First Germany, now Turkey

Everyone has their hand out for the good USA money.

DD

 

With Turkey's Kurdish population, it truly has the most to lose if things do not go exactly as planned.

Then again, as in most scenario's in these nations, the funds go to Turkey then there are simultaneous transfers of billions to swiss bank accounts.

 

This is potentially good news to those of us who oppose this war.

In addition to the $30 odd billion that Turkey is demanding, we are in a position to screw with their loan requests from the IMF.

With as much as 95% of the Turkish population opposing the war, it is a tough issue for Turkey. They figure Bush will attack anyway so why not get some money, but 95% in a dmocracy is hard to ignore, too.

Another story in the building of Bush's Coalition of the Reluctant as the Germans supposedly are calling it.

 

I hear we're losing the support of the turtle in the galapagos too.

Couldn't we just let them kill all of their kurds and the kurds in Iraq for compensation?

 

Do they have any oil?

 

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Politicians say that a written agreement on economic compensation would be needed before MPs could be persuaded to vote against their own wishes and defy the public mood that has become more strongly anti-war. The latest polls indicate that opposition to an Iraqi war has gone up from 80 per cent to nearer 95 per cent.

The refusal of Turkish officials to agree to the deal put on the table by Mr Bush during White House talks on Friday has forced the Pentagon to consider rewriting its war plans, which are heavily based on a northern assault towards Baghdad from Turkey.

In a display of brinkmanship, US officials suggested they would simply write Turkey out of Washington’s war script, and keep the $26 billion. Although that would complicate the Pentagon’s war plans, officials say it would not reduce the effectiveness of the US military on the ground. But the Pentagon needs to know within days whether there will be a northern front, or if it needs to change tack.

In diplomatic terms, though, the co-operation of Turkey, one of America’s closest Muslim allies, remains critical.

times online

 

Yeah, long memory....like, at least two years.

 

Reports of more opposition to the US position.
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ASHINGTON, Feb. 19 — As thousands of additional British and American troops headed toward the Persian Gulf today, leaders on both sides of the Iraq war debate dug in their heels with more uncompromising statements of policy.

"My opposition to war is fundamental," declared Germany's chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, who has become the most outspoken European opponent of war. "My position hasn't changed."....

Marches by millions of antiwar protesters around the world last weekend greatly strengthened the opponents' positions. Overnight, some diplomats at the United Nations said that the United States and Britain would have to postpone introduction of a new Security Council resolution authorizing war because of Germany and France's implacable opposition, as well as the less determined but still consistent arguments against war by China and Russia.

But the White House insisted that Washington and London would proceed with the introduction of a new resolution either this week or next, largely because Washington's European allies, chastened by the protests in their own countries, had made it clear that they needed such a new measure in order to proceed against Iraq.

Italy's prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, who has been one of President Bush's strongest supporters, said today that he had recently spoken to Mr. Bush "with candor and loyalty, as real friends do" and had "invited him not to cultivate isolationism." As many as three million antiwar protesters marched in Rome on Saturday. Afterward, Mr. Berlusconi insisted that military action against Iraq must be carried out under the auspices of the United Nations.

Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, has been pushing for a second resolution for weeks. And since 750,000 people rallied against war in Hyde Park on Saturday, Mr. Blair has become even more insistent.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua said that President Jiang Zemin of China and President Vladimir Putin of Russia spoke by phone today and agreed that conditions for the weapons inspectors in Iraq had improved, and that the Iraq situation should be resolved by peaceful means.

Switzerland announced that it had turned down an American request for military overflights in coming months, saying the request could not be approved unless military action was authorized by the United Nations.

All that has left the Bush administration in a difficult position. President Bush has plainly said that he does not believe he needs a second resolution to attack Iraq. But many allies are making it clear that they need one, for their own political reasons. As a result, to keep the tenuous alliance together, the Bush administration must, albeit reluctantly, push for a new resolution — even as the views of its opponents on the Security Council stiffen. France, Russia and China all have the power to deliver a Security Council veto......

At United Nations headquarters in New York, diplomats from 32 countries that are not Security Council members offered their views today on dealing with Iraq. It was the second day of debate, and as with the first, virtually all speakers argued against war. Among the countries represented were Egypt, South Korea, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.

