Rhineland 1936 quiz
Jens Scholz, a German blogger who shows wonderful taste in the blogs he links to (ahem), recently posted a piece titled "Dear Amis" (a term he insists is not meant pejoratively). He takes up the questions of whether he owes any gratitude to the United States, and "whether war is sometimes necessary to stop a madman," writing

1. You did not free me. You were certainly not born that time, so you did not free anyone here, i guess. Same with me, i was born in a free, democratic country and i know nothing else. So i never was freed of anything. By reasoning like that you just show me, that you actually don't have any issue-related arguments (as your politicians have, who are arguing the same way).
2. You seem to have forgotten (or didn't learn in school), that Hitler started the war. Thus, Hitler was the agressor, and every country, that went into war against him went into a war that already was going on to stop a military assault. The difference may be too subtle for you to see, but: If the USA starts a war, who is the agressor then? (emphasis added)

Jens also adds a nice note to me personally. In the comments section, I responded,

I agree that the gratitude business is misplaced; there's some kind of statute of limitations (Verjaehrung, I think) on that kind of thing, and second, no one should do or support something merely out of gratitude. Obviously, you're also right that Hitler started the war.

I'll answer your question by posing another: if France had opposed Hitler's reoccupation of the Rhineland -- as they were entitled to do under the Treaty of Versailles, and (arguably) capable of doing at that point -- would that
a) have been "aggression", or "starting a war"?
b) have been a good thing?

My answers: no, yes. Yours?

My direct answer to your implied question: if the USA goes to war with Iraq, it will be a punitive war enforcing international obligations upon Iraq spelled out in SCR 687, SCR 1441, and other resolutions and agreements.

This was a couple of days ago. What's becoming interesting is that despite some point-counterpoints since then, I haven't got answers to my questions yet.

I don't blame Jens for not answering yet. Let's consider the possibilities:
1) "no, yes": This is my choice: A French invasion of the Rhineland is not aggressive, it's a response to a treaty violation. The preventative effect it has is good.* If Jens agrees, we have fewer philosophical differences about the Iraq crisis than either of us thought.
2) "no, no": Legally sound, but unwise in the long run: stopping Hitler before he grew stronger was not a good enough reason for an invasion. Hard to fathom in hindsight, to say the least. Agreeing that a treaty violation is a casus belli allowing invasion may be an uncomfortable choice for an anti-Iraq-war proponent.
3) "yes, yes": Amounts to "So what if it's aggression? Hitler would have been stopped." Unlikely choice for Jens, but if he chooses it, he has less business opposing a war on Iraq than I do.
4) "yes, no": Polar opposite of my choice. It's aggression, and it does no good, even in a case where we know millions upon millions died later due to Hitler's unchecked ascent. It would probably be an uncomfortable choice for Jens to assert that interrupting or possibly stopping Hitler's ascent would have been a bad thing.

I hesitated about the timing of this post; I'm experiencing heavy traffic right now, due to being "Instapundited" (...again! Thank you, Glenn). German bloggers who even occasionally write political opinions in English are about as common as hen's teeth, and I'd not like to make even one, especially Jens, regret posting in English. Still, Mr. Scholz wrote an open letter to Americans, so some responses are warranted. If you make your way over to Jens' page and find you aren't warmly supportive of his views, I'd appreciate it if you were polite and factual with someone who has been polite and factual with me.


UPDATE: Jens answers "no, no" in the comments.

=====
* Historical footnote: the French didn't know it, but the soldiers Hitler sent to re-occupy the Rhineland were unarmed. For a fascinating account of these and other events leading up to World War II, consider reading Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace. It turns out that a Treaty of Locarno also governed the situation, and gave France the explicit right to take military action if the Rhineland was re-occupied by Germany. Had they taken action, they would have won in a rout. At a minimum, Hitler's timetable would have been disrupted, and the string of unbroken successes of his pre-war years would have been shattered. As it was, his popularity (and self-image) soared, the French strategic choice of pure defense was revealed, allies like Belgium fell away. Although he notes that historians like A.J.P. Taylor disagree, Kagan views March, 1936 as "a lost opportunity, a last missed chance to stop Hitler before he became a deadly menace." posted by Thomas Nephew at 11:44:00 PM -- |    

 

Diablogging
One of the interesting results of my "With regrets" post below was a dialogue with Mark Aveyard, of "Diablogger." He picked up on my "respect" comments, asking

In talking with some of the anti-war folks, I've been asking them, "What if Saddam marched a bunch of missiles, nukes, or biochem weapons right down Bagdad Blvd, would you support war then?" ... Do you think that anti-war folks are intentionally making such demands out of an a priori zero tolerance stance on war? Are they really looking for proof or simply setting the standards so high the proof is impossible to come by?

I answered, I hope interestingly and fairly, Mark continued with good points of his own; it was that all-too-rare thing, a civil discussion. Read the whole thing, as they say.

