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Harsh words from peace camp, muted praise from backers
Russia, France and China led a storm of international protest yesterday against the US strikes on Iraq, while praise from Washington's allies was restrained and often outweighed by street protest.
Tap, tap ... nope, sympathy meter's stuck at zero.
| Oh, dear. I am so Concerned®... |
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, demanded an immediate ceasefire saying such unilateralism, which replaced the rule of international law with justified brute force, left "not one single country in the world feeling secure". He described the strikes as a "big political mistake" that threatened international security and could cause a humanitarian catastrophe. Russia intended to "pursue the return of the situation to a peaceful course on the basis of UN security council resolutions 687 and 1441", prompting speculation that Moscow, perhaps with French backing, was planning to table a resolution condemning the US-led attacks.
I guess that if we vetoed it, that would be "unilateral".
In Paris the de facto leader of the weasels anti-war camp, President Jacques Chirac, called in a brief television address for a quick end to the fighting.
We can do that.
"France regrets this action taken without our permission approval of the UN," he said. "We hope these operations will be as rapid and least-deadly as possible, and that they don't lead to a humanitarian catastrophe."
Jacques, remind me, I'm a little fuzzy on this: who prevented UN approval again?
China, another veto-holding permanent security council member, appealed for an "immediate halt to military actions against Iraq", abandoning the low-key approach that it had adopted. "War will inevitably lead to humanitarian disasters," a foreign ministry statement said.
"Well, not as bad as our Great Leap Forward, but it could be bad!"
In Germany, another weasel opponent of military action, more than 100,000 people took part in apparently spontaneous demonstrations against the war. Police in Berlin said that around 10,000 massed at Alexanderplatz. The foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, said: "This is bitter news. We hope that the hostilities will end quickly and that the civilian population will be protected. Everything must be done to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe."
I get the feeling that they're all reading from the same script.
More than 100,000 people marched on the US embassy in Athens. In Rome, police blocked anti-war demonstrators marching up Via Veneto toward the American embassy, while tens of thousands of students, workers and others blocked roads and railway tracks elsewhere in the country. Riot police in the Philippines capital, Manila, used shields and truncheons to disperse about 300 activists trying to approach the US embassy, injuring at least 12 people. At the start of a potentially explosive summit in Brussels, the rotting carcass of the European Union said the world had entered "a new and dangerous phase" and expressed dismay that diplomacy had failed.
"We have nothing to offer except ineffectual diplomacy, and now that has failed! Curse those Americans!"
The Vatican was harsh on Iraq and Washington. A spokesman said: "On the one hand it laments the fact that the Iraqi government did not accept the resolutions of the UN and the appeal by the Pope himself, which asked for the country to disarm. On the other, it deplores the interruption of the path of failed negotiations, according to hypocritical international law, for a peaceful solution to the Iraqi melodrama."
| Zzzzzzz... Oh, I'm sorry! Did you say something? |
Switzerland banned military planes from its airspace for the duration of the war, while in neutral Finland, President Tarja Halonen decried the missile strikes as unacceptable. Iran — Iraq's neighbour and once listed by George Bush on the same "axis of evil" — criticised the attack as "unjustifiable and illegitimate".
"Especially since we might be next!"
Turkey, which has refused to meet its obligations allow its soil to be used as a launchpad for an invasion of northern Iraq, said the security council process on Iraq "should have been allowed to finish". Malaysia produced Asia's strongest anti-American invective; the deputy prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, called the attack "a black mark in history" with "the world now seeing might is right". Megawati Sukarnoputri, president of Indonesia called for an emergency meeting of the UN security council.
Sure, Megs. How discussing how the world should deal with terrorist madrassas in your country?
Pakistan declared that it would continue pushing for peace, and a Palestinian chief apologist minister, Saeb Erekat, feared that Israel might intensify a crack down against the Palestinians while world attention was diverted.
| With no reason, of course. No reason at all... |
Praise for the attack amounted to little more than polite acknowledgement. The Spanish prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar, a staunch US ally despite public opposition, said there was "no room for neutrality" and that his government had "assumed its responsibilities", but the country was hit by demonstrations and strikes.
All we need for now. Thanks, Jose.
The Japanese prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said he "understood, and supported the start of the use of force by the US", while the South Korean president, Roh Moo-hyun, said: "We will make diplomatic efforts to ensure this war does not worsen our relations with North Korea."
| He's looking at the danger that's closest. Hope he's studying up on the problem, because it should soon be his, and his alone... |
Thousands of mindless apologists staged a rush-hour protest in Sydney after the Australian prime minister, John Howard, said that some of the 2,000 troops he deployed to the Gulf took part in the attacks.
Posted by: Steve White 2003-03-21 |
