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ARMAGEDDON?

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REITERATION

9 August 1945, US detonation of the 'Fat Man' bomb over Nagasaki.
Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

 

Networked media have been central to The Stop the War Coalition, since its formation in 2001. Amongst other things, the network has ensured a significant degree of success in mobilising the anti-war demonstrations I referred to in my earlier post 'QUIT STARING AT MY NAVEL' v3.0. Networked communication is again likely to bring millions of protestors together offline in their next organised national demonstration on 24 February, to, in its words, 'oppose Tony Blair's plans for new weapons of mass destruction in Britain and to call for the immediate withdrawal of the British army from Iraq'. But this latest demonstration testifies that networks of collaborative knowledge and information exchange online and offline have been unsuccessful thus far in swaying the leaders of The Start the War Coalition away from, as some would have it, their 'illegal war'...Though how one, and who, would define a 'legal war' escapes me. But as Jack Shafer concludes, 'we owe it to this prodigious new communications form not to demand too much too soon' [Slate, 26 January 2005].

A free and peaceful world continues far from our reach. A redundant statement perhaps. I'd prefer to call it a reiteration. Warning: Free speech may constitute serious organised crime in Britain these days. The arrest of Walter Wolfgang under the Terrorism Act made me fear this back in September 2005. Now, according to The Guardian, on 20 December 2006, the British high court ruled against the appeal made by Mark Barrett, Steve Bloom, Chris Coverdale, Maya Anne Evans, Maria Gallastegui, Brian Haw, Milan Rai, Emma Sangster, Aqil Shaer, Alwyn Simpson, Caroline Simpson and Prasanth Visweswaran against criminalisation under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which 'limits freedom of expression and assembly'. It was for demonstrating against this act in the vicinity of Parliament that this group was arrested. Maya Anne Evans, for instance, was 'arrested opposite Downing Street for reading, without police authorisation, the names of Iraqis and British solders killed in Iraq' [The Guardian Unlimited, 21 December 2006]. Still the US topped the prize for the 10 most outrageous civil liberties violations of 2006. And Amnesty's latest 'Call to Bloggers' to stand up for freedom of speech reminds us that there is no remission for online activism. Yes, we're no China. But no buts. We're in the EU after all.

Back in October 2006, David Brown of The Washington Post reported that 'a team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimate[d] that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred'. That's not a total of 655,000 people that have died in Iraq since 2003. That's a surplus of 655,00 more deaths than these epidemiologists estimate would have occurred under the old regime. Of course this figure does not include the supposedly 'pre-war years' in Iraq - UNICEF attributes 500,000 deaths from poor nutrition and health care to U.N. economic sanctions on Iraq alone during the 1990s [Gerard Alexander, 'A Lifesaving War', The Weekly Standard, 29 March 2004]. And let's not mention Guantánamo.

With all this in mind, Reuters' New Year's Eve headlines about the www.icasualties.org latest count of 3,000 US military fatalities since 2003 pale by comparison. Even if, as of today, 3,254 coalition troops have died. Back in 2004, 'estimating how many lives have been saved by a tyrant's overthrow [may have been] as messy and hypothetical as projecting how many will be lost in a [continuing] war', on balance and with some bipartisan amnesia, we may have still been able to considered it to be 'A Lifesaving War' [Gerard Alexander, 'A Lifesaving War', The Weekly Standard, 29 March 2004]. Today, if we go by estimates made by the Human Rights Watch alone about the number of deaths attributed to, as Keth Roth called it, 'Saddam's Heinous Reign' [The Globe and Mail, 18 July 2003], the Coalition's 'heniousness' is clearly greater.

Yet, Jonathan Steele comments in The Guardian, that what the Iraqi Study Group Report published in December 2006 by The United States Institute for Peace 'proposes is essentially a continuation of what Bush is already doing - trying to reduce US deaths by moving troops out of the front line while avoiding any commitment to a full US withdrawal.'

TODAY'S MATHS HOMEWORK: THE LIFE OF 1 US SOLDIER = XXX IRAQI LIVES?

Those early predictions of the winding up of the post-9/11 neoconservative revolution, following the Democracts Congressional win in November 2006, now seem 'quite inflated'.

As much as John Prescott may deem Saddam Hussein's execution 'deplorable' [quoted in The Guardian, 3 January 2007], we HAVE 'helped to officiate a human sacrifice' [Christopher Hitchens, Slate, 2 January 2007]. Though I'm against capital punishment, this here is not my protest against it. Thinking we have the right to tell other nations what to believe is what started many as yet unprosecuted warcrimes. It's about a 'dictator created then destroyed by America', whose trial and execution had less to do with justice than 'trying to justify an illegal war after the event', and everything to do with the Coalition's plight to 'reshape Iraq as a neo-liberal's and corporate lobbyist's wet-dream', for similar ends to those of the British Empire's Mesopotamian Campaign. As the 'girl blogger from Iraq' rightly asks: 'So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?' [Riverbend, 31 December 2006].