My main point here is to draw attention to the idea Aveyard is applying to blogging: carry out an e-mail dialogue with someone on a topic, then publish it. The gist of the idea isn't new, of course, either historically or on the Internet.* I just really like the idea applied to blogs. Obviously, many blogs feature comments, but that seems a different kind of interaction. Interestingly, Mark's blog doesn't allow comments: I suppose that focuses the correspondent on getting it right via e-mail. Anyway, I may try "diablogging" out myself sometime.

=====
* The online publication Slate does something similar ("dialogues: E-mail debates of newsworthy topics"); it's usually quite enjoyable. The most recent one, by the way, is Gregg Easterbrook of TNR and Nathan Myrhvold, a former Microsoftie, debating "Does the space program have a future?" Note to self: resume reading Slate, just not sure at whose expense.
posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:20:00 PM -- |    

 
With regrets: For war on Saddam
I'm finally but reluctantly making up my mind about Iraq: war, if it comes, will be justified and necessary. Saddam’s regime deserved to be put on an extremely tight leash and told to heel; they have failed to do so, yet again.

I’ve come to this position more or less kicking and screaming. For a couple of recent waypoints, see my checklist of pro- and anti-war arguments from late last year, and a brief "On Iraq" item earlier this year. In the following, I'll take up a number of arguments against the war.

Arguments dismissed
Arguments reconsidered: Al Qaeda
Arguments reconsidered: international institutions
Arguments reconsidered: containment
Arguments adopted: the Iraqi people
Questions unanswered
Respect, for some

In the early days of this debate, in late 2001 and spring of 2002, I frequently argued against a war on Iraq. I brought up a number of good reasons:

the war would detract from the one I cared about most, the one against Osama Bin Laden.

a unilateral push to carry out this war would harm institutions that have by and large served the United States’ interests well.

Saddam could be contained and deterred, just as the Soviet Union was during the Cold War.

I'll return to those arguments below. But first, I'll dismiss a few I've never believed in.

Arguments dismissed
There are arguments I've never made. One is any variation on the themes “Bush is always wrong,” “The Executive Branch is always lying,” and so forth. As Greg Hlatky writes in his blog,

Well then, the short answer seems to be, "I hate Bush so much that I'd believe Saddam Hussein before I'd believe him." And really, that's what the "anti-war" movement is left with. No scrap of principle remains, just blind inflexible Bush hatred. Nothing, no proof, no event could ever convince these ideologues of the threat the Iraqi regime poses.

I don't agree that the whole anti-war movement subscribes to this attitude, but I share Mr. Hlatky's disdain for the argument. I did not vote for George W. Bush, but I am not so far gone down the road of blind partisanship or ideology to argue he and his office are incapable of being right or truthful -- even if they are wrong all too often.

My feeling about the shifting arguments of the Bush administration is that they just don't know that much for absolutely, court-of-law, 100% sure either. I don't demand that of them in providing for the common defense, and I think no person who is honest with him or herself really does: this is not a trial of an individual, but a judgment about a secretive, dangerous regime. The events of 9/11 invited speculation about worse to come; while Al Qaeda, nuclear despots, and combinations thereof are possible, such speculation will and should face lower thresholds for consideration in the future than it did before the World Trade Center came down. Events as late as today, and at least as far back as the Glaspie-Saddam meeting before the Gulf War** make the idea very plausible, but such speculation isn't needed to support a war eminently defensible on other grounds. I'll have a word with Powell and Rumsfeld about it next time we speak.

Another argument I've never agreed with is that a war with Iraq will cause new terrorism. How will you know whether it wouldn’t have happened anyway? 9/11 didn’t happen because of anything but a hatred of America, and a desire by bloodthirsty criminals to hijack and tyrannize their Islamic co-believers into what they called a "jihad" against the West. They'll do these things whether there's a war with Iraq or not. Al Qaeda terrorism is independent of the issue of Iraq, just as it is largely free of any real connection to the Palestinian cause, no matter what they say. It will happen. Those so inclined will see it as a retribution. I will see it as more murder by deluded, evil, self-appointed hirabists.

While I haven't ignored the argument, I feel similarly about the question of whether a war will "provoke what we intend to prevent," a WMD attack. As I will argue below, I think avoiding a war now merely postpones this question to a later date, when either the answer or the premise is even less likely to be acceptable. Saddam is and will always be capable of WMD attacks, and he will always push crises to the point where he will need to entertain the idea of WMD use as a "last resort."

Finally, I suppose a brief comment about a "war about oil" is necessary: were it true in the sense of conquest, the United States would never have left Iraq in 1991. I do agree that Saddam would be a far smaller danger without his country's oil to finance his ambitions.

