Bush Doctrine at work

2002

THE "Bush doctrine" is at play. It is the latest and
the most dangerous yet of any American declaration of
its supremacy of the world. Officially labelled as a
national security strategy document, the declaration,
made by US President George W. Bush on Sept. 20, is,
in its bare form, is a notice to the world that it
reserves all options, notably the military one, to
strike at any country or group that it feels threatens
the US. As the overriding element, the notice says
that the US would not allow its military supremacy to
be challenged; what it does not say but what the world
has heard is also clear: the US is free to take
whatever action it finds fit against any country or
group which does not fall in line with American
interests, and the United Nations would have no
relevance in American considerations of who is at
fault, how and why. Indeed, if anyone does not like
it, please feel free to challenge the US.
The doctrine's foundation and objective are one: The
US reserves the right to to take "pre-emptive action"
against any country it deems as hostile and any group
it sees as terrorist and developing weapons of mass
destruction.
We have seen many American doctrines, starting with
the "Manroe doctrine" -- a warning issued by the firth
president of the US, James Monroe, in 1823. It
warned that the European colonial powers that “the
American continents, by the free and independent
condition which they have assumed and maintain, are
henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future
colonisation...." and declared the US as protector
of independent nations in the Americas.
In the 180 years since then, as Peter Beaumont,
foreign affairs editor of London's Sunday Observer
acutely observes, America "has moved from local to
regional and then to global superpower."
"At the end of the American Century, the United States
stands alone as the only superpower," writes Beaumont.
"The country that once challenged those renewing their
imperial ambitions in its orbit is now declaring in
this document the 'manifest destiny' of Americans to
exercise good across the world."
The 35-page doctrine, a document every US president
has to submit every year to Congress, states:
"Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the
United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive
posture as we have in the past. ... We cannot let our
enemies strike first... as a matter of common sense
and self-defense, America will act against such
emerging threats before they are fully formed.
The key element of the doctrine is an unequivocal
statement of America's right to act on its own:
"While the United States will constantly strive to
enlist the support of the international community, we
will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to
exercise our right of self-defense by acting
pre-emptively against such terrorists to prevent them
from doing harm against our people and our country."
It also rules out American tolerance of any challenge
to the US military superiority. "Our forces will be
strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from
pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing or
equaling the power of the United States," it says.

