Three days of war and Bush is losing control of 'Allied' Turkish forces?

Saturday events: St. Paul pro and anti-war rallies at the Capitol, NOON. Many politicians will be there. Then a rally at Macalester College Campus Center, 1:30 PM. Then a march down Summit and up Grand at 2 PM. The weather looks promising. Further local protest info at Twin Cities Indymedia. I will put my photos up here sometime quick.

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A most crucial event is occurring in north Iraq as thousands of Turkish troops invade Iraqi Kurdistan, against the adamant wishes of the Bush Administration. I heard a Turkish MP on BBC radio tonight. He was talking about smacking down "5000 terrorists," referring to Kurdish troublemakers who have killed thousands of Turks in an unstable quest for some kind of self-rule, in between genocidal conflicts with the Iraqi army. Generally Kurds don't like Saddam and the Ba'ath Party, but they hate the Turks for their massive scorched-earth attacks on their villages and cities in the days of the northern 'no-fly' zone. As one correspondent was saying, with the different Kurdish factions, the mysterious 'al-Qaeda affiliated' 'Ansar al-Islam,' the Iranians and their Shi'a crew, the venerably barbaric Turkish Army on the march, and a few confused Americans, it will be like 'waiting for a pin to drop' until some utter madness breaks out in the area. So much for keeping things with north Iraq under control.

The quasi-governmental Egyptian weekly paper Al-Ahram has some fantastic pieces about the emerging tragic puzzle in Iraq. With the banner headline 'The Gates of Hell,' Hani Shukrallah struggles with the consequences of this new war for his region:

An illegal war waged in blatant violation of the UN Charter and of international law; a war against which 30 million people throughout the world have already demonstrated before a single shot is fired on streets from Los Angeles to Tokyo; a war to which opinion polls in virtually all the world's nations, with the exception of the US and Israel, have produced a definitive 'no' -- how can such a war be recorded except in infamy? And this, before the body count.

In 'The other America,' the excellent Edward Said talks about the conflict within the United States, which is hardly the 'monolith' it often seems:

I think it is more accurate to apprehend America as embroiled in a serious clash of identities whose counterparts are visible as similar contests throughout the rest of the world. America may have won the Cold War, as the popular phrase has it, but the actual results of that victory within America are very far from clear, the struggle not yet over. Too much of a focus on the American executive's centralising military and political power ignores the internal dialectics that continue and are nowhere near being settled.

Amr Moussa, the Secretary-General of the Arab League finds himself in a bind, as he thought that upholding UN resolutions would permit a destructive war to be avoided. Now, he just has to suppress widespread political revolution, the flip side of planting a 'seed of democracy:'

"If it is about implementing Security Council resolutions, then we say that there is a mechanism responsible for applying these resolutions which relate to the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. So what is it really about? Changing regimes, installing puppet regimes or reworking the region in accordance with the interests of Israel? These are all questions that are associated with recent developments." ... "And obviously, Security Council resolutions are not made for Israel to comply with, since Israel is treated as a country above international law," he adds... "It would be very difficult to imagine anything positive coming out of devastation and destruction and human suffering, especially at a time when we thought we could have achieved the objectives of the Security Council through peaceful means."

On the U.S. side, a notable situation has transpired in San Francisco, where peaceful protesters and hard-core anarchists known as the 'the Black Bloc' have taken to the streets. As one anarchist considered anger towards the war:

It's not just about the war. The war is just one very small manifestation of how truly insane this world has gotten, where a handful of military leaders can do whatever they want around the globe with no repercussions or constraints. They can lie so much to the population; but at some point, it gets too absurd to stomach, [the claim] that Iraq really poses an imminent danger to the safety and well-being of people in San Francisco. For me, it's not so much about the war; it's more how fucked-up society is in general ...
The best situation [would be] that there are violent confrontations with the police that spill out into real working-class neighborhoods and gain a level of popular support that currently our breakaway marches don't have. Like we saw with the Rodney King thing here.
I don't know if the majority of people in this society are ready to drop their conventional beliefs at the drop of a dime and instantly realize the benefits and great fun that can be had by looting, street fighting with the police, and blocking major roads. To me, that would be an optimistic situation.

A troubled protester, Paul Aladdin Alarab, jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge to his death Wednesday after reading a statement. This was the second time he jumped from the bridge. His final statement seems to have been obscured in the media.

I just ran into a very interesting site "Electronic Iraq" which has been designed along the lines of Palestinian Electronic Intifada. Check both out for interesting news, including the latest sinister declarations of everyone's favorite powerful neocon strategist Richard Perle, who shockingly says Thank God for the death of the UN!!!! Holy Kofi!!!!

Posted by HongPong at March 22, 2003 03:56 AM
Listed under Iraq .