Arguments reconsidered: Al Qaeda
But what about my own main reasons? Some -- detracting from the fight against Al Qaeda, or inviting a WMD attack -- are simply less persuasive to me than they used to be. Another -- working through international institutions -- has been addressed by the Bush administration. And another -- the possibility of containing Iraq -- now seems demonstrably false to me.

Yes, the war against Saddam is likely to divert attention and manpower from the war against Osama Bin Laden. While that used to bother me a great deal, I think that was a function of my fury against Al Qaeda, and not a product of clear thinking. It is mathematically possible to have more than one deadly opponent at a time. Americans have faced that before, and even made a similar choice: the lion's share of the war effort in World War II initially went to fight Nazi Germany, despite the "casus belli" being the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Like most, I'm unconvinced of direct Al Qaeda-Saddam links, but think it's plausible we wouldn't know about them. I can't blame the Bush administration for trying -- my guess is that it would be the one thing that would apparently bring around a big chunk of European public opinion. It doesn't matter. The pragmatic case for forcible regime change in Iraq doesn't require such linkage.

Arguments reconsidered: international institutions
The most important thing that the Bush administration did to gain my attention was its work securing the passage of Security Council Resolution 1441 (SCR 1441). In particular, Bush's September 12, 2002 speech at the United Nations, in which he recounted the numerous Security Council resolutions defied by the Iraqi regime recast the problem in my mind. It wasn't that the facts were new, it's that the United States, to my relief, was presenting those facts. Rather than the United States seeming to be the potential aggressor, the potential wrecker of international institutions, it is in fact the guarantor of those resolutions compelling Iraq to give up weapons of mass destruction.*

It's worth remembering that these resolutions, particularly Security Council Resolution 687 (SCR 687), were the result of U.S. adherence to international agreements at the end of the Gulf War. Had we gone "on to Baghdad" then, there would have been no need for resolutions requiring anything of Saddam. But the Security Council only authorized the liberation of Kuwait, so that road was not taken.

SCR 687 called for the unconditional destruction of all weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including chemical and biological weapons, and all ballistic missiles, and the unconditional cessation of attempts to acquire nuclear weapons. Either those articles were meant to be enforced, or they were not; most Americans, including myself, believed that they were. That belief has proved dangerously controversial, if not mistaken. Indeed, the United Nations all but discredited itself during the 1990s with countless such Potemkin resolutions, notably about the Bosnia crisis: resolutions that appeared to be, well, resolute, but were not. The U.N. appears to be close to finishing the job of destroying its credibility now. But the fault will not lie with the United States when it does. One way or the other, the Security Council must never again issue resolutions that seem to compel actions such as disarmament, yet effectively interpret them to not authorize enforcement of the disarmament thus "compelled."

War, when it does come, will already be justified by common sense readings of a number of Security Council resolutions including SCR 687 and SCR 1441, and the aggregate impact of these and a number of intervening resolutions. It will not be pre-emptive, it will be punitive. It will finish a war interrupted in 1991, whose terms of cease-fire have been repeatedly violated by Iraq.

Security Council resolutions compelling Iraqi disarmament, incidentally, are among the most important differences between the Iraq and North Korean crises**: there are no such Security Council resolutions looming over North Korea. It may be that one of the key steps towards backing North Korea away from WMD production will (or would) be for the Security Council to meet the obligations it set itself for Iraq -- and then take on North Korea as the next item on the agenda. A Security Council resolution promising "serious consequences" for North Korea would have a much more serious ring to it following a U.N. approved war on Iraq. It seems likely, of course, that we'll never know.

Arguments reconsidered: the possibility of containment
I once believed that containment -- sanctions, inspections, intelligence -- was an effective and preferable alternative to war. As I once argued against a war in Iraq,

A far saner course of action would be what we did with the Soviet Union: maintain vigilance, apply pressure, avoid war, and wait for the totalitarians to collapse.

I've come to believe that is false. First, a closer look at Saddam's history over the years convinces me there is little in common between today's confrontation with Iraq and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. First, Saddam is utterly unconstrained by other institutions within his country, in a way that even the Brezhnevs and Kosygins of the Soviet Union could only dream of; between the Politburo, the Red Army, the Soviet Navy, and the Communist Party, there were layers upon layers of control over nuclear weapons that Saddam could not afford to emulate.

More importantly, Saddam's track record is one of routine recklessness, including but not limited to***:

a conflict with Iran under Shah Reza Pahlavi, resulting in the loss of half of the valuable Shatt al-Arab waterway region.

the Iran-Iraq war itself, and actions during that war such as repeated missile attacks on Tehran -- when Baghdad was closer to the border and could be subjected to far worse retaliation.

invading Kuwait, despite taking American opposition into account.

remaining in Kuwait, despite an immense, months-long buildup of Allied forces in Saudi Arabia.

possibly attempting to carry out a biological attack on allied forces, despite the threat of nuclear retaliation.

mobilizing forces to the Kuwait border in 1994, thereby threatening to repeat the 1991 invasion.

