heroes and almost always creates thugs.

It’s not the war per se, but the violence it inevitably brings wit it – think of the Stanford Prison Experiment, remember Liran Ron Furer’s “Checkpoint Syndrome” for just two chilling accounts of the effects violence on “white sheep”. And if some sheep are already black in disguise, war certainly attracts them, as it, at least partly, legalizes behaviour that is considered criminal in peacetime.

But there are limits, and the above argument can only serve as a reminder to those in power, that it’s not just Patriot Games they play, never as an excuse for the murder of an Iraqi family and the gang-rape of their 14year old daughter - BBC NEWS | Americas | US soldier admits murdering girl.

A couple of years ago, someone left some sick spam comments about amateur pornography featuring raped Iraqi women (almostadiary.de: “The most disgusting porn spam ever“). In light of this story I can’t help but wonder if the offer wasn’t just the result of someone’s unfortunate experiments in role playing with a video camera.

“Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning,” David Manning, Blair’s chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Bush, Blair and six of their top aides.”

And in case anyone is surprised why there are conspiracy theories…

“The memo also shows that the president and the prime minister acknowledged that no unconventional weapons had been found inside Iraq. Faced with the possibility of not finding any before the planned invasion, Bush talked about several ways to provoke a confrontation, including a proposal to paint a United States surveillance plane in the colors of the United Nations in hopes of drawing fire, or assassinating Hussein.”

I seriously wonder what it feels like to be in such a meeting… did they, at any point, feel at least a little of the weight of the world on their shoulders? Or was it really just another “Patriot Game”. Whatever you think of Michael Moore, he was right about asking one question – why did Blair go along with this?

I’ve always favoured an explanation invoking the fundamental British post WW2 foreign policy fallacy – Churchill’s three sphere’s of interest. Well, it may not have been a fallay back in Churchill’s days, but the concept of building a global foreign policy strategy based on the idea of the US wanting a special relationship with the UK should have been discredited after the Suez crisis, or, latest, after Kennedy told Macmillan to take Britain into the EEC or the US would have a special relationship with, hey, Germany.

But still, to this day, against more than 50 years of evidence, the British foreign policy establishment seems to believe that linguistic and superficial cultural affiliation will ensure that the US listen to British advice on how to run the world.

Bush was set on path to war, memo by British adviser says – Europe – International Herald Tribune

An updated version of the Bush administration’s national security strategy, the first since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, includes a vigorous defense of striking pre-emptively against countries seen to threaten the United States.
The document declares for the first time that diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear program “must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided.”

…

The Tehran government is given new prominence in the latest document, which declares that “we may face no greater challenge from a single country than from Iran.”

Administration officials cautioned that the reference to confrontation with Iran did not necessarily mean military attack, though both the United States and Israel have extensively examined what kind of surgical strikes could be aimed at Iranian facilities should diplomatic efforts fail to persuade Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

…

The warning to Iran also stands in stark contrast to the wording about North Korea, a nation that, as the strategy document notes, now boasts that it already possesses nuclear weapons. The North Korean regime “needs to change these policies, open up its political system and afford freedom to its people,” it says.

“In the interim, we will continue to take all necessary measures to protect our national and economic security against the adverse effects of their bad conduct.”

Missing, however, is the threat of any military action, perhaps because, in the words of a senior administration official, North Korea is “already considered a lost cause” that already has weapons, while Iran is still considered 5 to 10 years away from having them. “

Somehow, this makes me think of Bob Dylan… “…when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”

Seriously, tonight I’m being told it’s news that George W. Bush allegedly told Palestinian PM Abbas that God told him to go nation-building in countries he did not even know about before.

Hmm, didn’t I write about this in June 2003? Strange, don’t you think?

