I’m going to let the pictures do the talking

Two parties which New Zealand has just elected into power, National and Act, voted in favour of the New Zealand Government joining the USA-led war coalition. This coalition invaded Iraq on 20 March 2003. For those of you that missed my previous post here’s that vote from Parliament’s “Debate on Iraq” held on 18 March 2003, two days before USA led the invasion of Iraq:

Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader-ACT NZ): I move, That this Parliament

recognises the threat Iraq’s non-compliance with UN Security Council Resolutions and 4126 Debate on Iraq 18 Mar 2003 proliferation of weapons of mass destruction pose to international peace and,

noting the UN Security Council on 8 November 2002 in resolution 1441 unanimously voted that Iraq has not complied with previous UN resolutions and was in material breach of its obligation and gave Iraq a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations or “face serious consequences”,

further notes the report of the UN arms inspectors that Iraq has not provided an accurate, full and complete disclosure,

this House disassociates itself from the New Zealand Government’s position at the United Nations to oppose a second UN Security Council resolution and deplores the announcement of France to veto any such resolution and this House records its support for the United States of America, Great Britain, and Australia’s preparedness to enforce UN Resolution 1441 and calls on the New Zealand Government to offer all practical support to the “coalition of the willing”.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the motion be agreed to.

Ayes 35
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8.

Noes 84
Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2

It’s a while ago now and National seems to have learnt its lesson since then. Let’s hope Act has too. Otherwise Peacenik Dunne is going to be feeling rather lonely in his new homeland.

The effrontery! How dare those Greens try to keep us out of other people’s foreign wars. I hear they also radically oppose death, famine and pestilence.

• Introduces into our trading framework with other countries values like human rights, labour and environmental standards, ecologically-sustainable practices, local values and cultures, the right of all to equal access to water for basic needs and the right of all countries and peoples to produce and grow their own food
• Increases New Zealand’s Overseas Development Aid budget to the international standard of 0.7 percent of gross national income by 2015.
• Opposes New Zealand involvement in United States-led coalition military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan (but support UN peace-building there); and oppose any intelligence assistance to these wars by closing down the satellite communications interception station at Waihopai.
• Undertakes, as a legally-binding obligation in domestic law, never to commit armed forces for military action beyond our national territory without a UN Security Council authorisation.
• Advocates for human rights in a principled, international way that won’t be muted for economic, political or military reasons.

22 pages. That’s a bit swotty really.

The half dozen Snapper patrons revolted and stormed the bus, refusing to pay cash or leave the bus. Murmurs of support came from throughout the bus as people realised what the fuss was all about.

This was an unfortunate situation for both the driver and the patrons. The patrons have been sold their cards as “better than cash” and the adverts all say that no-one needs to carry money any more. How convenient. Not.

I don’t care that the fine print says that Snapper may not be available on all buses at all times. That’s not what the marketers are selling. If the roll out is going to have the odd teething problem, the driver should be empowered to let Snapper holders on the bus as if they were Gold Card holders, noting the number of patrons and either charging Snapper for a failure to deliver or wearing the cost themselves if the problem is the bus company’s.

To ask the driver to bear the wrath of angry Snapper patrons, when there really isn’t any problem or failure, is just nonsense. It also erodes trust in a new technology that could have great benefits for everyone.

An angry Russian beach volleyball player has refused to acknowledge losing to Georgia, claiming her rivals were really Brazilians in disguise.

(How do you disguise a Brazilian volleyball player as a Georgian volleyball player?)

Maybe Georgia should have spent more time recruiting Brazilian soldiers rather than volleyball players? Or better still spent more time playing volleyball and less time warring with a large superpower.

Georgia has had the bulk of the good will in the international media to date – probably because people in the West remember fondly Georgia’s Rose Revolution in 2003.  But that does not fairly reflect the shared desire by both sides to warmonger.

On the other side Russia has again shown that the five permanent members of the Security Council do not have the necessary balance and lack of bias to be exercising the role that they do.  Russia’s involvement in this conflict means that we cannot expect the United Nations to respond in the way that will save the most lives and lead to long term peace.  This is a shame because compromises like that give bodies with less democratic ideals, such as NATO, added legitimacy.  Which possibly brings us back to where we started?

Pre-emptive war against Iran, under the easy-to-communicate pretext of stopping Iran from developing atomic weapons capability, is surely an attractive rationale for certain US, Israeli, European and other Great Power strategists as oil prices move towards 150 USD/barrel. During economic recession, as proven in the ‘Cheap Oil interval’ of 1986-2000, surely heightens ethnic tension between Chi’ite and Sunnite communities in the GCC countries. The rising likelihood that 150-dollar oil can trigger global recession underlines this economic pre-emptive rationale for war against Iran.

Even before the overthrow of Shah Pahlavi by the Khomenei-led revolution of 1979, the country’s oil discovery/production indicators showed that Iran was heading towards that day – then a long way in the future – when it would cease to export oil. One consequence was the entirely ‘classic’ economic decision to develop civil nuclear electricity production. As amply proven by India and Pakistan, South Africa and Argentina, and most recently by North Korea, and the real basis of ‘civil’ nuclear energy in the USA, France, UK, Russia, China and Israel, so-called ‘civil’ nuclear energy enables nuclear weapons production. Civil nuclear, and military nuclear are seamless, whatever the NPT and the IAEA might like to suggest or propose.

