This is from Agence France Press by way of CommonDreams.org, and it's good.
Bruce Jackson, a U.S. lobbyist and former DoD employee helped draft the Vilnius 10's statement of support for President Bush on Iraq.
Jackson, of course, said his role "vastly exaggerated." However, the International Herald Tribune quoted Kestutis Jankauskas, deputy chief of mission at the Lithunian embassy in Washington, as saying Jackson had a "considerable role" and helped "initiate the text."
Kind of makes you wonder if French president Jacques Chirac had some basis for his pique, especially if he thought the Americans were meddling in EU business...
Oh, you thought that someone in the back of the class scribbled it on notebook paper, passed it forward, and everyone signed it in a circle?
no, but it seems to undermine the legitimace of the “coalition of the willing” when Washington is giving members their talking points.
Oh, how do you think something like this happens? Fire from the gods? You solicit support, which is what this fellow was doing. Is it your view that only spontaneous acts are legitimate?
Dear Mr Albritton and others,
Bruce Jackson isn’t just anybody, he is THE White House lobbyist for this war as shown by the line-up of his Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (http://www.liberationiraq.org/aboutcli.shtml). On the other hand, I have seen no evidence of any shady deals between Washington and the eight states of the “new Europe” to underpin their support for the war. In the case of Turkey, the US clearly tried to buy its support with the prospect of shared control over Northern Iraq and its oil reserves.
Sincerely,
Aart Brouwer
Dear Aart—
Thanks for filling in the gaps on Jackson. Nothing like a little google search, eh? As for shady deals, I’m pretty sure any deals or understandings were no more or less shady than the one being so publicly negotiated with Turkey — although I suspect it was with far less haggling. I’ll bet that the U.S. just reminded the Vilnius 10 of its support during the fall of Communism and its support for some of them to join NATO, etc. Nothing shady about that and I don’t want to blow this into a big scandal. It’s not, but I do think it’s a bit unseemly to engage in astroturf lobbying on the international stage.
Go watch, “Lawrence of Arabia” ten times, and then you’ll understand what’s necessary in building a coalition. It’s a wonderful movie with priceless dialogues. Anthony Quinn’s response to the Colonel as he gathers his booty and heads home is particularly good. The Colonel accuses Quinn of having “got what he wanted, and now he’s leaving”. To which Quinn replies, “Yes, and when Lawrence gets what he wants, he will leave. When you get what you want, you will leave.” To which the Colonel replies, “No, I will stay.” To which Quinn says, “Then you are a fool, and thank God that he gave you a fools face, or I’d have the blood of a fool on my hands.”
It’s all been done before on a smaller scale. Lawrence pulled together a rabble of sheiks to yank the tail of the old tiger that was the Ottoman Empire. The thing that made Lawrence great was his ability to gather and lead disparate people in one direction for a purpose. We as a nation are quite good at it, even if old Europe has no clue.
I did not recognize the name Jackson, but I did a little (and i mean very little) investigation to find that he was a project director the Project for a New American Century. surprise, suprise… along with Kalilzad, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and a dozen or so other players in this war.
if you are unaware of the PNAC- check it out at newamericancentury.org or search the net for a brief on it. possibly the closest thing to the idea of one group controlling the world- only this isn’t a theory…
What Marc said. There may be nothing wrong with individual backroom policy dudes trying to build coaltions. But there’s also nothing wrong with investigating the various ties behind supposedly spontaneous political events.
The reason why this is news is not merely because Jackson was involved. If, when the Vilnius 10’s statement had come out, Jackson — and all other American policy wonks involved in its construction — had happily declared their work in helping draft it, this would not be news at all. But as it turns out, when the Vilnius 10 proclamation was feted by the U.S. administration as a spontaneous, grassroots declaration of support by parts of Europe.
I don’t remember the administration saying squat about the spontanaity of the declarations. You guys are quibbling.
No, they’re not. Whether the administration held it up as spontaneous or not is a bit beside the point. The White House did use it as an example of the levels of support it was getting in Europe (Rumsfeld’s “Old Europe” crack leaps to mind) and if it was initiated, drafted and presented to the govenments by Jackson, that seems to take away from the idea of a willing coalition. To use an out-of-date military analogy, there’s a big difference between enlisting on your own and enlisting because you don’t want to go to jail. Yeah, in both cases you “enlisted,” but the second case wasn’t entirely voluntary.
I’m not saying that’s the case here. Perhaps Latvia really is gung-ho to lead the shock troops into Baghdad. But somehow, I doubt it.
Also, I like spirited debate as much as the next guy, but casca, you’re just picking fights and calling people names.
LMFAO, I went to the sight newamericancentury.org, and if you see conspiracy theories there, then you are fucking nuts. I have a course of treatment, but it is anathema to the pseudo-intellectual leftist.
Go to the used book store, and buy a copy of any of William F. Buckley’s collected essays for under $5, then read them. If nature takes the proper course, and you are redeemable, then you’ll be cured in a couple years. Probably sometime in your mid-thirties/early-forties. However there are the invincibly ignorant among us, and for you there is no hope.
Dear Christopher,
the PNAC document is certainly useful in that it states the long-term goals of the right-wing Republican outfit. As for Mr Casca, I seem to remember Lawrence and his Arabs were betrayed as soon as the war was over. So much for coaliton building.
Sincerely,
Aart
Betrayed? How? They were, and are incapable of working things out on their own. If we’ve made mistakes, it has been along the lines of NOT colonizing, and teaching them about toilet paper.
“We lived many lives in those whirling campaigns, never sparing ourselves: yet when we achieved and the new world dawned, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make the likeness of the former world they knew. Youth could win, but had not learned to keep: and was pitiably weak against age. We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace. All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. This I did. I meant to make a new nation, to restore a lost influence, to give twenty millions of Semites the foundations on which to build an inspired dream-palace of their national thoughts. So high an aim called out the inherent nobility of their minds, and made them play a generous part in events: but when we won, it was charged against me that the British petrol royalties in Mesopotamia were become dubious, and French Colonial policy ruined in the Levant. I am afraid that I hope so. We pay for these things too much in honour and innocent lives…”
T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of wisdom
Good one Aart. Romanticism is a dangerous disease, and one is always scarred by it. What’s truly amazing is how David Lean made such an incredible movie out of the story. Myself, I subscribe to the Colonel’s view, “They’re a nation of sheep stealers”.
Betrayal is not what the “Arabs” experienced. Remember Allenby practicing his fly casting, while he waited for the “Arabs” to fold their tents and head back to the life they knew?
We took their oil, and gave them wealth and all the toys it can buy, and they’ve been very foolish with it. Would the world not be a better place had the Brits taken the oil, and given them a couple more goats?
Casca wrote: “Would the world not be a better place had the Brits taken the oil, and given them a couple more goats?”
That’s exactly what they did, Casca…
Sincerely,
Aart
At this point, the falsity of your arguments is obvious to all but the self-deluded. Your rhetorical device of knocking the pieces off the board when the game isn’t going your way is tedious. If we learned one thing from Bill Clinton, it was that there can be no real dialog with a liar.
Mr Casca,
I merely tried to answer some of your questions. I see you have none left. Good luck.
Sincerely,
Aart