Willing no more!

One essential tenet of “news management”, US government-style, is that the administration tries to release news that makes it look bad fairly late on a Friday evening…
So tonight, this, from Reuters:

    The White House has scrapped its list of Iraq allies known as the 45-member “coalition of the willing,” which Washington used to back its argument that the 2003 invasion was a multilateral action, an official said on Friday.
    The senior administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the White House replaced the coalition list with a smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq sometime after the June transfer of power to an interim Iraqi government.
    The official could not say when or why the administration did away with the list of the coalition of the willing.
    The coalition, unveiled on the eve of the invasion, consisted of 30 countries that publicly offered support for the United States and another 15 that did not want to be named as part of the group.
    Former coalition member Costa Rica withdrew last September under pressure from voters who opposed the government’s decision to back the invasion.
    On Friday, an organization from Iceland published a full-page advertisement in the New York Times calling for its country’s withdrawal from the coalition and offering apologies for its support for U.S. policy.

I guess at one level I’m surprised that anyone even thought there still was a “coalition of the willing” any more– or rather, that the concept still had enough credibility that anyone cared about it at all.
But this new “smaller roster of 28 countries with troops in Iraq” doesn’t seem to have a name yet.
Any suggestions?

13 thoughts on “Willing no more!”

  2. January 21, 2005
    Terry Lee: You know the problem with being smart?
    Joe: No.
    Terry Lee: You always know what’s gonna happen next. There’s no suspense.
    Bandits

  3. May I suggest to Bob that if he cannot be positive then this is not the place for him?
    Let him rather find a post-modernist site where there are already people who agree that nothing can be done except wait.

  4. Just to open the bidding, helena, for a name for the “smaller group of 28 with troops in Iraq, how about?:
    THE SHILLING

  5. Well, I wasn’t aware of Luttwak’s article and looked for it. You have to subscribe to get more than the headlines and the intro.
    After a quick google search, I found that Luttwak’s arguments were presented and commented on the “Legal fiction blog : “Zen and the Art of Democracy Repair, part II”.
    Justin Raimundo at antiwar.com also has a good review of all the exit strateties recently proposed by realist Republicans. His article ends with a detailed summary of Luttwak’s piece.

  7. Hi,
    I’ve tried to keep track of who was still maintaining troops in Iraq, but it’s not so easy since the US doesn’t like to publicize a weakening support.
    At first, US bragged she had about 49 countries supporting the Iraq invasion. But she never disclosed all the names. Some have publicly requested that their name be taken away from the list after the UN refused to support the invasion, namely Norway and Iceland. Nicaragua or another small Latin America country who withdrew with Spain did the same.
    Anyway, there was never more than 32-34 countries who sent troops to Iraq. Here are a few links :
    The most up to date, at Global Security acknowledges that 27 countries were still in Iraq on the 15th January 2005 (look down toward the end for tables summarizing the foreign forces engaged).
    PWHCE has severa

  8. Hi all. Thanks for the comments. I like the suggestions for the names of the “coalition/axis”.
    Bob, I really appreciate you putting what seems like such a pain-tempered viewpoint out there. I guess we won’t immediately agree, but we should certainly keep on communicating in public on these incredibly tough issues.
    As you may guess, I’m still against “punishment” as the way forward. And I still don’t think the administration is about to “do” Iran. Maybe we should revisit the issue after 12 months and if you’re right I’ll send you a big box of chocolates (in between having to do even MORE anti-war demonstrating at that point.)
    (Bob, you might also want to check out JWN’s commenters’ ,guidelines on length and relevancy. I’m somewhat relaxed about the strict word-count; but between length and the positioning of your comment here– more relevant to the earlier post than this one? — you were probably breaking two of them this time.)
    Christiane, thanks so much for all your great research there. I’m planning to put that last post of yours up into main post…

  11. Dear Helena,
    12 months from today is January 22, 2006. I adore chocolates. But I expect to collect within six months time. That’s July 22, 2005. If you win, the prize is whatever you like.
    But forget the anti-war demonstrating. If you want to effect change, raise votes.
    Best regards,
    Bob

  13. “Coalition of the Bribed” wins the contest.
    One cannot stress enough to what extent the US has bought the reluctant collaboration of those in Iraq, and also others like Pakistan and Egypt. The partnership with Pakistan seems particularly wrong headed, based on the natural allegiance of their masses, the history of their secret services, and dismal social value metrics (literacy, women’s rights, etc.). One would think the US natural ally is India, a more populous, more democratic, entrepreneurial, and better educated partner. Pushing India into Russian and Iranian arms because of some short term interests in Pakistan is, in my humble opinion, just wrong.
    E. Bilpe

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