'Our complicity dies with [Saddam Hussein]' [Robert Fisk, The Independent, 31 December 2006].

Prominent Iraqi bloggers are so far divided on the execution. But to add insult to capital punishment, according to a report by The Iraq Center for Research and Strategic Studies (ICRSS), 90% of the now 'free people of Iraq' think the country was better under Saddam's dictatorship [United Press International, 29 December 2006]. For those amongst you with time, interest and perversity, the 'Department of Defense Quarterly Report on Stability and Security in Iraq: The Warning Indicators' and the report on 'Iraq’s Sectarian and Ethnic Violence and the Evolving Insurgency', both published in December 2006 by ICRSS' parent, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, make grim reading. Alternatively, for a few more quick, 'hard statistics' on the Iraq war, click here...

CULTURAL ICONOGRAPHY

As part cultural student, I'm interested in the ways a culture's visual iconography bolsters our 'systems of opinions', as Ilan Shalif calls them. So let's muse briefly on some of Iraq's national iconography. Let's start with that neo-liberal Deo Optimo Maximo - money. That Saddam no longer appears on the 10000 dinars Iraqi bank note as he did back in 2002 is to be expected, but the replacement of this Sunni dictator on 10000 dinars Iraqi bank notes in 2003 by Abū ‘Alī al-Haṣan ibn al-Haṣan ibn al-Haytham (or as the Latin world knows him, Alhazen) is interesting. Born in Basra under the Buwayhids Shi'a Muslim dynasty, Alhazen is certainly a fitting icon for the new, 'democratically-elected', predominantly Shi'a-led, Iraqi Government. A curious outcome, the coordination of which by the Coalition smacks more of the caliphate system of leadership than the Shi'a doctrine of Imamah. Iraq's new government also reverts the long-term countering of the influence of the Shi'a majority in Iraq, by the placing of Sunni Muslims in positions of government, first by the Ottomans and subsequently by the British Empire, post its dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Moving beyond religious factions and symbolism, as an Islamic mathematician, astronomer, and physicist, who made significant contributions to our knowledge of optics and the use of scientific experiments generally, Alhazen is a fitting icon for the new interests in technological and economic advancement in Iraq. This was all nicely rounded off , when The Alhazen crater on the Moon was named in his honour by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), during the International Year of Physics in 2005. Though Iraq itself is not a national member of the IAU, as yet.

 

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10000 dinars Iraqi bank note (2002)
Courtesy: banknotes.com

10000 dinars Iraqi bank note (2003)
Courtesy: banknotes.com

 

Let's muse on another piece of cultural iconography. The long-term Iraqi Coat of Arms, now logo of the new Iraqi Government website, and that quintessential emblem of US prowess, The Great Seal, share the same occult symbol of the Golden Eagle. On a symbolic level, it may testify to the interconnectedness of both cultures. Actually, the Iraqi Coat of Arms reputedly dates back to the time of Saladin in the Twelth Century, a Sunni Muslim general and warrior who led the Muslim invasions of Jerusalem during The Crusades, until defeated by Richard I of England at the Battle of Arsuf in 1191. The Treaty of Ramla in 1192 concretised the agreement between Saladin and Richard I for Jerusalem to remain under Muslim control but open to Christian worshippers, limiting the Christian Kingdom to a geopolitical coastal strip from Tyre to Jaffa. The Sunni Coat of Arms now seems out of place as that most patriotic of all cultural symbols of Iraq, whether its an emblem of a new, predominantly Shi'a Iraqi government or that of a 'free and democratic Iraq' - its symbolism strikes right at the core of religious warfare and Imperialism in the Middle East.

 

LEFT: Iraqi Coat of Arms - courtesy: Wikipedia Commons; RIGHT: US Great Seal - courtesy: Wikipedia Commons

 

I have already insinuated what to me seems the complicity and hypocrisy of both US and Coalition nations. This is the hinge on which all the above hangs. Whether or not Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons is not beside the point. It is the point. As the image of the US detonation of the plutonium bomb over Nagasaki in 1945 (3 days after dropping the nuclear weapon "Little Boy" on Hiroshima) reminds starkly, the US are as yet the ONLY nation to have used nuclear weapons against another nation. Some 74,000 people were killed, and another 75,000 wounded. The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), opened for signature in 1968, is generally characterised as ensuring non-proliferation, disarmament, and the right to the peaceful use of nuclear technology [Ambassador Sudjadnan Parnohadiningrat, Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, United Nations, 26 April 2004]. The map below shows a world map of nuclear weapons development status as of 31 October 2006.

