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

To: zonkie who wrote (3249)	3/11/2002 6:50:24 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

zonkie, I read over the net that Bush plans to attack Iraq. The following post indicates that some in Europe believe Cheney has the real power in the states. I do not believe that Americans realize Iraq has a sophisticated army unlike the ragged Taliban who used outdated weapons and were not very well trained. Plus, in Afghanistan, people never wanted to fight in the winter so the US had to go in and clean up the remaining Al Qaeda recently.

To: zonkie who wrote (3249)	3/11/2002 6:51:08 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Honesty is a better policy than uncritical support for the United States argument.independent.co.uk 11 March 2002 When the Prime Minister meets US Vice President Dick Cheney today, perhaps he will pause to reflect on how his dream of drawing America into a new era of co-operative diplomacy has foundered. In those happy days when his premiership was young and Bill Clinton was still in the White House, Tony Blair travelled to Chicago to deliver a personal plea in the heartland of American isolationism. In preparing US opinion for more forceful action against Slobodan Milosevic in the Kosovo war, he was hailed as someone who could make a better case for the exercise of US power beyond its borders than the president himself. It was a good case, too. The essence of it was that the end of the Cold War made it possible for rich and powerful nations to act in defence of human rights anywhere in the world, and indeed imposed an obligation on them to do so. What was important, Mr Blair said, was that such countries should act collectively. It would not always be possible to secure explicit backing from the United Nations for action - as it was not in Kosovo, because of the Russian veto. But if nations acted in regional groupings such as Nato, in defence of rights espoused by the UN, then interventions in the "internal" affairs of other states were justified. In the days after 11 September last year, Mr Blair seized his chance to act as spokesman for a much larger coalition than was assembled against Mr Milosevic's Serbia, but it soon became clear that George Bush had no instinct for multilateralism. He has turned out to be no isolationist, but his interventionism is only a kind of isolationism turned outwards, and his idea of a coalition against terrorism is one in which other nations are welcome to support whatever it is that the US decides to do. From the repudiation of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change to the imposition of tariffs on steel, this US administration is revealed as unilateralist to its core. That is why the Liberal Democrats and many in the Labour Party, up to and including the Cabinet, are right to be fearful of US intentions towards Iraq. It may be that President Bush's war talk against Saddam Hussein, with Mr Blair in the role of supporting chorus, is partly for presentational purposes, designed to put pressure on Saddam as new "smart" sanctions are negotiated at the UN. But we would not like to rely on Mr Blair's nod and wink that the best way to influence the US is by uncritical support in public. The strength of US unilateralism is also good cause for other countries to be worried about the nuclear contingency planning document leaked to the Los Angeles Times. The fact that the Pentagon has given thought to the use of nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and North Korea is not surprising - although it must be embarrassing for the President to have his friendship with Vladimir Putin undermined in this way. But Nato has an established doctrine of not planning first use of nuclear weapons and this document would seem to be in clear breach of it. The document also underlines a basic difference of opinion between the US and Europe. Americans are still obsessed with the threat of weapons of mass destruction from rogue states, whereas Europeans tend to worry more about terrorists with suitcases. Mr Blair needs to reflect, as he shakes the hand of the man who many believe is the real power in the US administration, on whether his tactic of uncritical support for America's war on the "axis of evil" really is the best way to persuade the US away from its unilateralist instincts - or whether he has sold the pass on the principles he set out in Chicago four years ago. argument.independent.co.uk