In those two paragraphs are the crux of the issue, at least as far as the Iranian crisis goes. It was a perfectly rational economic decision for Iran to want to develop nuclear capabilities in order to offset the looming decline in the country’s ability to power itself. Such development takes decades. On the other hand, we all know that there is no actual difference between civil and military nuclear development. There is no economic justification for civilian nuclear unless a military justification is factored in. Nuclear is just too expensive and too risky, unless you weigh the economic costs of military risks, which then offset any purely ‘civilian’ nuclear economic losses. (That is why nuclear will never be a rational economic choice for New Zealand)

When the great powers of today, almost all of whom are net oil importers in possession of nuclear arsenals and rapidly deployable armed forces, line up to divide the spoils of the last pots of cheap oil, the stage is set for an unholy conflagration. I just hope the author is wrong with his assertion that such a war is inevitable.

Saying sorry can be powerful. It would be most powerful if the Government also said sorry to the Vietnamese people. As far as I know the New Zealand Government is yet to say sorry to them, although I think Sue Kedgley did her best to make up for when on a visit to Vietnam.

I have had the unique experience of being intimately part of the protest movement against the Vietnam War in this country and also having toured the country with poisoned veterans in 2004. The veterans I met were volunteers who chose to go to a country they knew little of and become part of one of the most appalling invasions in the twentieth century. In the process these men were exposed to a terrible defoliant which has hideous intergenerational effects. Agent Orange contained high levels of dioxin and the effects on the Vietnamese population continue to this day. Everything was poisoned, their bodies, their land and their waters. The foreign soldiers were also put at risk and their children and grandchildren are still suffering from this terrible chemical abuse. I met some of these children when we toured the country on the “People Poisoned Daily Tour� in 2004. There is no doubt they deserve an apology and then some for being exposed to Agent Orange. As do the DOW workers, the sawmill workers and everyone else sprayed with this human carcinogen (to name but one of the effects).

Interesting a recent Massey University report on sawmill workers in Whakatane also exposed to dioxin, shows levels even higher than some of the veterans, but no one  is saying sorry to them. They weren’t volunteers they were workers and they are dying just as fast as the others are.
I am sorry that its taken the Government so long to take responsibility for the effects of dioxin exposure on the veterans, and I look forward to other exposed workers being assisted and compensated. The pain of this chemical exposure is beyond words. And I have met some veterans who know what was done to Vietnam and how utterly wrong it was. But should we march proudly now, justifying our previous involvement in the United States agenda? For some of us that’s a revision of history that we’re not prepared to make and our biggest sorry goes to the citizens of Vietnam.

As Iraq drags on the same cycle is being enacted with US soldiers. They are being poisoned and they are poisoning Iraq. They should not be there and they will be hurt that there are not seen as heroes. They will be ill and traumatised, having left illness, death and trauma in their wake. What’s it for? Who benefits? Maybe its time for answers as well as apologies.

Hopefully we’ll get more posts from Catherine in the next few months.  She is a published author, has been a tutor in resource management and Te Tiriti o Waitangi issues, a mediator under the Resource Management Act and is currently an education co-ordinator for Kotare Trust and chairperson of the Tairawhiti Beneficiary Advocacy Trust.  But she is probably best known as a campaigner and activist for ecological wisdom and social justice in Aotearoa.

Incidentally No Right Turn also covers the Vietnam apology from a similar angle.

The biggest factor that doomed Clinton, from day one, was Iraq. Her vote for the war and subsequent lack of apology cost her the support of a huge segment of the party that flocked to Obama (and, early on, Edwards) and tarnished her brand from the very beginning…

Obama was able to convincingly argue, “When I’m your nominee, my opponent won’t be able to say that I supported this war in Iraq; or that I gave George Bush the benefit of the doubt on Iran.

The rest of the world’s view of the US election is often skewed by the importance we place on foreign policy compared to Americans’ obvious emphasis on domestic policy. So it is fascinating to read that a principled stand against war could have played a key role in Obama’s seemly unassailable lead in the democratic primary.

I like to think it is an endorsement for politicians taking a stand based on firmly held principles, rather than triangulating their way towards the middle ground. At the time Obama became famous for opposing the war it was still a risky political position, but it was the right one. Others who took the same stand were squashed under the criticism. It will be interesting to see if the same momentum for peace continues when the election become a true presidential election rather than just a democratic primary.

It’s an interesting dilemma. First, no-one would like to see more countries get a hold of nuclear weapons. That’s why we have a non-proliferation treaty. But wait! The USA is also signatory to the 1974 IEA agreement, which says that member nations (including NZ) need to promote the peaceful use of nuclear power and uranium enrichment. I don’t think Bush really cares whether Iran’s ambitions are peaceful or not, he just wants an excuse to pursue his skewed version of the foreign policy doctrine laid out by Zbigniew Brzezinski in The Grand Chessboard. (Even though Brzezinski has condemned Bush’s war on terror.)

The real question is: Would John Key answer Bush’s call and send troops to Iran? He flip-flopped on Iraq based on the polls rather than deciding based on his convictions. Could Helen resist such a call during an election year? What about Winston, Peter or Rodney? The Maori Party? But as Key is currently the darling of the polls, I would really like to hear from him.

Would he agree that Iran was “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror”? Many would say that the US was, citing their financial and technical support for Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein prior to turning against them. I appreciate that this is inflamatory stuff and is likely to start a flame war. However, the National Party has been the least consistent of all the parties on support for Bush and his policies. As we start down another road to madness in the Middle East, I’d like to know where the National Party really stands this time.