 

 

download high-resolution image from Wikimedia Commons

World map of nuclear weapons development status as of 31 October 2006, represented by color. ██ Five "nuclear weapons states" from the NPT ██ Other known nuclear powers ██ States formerly possessing nuclear weapons ██ States suspected of being in the process of developing nuclear weapons and/or nuclear programs ██ States which at one point had nuclear weapons and/or nuclear weapons research programs ██ States that claim to possess nuclear weapons

 

In the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2000, the 5 nuclear weapons states under the NPT promised an '"unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapons States to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals...." [and] "early entry into force and full implementation of START II [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II]' [David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, September 2000]. Nevertheless, at the end of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at the UN in 2005, no progress was achieved. Concern about the continuing proliferation of weapons at the conference centred primarily on United States-NATO nuclear weapons sharing, but by then the 2004 U.S. Congressional Report showing U.S. and U.K. Dominate Arms Deliveries to the Developing World had already emphasised that proliferation is much more insidious and widespread. In terms of nuclear disarmament, the British government's White Paper on Trident's replacement alone, published in December 2006, attests to wider disinterest in abiding by the terms of the NPT.

So let me rhetorically reiterate the question that I've already iterated and gone some way to answering: why did, how could, Coalition forces invade Iraq under the ruse of the danger of Saddam's uncorroborated nuclear development? But 'rogue states' and all that. Yet, the World Tribunal on Iraq concluded that, 'Blatant falsehoods about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and a link between Al Qaeda terrorism and the Saddam Hussein régime were manufactured in order to create public support for a “preemptive” assault upon a sovereign independent nation' [Declaration Of Jury Of Conscience, World Tribunal On Iraq, Istanbul 23 -27 June 2005]. North Korea and Iran now loom on our horizon. 

POLITICISATION AND PARTICIPATION

As part of my new efforts to re-politicise myself, I wangled a ticket to BBC's Question Time on 5 October 2006 at Bournemouth University, UK. David Dimbleby was joined by Hazel Blears MP, Oliver Letwin MP, Baroness Williams, editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop and the novelist and columnist Sandra Howard aka Mrs. Michael Howard. In light of the four-year build up to North Korea’s nuclear development and the (then) recent announcement by the foreign ministry in Pyongyang of the nation's imminent first nuclear weapon’s test (which North Korea later claimed it had successfully conducted on the 9 October), I wanted to ask the panel whether transparency over the UK’s and the US’ own responsibility for nuclear proliferation wasn’t long overdue. Following QT protocol - every audience member writes down 2 questions to ask the panel before the beginning of the show; only one audience question chosen on one single topic - my question was usurped. But the chosen audience question led to a more pertinent, impromptu question by another member of the audience: ‘How can we condemn other countries developing nuclear programmes (either weapons or civilian) when we’re about to embark on renewing our own nuclear weapons?' [BBC Question Time, 5 October 2006] . David Dimbleby curiously passed this question to Sandra Howard who, shyly, asked whether she could 'leave the question' [BBC Question Time, 5 October 2006]. And that was that. Several people raised their hands at this point - mine was as high as I could get it, whilst hanging loosely to decorum - but the topic was glided over. [A full podcast of the show is available on the Question Time website].

Browsing through QT's website, however, we get some semblance of the power of networked communication. In 'What you've said' - a section of the QT website where people can upload responses to audience questions during a particular show, in this case BBC Question Time in Bournemouth - people commented on the original audience question that spurred the question above. Then something occurred that emphasised the power of networked communication even more sharply for me. On the following week's BBC Question Time in Glasgow, hypocrisy around nuclear arms was this time raised by an audience question: 'Why do countries holding nuclear arms think they have the right to tell other nations they shouldn't have any?'. David Dimbleby followed this up by stating, '[we] had more of this question on emails – people wanting this question raised more than any other subject' [BBC Question Time, 12 October 2006]. There. The two-way power of networked communication.

 

Watch how Vera Baird MP, Alan Duncan MP, Nicola Sturgeon MSP, Tommy Sheridan and Clive Anderson dealt with that one...

Read 'What you've said' on that question....

The audience of Question Time is marginal; the programme's influence marginal. But for a few minutes I visualised how online activism may be worthwhile; in its slow, chipping away at the facade that few still believe, one that continues erect but may some day disintegrate; in its reiteration.

This post was power by networked communication. I've also submitted this post to the CEMP Interactive Media Community, where it has stimulated a good discussion on the potentials for (and value of) online activism.

 

INACTION, REACTION, REINACTION

image: a beautiful piece of Fifth HOPE Artwork

How frequently active should an activist be? In a fast-paced Autumn term my newly regenerated activism has fallen by the waist side. Irony. I imagine that's the way of most good intentions online and offline. I continue to fall into the 9% of Jakob Nielsen participation inequality trajectory. But I expected lapses to happen. I don't do New Year's resolutions. But in the midst of that climate of naive hope that always marks the first days of a new year for me, and a little time on my side before the Spring term kicks off, I will not be deflated.

The unanswerable question is really how frequently should a blogger blog for it to matter? I'll settle for making contributions when the striking of the muse and time coincide.