Most importantly, there are Saddam's own words; according to an interview with Tariq Aziz (Pollack, p. 187), he claimed after the Gulf war that his biggest mistake was ... not to have had nuclear weapons when he invaded Kuwait. It's not that he's crazy; it's that he routinely doesn't understand what he's getting into. The same reign of terror that leaves him supreme over a quivering heap of underlings also leaves him supremely unquestioned and uninformed about the likely consequences of his actions. That being the case, Saddam is not deterrable in any conventional sense.

As I've mentioned before, Ken Pollack's book "The Threatening Storm" has been instrumental in changing my mind about this issue. It was not just persuasive in detailing Saddam's undeterrability. Pollack also marshalled a history that of what I call the "patient accumulation of failures" of U.N. sanctions on Iraq. Recall that until very lately, these peaceful but painful sanctions themselves were under attack by well-meaning but wrong-headed activists in the West: they were killing Iraqi babies, starving Iraqi children, ruining a country. In what I called a kind of moral jiu-jitsu, responsibility for these tribulations was shifted from Hussein to the Security Council and the United States.

Sanctions and containment must fail if the target country is intransigent, and important sanctioning countries, notably France, China, and Russia, secretly or openly undercut the very sanctions they've allowed to happen on the Security Council. If even economic sanctions were as politically smelly as they were allowed to become, there was little long term chance of them working, especially with an adversary demonstrably bent on procuring WMD.

If my new assessment of Hussein and Iraq is correct, then once he acquires nuclear weapons, it is only a matter of time before he tries to capitalize on them. He would attack Kuwait or Saudi Arabia again, gambling -- and this time with more justification -- that the United States would be loathe to start a nuclear war to stop him. We would then face a situation where either outcome is worse than a war with Iraq now would be: either Hussein enriches himself with additional oil fields, to finance additional weaponry with which to pursue new targets -- Israel, to be precise -- or, sooner or later, the United States opposes him in a far dirtier, deadlier, costlier war with nuclear weapons, either immediately or during the escalation of the conflict. This is my main reason for reluctantly supporting a war now to disarm and topple Hussein.

Arguments adopted: the plight of the Iraqi people
There's another reason to do so, of course: the reign of terror Saddam has committed against his own people. I haven't yet faced why this should have for so long been of less concern to me than it was with Bosnia or Kosovo, which routinely pulled me from apoplexy to weary disgust and back again.**** I'm afraid it was another case of "out of sight, out of mind."

But when I get to fretting too much about the rights and wrongs and laws and politics of it all, I'll be glad to focus on one thing: a reign of unspeakable evil will have come to an end, and that will be a fine, fine thing. Again, Ken Pollack (p. 123, The Threatening Storm):

This is a regime that will gouge out the eyes of children to force confessions from their parents and grandparents. This is a regime that will crush all of the bones in the feet of a two-year old girl to force her mother to divulge her father's whereabouts. This is a regime that will hold a nursing baby at arm's length from its mother and allow it to starve to death to force the mother to confess. This is a regime that will burn a person's limbs off to force him to confess or comply. This is a regime that will slowly lower its victims into huge vats of acid, either to break their will or simply as a means of execution. This is a regime that applies electric shocks to the bodies of its victims, particularly their genitals, with great creativity. This is a regime that in 2000 decreed that the crime of criticizing the regime ... would be punished by cutting out the offender's tongue. This is a regime that practices systematic rape against its female victims. This is a regime that will drag in a man's wife, daughter, or other female relative and repeatedly rape her in front of him. This is a regime that will force a white-hot metal rod into a person's anus or other orifices. This is a regime that employs thalium poisoning, widely considered to be one the most excruciating ways to die. This is a regime that will behead a young mother in the street in front of her house and children because her husband was suspected of opposing the regime. This is a regime that used chemical warfare on its own Kurdish citizens -- not just on the fifteen thousand killed and maimed at Halabja but on scores of other villages all across Kurdistan. This is a regime that tested chemical and biological warfare agents on Iranian prisoners of war, using the POWs in controlled experiments to determine the best ways to disperse the agents to inflict the greatest damage.

Who knows: maybe one or the other item in this list will turn out to be an exaggeration, a mistake, a lie. I'm guessing most won't. Good god-damned riddance to you, Saddam.

Questions unanswered
For many questions I have no answers but: come what may. The goals of toppling Saddam and disarming his regime must be accomplished, it will take a war to accomplish those goals, and that will be ugly and awful. I don't know how the war will go; it seems too much to hope that the war could go as well as those in 1991, in Kosovo, and in Afghanistan went. The relative ease of those wars is a source of both pride and unease; this is not something to get so good at. Given the likely urban warfare, it may not go so well. I'm uneasy about the "Shock and Awe" strategy I've read about, but to call it carpet bombing misses the mark if cruise missiles and guided bombs are involved. The question of the occupation and rebuilding of Iraq is of course paramount, it will be the whole point. It must happen, it must be planned for, it must be done right, it will be expensive, and there's a lot that can go wrong: that's all that I can say about it. But uncertainties about the post-war phase don't have a bearing on whether the war itself is necessary.

