A Truly Grand Coalition, or Two
Bush’s “Coalition of the Willing,” if it still exists, is a group of nations who have proved to be something less than willing when push comes to shove. Which is the only difference between it and the coalition of unlikely bedfellows who got Bush re-sanctified in 2004.
A political stunt at best, the “coalition of the willing” was announced by Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday, March 18th, 2003, as a part of the ultimatum issued to Saddam Hussein. On Wednesday, blatant RNC propaganda outlet “The Heritage Foundation” was trumpeting the coalition as “Already Larger than the 1991 Gulf War coalition.” On Friday, March 21st, a White House press release declared that President Bush “is assembling a Coalition that has already begun military operations to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction, and enforce 17 UNSC resolutions.” If, as he said so often during the 2004 campaign, Bush didn’t care about world opinion, why was he so careful to build a “coalition” out of thin air in an attempt to dodge the accusations of unilateralism?
Bush 41’s coalition in 1990 was a real coalition but it didn’t have a name. 43’s had a name from the very beginning but was never much more than a list of countries taken from a geography book. Nobody was ever able to provide an accurate list of the “willing” coalition members– contemporary references all refer to a list “that includes…” or that numbers “more than thirty nations,” or otherwise fail to nail it down.
The White House Press release said that the contributions of the coalition members ranged from: “direct military participation, logistical and intelligence support, specialized chemical/biological response teams, over-flight rights, humanitarian and reconstruction aid, to political support.”
A more accurate description would have gone on to include “or at least they aren’t actively opposing us.” Over-flight rights make you a coalition member? Easy club to join, tough one to get out of as Spain found out.
The release went on to say that “Forty-eight countries are publicly committed to the Coalition, including: ” …and their list includes Costa Rica, which later said it never intended to be on that list, and the Vilnius 10, former Soviet territories that wrote a letter of support, hoping it would aid their case for joining NATO.
Here are a few of the Willing Forty-eight: Angola, Colombia, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Mongolia, Palau, and Solomon Islands. One might guess that the South Pacific island nations contributed by providing over-flight rights, or perhaps by not withdrawing over-flight or basing rights that the US has had since the end of WW II. We can only guess at the contributions or “willingness” of Angola, Colombia, and Mongolia.”
In fact, according to a Washington Post report in February 2003, a quick survey of opinion polls indicated that in most countries the majority firmly opposed unilateral or even UN action.
Ultimately the “Coalition of the Willing” was a creation of the White House Office of Propaganda, which is very skilled at coalescing public opinion to meet the political needs of the administration. To the extent that it is or was a coalition, it is better described as the Coalition of the Ignorant and the Greedy. In looking at any particular goal, the savvy propagandist considers his target carefully and asks two questions: What do they fear? What do they want?
Those who were genuinely “willing” came aboard because they were either ignorant or greedy, or both. Ignorant because they believed Bush’s claims that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction were an imminent threat to world peace, or greedy because they wanted to curry political favor with the US, or thought they might be getting their hands on cheaper oil, or had military industries which could use the work.
No single issue decided the 2004 election, although several issues did highlight the extremes within the Republican camp. The “Christian Coalition” consists of millions of relatively poor people who are polar opposites of the Rich America that funded the Bush campaign. The Ignorant Religious Right allowed the RNC to convince them that Democrats would ban the Bible and allow gay marriage and late-term abortion, that the war in Iraq is a just war, and that anyone who criticizes Bush’s policies hates America and Jesus. The “neo-cons” are a bunch of rich yuppies who want to keep what they’ve got and get more, and they weren’t shy about funding the campaign. Strange bedfellows indeed, but together they formed a Coalition of the Ignorant and the Greedy that got Bush re-elected.
Ah, the power of Propaganda!
–SG