"The current situation, where the world seems perched on the thin edge of war, is not hopeless," the head of Indonesia's mission to the United Nations, Darmansyah Djumala, said. "My delegation is of the opinion that diplomacy has neither been exhausted in this matter, nor is war imminent."
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It should be interesting to see if the US can push this through. Earlier in the week reports said the US and Britain were trying to avoid having the second vote and resolution , because they could lose it.

Is this Tony's escape valve and a way to save his job? Can Bush declare victory and go home? I think Tony could accept a negative UN vote and still save his honor and his job since he has emphasized the UN from the beginning. However, I think Bush has to play it all the way go for broke and hope he has a short pleasant little war.

 

Well it certainly is comforting to know the Pentagon's war plans are now available. So much for any element of surprise!

 

an interesting analysis of Russia's reaction to the proposed war.
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February 19, 2003

The global crisis that came to a head over the weekend has resulted in defeat and unprecedented humiliation for the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush. Washington had been sure that France would not veto its proposed UN resolution on launching military action against Iraq. But last Friday it became clear that the U.S. proposal was dead in the water even without a French veto.

The weapons inspectors did not follow the script that Washington had expected, and Security Council members took the floor one after the next to state their opposition to war. An even bigger humiliation for Bush followed in the form of huge anti-war marches around the world, including the United States.

The few West European governments that still support Washington came in for massive street pressure. A consensus is building around the world that Bush is a dangerous man. The leadership in Washington kept stubbornly repeating that Saddam Hussein poses a threat to humanity, but their exhortations had the opposite effect....

While the U.S. leadership came under attack, Russia once more demonstrated its impotence and insignificance. Over the past decade Russia has been politically dependent on the United States, and economically on Germany.

The United States dictated Russia's political agenda, while Germany gradually became its most important business partner and source of foreign investment. This system worked quite well so long as Germany kept a low profile in international affairs and at least made a show of solidarity with the United States. When disagreements between the United States and Germany came to the surface, however, the Russian leadership was at a loss. ....

Only when it became clear that France and Germany would secure a majority in the Security Council, and that no veto would be required, did President Vladimir Putin demonstratively side with the victors......

The sight of Russian leaders mouthing words dictated in Berlin while never taking their eyes off of Washington was nothing short of embarrassing.....

Anti-war sentiment may be quite high, but the public has no plans to tell anyone about it. Local leaders in some provincial towns organized anti-war marches, rounding up participants using the good old Soviet tactic of "compulsory voluntarism."

In Moscow, where the old tactics no longer work, two demonstrations were held. Leftist and pacifist organizations rallied about 200 young people on Tverskoi Bulvar under the slogan: "No War in Iraq and Chechnya!" The Communists and their nationalist allies barely managed to turn out twice that number.

Boris Kagarlitsky is director of the Institute of Globalization Studies.


russia

 

Interesting commentary from a Brit:
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Does Old Europe Hate New America, Or Just President?
by Will Hutton

It wasn’t only in London, Paris and Berlin that hundreds of thousands took to the streets on Saturday, Feb. 15, in protest against war in Iraq—there were plenty of protesters on the streets of American cities. To characterize "old Europe" as peopled wholly by cheese-eating surrender monkeys and the U.S.A. by a warrior race uniformly and bravely behind military action is to traduce reality. As George W. Bush’s ratings fall to new lows, the conservatives around him—and the right-wing American commentariat—might reflect that many of the attitudes they detest as "old Europe" are alive and well in America.

Europeans—to the extent anyone on this continent of 370 million conforms to the generic stereotype—are baffled and extraordinarily anxious at the rhetoric now emanating from the world’s most powerful country. Mockery of President Bush’s linguistic faux pas has given way to the realization that he and the people round him are very different from the American elites we’ve become used to. Europeans expect America to live up to the high standards it sets for itself—and, at key moments over the last century, it has done so. Now there’s a realization that Mr. Bush is not of the same ilk; he is potentially very dangerous both for America and the world.

These apprehensions may be mocked and derided by the American administration and its take-no-prisoners outriders, who dominate the American media and national conversation, but that does not mean that our fears are not genuine—or well-founded. The majority on the European street is extremely wary about the doctrine of pre-emptive, unilateral intervention and the willingness to disregard international law and the U.N. process if it produces the "wrong" results; but that doesn’t make us anti-American. Rather, we want America to be the better Europe that generations of European immigrants set out to make it, believing in the promise of a new continent with its Enlightenment Constitution and passionate commitment to opportunity, liberty and an equal chance.