My say on 9/11 - one year on

THE world was horrified on Sept. 11, 2001. It watched
in disbelief the most damaging and well-orchestrated
terror attack at the most prestigious symbols of the
United States of America. One could have never
expected an assault of that nature and magnitude, and,
sure enough, it changed the shape of the world and
turned international relations into an unprecedented
course where nothing conventional remained
conventional.
The final count of the dead in New York is put at
around 3,000 -- the highest ever deaths in a single
terror attack.
It was an act whose impact, direct and indirect,
spared no one even in the remotest corner of the
earth. No other incident in history had brought out
that kind of effect on human life. But have we learned
anything from it?
Our hearts and minds went out to the victims of the
assaults in New York and Washington and of the crash
of a fourth hijacked plane in Pennsylvania and their
families. No one could help feeling a sense of grief
and helplessness over the loss of human life. It was
never without a choking feeling that we could listen
to the tragic stories of fathers, mothers, sons,
daughters, brothers and sisters who lost their lives
in the rubble of the World Trade Center towers in New
York and the Pentagon in Washington not to mention the
fiery crash in Pennsylvania.
And then came the recriminations as the US declared a
war on terrorism. Today, after Afghanistan, the
Taliban and Al Qaeda, the US is still on a
confrontational course with the Arabs as if the entire
Arab World was behind Sept. 11.
As Americans, and indeed the rest of the world,
remember the direct and indirect victims of the
Sept.11 attacks, the sole focus should not be grief
and sorrow over what happened and a growing sense of
revenge. They should ask themselves why 9/11 happened
and why it has led to a growing divide between the US
and the Arab World, with the strong relationship the
two sides enjoyed until one year ago fading into
oblivion.
It is indeed surprising to observe that few in the US
leadership seem to have given any serious thought to
the fundamentals of what had led to Sept. 11.
While there could be no justification for the Sept. 11
slaughter, it is obvious the US could not come to
terms with the possibility that something was wrong
somewhere in its policy that might have built up into
the aerial assaults.
What we witness today is a worsening situation of
anger, aggressiveness and sense of revenge prevailing
in Washington. Perhaps justifiably so when seen from
within a strictly American vantage point with little
regard to others in the world who suffer from the
fallout of misguided American policies.
But the soul-searching should start with trying to
answer the key question: Why was the US, the country
that is being looked up at by the rest of the world
for its lofty principles of freedom, justice and
dignity for mankind, the target of the biggest terror
attack?
We have even heard absurd assertions that those behind
the attacks were motivated by frustration over their
failure to reach the American level of life and
economic prosperity. Such narrow-minded concepts are
not even worthy of being dignified by any further
comment.
The real reason is in the background but will not
manifest itself in all that it entails unless the US
suspends its knee-jerk military reaction stemming from
an overwhelming sense of being wronged and of
self-indignation backed by a conviction of being
superior to everyone in the international scene.
The real reason for the growing confrontational mood
that threatens to destablise international life is
America's policy of riding roughshod over all
international norms and seeking to target those who
do not fall in line with American interests.
The continuing military ride based on the cowboy-style
"you’re either with us or against us” insistence
would only worsen the situation because the global
situation could not be narrowed down to such
simplification.
Americans should learn to make a distinction between
vengeful emotions and the cold, hard facts of modern
political history and come to grips with political,
cultural, and historical dimensions of the
relationship between the Arab World and the US.
Instead of framing the Arabs into the mold of an
eternal enemy, they should try to understand that the
Arabs were the worst sufferers from the one-track
American approach in the Middle East; and, they stand
to suffer even worse if the US presses ahead with its
designs to reshape the Middle East, starting with its
goal of "regime change" in Iraq.
Have the American public ever been given an
opportunity to reflect on the fact that an
overwhelming majority of the Arabs respect what the US
stands for in terms of principles but hold in contempt
their official policy of being blind to the state
terrorism practised by their "most important strategic
ally" -- Israel?
Have the American public ever been given an
opportunity to absorb that the Arab World is opposed
to terrorism in all its manifestations and has been
and is a partner in the US-led war on terror in all
parts of the world, but that they make a distinction
when it comes to imposition of solutions that seek to
serve strictly American and indeed Israeli interests
in the Middle East?
The first anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks not be
an occasion for the Americans to work themselves into
building a rage but should be an opportunity for them
to scrutinise themselves and their place in the world
and realise that answers to these troubling questions
are within themselves.
And once they realise the true answers to those
questions, then that would be the beginning of a new
world order that would ensure justice, freedom and
dignity for all.