Respect, for some
Perhaps illogically, in view of the above, I remain (in principle) respectful of some anti-war positions. My own position mainly comes from weighing one set of hard-to-quantify risks against another, and finding -- given good faith and partly successful attempts to gain international approval -- in favor of a relatively small war now compared to a possibly much larger war later. I can understand how others might not arrive at the same conclusion, or how their principles could prevent them from adopting the recourse of war even if they accept that conclusion.

The world is not what it should be; the right solution to the Iraqi crisis either demands the realism of a soldier or the idealism of a peace activist. Either choice brings danger and sorrow with it: peace means continued repression now, and may well mean a greater war later; war means death and destruction now, and untold unwanted consequences later. At this point, either choice may be plausibly claimed to accelerate WMD proliferation elsewhere in the world. I don't see how anyone can be anything but regretful, anxious, and uncertain about what lies ahead.

That said, I think the French and Germans have misused their positions as friends and allies. Were they in imminent danger because of the war, that might be different, but they are not. Were they in a position to propose and implement a practical alternative on their own, that might different, but they are not. Instead, they block measures of self-defense for a country, Turkey, which is directly affected. They craft plans which appear to leave the United States holding the bag of a long-term military alert for tens of thousands of its troops, assigned to a long-distance defense of a relative handful of (likely) European UN troops assigned to guard a continuing farcical inspection which has already served its purpose: to display Iraqi non-cooperation. And they join self-satisfied fools like Donald Rumsfeld in tearing down a relationship between nations, and increasingly between peoples, that took decades to develop. The net result will be the opposite of what they want: Saddam -- convinced he still has a chance -- will hold out, and there will be war.

On the other hand, I oppose attempts to silence or shame American citizens (or citizens of any country) against the coming war, from tearing down a lawn sign, to failing to allow a protest march to take place, to tarring a rally's participants with the immaterial views of the organizers who sign the permit papers. Americans should always "err" on the side of free expression and free speech; we should try to hear and respect eachother, and not try to find picayune reasons not to. That applies to the anti-war side as well, by the way.

Good luck to us all, particularly to the innocents among the Iraqi people, to the American and allied and even most Iraqi soldiers caught in the middle of the storm, and to all of us in this country who will be joining a "home front" whether we like it or not.

As inconsistency appears to be the hallmark of my creed, I'll compound it: with a non-believer's prayer for all of us, and all of them, to any god who will accept it.

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* I emphatically part ways with some writers in that I continue to regard biological and chemical weapons as part and parcel of the WMD issue. As I wrote a while back, they're quite massive enough for me. As has become clear during the inspections farce currently underway in Iraq, they also serve as a useful measuring stick: Iraq's actions in hiding "mere" chemical or biological weapons does not augur well at all for its forthrightness about nuclear weapons development.
** The other difference, of course, is called "Seoul with 12,000 artillery pieces held to its head."
*** --Invasion of Kuwait: The Glaspie incident is cited by many as proof either that Saddam got a green light, or that we knew he was going to attack. Neither is the case. Many have seized on Glaspie's statement that "...we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait." But to not have an opinion on the precise location of a dotted line on a map was not to say that dotted line shouldn't exist. Following her meeting with Saddam, Glaspie miscommunicated his position to Washington; the title of her July 25, 1990 cable to the State Department was "Saddam's Message of Peace" (Pollack, p.34); Pollack and others read the opposite message between the lines of the interview, but Glaspie's interpretation prevailed. Saddam attacked Kuwait on August 2nd. It's clear Saddam expected to be opposed; he simply assumed the opposition would be token and that Americans would not stomach the casualties involved. Republican Guard units created beach defenses immediately after the invasion. Here is a PBS Frontline account of the buildup to the Gulf War. Incidentally, Saddam threatened the U.S. during the interview as follows: "We cannot come all the way to you in the United States, but individual Arabs may reach you."
--Bioweapons attack: An unconfirmed CIA report stated that an Iraqi plane with characteristic drop tanks, modified to spray biological weapons, was shot down along with its two escort planes before it could carry out the attack (Pollack, p.264). Pollack discounts the report as unconfirmed, but obviously thinks the possibility is worth mentioning. Saddam did move chemical weapons into the battlefield vicinity of Kuwait; he may simply have been prevented from using them by the rout that was Desert Storm.
--Saddam statement: Pollack, p.187; according to the source Pollack cites, a LANL Center for National Security Studies report, Saddam also said he should have continued into Saudi Arabia.
**** In a long-ago "DC Blogfest", the issue came up: Jim Henley, in the course of denouncing American policy about Iraq, threw in Kosovo for good measure, as he did again recently. Henley is a principled person, and I respect him for that, but to let your principles lock you into opposing the Kosovo intervention -- after a near-decade of Serbian rapine and murder throughout the Balkans -- is to be a slave to some principles while ignoring others I'm confident Henley shares. It is, frankly, a kind of blindness of its own to focus on mistakes, lies, whatever the 100,000 Kosovo dead report turns out to be, but ignore the larger truth that Milosevic and his Serbian thugocracy were guilty of mass murders and torments quite bad enough to justify the fear that more might well be in the offing. To Clinton's enduring credit (and, yes, to Schroeder's and Fischer's less enduring credit as well), the larger truth the transatlantic community spoke in Kosovo was that even 1 or 10 or 100 more was finally, finally, finally enough.


