Now what?

Saddam’s dead, Chemical Ali’s dead, coalition forces are met as liberators by cheering crowds in Basra, saran-tipped missiles are found, the INC Army is in southern Iraq, Kofi Annan says the UN shouldn’t take the lead in post-war Iraq, and the anti-war movement has shrunk to practically nothing.

So the worst nightmares of the anti-war (really just anti-Bush) movement have come true: the Iraqi people wanted us to liberate them, the campaign was remarkably swift and painless, and Iraq now faces a future free of terror and fascism, and the most fierce battles of the war weren’t fought in Baghdad, but in places like San Francisco and Oakland. So what’s their excuse gonna be for valiantly trying to keep the heinous dictator in power and the people oppressed?

Some will deny it’s happening, like Al Jazeera and Saddam’s info minister; others will change the subject, like Al Sharpton and David Weinberger; and others will simply go incoherent, like the French press does in this article “Les Echos” writer Laetitia Mailhes cribbed from material she got from this blog and a phone conversation with its author, on Silicon Valley and the war:

Le debat moral difficile a trancher

Wind River Systems developpe une technologie equipant les equipements medicaux, les systemes de transport, mais aussi les reseaux de telecommunications, civils et militaires, et les systemes de guidage des missiles. Son PDG, Jerry Fiddler, un ancien militant contre la guerre du Vietnam, donnait son point de vue dans le “San Francisco Chronicle”: “La generation de mon pere a combattu dans une guerre gigantesque qui a fait enormement de victimes et cause des destructions massives. Ma generation a fait une guerre e grand renfort de bombardements, de napalm et de mines.

Aujourd’hui, nous sommes capables de mener une guerre avec des avions fantomes, des outils de telecommunications, des senseurs et un armement d’une telle precision que les degats sont limites a une zone aussi reduite que possible. La guerre est toujours detestable, mais une technologie comme la notre reduit les destructions et rend notre monde plus tolerable.”

Pacifiste de longue date, David Weinburger reconnait que le debat moral est difficile a trancher. “Premierement, indique-t-il, accepter des contrats militaires quand on est pacifiste, c’est de l’hypocrisie, mais en realite, les gens qui s’opposent a cette guerre ne sont pas necessairement pacifistes.

Deuxiemement, les scientifiques ne peuvent pas davantage esperer controler l’usage qui sera fait de leur technologie que la maniere dont leurs impots sont employes. Enfin, il est tres difficile pour une entreprise de dire : “On vous vend notre technologie a condition que vous ne l’utilisiez que pour des applications que nous approuvons…” Il ne s’agit pas d’absoudre les entreprises de toute responsabilite. Elles ont le pouvoir de decider quel monde elles veulent batir.”

Isn’t that just the silliest thing you’ve ever read, with that implication that Silicon Valley wants to restrict its products to applications that don’t involve the liberation of suffering people? Chirac’s minions will resort to some even more desperate means to try and escape accountability for the role they played in keeping Saddam in power for the last twenty years, and this is only the beginning.

Bad Google translation follows.

The WAR IN IRAQ

Silicon Valley restive vis-a-vis the war In Silicon Valley, the rate of support for the war in Iraq east one of the lowest of the country. The Bay Area has a protest tradition which makes it suspect to the eyes of many Americans. Until the 1970s, the army however occupied a place of weight in the local economy, where a number of civil technologies are conceived that the army then adopts. Perhaps the majority of Americans walk in lock-step behind their president, but in Silicon Valley, they are more recalcitrant.

According to a survey carried out at the end of March in the peninsula (excluding for San Francisco), 48% of the questioned people decided in favour of the war and 44% against. On the national scale, the results for the same period were respectively 73% and of 24%. “The area is marked by a strong tradition of progressive policy on national and international questions, underlines Philip Trounstine, president of Survey and Policy Research Institute of the San Jose State University, which made a study.

The tendency is still accentuated by the weight of minorities in the demographic distribution of the area, which includes 20% Asians and 20% Hispanics. These groups are strongly opposed to the war “Hispanic, Asian or white, the residents of Silicon Valley — an area perceived by the Americans themselves as a Holy Land of capitalism and entrepreneurship — do not have only political, moral or philosophical reasons to denounce the war in Iraq. “The war is harmful for the economy because it slows down the resumption of the technological sector by pushing companies to delay their capital expenditures even more”, declares Sean Randolph, president of Bay Area Economic Forum.

No impact on the economy

However, the American government must spend this year 69 billion dollars (64,5 billion euros) for military equipment, that is to say close to twice the budget deficit of California. In fact, the prospect for this military shopping makes reappear the vestiges of a past where the Defence Department by itself bought 70% of the production of integrated circuits (in 1965), and it does not rest on any tangible reality “The idea that the military expenditure can leave the rut an economy in difficulty is a well-worn image. There is only to see the impact which the first war of the Gulf had ten years ago, it also in a context of recession: no”, affirms Stephen Levy, president of Center for the Continuing Study of California Economy. “The situation is very different from what it was forty years ago, it continues. The military contracts currently weigh for less than 10% in the economy of Silicon Valley.

There remain hardly 8.000 employees at Lockheed Martin [ the largest military supplier of the area, note ] and they do not manufacture missiles. Silicon Valley lost nearly 200.000 employment and the dismissals continue. If there were an surge of the military orders, that would be known “According to him, in a specific way, certain companies can record an activity increased with the Defence Department. But, as Sean Randolph states it, “these are not the military contracts which will compensate for the absence of resumption of the capital expenditures”.

In fact, the complexity of the relations between economic actors makes difficult, even impossible, to identify clearly and formally the weight of defense in the local economy “One does not speak even any more a “chain” of value but of “network” of value, says David Weinburger, a specialist in marketing, author and veteran of the sector of high technology for twenty years.

A company which counts a company of telecommunications among its customers, for example, does not have any means of knowing if its technology will be used for applications civil or military “One however finds many companies having signed of the contracts with the army. Hewlett-Packard, whose cofounder David Packard was secretary-deputy with Defense under the Johnson administration, would have recorded a renewal of military contracts, but refuses with any comment.

Same deal for IBM and Cisco Systems. “Drawing attention to the military applications of Cisco Systems technologies makes the company the target of anti-American and anti-war reactions”, indicates a confidential memo published on last 20 March detailing the policy of communication of the company during the war.

The moral debate difficult to grasp

Wind River Systems develops a technology equipping the equipment medical, the systems of transport, but also the telecommunications networks, civil and military, and the systems of guidance of the missiles. Its chairman, Jerry Fiddler, a former militant against the war of Vietnam, gave his point of view in “San Francisco Chronicle”: “the generation of my father fought in a gigantic war which enormously made victims and caused massive destruction. My generation made a war with great reinforcement of bombardments, napalm and mines. Today, we are able to carry out a war with phantom planes, tools for telecommunications, sensors and an armament of such a precision that the damage is limited to a zone as reduced as possible. War is always hateful, but a technology like ours reduces the destruction and makes our world more tolerable.”

Over-the-hill pacifist David Weinburger recognizes that “the moral debate is difficult to slice.” Firstly, he indicates, to accept military contracts when one is pacifist, it is hypocrisy, but actually, people who oppose this war are not necessarily pacifist.

Secondly, the scientists can no more hope to control the uses which will be made of their technology that the way in which their taxes are employed. Lastly, it is very difficult for a company to say: “We sell our technology to you provided that you use it only for applications which we approve…” It is not a question to exonerate the companies of any responsibility. They have the capacity to decide which world they want to build.”