« Flags | Main | The Third Wave »
March 22, 2003
Shifting allegiances?
Earlier today, I commented on the shifting list of the "Coalition of the Willing" and asked if we even know who our supposed partners are in this war. Turns out that might actually be a fair question. According to Salon, some of the countries we have listed as members of the coalition are speaking out against the war.
Even those nominally included in the coalition are bashing the war, however much President Bush thanks them for their support. Portugal was added to the coalition list on Thursday, but somebody forgot to send the country's president the talking points. "Given that there is no mandate from the United Nations, ... Portugal will not form part of the military coalition which will be built up," Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio said on Wednesday, according to Agence France-Presse. "We will, however, allow our allies transit rights, just as other countries have done, including some which have expressed strong opposition to any military action against Iraq."
On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher had moved Portugal, Singapore and Bulgaria from the column of those that didn't want to be named to those in the Coalition of the Willing. "This is not something one can do an accounting every day," Boucher said. "I'm not inclined to do a chart or a graph or anything or, you know, color-coded countries."
It might serve him well to do so, though, because Portugal isn't the only State Department-labeled "Willing" country having trouble deciding whether or not it's in the coalition. Angolan Radio Ecclesia reported on Wednesday that all 30 members of the Angolan National Assembly spoke against the war; M.P. Joao Melo said that U.S. behavior was "unilateralist" and "imperialist." Angola -- along with the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Iceland, Kuwait, Mongolia, Portugal, Rwanda, Singapore and Uganda, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and the Solomon Islands -- was added to the list on Thursday.
"We are not having any kind of involvement," a spokesman for the Eritrean Foreign Ministry said to AFP, while backing the U.S. action. Eritrea is also a member of the Coalition of the Willing.
Posted by thorswitch at March 22, 2003 12:08 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.differentstrings.info/mt/mt-tb-ds.cgi/443