Turkey eager for spoils

pv vivekanand

TURKEY seems to be preparing to claim its spoils of war even before the first shot is fired in the possible US military strike against Iraq. Its deputy speaker of parliament has suggested that the government should declare autonomy for the Turkmen community living in northern Iraq, inlcuding the oil-rich Kirkuk area.
Murat Sokmenoglu's demand was described as a response to Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani's comment that his people would "never allow Turks to take over even a millimetre" of their soil if Turkey move in to destroy a possible Kurdish state in northern Iraq, but the assertions are ominous and are signalling the shape of events to come.
Seen coupled with Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu's recent assertions that Turkey had "historic rights" to parts of northern Iraq -- including Kirkuk and Mosul -- and his demand that the US deal with the supposedly 2.5 million strong Turkmen community in northern Iraq, it would seem a certainty that Ankara would move in to make good its claims as and when the US launches military action against Iraq.
There is more to the Turkish posture. Many nationalist Turks maintain that parts of northen Iraq, including Kirkuk and Mosul, were taken away form their country (along with other areas controlled by the Ottoman empire) when Britain and France redrew the map of the region after the collapse of the Ottoman empire at the end of World War I.
The 1924 Lausanne Treaty signed by Britan, France, Italy, Japan, Greece, Romania and when subsequently became Yugoslavia on the one hand and Turkey on the other laid out the new borders of the remnants of the Ottoman empire. While the provisions of the treaty laid out the new borders and territories of Turkey without major dispute -- except in the case of Greece -- the Turkish-Iraqi frontiers posed a problem.
The treaty put off the issue and said that the frontier between Turkey and Iraq shall be laid down in friendly arrangement to be concluded between Turkey and Great Britain within nine months from the signing of the treaty on July 23, 1924.
In the event of no agreement being reached between the two Governments within the time mentioned, the dispute shall be referred to the Council of the League of Nations, it said.
Under the treaty, the Turkish and British governments reciprocally undertook that, pending the decision to be reached on the subject of the frontier, no military or other movement shall take place which might modify in any way the present state of the territories of which the final fate will depend upon that decision.
The issue was subsequently resolved with Turkey getting little of northern Iraq and the Kirkuk-Mosul becoming part of Iraq. Turkey had no option but to accept the deal.
However, as the latest comments indicate, Turks see the potential conflict in Iraq expected to be triggered by US military strikes as an opportunity to go back in history and reclaim what they believe as theirs.
Turkey is a vehement opponent of the Kurdish dream of creating an independent Kurdistan in northern Iraq bordering Turkey, Syria and Iran. Ankara fears that the entity would be the forerunner of an expanded Kurdistan that could dig deep into what is Turkish soil today and destablise Turkey, which has a sizeable Kurdish minority.
Northern Iraqi Kurds led by the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan had already set up a de facto state in the region which has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf war.
Against the common Turkish threats, KDP leader Masoud Barzani and PUK leader Jalal Talabani were reported to have met on Saturday in the Kurdish-held region for the first time in almost two years.
The two were believed to have discussed the growing tension with Turkey and agreed to send an Iraqi Kurdish delegation to Ankara to discuss the issue and receive a similar Turkish team.
Indeed, urgency was added to the moves by the comments made by Sokmenoglu, the deputy speaker of Turkey, who lambasted Barzani as an "imprudent clan leader."
Noting that the Iraqi Kurdish groups have already a de facto state, Sokmenoglu said that "the time has come for Ankara to announce an autonomous Turkmen region" which also includes the Kirkuk area.
The war of words between Turkey and the Kurdish groups were sparked when it became clear that the US was determined to bring about a "regime change" in Baghdad, opening up the way for unpredictable consequences in the region.
Obviously, Ankara wants to pull the rug from under the feet of the Kurdish plans to set up an independent state by taking over Kirkuk, the most important oil-producing centre in northern Iraq.
Confidential reports say that Turkey has told Washington that it would not oppose an independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq if it excluded Kirkuk, which would brought under Ankara's control.
The message, say the reports, was conveyed by Hussein Qifriq Aughlu, a hig -ranking officer in Turkish army, to US Assistant Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.
Aughlu, who was reportedly armed with maps from the turn of the century, stated clearly that Turkey would interfere directly if a Kurdish state was established including Kirkuk, "If a condition not acceptable to us developed in north Iraq, especially in Kirkuk, as the consequences of your military operations that would be very sensitive to us and I would like to inform you that we shall interfere directly in the region in case a Kurdish state with Kirkuk is established,” he was reported to have told Wolfowitz.
Washington has not made any public comment on the Turkish posture, but is is known that the US opposes most of Turkey's demands in return for support for the possible US military action in Iraq, and hence the uncertainty and latent tension between Ankara and Washington over President George W Bush's avowed goal of a "regime change" in Baghdad.
Kirkuk is the largest city in northern Iraq and the Turkmen community (also called Turcoman) calls it an "Azeri city" since a good number of the residents in the area speak the Azeri language, but they use the Arabic script and many have Arabic or Kurdish as a second language.
Turkmen are found in Erbil, Mosul/Ninawa and Deyalah provinces as well as villages southeast of Kirkuk.
The Turkmen are represented by the Turkmen Front, established in 1995 with the merger of several Turkmen political and social organisations.
The Turkmen are third largest ethnic group in Iraq after the Arabs and Kurds and have historically formed a cultural buffer zone between the Arabs in the south and the Kurds in the north.
The Iraqi constitution of 1925 granted both Turkmen and Kurds the right to use their own languages in schools, government offices and press. However, in 1972 the Iraqi government prohibited the both the study of the Turkmen language and the Turkmen media and in 1973 any reference to the Turkmen was omitted from the provisional constitution. The revamped Iraqi Constitution of 1990 states that the "people of Iraq consists of Arabs and Kurds." Kirkuk is one of the key oil centres of Iraq. The first commercial oil field in Iraq was developed in Kirkuk in 1927. Today pipelines connect Turkey to the Mediterranean ports of Tripoli in Lebanon and Yumurtalik in Turkey.
There is little doubt that Iraqi Kurds would fight tooth and nail if Turkey were to make good its threat; indeed a Turkish-Kurdish confrontation parallel to a US-led invasion of Baghad with the aim of toppling Saddam Hussein is only one of the many possible developments that would destablise the entire Middle East.
"If Iraqi Kurds seeking separation and accepted the existing crumbs without Kirkuk, most probably Saddam Hussein would have been the first one in history who recognised an independent Kurdish state," according to RM Ahmad, a Kurdish writer

