Stardate 20020218.1604

(On Screen): So Europe is telling the US that war is not the answer, especially against Iraq. Their recommendation: international courts, diplomacy and sanctions, and none of that army crap.

As it happens, we have some examples of the European way of doing things right now. For example, Milosevic is on trial as we speak in an international court in Europe, and the trial is turning into a circus. He has declined counsel and is representing himself, and he spent three days making his opening speech, such as it was. The trial is already being condemned by some. One has to wonder how a military tribunal could be any worse.

And then there's that diplomacy and sanction business. For that we turn to Zimbabwe. Mugabe is trying to steal an election; he's been persecuting the free press there and murdering members of the opposition party and it is exceedingly likely that the election, when it happens in about three weeks, will suffer from "irregularities" (a nice term, that). The government has set up a special committee to control food distribution and put the nation's intelligence chief in charge of it; it's widely believed that food distribution will be used to punish areas which are not considered loyal.

The EU decided to try to prevent that and tried to send a group of observers down; Mugabe ejected the head of the delegation and the EU pulled the whole body out, and is now implementing targeted sanctions against Mugabe himself and his top cronies.

There are several aspects to the sanctions: an arms embargo, and a freeze on assets held in European banks by Mugabe's inner circle, and a ban on travel to Europe by any of them, plus a cut of aid. None of those will bite at all. There's no reason to believe that Mugabe considers travel to Europe to be a high priority, for instance; and it's not like it is difficult to buy arms and ammunition in the world from places other than Europe. (North Korea will sell to anyone who has cash on the barrel head, for example.) Cutting $20 million per year in aid is nothing, as is clearly shown by the fact that Mugabe has destroyed the economy of Zimbabwe in his efforts to stay in power. It's obvious he doesn't care about that kind of thing at all.

It was the asset-freeze which was the only one which could really hurt, but the problem was that Europe telegraphed the blow. They announced it as a potential sanction quite a while ago, which means that Mugabe and his cronies have had plenty of time to transfer their assets out of the European zone. It will be interesting to hear whether the Europeans actually find anything at all to freeze, or only find closed bank accounts.

A member of Zimbabwe's opposition party, Morgan Tsvangirai, dismissed it as a useless gesture:

"I don't think the European factor is any more relevant," he said in an interview with the Associated Press Television News before the EU decision.

"They (have been) talking about sanctions and not imposing any. ... It's too late now."

With the election less than three weeks away, "I don't think they will be able to influence anything," he said.

The BBC itself has posted an article which castigates the sanctions as a pointless exercise.

Now this is the model that Europe is recommending that the US follow in its foreign policy in the wake of the September attack? No thanks.