UPDATE, 11/5/2004: By the summer of 2004, the absence of WMD and the poorly waged occupation forced me to re-evaluate. Many arguments above remain forceful to me, given that I didn't know then what I know now. But some do not. I haven't fully worked out how I'd respond to this item now, but some starts are here:
A reassessment -- This was simply a 'full disclosure' item; I'll update it if I post fuller reevaluations than these:
1) False premises
2) A screwed up war

posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:31:00 PM -- |    

 

Stalin gave Norway crabs
...and Norway might decide to keep them. According to the Asia Times ("Stalin's red legacy: crabs"), supreme eco-engineer of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin ordered the transfer of a population of giant Kamchatka crabs from that region to the Barents Sea near Murmansk. The crabs thrived, and are making their way around the Scandinavian peninsula. Norwegian fishery officials are torn between preserving the original ecosystem (the crabs are probably feasting on fish eggs) and taking advantage of a lucrative new cash crop:

Although Norway's cod stocks, for now, represent a far more valuable economic resource than the crabs, that could change in the future. Meat from the so-called Kamchatka crabs is a high-priced delicacy that can retail for $100 per kilo. With each individual crab weighing some 10 kilograms, it is easy to see how visions of a "crab-meat bonanza" are pushing some officials to call for viewing the maritime invaders as a precious resource to be managed - not suppressed.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 6:01:00 PM -- |    

 

Mobile bioweapons labs confirmed by German intelligence last November
Most of an article by Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff in the current issue of "Die Zeit" is concerned with the alleged politicization of American intelligence by the Wolfowitz cabal at the Pentagon. But at the end of "The Pentagon-Puzzle", Kleine-Brockhoff writes:

It will be the job of the Bundesnachrichtendienst [BND - German intelligence agency] to test the seriousness of the American arguments. The BND has its own sources in Iraq for years. On November 13, 2002, BND chief August Hanning informed the foreign affairs committee of the Bundestag (German Congress) about what he knew. He confirmed some American fears and added his own findings. According to him, the mobile bioweapons laboratories exist today. Individual parts were supplied by German companies -- declared as agricultural equipment. The [Iraqi] regime possesses unmanned drones with which to spray bio- or chemical weapons [German: "Kampfstoffe"] over wide areas. The BND estimates that Saddam Hussein is hoarding several hundred tons of [such weapons].

The representatives were shocked. What they learned has been kept from public until today, because the parliamentarians were sworn to secrecy in November. If the Americans have presented their findings, it's high time that the [German] federal government follows suit and gives its intelligence service at least some limited ability to speak freely. It will want to avoid the suspicion of using intelligence agency findings just as politically as the war party in Washington does. In Berlin, the abuse would be to keep silent.

There are hints of even more shocking German intelligence from this hearing. According to a recent Der Spiegel article ("Opposition: Government should reveal BND information about Iraq"), opposition foreign affairs speaker Friedbert Pflüger (CDU) asked

...how many strains of smallpox Iraq possesses. He drew attention to the fact that German health minister Ulla Schmidt (SPD) referred to the [November 13 BND] briefing in a budget committee to justify the acquisition of smallpox vaccine. The German federal government would not be buying hundreds of millions of Euros worth of vaccine if there was nothing to fear.

Last but not least, there's the small matter of nuclear weapons. Among the many items in "The Threatening Storm" that changed my point of view from anti-war to wavering between undecided and pro-war was this one:

The German intelligence service, using methods it won't divulge, estimated in 2001 that Iraq was three to six years from having a nuclear weapon.*

Applying Murphy's Law** to that estimate puts nuclear weapons in Hussein's hands in a year or two. Powell's report last week suggests to me there's little reason to feel the inspections would appreciably slow the process.

Frankly, I'm no longer inclined to wait and see. And needless to say, if the German government has hidden concrete information about Iraqi smallpox from the American government, we should recall our ambassador, and theirs should be kicked out of Washington, D.C., tomorrow. I imagine they may not know for sure, and were acting on general principles, i.e., "mobile bioweapons labs possibly imply smallpox development." At least, that's what I hope.


