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Politics : The Donkey's Inn -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: zonkie who wrote (3238)	3/11/2002 1:22:42 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 15516

zonkie, Bush demands keep loyalty. You have to treat him like a King. Powell's only alternative is to do what Bush says or resign. Powell sees Bush's problems more clearly that we do so Powell is probably afraid to resign, afraid of what might happen to the country. As a military man, his sense of duty to his country is strong. I don't know what is wrong with Bush but whatever it is Bush is unable to focus on numerous topics simultaneously. He is obsessed with his war on terror and everything else takes second place, as journalists have pointed out. Bush has ignored the Israel/Palestinian conflict and it has become dangerous. A few minutes a go I read how Israel and Palestinian fighters use crude missiles. Last week someone used a bomb. The press has been pounding away at the problems there. Yet, when Cheney's stopped in the Middle East, his purpose, according to the press, was to ask for support the US attack on Iraq. You wonder if Bush is aware of what is going on in the Middle East and the possible consequences of a major war in the area that could involve many countries. Last week, Bush agreed to send Zinni back to the MidEast but you wonder if W understands how dangerous the situation there is. Cheney is or has been in England where he preaches that weapons of mass destruction should be kept out of the hands of terrorists. His comments are not new. Europeans and Americans have felt that way for some time. I am not sure why the press makes a big deal out of his comments. ........................ Powell and condoms. Last week, W tried to avoid the issue by encouraging couples to get married so W will ask government agencies to try the same tactics, I imagine.. Many 12, 13 and even 14 year-old kids have sex. They aren't going to abstain, and marriage would likely make the situation worse since they would have kids that they probably wouldn't want to raise because they are only kids themselves.

To: zonkie who wrote (3238)	3/11/2002 1:26:49 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 15516

Mideast wakeup call "For a year, the Bush administration attempted aloofness, a policy whose futility is documented by history and which has now managed to complicate unnecessarily the war on terrorism by compromising relations with Arab nations whose support we require " By Thomas Oliphant, 3/10/2002 The Boston Globe WASHINGTON LET'S REWIND for a moment, to see how reality is at last intruding on the Bush administration's myopic policies toward the Middle East powderkeg. Only a month ago, it was explicit US policy that there would be no resumption of US mediation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority without an end to the violence and terrorism, with the onus entirely on Yasser Arafat. Only a month ago, it became clear that Vice President Cheney was putting together an 11-nation journey through the region whose purpose would be to begin assembling a coalition of acquiescence if not formal support for an eventual invasion of Iraq. But now, retired General Anthony Zinni is headed back to the region in the middle of the worst violence in decades. And Cheney's mission will (inevitably) include discussions about the murderous impasse between Israelis and Palestinians and ideas for breaking it, as well as the ongoing, broader struggle against terrorism. Much more will eventually be required of the hitherto aloof American officials, but the latest moves are the beginning of an acknowledgement of an enduring truth about the tit-for-tat killing that keeps breaking longstanding taboos on an almost daily basis. Just last week, for example, Palestinians began sending crude missiles from the Gaza Strip into Israel, and some still-unknown Israeli group planted a bomb in an Arab schoolyard. The truth about this madness is not that complicated: They can't stop each other; they can't stop themselves; they almost never have; and they probably never will. They need help from the outside, and the United States remains the only nation capable of providing it credibly. This is much more than a hunch. The empirical evidence assembled by scholars is overwhelming. One of them, Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland, alluded on the ''Newshour with Jim Lehrer'' last week to a massive investigation of nearly 20 years of specific incidents in concluding that the current situation is not likely to be altered by the parties on their own. That sent me to Telhami, who holds the Anwar Sadat chair for Peace and Development, and then to the study. It was published last fall by him and three colleagues from other universities in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. It involved an examination of tens of thousands of incidents in the region going back to the late 1970s. Even to a layman the relentless patterns of what the authors call ''bilateral reciprocity'' (for example a Palestinian terror attack followed by an Israeli military response that kills civilians) is depressingly evident. More important, the study shows that in this particular nonrelationship the reciprocity is never likely to lead to a moment when one or both participants realize it is out of control and jointly pull back from the brink. The exceptions seem to me to prove the rule. It is true that Sadat's famous journey 25 years ago from Cairo to Jerusalem and ice-breaking talks with the late Menachem Begin was sui generis; but it is also the case that the eventual peace treaty the following year could not have occurred without the sustained, detailed, personal mediation of Jimmy Carter. Similarly, the Oslo agreement ultimately sealed on Bill Clinton's White House lawn by Arafat and the late Yitzhak Rabin was the product of bilateral, secret negotiation; but it was also the outgrowth of a process President George H.W. Bush willed into being following the Persian Gulf War. American intervention, the study makes clear, is anything but a guarantee of success in turning an important corner. But it has often made a difference, and on occasion it has been everything. For a year, the Bush administration attempted aloofness, a policy whose futility is documented by history and which has now managed to complicate unnecessarily the war on terrorism by compromising relations with Arab nations whose support we require. That is now about to change, but as it does the rest of us can responsibly ask why anyone thought that it was possible for the United States ever to keep a distance from this mess that inescapably concerns us and the world. Thomas Oliphant's e-mail address is oliphant @ globe.com. This story ran on page D7 of the Boston Globe on 3/10/2002. © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.