Stardate 20030224.1542

(Captain's log): The charade at the UN continues apace, with the US and UK introducing a new resolution in the UNSC which is watered down in the futile hope of it passing. France and Germany and Russia have circulated a counter proposal based on attempting to stretch out the inspection process until we lose the ability to attack. And it's going to end up doing exactly what I feared most: it's going to provide political cover for those who don't want to vote to actually authorize war. The French proposal would postpone even consideration of war for at least four more months, which will be enough to make the decision moot (and they know it). The French proposal can't pass (because of American veto) but it makes it so that I think Bush is wrong when he says that the US/UK proposal will be approved. And in fact, the French proposal isn't even a formal proposal; it's just being circulated now as a memorandum. Its sole purpose is to be an alternative that permits its proponents to give lip service to opposing Saddam while actually giving him succor.

And that succks. It means we've been played for succkers.

Military preparations seem to be continuing, but it's taking an achingly long time. Maybe Turkey will finally really give us permission to use their territory. (Or maybe not.) In the mean time, a lot of our men are rotting in ships off the coast of Turkey, waiting for permission to put their feet back on solid ground.

My feelings about Colin Powell keep changing, and they're going back down again. At times like this I almost wish that Bush would send Powell on a six month diplomatic mission to investigate penguins in Antarctica, and then fire everyone in the State Department while he's gone. It seems as if our attempts at diplomatic multilateralism have been a disaster, and the decision to even make the attempt made us vulnerable. Much of the damage which has been done to us now internationally has been possible only because we let it happen.

The only way someone can say "No" is if we bother asking them in the first place. And if we do so publicly, then it gives them the ability to make points publicly by humiliating us. So their public demands and denunciations of us served the purpose of convincing us that we had to ask, publicly, making it possible for them to damage us by saying "No".

I'd like to believe that this is all some sort of deeply cunning plan on the part of the Bush administration, but I can't convince myself of it. What I think is that a lot of gullible people, mostly in the State Department, have let themselves be conned by their counterparts in other nations and convinced to advocate policies by us which left us vulnerable to diplomatic counterstrokes.

When you sit at a poker table, if after fifteen minutes you can't figure out who the pigeon is, you're the pigeon. And our enemies in this poker game have convinced us to put on feathered suits and to sit on a perch squawking.

There's struggle on many levels, with many opponents. We've let ourselves be maneuvered into letting the struggle take place on terrain favorable to our opponents. It didn't need to be that way.

The international anti-American juggernaut is beginning to pick up steam because we have not worked to stop it. We are fighting a diplomatic war and we don't seem to be willing to fight as dirty as those who oppose us. And because of that we are losing; we've ceded an advantage to our opposition by not doing what is needed to truly win. Our bluff has been called, and it's become clear that we are not ruthless enough to deal with ruthless opponents. It's going to take more than just chiding them for being afraid to take responsibility, or referring to them as "selfish".

And we're being conned again into fighting on their chosen terrain, and to fighting a war of their choosing. We're attacking their strength, not their weakness. (Hasn't anyone in Washington or London read Sun Tzu?) The new US/UK proposal is wrong. It is a mistake. It is a deep failure; it is surrender. There was never hope of passage, but by watering it down in the vain hope of passage it is a self-inflicted defeat. The mere fact that it's being submitted in the form that it is makes it a defeat. It is a withdrawal; it cedes momentum to the other side.

It should have been strong and forthright. It's going to fail no matter what, so it should have painted the issue in the most stark terms by forcing everyone to take a clear stand. Then, when it gets voted down and we attack anyway and win, it would place those opposing us on the wrong side. We should be taking the long view here. But in a futile attempt to get short term advantage from passage, we give away the long term advantage of forcing our enemies to clearly place themselves against us publicly and unambiguously.

It should have been one sentence.

The Security Council of the United Nations finds that Iraq is in material breach of UNSC Resolution 1441.