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* Author Ken Pollack cites Reuven Pedharetz, of the Israeli paper Ha'aretz as a source. Here is a reprint of the article. A public document provided at the BND web site, "Proliferation von Massenvernichtungsmitteln und Traegerraketen" (Proliferation of WMD and carrier rockets), makes no such claims, but is a good overview of the problem of WMD (weapons of mass destruction) proliferation.

UPDATE, 3/4: I got the name wrong, it's Reuven Pedatzur, a professor at Tel Aviv University as well as defense writer for Ha'aretz. Also, the "reprint" link indicated above no longer works. Searching the Ha'aretz archive may work better for you than it has for me, but would cost you some small sum to use. I've found a copy of a February 27, 2002 article here; for future reference, the title is "German intelligence and the Iraqi threat." It refers to "an almost identical report a year ago," which may account for it tightening the time frame from the "three to six years" Pollack cites for the 2001 report to "within three years."
** Convenient German translation provided. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:41:00 PM -- |    

 

Project Mirage
The Iraq plot thickens with a German-French initiative that apparently really is called "Project Mirage." Chirac and Schroeder will seek UN approval of a plan to vastly increase the number of inspectors and provide them with armed guards. According to the Der Spiegel cover story (payment required):

High German and French officials have been holding secret talks to develop their own plan: it involves installing a disarmament regime in Iraq protected by thousands of soldiers. No doubt: it would humiliate Saddam, but it is not intended to remove him as Washington and London plan to do.

However, his weapons of mass destruction would be removed -- under international supervision. "Mirage IV" reconnaissance aircraft, offered by France's foreign minister to the UN Security Council, would circle in the air space over Baghdad. With "Project Mirage," the old Europeans are seeking a victory without bullets.

Because for the first time, and therein lies the new quality of the plan, armed international peacekeeper troops would march into Iraq. These elite units would have to wear the blue helmet of the United Nations, and their task would be to militarily guarantee that the work of the inspectors could proceed. [...]

The American mobilization is required by the plan - as a threat. The 150,000 U.S. soldiers stationed around Irak would stay in place, firrst to force and then to protect the peaceful invasion by the "blue helmets."

The outlines of the French and German plans can already be recognized:

The number of inspectors on the ground would be at least tripled from the current 100.

French reconnaissance jets, equipped with special surveillance cameras, would reconnoitre the country together with the German "Luna Drone" and the American U-2 spy plane.

Iraqi military planes would only be permitted to fly after registering with international officals -- the northern and southern no-fly zones would be extended to the whole country and would be formally legalized by teh United Nations.

A central headquarters in Iraq would lead the inspections. There might be a United Nations "permanent coordinator", who would directly supervise the disarmament of the Saddam regime.

A tight net of sanctions would ensure that the dictator would be immediately punished for any transgression -- but not the starving populace. This would include agreements with neighboring states against the customary oil smuggling and tightening export controls in the industrialized world.

In addition, a special United Nations court for Iraq would also punish human rights violations and U.N. resolutions violations.

Iraq would practically become a protectorate of the United Nations. Thousands of blue helmeted soldiers representing the United Nations could possibly control the country, accompany the inspectors, set up road blocks and investigate suspicious transports. Saddam would only be the nominal ruler of his country. More flexible politicians like Vice Minister President Tariq Aziz would, so the thinking goes, gain influence.

All of this would not just last for a few weeks or months, but perhaps for many years. If Saddams regime were to "implode" because of such restrictions, that would be "approvingly accepted" -- but in contrast to American hardliners, this would not be the primary purpose of the exercise.

If the international community approved Project Mirage, it could be both a path to peace or a path to war. If Saddam Hussein were to block the entry of the U.N. troops following a Security Council resolution, it would be clear: now it's the Americans' turn.

Der Spiegel reports that Russian, Chinese, and Greek (Greece is currently holding the E.U. presidency) officials have been informed of the plan and have reacted positively. It also reports that the idea can be seen as a version of an idea floated by U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte during the negotiations to Security Council resolution 1441, which provides the authority for the current UNMOVIC inspections in Iraq. Both Hans Blix and German officials were not enthused about the idea at that time -- Blix did not want to be seen as the head of an invasion -- but it was mainly vetoed by American military experts. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy is said to have predicted a "Black Hawk Down" scenario. Spiegel writers do allow that all bets are off if the Al Qaeda -- Saddam link bears out after all, with evidence stronger than the waypoints of Al Qaeda leader Sarqawi's journey from Afghanistan to his Ansar-Il-Islam Kurdish group via Baghdad.