America has been the victim of a horrendous crime, and the barbarians of radical Islam, we know, will again use terror against the U.S. (and against targets in Europe too, don’t forget) if they can. They must be rooted out, and the deep causes of the crime addressed, even as we bring the particular terrorist networks to justice. But this complex task cannot be undertaken if we divide the world into the Manichean simplicities of George W. Bush: Those who are not for America must necessarily be against America. This is not good enough from the leader of the free world—and it’s certainly not good enough before the evil of the threat we face. We need sophistication, wisdom, the widest coalition possible, legitimacy—and, of course, a willingness to use force if every other avenue has been closed. Instead, we hear the language of pre-emptive war (which was outlawed by the Versailles Treaty of 1919)—and this from the greatest and most admired democratic republic in the world, a country that has always prided itself on its respect for law, at home and abroad. Europeans expect much, much more from America.

This, perhaps, is what Americans do not comprehend very well. Anti-Americanism in Europe does not play well, even in France, where it intrudes into the public discourse more than any other European country. Jacques Chirac is winning support because he’s asserting an idea of an independent France, le hexegon, that occupies an autonomous role in the world and stands for a cluster of values (peace, multilateralism, interdependence)—and taking on America at the same time. But when it comes to other core values—democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, impartial justice—no leading French politician or opinion leader (except those on the fringes of right and left) is going to position him- or herself as anti-American. And if this is true for France, it’s even more true for the rest of the continent. German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has sacked two ministers for making unguarded, off-the-record anti-American remarks; he could not survive politically protecting them in office. Indeed, Mr. Schröder, like Mr. Chirac, is careful to argue that while he’s against pre-emptive action in Iraq until the U.N. process is exhausted—and thus in opposition to Mr. Bush—that does not mean he’s anti-American. Nor, in a fundamental sense, is he.

This is what troubles and infuriates Europeans. Whereas Mr. Schröder sacks ministers for making offensive remarks, Mr. Bush indulges his own; Donald Rumsfeld or Paul Wolfowitz or Condoleezza Rice can say anything that comes into their heads—some of it downright untrue and offensive—and there’s no penalty. This is, of course, the prerogative of the powerful throughout the ages, but Americans should not be surprised if their interlocutors bridle and chafe. The wonder is that there’s not more resentment.

Some of the claims made by leading American conservative commentators against Europe (I’m thinking especially of Robert Kagan and Charles Krauthammer)—statements that appear to reflect the views of conservative Washington—are so vicious that if they were not obviously detached from reality, there would be some real anti-Americanism. For example, the idea that America now wears the badge of Mars (the willingness to use military force, to assert itself with manly vigor and bear loss of life like other great powers in the past)—in contrast to the feminine loss of will in Europe—strikes Europeans as an astonishing case of memory loss and saturation in fantasy. Is this the same country that has a collective fainting fit at the sight of one body bag? That has been careful to fight its recent wars from 50,000 feet up? Whose tourists have so little sense of fortitude that mass cancellations follow after even the slightest hint of danger? American swagger, Europeans suspect, is the swagger of the schoolyard bully, and no more sturdy. The scuttle of Mogadishu or fighting for Kosovo and Afghanistan from the air more nearly define American military ambition—and if the going gets rough in Iraq, Europeans expect little sustained resolve or willingness to bear loss of life. Which is why it’s so important that if action begins, it’s launched from a platform of impeccable legitimacy—why the weapons inspectors must continue and why the U.N. process must be exhausted before the Security Council authorizes war.

The French and British have both demonstrated willingness to bear loss in the national interest. It’s that same tradition that makes both populations—and other Europeans who know from experience war’s senselessness and pain—so very wary. Until the ascendancy of today’s conservatives, America historically shared that caution: Vietnam produced the same embedded wariness, and for very good reason. That tradition, judging by the opinion polls and the growing anti-war protests, is not entirely dead—and my hunch is that the Kagans, Krauthammers, Perles, Wolfowitzes, Cheneys and Rumsfelds will find that their own country will display many of the same sentiments as "old Europe" if they engage in this war against terror in the way they plan.