Bush-Bin Laden links

PV Vivekanand

The Sept.11 saga has been given a dramatically new twist by a report that four airplanes carrying Saudi nationals, including several members of the mainstream Bin Laden family, were allowed to fly out of the United States two days after the aerial attacks in New York and Washington when US airspace was closed for passenger traffic and flights required special permission from the authorities.
The report, carried by the American magazine Vanity Fair, raises questions about the Bush family's close relationship with the Saudis, and Saudi investments in the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm where former Secretary of State James Baker is a senior counsellor and former president George HW Bush is senior adviser.
The implication in the article is that the Bush administration, influenced by personal connections as well as the diplomatic clout that the Saudi ambassador to Washington enjoyed, allowed members of the Saudi ruling family and others close to them as well as members of the mainstream Bin Laden family -- which had disowned Osama Bin Laden -- to leave the US. They appeared to be in a hurry to the US following the Sept.11 attacks when it was slowly emerging that at least some of the 19 suicide hijackers were Saudi nationals.
The question is raised in the article itself:
"How was it possible that, just as President Bush declared a no-holds-barred global war on terror that would send hundreds of thousands of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, and just as Osama Bin Laden became public enemy number one and the target of a worldwide manhunt, the White House would expedite the departure of so many potential witnesses, incluidng two dozen relatives of the man behind the attack itself?"
However, there is no suggestion that any of those who left had anything to do with the Sept.11 attacks, but that they might had had an inkling that they could face questioning by American authorities in view of their association, even by acquaintance, with any of the hijackers.
At the same time, two cousins of Osama Bin Laden had a record of affiliation with a Muslim organisation in the US; again, there is no suggestion or evidence that this group had any links with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda, which is blamed for the Sept.11 attack.
The article appearing in this week's Vanity Fair quotes former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke as saying that the Bush administration allowed the flights carrying up to 140 Saudis to leave the US without being interviewed or interrogated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Every passenger plane leaving the US after Sept.11 had to have special permission to take off, but in the case of the four planes were given special clearance by top officials, and the FBI was not involved at all, says the article.
Vanity Fair said the White House had declined comment on the report, but it quoted a a source insidethe White House as saying that there no evidence to suggest that the White House ever authorised such flights.
According to Vanity Fair write Craig Unger, private detective and former Florida police officer Dan Grossi had received a call on Sept.13 asking him to escort Saudi students on a flight from Tampa to Lexington, Kentucky, even though private planes were still grounded in the aftermath of the attacks.
"I was told it would take White House approval," Unger quotes Grossi as saying. However, t when the plane's pilot showed up, they took off.
In the report, Clarke says he chaired a crisis group — the Counterterrorism Security Group of the National Security Council — at the White House andits meering were attended by Vice President Dick Cheney and National-Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA director George Tenet and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld "came and went."
"Somebody brought to us for approval the decision to let an airplane filled with Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family, leave the country," Clarke is quoted as saying.
"My role was to say that it can't happen until the FBI approves it. And so the FBI. was asked — we had a live connection to the FBI — and we asked the FBI to make sure that they were satisfied that everybody getting on that plane was someone . . okay.. to leave. And they came back and said yes, it was fine with them. So we said, 'Fine, let it happen. . . . I asked them if they had any objection to the entire event-to Saudis leaving the country at a time when aircraft were banned from flying."
Clarke, who is now working for the private sector, could not recall who had asked him for approval but said it was probably the FBI or the State Department.
Both the FBI and the State Department denied that the request came from them.
Vanity Fair quoted a State Department source as implying that Saudi Arabian Ambasasdor to the US Prince Bandar Bin Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz, one of the most influential foreign diplomats in Washington, could have obtained permission for the flights from authorities higher than the State Department, meaning the White House.
"The likes of Prince Bandar does not need the State Department to get this done," the source told the magazine. According to Saudi Arabia's director of information, Nail Al Jubeir, the flights had been requested by the Saudis and were authorised "at the highest level of the US government."

