Ted,
You may be interested, the best way to browse news that i have been using lately is Google News:
news.google.com
No need to bother with AOL. Yahoo is ok, but not as comprehensive. Of course Drudge finds some scoops, and is always a good site to check.
I was surprised that France rejected Britain's demands to Saddam even before Saddam had a chance to respond.
Yes, that was a blunder on their part. I wonder how the weekend will play out. I wouldn't be surprised if France tried to recover by jumping on one of the proposals Canadians were making (which is somewhere between British and the proposal of the 6 "undecided" countries for 45 days.
If they stick with the veto threat, they give US and Britain PR advantage.
I don't much care for the French......great country though....but I don't like all the bad blood that is being created. The French may be a-holes, but they are closer to us and truer allies than someone like Pakistan.
I would like to believe so, but I am not sure any more. One thing is clear, which is that Musharraf is definitely more of a stateman than Chirac, and he lead Pakistan to be a friend of the US, while Chirac lead his country to become an adversary.
Just compare their stance at the UN. Musharraf would like to help the US, would like to vote with the US (and probably would if absolutely necessary), but made it clear that he would rather abstain. He stayed somewhere between neutral and helpful to the US, knowing there is only so much he can get away with (domestically) helping the US.
French did just the opposite, tried to undermine the US as much as possible. If it was just a "vote of conscience" (if Chirac had one) I could possibly buy it. But Chirac goes out of his way to lobby other countries for the defeat of the US. That part to me is stepping way over the line, to the point of basically no return. I don't think the US will ever trust France again.
Yeah, like Eric, I believe its time to get it over with.....stretching it out is only making things worse and intensifying animosities. I wish the hell Saddam would opt for exile. He's getting up there in years........I don't understand why doesn't want to move into some senior housing near the ocean or something. <g>
He didn't need to do anything, while the diplomats were talking. We will see what he does when it is clear that the diplomatic delays are over. They had an Iraqi exile on TV the other day, and he said that Saddam is no hero when it comes to his own skin. He mentioned an anectode from one of the Arab summits. He said that during one of the meetings, the light went out. When restored, everybody was sitting as they were before the lights went out, and only Saddam was hiding under the table.
Joe |