Which shouldn’t be a surprise. The best of America is the best of Europe; the best of Europe is the best of America. The idea that these two pillars of the West can be fundamentally at loggerheads for long is nonsense. Rather, as I argue in my forthcoming book A Declaration of Interdependence, American conservatives have declared independence from the Western liberal tradition. Europeans are already protesting the consequences, but as that protest spreads to the U.S., the truth will emerge: It’s not Europeans and liberal Americans who are the isolated, dangerous eccentrics who menace peace, order and the rule of international law. It’s Mr. Bush’s Washington.


Will Hutton’s A Declaration of Interdependence (W.W. Norton) will be published in May. He is the former editor in chief of the London Observer.

 

I do like Bush.

If only he was more competent enough to make informed decisions of his own instead of being a puppet for his shadowy underlings....

 

Hey I know, maybe Saudi Arabia can outbid the US and pay the Turks $40 billion not to support the war. Since 95% of them don't want it, they might even take $5 billion less than the US is offering if they don't have to support the war.

 

A very good article on the Turkey angle from the Christian Monitor. Says 96% of Turk against Bush's war.
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By Ilene R. Prusher and Ann Scott Tyson | Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor

ANKARA, TURKEY AND WASHINGTON – A US-led war in Iraq without Turkey as a pivotal ally was once a remote possibility. But months of prickly negotiations between Washington and Ankara are coming to a head and the US is dangerously close to its first setback - one that would force drastic changes in the war plan, military officials say.
Already 30 to 40 US cargo ships are either waiting off the Turkish coast or scheduled to arrive there soon, officials say. The Bush administration says Turkey must decide Friday whether tens of thousands of US troops can be stationed here.

On the surface, the two countries are stuck haggling over dollars. ...

But even if Turkey were to get everything on its wish list - including a buffer zone for refugees and Kurdish guerrillas - strong antiwar feelings here might be Washington's toughest obstacle.

"[Recep Tayyip Erdogan, leader of Turkey's ruling party,] says he still has military and political concerns that aren't satisfied. If that's the case, clearly, kicking in another 4 billion just ain't gonna cut it," says Bulent Aliriza, the director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"It's not just a matter of numbers - it's philosophical," he says of Mr. Erdogan's AK [Justice and Development] Party, a movement rooted in political Islam that won by a landslide in November.

"Many of the people in the AK Party feel that the US is conducting war on the Muslim world, and it may be that no matter what, it wouldn't have worked," says Dr. Aliriza.

Military setbacks

While not a deal-breaker, a refusal by Turkey to allow basing for the Army's Fourth Infantry Division could delay a US assault. It would also likely require US commanders to reshuffle their ground forces, at least temporarily replacing a heavy armored division with lighter forces that lack a similar punch.

"They would have to change their entire strategy as a result," says one US military official.

Some 20 to 30 US cargo ships bound from Texas ports and another 10 headed from Northern Europe are carrying 4.5 million sq. ft. of cargo including tanks, trucks, and other heavy equipment for the 16,000-strong division.

It would take 18 to 21 days to divert these ships from the eastern Mediterranean to Kuwait via the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, with additional delays possible from winter high seas and traffic in the Suez Canal.
(more)
turkey

 

They arent the only ones baffled by Dubya's policies and rhetoric. I don't mind us going to war when it is necessary, but the Administration's insistence on going it alone if they can't strong-arm everyone else into agreeing with them is a disturbing attitude to take in a world that is becoming smaller and smaller every day. We expect everyone else to conform to what we want, or else? This is not how I want my country acting on the world stage.

With each passing day, I am starting to believe this also. I want our President to do the right thing, but he seems to have lost a grasp on exactly that "right thing" is.
Great piece by Mr Hutton..With only a couple of exceptions, I agree with most of what he wrote.
I find it weird that most of the better op/ed pieces on the "war" are coming from Brits...I find myself agreeing with them more and more. Not sure whether to be disturbed by this or not..

 

It’s not Europeans and liberal Americans who are the isolated, dangerous eccentrics who menace peace, order and the rule of international law. It’s Mr. Bush’s Washington.


I've been thinking the same thing. My research has failed to find one country in the world where a majority backs our stand.
As we all know there are a number of countries where strong anit-war majorities are still being resisted by their leaders, Spain, Italy, Britain, turkey? etc. Even the one story I could find on public opinion in Eastern Europe showed majorities opposed by their leaders. Poland was the only one that was very close 50-50 approx. with pehaps a 2% for. I can't retrieve the article.

Is this just Isarel's and America's war, based on public opinion.

Hey Mango and others , why don't you try to prove me wrong with some fact checking?