Following is a part of a a verbatim summary of the report provided by Vanity Fair.

Quote:

After the September 11 attacks, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, was in Washington orchestrating the exodus of about 140 Saudis scattered throughout the country who were members of, or close to, the House of Saud, which rules Saudi Arabia, and the Bin Laden family.
By coincidence, even before the attacks, Bandar had been scheduled to meet President Bush in the White House on Sept.13, 2001, to discuss the Middle East peace process.
The meeting took place as planned.
Nail Al Jubeir tells Unger that he does not know if Bandar and the president discussed getting the bin Ladens and other Saudis back to Saudi Arabia.
Some Saudis tried to get their planes to leave before the F.B.I. had even identified who was on them, Unger reports. "I recall getting into a big flap with Bandar's office about whether they would leave without us knowing who was on the plane," an FBI agent says.
"Bandar wanted the plane to take off, and we were stressing that the plane was not leaving until we knew exactly who was on it."
Dale Watson, the FBI's former head of counterterrorism, tells Unger that while the Saudis were identified, "they were not subject to serious interviews or interrogations."
The bureau has declined to release the Saudis' identities.
The wealthy Bin Laden family long ago broke with their terrorist brother, Osama, but Unger reports that some members of the family have had links to militant Islam.
Abdullah and Omar Bin Laden had been under FBI investigation for their involvement with the American branch of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which has published writings by one of Osama bin Laden's principal intellectual influences.
According to documents obtained by the Public Education Center in Washington, the file on Abdullah and Omar was reopened on Sept.19, 2001, while the Saudi repatriation was under way. A security official who served under George W. Bush tells Unger,
"WAMY was involved in terrorist-support activity. There's no doubt about it."
The Saudis' planes took off from or landed in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Houston, Cleveland, Orlando, Tampa, Lexington, Kentucky-and Newark and Boston, both of which had been points of origin for the Sept.11 attacks.
"We were in the midst of the worst terrorist act in history," Tom Kinton, director of aviation at Boston's Logan airport, tells Unger, "and here we were seeing an evacuation of the Bin Ladens! . . .
"I wanted to go to the highest authorities in Washington. This was a call for them. But this was not just some mystery flight dropping into Logan. It had been to three major airports already, and we were the last stop. It was known. The federal authorities knew what it was doing. And we were told to let it come."
"I asked [the FBI] to make sure that no one inappropriate was leaving," Clarke tells Unger.
Clarke assumed the FBI had vetted the bin Ladens prior to Sept. 11. "I have no idea if they did a good job. I'm not in any position to second-guess the FBI."
Prince Bandar has had a 20-year friendship with former president George HW Bush.
Unger questions whether the long-standing Bush-Saudi relationship could have influenced the administration. The latest in a line of business links between the Bush family and the Saudis involves the Carlyle Group, a private-equity firm for which George HW Bush is a senior advisor and former secretary of state James Baker III is a senior counsellor.
The Carlyle Group has received $80 million in Saudi investment, Unger reports, including $2 million from the Bin Ladens which was returned to them after Sept.11.
In 1995, Abdulrahman and Sultan Bin Mahfouz invested "in the neighbourhood of $30 million" in the Carlyle Group, according to family attorney Cherif Sedky.
Abdulrahman Bin Mafouz was a director of the Muwafaq Foundation, which has been designated by the U.S. Treasury Department as "an Al Qaeda front." (Carlyle categorically denies that the Bin Mahfouzes are now or have ever been investors.) Clarke believes the decision to let the Saudis go was made because "there's a realisation that we have to work with the government we've got in Saudi Arabia. The alternatives could be far worse. The most likely replacement to the House of Saud is likely to be more hostile-in fact, extremely hostile-to the US."
Unquote...