Well, maybe not so much – The BBC is just doing such a good PR job for an upcoming documentary that the White House felt the need to once again deny these alligations, which appeared in Haaretz two years ago

Actually, I’m not quite sure why Bush has his spokesperson publicly deny this again. Acknowledging the debate is a lose-lose proposition from a PR standpoint. I mean, everyone who’s hoping he doesn’t literally talk to God about strategic decisions will not be deterred from believing that he actually does by a White House denial. On the other hand, those – currently rather unhappy – parts of his/the Republican constituency which would like it if their President spoke with God as literally as possible, might chose to believe…

Not being able to present you with my musical commentary on the current American Commander in Chief is particularly unfortunate as there are new readers who have been told by a web special of the PBS foreign affairs news programme Frontline World that my blog is focusing on the US and the American elections from a German point of view.

The latter is certainly correct, I am always presenting a German point of view, which is inevitable given that I am German. I would, however, like to emphasize that it is highly unlikely that my view will actually be reflected or even taken into account by those who determine “the” German point of view, aka the German government’s foreign policy – after all, both of us, Germany and me, are entitled to our proper opinion.

With respect to the “American” focus, well, I certainly tried to put in prespective some of the political rethoric that created the alleged rift through “the West”. The rift in through the West is, in essence, a rift through the US, actually one that goes right through the Republican party along the authoritarian/libertarian axis. However, given the particularities of the American electoral math and political system the rift tends to be pronounced rather than bridged. America is a big country, some of whose regions are (for the better or worse) at the leading edge of human/technological development while others still seem to be premodern. A country where it is illegal to sell “neck-massagers” in Alabama while thousands of people gather annully for a masturbate-athon in San Francisco.

It is these differences that usually fall between the cracks of news coverage that tends to focus on labels and statements rather than fundamentals and processes. However, I wrote most of my “corrections” in 2003. So feel free to browse the archives until I present you with GW’s Blues.

And while you’re waiting, gentle new readers, why don’t you head over to afoe – a group blog focusing on European affairs, of which I am a proud (though currently rather silent) contributor.

Yet as a list compiled by Brad DeLong amply demonstrates, this is exactly what happened.

But there is an item missing on the list that I find particularly telling about the way in which Mr Powell has been treated by his colleagues, and, in particular, by the President. Last May, when the White House tried to slowly improve relations with the allies it had seriously alienated with its pre-war behavior, Colin Powell was sent to Berlin for the first meeting with the German administration after the heydey of conflict in the UN security council in February 2003.

But while Colin Powell met with the Chancellor, the President had nothing better to do than embarrass the German government, but even more so his own Secretary of State, by “accidentally” running into a meeting of VP Cheney with Roland Koch, the truly conservative Primeminister of the German state of Hessen. Here is what I wrote about their meeting last May.

Of course, everybody got the message… as did Colin Powell.

“Bush-hatred is now something that civilised people wear as a badge of honour…”

Who would have thought that the day would come where a common adversary would make the Economist write talking points for Michael Moore. Maybe unusual times do require unusual measures – I wonder if anyone from the Economist helped topple the W effigy on Trafalgar Square today…

That’s good news, I suppose, as it implies that even the Republican spokesperson at the NYTimes (if only by accident) acknowledges that “seriousness” is something worth mentioning when President Bush is speaking…

He’s also explaining that, apparently, a rethoric Europeanization is going on in the White House speechwriting offices, one that is, unfortunately, so subtle it has to be explained even to the readers of the NY Times… – “He chose “influential” rather than “powerful” to stress our democratic example.”

But he’s right about one thing: Instead of reading summaries, including his own, one should proceed to reading the real thing. Well, where he’s right, he’s right.

So let’s ask the inevitable question: If Kay is right, and 600 more millions will not help uncover WMDs, will they be enough to buy back the stuff Hussein managed to secure outside the country or sold to terrorists? Hardly. But maybe the amount is sufficient to credibly wag the dog and help President Bush keep the White House… [more: NY Times]

Verehrtes Publikum, jetzt kein Verdruß;
Wir wissen wohl, das ist kein rechter Schluß.
Vorschwebte uns: die goldene Legende.
Unter der Hand nahm sie ein bitteres Ende.

Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen

Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen.

Thus ends Bertolt Brecht’s “Der gute Mensch von Sezuan” (Engl. “The Good Woman of Setzuan”). It’s always hard to translate poetry, but as I haven’t found any English translation on the web, I’ll have to do it myself. Brecht’s words roughly translate as follows -

Gentle audience, don’t be appalled
We know as well, the end is stalled
Imagine we did the golden legend.
When in truth there was a bitter end.
Ourselves, dismayed we stand, concerned in vain,
the curtain’s drawn, all questions remain.”

I can’t think of a more fitting way to begin an entry about the WMD-related post-Iraq war hangover the US and British governments have to deal with these days.

Yesterday, Thomas Friedman tried to summarize this debate – “the war over the war” – in the NY Times. He explained that there were strategic and other – possibly also humanitarian – reasons to oust Saddam Hussein, but those in charge did not want to make that case in public, because they very likely would have lost it. Just remember Donald Rumsfeld’s performance during Joschka Fischer’s speech at the Munich security conference in February. So they settled for a WMD based strategy of exaggeration (to avoid the nasty L-word for the moment).

But the story doesn’t end here in my opinion. If you think about it, all comes once again down to the question of “inability of willful wreckage” by the current US administration. By now safely assuming that there weren’t too many imminently threatening WMDs in Iraq, one can’t avoid wondering how this argument can have led to a war. I see two fundamental possibilities.

First, intelligence was bad. They really did not know what Iraq had but decided that changing the geo-strategic map of the middle east was worth using this argument to go to war despite the possible embarrassment of not finding WMDs in the aftermath.

Second, intelligence was good enough so they knew Iraq did not have the propagated amount of WMDs but decided that changing the geo-strategic map of the middle east was worth using this argument to go to war despite the embarrassment of not finding WMDs in the aftermath.

The second scenario, of course, begs the question of why the American government and their British allies went through all the diplomatic haggling earlier this year lying straight to the world’s face – knowing they wouldn’t find anything presentable once they chased Saddam out of his palace – why stop lying now? Why not plant some buckets of poison in the desert. Does it take longer? Are they still digging right now? Or would that be too complicated, would too many people find out? I am not a weapons inspector, so I don’t know, but – I have doubts. If some villain dictator from Baghdad is supposed to be able to buy dangerous stuff from rogue laboratories all over the world, one would assume the CIA can do the same. And if exaggerating/lying about the reasons for war was a strategic necessity, why not going “all the way” to placate a world who wants to see the American hand.

The reason for this is also the answer to the first scenario and in my understanding the same that led to the American intervention in first place: The American administration does not care about the world or even Americans demanding to see its hand because it has accomplished its mission and successfully established large-scale American presence in the Middle East. The Weapons of Mass Destruction worked largely the way they were supposed to – as Weapons of Mass Distraction from the real causes for the war (and, no, it’s not just Iraqi oil).

At the moment I can’t see important electoral consequences for the current administration. In fact they’re already planning their second term without even a facade of international cooperation – according to the Washington Post Colin Powell and Richard Armitage are going to leave the State Department.

Of course, the WMD-story is not finished yet, and not unlikely, some heads will roll. But not the important ones – remember when Michael J. Fox’ character in “The American President” says that he would not participate in anything illegal because it’s always the guy in his position who goes to jail for 18 months? I wonder if that is a dialogue people in such positions are remembering these days.

And I wonder if people in Washington believe Tony Blair belongs in that category ;-).

But wha­tever you think of the go­vern­ment’s, or the BBC’s, or Dr. Kelly’s, or any indi­vidual jour­na­list’s res­ponsi­bili­ty for the tra­gedy, some peop­le in go­vern­ment ob­vious­ly for­got some ba­sic rules of po­li­ti­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. When some­one says “liar”, you don’t fuel that dis­cus­sion by sul­king­ly re­ply­ing “no, you are” when the only result will be that bad situ­ation be­comes an even wor­se one.