To me much of this seems like an attractive idea, but it also seems like a long shot. One problem I see is that Saddam will seize this chance to dicker with the French and Germans about the details of their plan -- and that they'll be so eager for the plan to be adopted that they'll concede to ever-smaller numbers of inspectors and troops, and ever greater restrictions on their freedom of movement. More to the point, we got to the present state of affairs because of the failure to contain Iraq since the Gulf War -- a failure consistently aided and abetted by France. Even if they have got some weak religion now, the odds are good they'll backslide later. I'd also strongly prefer American soldiers with cocked rifles under American command backing up inspections, not, say, Dutch soldiers under U.N. command who would just as soon avoid a fight if the going gets tough. It's happened before.

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UPDATE: Steve Den Beste points out that keeping 150,000 American troops ready for action to save UN blue helmets can't be done for long. He has a variety of other objections to the plan as well, but considers it diplomatically effective. Upshot: certainly no pro-U.S-invasion Security Council resolution now.

UPDATE 2, Monday AM: Not so fast, say France and foreign minister Joschka Fischer. Spiegel now reports that France denies the plan(!), and that Fischer is apparently extremely unhappy about it; he wasn't consulted about releasing the information, and had a shouting match with Schroeder about it over the weekend. Thanks to "RobertNAtl" for the news, via Bild. posted by Thomas Nephew at 5:18:00 AM -- |    

 

Newsrack weekend grab bag

Those bad boys from Huawei Technologies, of Shenzhen, China have apparently been at it again. First noted in these pages for selling high-tech communications equipment to Iraq, they now face a lawsuit by American communications equipment heavyweight Cisco Systems. Cisco Systems charges that Huawei has been ripping off Cisco designs wholesale -- right down to manuals copied word-for-word, and bugs identical to those in Cisco's proprietary "IOS" operating system. This suggests a whole new way to undo Saddam: create buggy American technology, sell it to the Chinese, and let nature take its course. "Anti-aircraft sites reporting all clear, Your Immensity!"

Aziz Poonawalla was riding high in his SUV lately, and should be answered presently. It seems to me both he and the good folks at Reason have focused -- of necessity -- on Gregg Easterbrook's less important points in that writer's (not-so-)recent "Axle of Evil" piece for The New Republic. Yes, Gregg makes some stupid points, e.g., pretty soon more drivers schooled in the gentle arts of Third World car driving will be acquiring SUVs in America. The real points against SUVs are that they deserve none of the free regulatory ride they've been getting, and they are a disproportionate danger to *other* drivers on the road. Easterbrook may have padded his article with atmospherics about intimidating design and so forth, but I suspect even here he's got a point, just not one that is easily verified. I would bet that you'd find SUV drivers are consuming their sense of collision safety with more aggressive driving habits, rather than simply reveling in Junior's added safety back there in his child seat. But I wouldn't know how you could go about proving it. I just feel like I see it on a daily basis.

I updated my item about the Columbia and manned space exploration with an e-mail from Mr. Kevin Drum. Kevin pointed out that he wrote that he felt skeptical of manned space exploration before the accident, and thus wasn't using the accident as an excuse. My apologies. Regarding the manned space program, I can agree with Charles Krauthammer ("It's time to dream higher") that the shuttle and space station by themselves are not an adequate space program; for the expense and risk involved, I'd much rather see real space exploration and colonization, of the moon or Mars for starters. I continue to believe that humans will be a critical part of the science and the politics of space and planetary exploration, so I believe there must remain an American manned space program.

Longtime readers may have noticed a small redesign on the left. I've added a new "blogs elsewhere" list, featuring the well-known Bjorn Staerk of Norway and "Salam Pax" of Iraq, as well as the perhaps less well-known but equally engaging "Miranda," a Russian Jewish woman living in Munich, and Gil Shterzer and one Ms. Imshin of Israel. Welcome aboard! I'll be looking for more world bloggers from time to time; of necessity, I'm restricted to blogs written in English and German, a topic that came up recently. I don't actually disagree with Bjorn that much about the need for more English communication from European bloggers. As I commented,

I'd modify Bjorn's challenge to suggest that more German bloggers [...] post comments in English-language blogs, possibly with back-links to an English post on their own blog.

A less visible change is on the "archive" page, where I've added a few "selected posts", but mainly a "thank you list" of some of the folks who've been good enough to include me on their list of links, and the best I can do for now in "trackbacks" to people who've linked to selected items of mine.

Received a "reciprocal linkage" request, i.e., "I'll link to your blog if you link to mine"; no, thank you. Either you like what I write about and how I write it, and you link to my site, or you don't. For my part, all four quadrants of the "like/dislike your writing" and "link/don't link to your site" can occur; I'm looking for a combination of reasonably good writing and a reasonable breadth of views about politics in my list of links. I'll confess I'm disappointed when I get "de-linked," i.e., no longer featured on someone's list of interesting blogs, but I recognize that sooner or later, everyone will certainly find more interesting writing and/or more that they agree with elsewhere.

At any rate, thank you, dear readers, for reading this blog from time to time.

posted by Thomas Nephew at 12:13:00 AM -- |