John Brown: How the World Will See the Surge

[marmar]

from CommonDreams:


Published on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
How the World Will See the Surge
by John Brown

There has been much press commentary in recent days concerning the administration’s planned surge of American soldiers in Iraq. According to The New York Times, this “rapid influx of forces … could add as many as 20,000 American combat troops to Baghdad.” The domestic consequences of what some media are calling a military escalation have been widely analyzed.

But US pundits, reflecting our widespread national assumption that Iraq is essentially about ourselves, have not sufficiently commented on the possible international reactions to the President’s latest initiative overseas. Below are speculations, based on what polls and foreign media have been saying about the U.S. in recent years, about how some public opinion abroad, taken as a composite, will look at this latest Bush foreign-policy move.

1. The surge is yet another expression of US unilateralism. The Americans do what they want when and how they want, no matter what non-Americans -- including Iraqis -- think. They are not bothering to get international support or approval for their surge. The rest of the world be damned.

2. The Americans say one thing and do another. They proclaim peace as their goal in the Middle East but use military force whenever things don’t go their way. While they love to boast about their wholesome values, they brutally kill innocent civilians in Baghdad neighborhoods in a surge to restore “stability.” Their public diplomacy, whatever they say it is, is no more than blatant, hypocritical propaganda.

3. Elections in the U.S. don’t really matter. Americans in November didn’t vote for more troops in Baghdad, but their president is doing precisely that. The so-called opposition party in the U.S. is just part of an American imperialistic system that wants to dominate the rest of the planet, including its oil reserves, and that allows the White House carte blanche in carrying out aggressive military operations like the surge anywhere, any time.

4. The U.S. is under the control of an anti-Muslim, anti-Arab lobby. The White House is in fact controlled by a coterie of ideologues that wants to redraw the map of the Middle East in favor of Israel. The surge is their latest effort to accomplish this.

5. The American international media, both private and US government-supported, are not to be trusted. Their coverage of American military actions, with its traditional neglect of civilian victims, will try to show the surge in the best of lights. As for USG-funded outlets like Alhurra, they don’t offer the real news. For more accurate reports, better to turn to the BBC or Al Jazeera. .....(more)

The rest of the article is at: http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0109-24.htm

[RaleighNCDUer]

1. I guess I should just give up and move to Europe -

because I basically agree with all ten conclusions.

[marmar]

2. You and me both.

Parlez-vous francais? Sprechen sie Deutsch?

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. I was raised as a brat, so yes

ich sprache ein bischen Deutsch, y yo hablo un poco de espanol, tambien.

All I can say in French is "I don't speak French" (and I have no idea how to spell it out).

[wishlist]

4. There has been almost total absence of debate about reaction to 'surge'

Seems likely that escalation will not only lead to more casualties but by sending wrong message about U.S. as occupiers indefinitely seems likely to cause more sectarian violence and incite radical Islamists to more terrorism.