I just don’t un­der­stand why Mr Camp­bell felt the need to re­live Shell’s 1995 Brent Spar com­mu­ni­ca­tions disaster when there was no need what­so­ever?

Whatever the truth to his or An­drew Gil­ligan’s po­si­tion, tal­king about it cer­tain­ly made things worse at a time when the pub­lic dis­cour­se was “shame on you if you fool me once, shame on me if you fool me twice”. What­ever the truth to either side’s alligations, with­out fi­nal­ly fin­ding some buckets of poi­son some­where in the Iraqi de­sert, the only way for the British go­vern­ment to deal with the si­tu­ation would have been to shut up, not to hunt down an al­le­ged trai­tor or char­ging the BBC with jour­na­lis­tic mis­con­duct to ma­ke every­one be­lieve that there must be really some­thing to the story.

That’s all I’m going to say.

My for­mer em­plo­yer Ben Brad­shaw on the other hand, for­mer BBC jour­nalist and now Par­lia­men­tary Se­cre­tary in the Bri­tish Depart­ment for Envi­ron­ment, Food and Ru­ral Affairs, is very invol­ved in this row.

And, again, what­ever your opinion of all this: his re­cent de­plo­ring the lack of qua­lity jour­na­lism and sour­ce veri­fi­ca­tion seems to have some point when even “The Guar­dian“, even in a time­line of the affair publi­shed on July 19^th, makes him a “For­eign Of­fice Mini­ster”, a po­si­tion he left in June 2002 when he was appoin­ted “De­puty Lea­der of the Hou­se of Com­mons”.

While I won’t analyse the speech in detail until/unless I’ve seen a transcript, it was clearly Tony Blair at his best. A powerful speech that – while obviously not going into detail – addressed even problematic issues like the middle east conflict, one of the issues where the former mandate power UK usually is much more critical of Israel than the US.

Blair has not given up seeing Britain’s role at the centre of a Europe of nation states (he even mentioned the superstate to please the UK’s conservative papers) as mentor and mediator between the continents. At some points he tried to uplift the “special relationship” to one between Europe, not just Britain, and the US.

Obviously, his speech was intented to distract from the political mess at home following the military victory abroad – for both him and George W. Bush, and to extend his clout in Washington. But it also became a leadership matters speech invoking history and not intelligence agencies. There was a lot of multilateralism in his speech, including the advice to the American administration to “lead through persuasion, not command.”

Now it’s up to us, to the beholders, to decide wether Blair was building the base for a new Atlantic Charter, or whether he just gave the “we lied to you because we had to in order to do what we wanted to do”-speech.

“[f]inally, on Monday, the White House admitted the president relied on inaccurate, incomplete information for that crucial passage of his State of the Union address.” [this is referring to the President's claim that Iraq was about to aquire radioactive material from Niger]

She asks why lying is perceived as bad in some cases – and she uses the obvious Clinton impeachment example – while most people will accept it without problems in other cases. She chooses an interesting and helpful angle to analyse this question: behavioral psychology, a scientific discipline that is predominantly occupied with exploring the limits of human information processing and decision making abilities. Obviously, she can only allude to some of the insights such a perspective has to offer for the problem at hand. But these allusions are well worth reading.

Here’s a part of Ms Witt’s article I found particularly interesting -

“When Gustave Gilbert, a psychologist who interviewed the Nuremberg prisoners, talked to Hermann Goering, the former leader of the Third Reich’s Luftwaffe, Goering volunteered that it was relatively easy to persuade a populace to go to war.

As quoted in Gilbert’s book “Nuremberg Diary,” Goering said: “It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.

Gilbert disagreed with Goering’s analysis. “There is one difference,” he answered. “In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.”

But Goering held his ground: “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Of course, such a statement has to be read as carefully as possible. It certainly does not add any truth to the recently rather popular, strange comparison of George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler.

But it does indicate that even liberal democracies could be heading in a dangerous direction. Especially when fear is calling the shots in most people’s brains.