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

To: Mephisto who wrote (3329)	3/18/2002 5:45:32 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 15516

Terror war veering out of control The Cincinnati Post cincypost.com The anti-terrorist crusade is getting out of control. Terrorism is a threat, to be sure. But our unfocused effort to attack our enemies everywhere threatens to do more harm than good. Worst of all is our campaign to unseat Saddam Hussein. We had a chance to remove him from power during the Gulf War, but the elder George Bush failed to push the campaign to a conclusion. Despite sky-high approval ratings, like those of his son today, he wanted to disengage the United States from the war as quickly as he could. And so we have been tangling with Saddam Hussein ever since. But that is hardly a reason to go after him now, in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. There is no question that Saddam Hussein has done some unspeakable things, both to his enemies and to his own people. Yet there is no hard evidence, or for that matter, soft evidence, that either he or his fellow Iraqis were involved in the terrorist attacks. The stakes are painfully high. As violence in the Middle East spirals out of control, an unprovoked attack on Iraq could lead to retaliation on Israel, which in turn could involve the entire Arab world. It would be a terrible price for the United States pay to avenge itself this way in the name of family pride. Meanwhile, the United States is engaged in an even more puzzling anti-terrorist campaign in the Philippines. The brutal Abu Sayyaf kidnapping group numbers about 60 on the island of Basilan. The group has thus far managed to elude about 7,000 Filipino soldiers. Now the United States in wading into the fray with $100 million in military aid that includes 30,000 machine guns. As Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Nicholas D. Kristof has pointed out recently, our entire effort seems ill-advised. The main public hospital on Basilan serves about 300,000, but like such facilities in developing countries around the world, has next to nothing to provide adequate medical care. But anti-terrorism is popular these days, and so we plunge ahead. It's like that in Afghanistan, as well. Operation Anaconda is aimed at rooting out the last Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters, holed up in caves far out of the way. Yet even after a ferocious bombing campaign and ground onslaught, we have little to show for our efforts. Reports of the fighting simply provide body counts that are a painful reminder of the nightly news from Vietnam, and the results appear to be about the same. Osama bin Laden is still at large, and it now appears that we don't have a clue about where he might be. And yet we remain committed to an open-ended anti-terrorist campaign that is costing a great deal of money, has a set of shifting targets, and has no end in sight. Indeed, it's hard to know when it might ever end, or what victory will entail. But it is politically popular. The American people have traditionally been willing to rally around their leader in times of crisis. They did so in World War I and World War II. They believed in the anti-Communist campaign in the Korean War, though the troubling stalemate helped bring down Harry Truman in the end. And initially they supported the war in Vietnam. Riding approval ratings seldom seen in the White House, George Bush has every reason to push ahead. While the recession may be ending, the economy is still not healthy. There is serious disagreement between Democrats and Republicans in Congress over what kind of stimulus package is appropriate and what to do about Social Security. The president's hand-picked candidate for the Republican nomination for the governorship of California recently went down to defeat. Our American electoral system means that campaigns begin months, and sometimes years, before an election takes place. Everyone in Washington, and around the country, is maneuvering for position with this coming November in mind. And November is eight months away. I remain troubled by the travesties that took place on September 11. But I'm equally worried about a politically-motivated anti-terrorist campaign that may never end. Allan Winkler is a history professor at Miami University. Publication date: 03-15-02 Email this story to a friend

To: Mephisto who wrote (3329)	3/22/2002 3:10:44 PM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 15516

What Cheney learned on his Mideast tour Christian Science Monitor csmonitor.com By Henry Precht WASHINGTON - Vice President Cheney seems to have failed in his hurried mission of instructing Middle Eastern leaders on the need for military action to bring down Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. But the trip succeeded admirably in teaching him five basic lessons about the region today: o The Israel-Palestine conflict is central to the politics of Arab states. Their leaders are convinced that the course and outcome of the struggle could well determine their futures. o A cease-fire in the conflict is meaningless unless there is a political context of hope. Palestinians are fighting for freedom from occupation; Israelis are retaliating to achieve security. At present, neither freedom nor security is in sight. o The peace plan of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah offers the best hope for the peace and security that normal people, not the ideologues, earnestly desire. This plan calls for a return to 1967 Israeli borders in exchange for fully normalized relations with all Arab states, closing most Jewish settlements, and dropping the right of all pre-1948 refugees to return to their homes in Israel. o The bitterness of prolonged violence and the absence of hope for peace push extremists on both sides to the fore, making it impossible to believe the two parties can come together in a spirit of conciliation and compromise. o Both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat will respond to US pressure when it is firmly applied and when their situations are desperate. Evidence: first, Mr. Sharon's agreement to pull his troops out of reoccupied Palestinian areas and easing of sanctions on Mr. Arafat, and, second, Arafat's sincere - if futile - call for an end to violence. This last lesson is the most basic one, for it rests on earlier teachings from the history of the conflict as well as on current realities. In the past, Israel has made concessions to its Arab enemies only when pressed by Washington or by those enemies. It withdrew forces from the Sinai Peninsula on three occasions when Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon, and Carter demanded it. Israel ended an incursion into Lebanon when Carter insisted, and withdrew completely under pressure from Hizbullah. It stopped (temporarily) settlement activity when the first President Bush withheld housing loan money. The Oslo accords of 1993 - which set a framework for talks between Israel and the Palestinians - were the result of years of fighting in the first intifada. Now the Israeli economy has tanked, registering negative growth after the destruction of tourism and investment by the second intifada, plus the collapse of the Nasdaq in the US, which hit Israel's technology sector. On top of this fiscal/political disaster, the extraordinary expenses of fighting Palestinians will be a heavy burden. Who will pay it? Don't be surprised if Israel sends Washington a request soon for supplemental aid. Arafat's Palestinian Authority is even more vulnerable after months of intifada destruction and years of mismanagement and corruption. He is desperate for a resolution to the conflict, but will not settle for terms - such as those at the last Camp David talks, in 2000 - that do not give him a viable state. This is, therefore, the moment for the careful application of pressure by Washington for a lasting settlement, along the lines of the Abdullah plan. America should not wait for an elusive ceasefire, but instead assemble a broad coalition of allies from Europe and the Middle East to share in the labor of pushing the combatants toward the only feasible end to the conflict. The coalition could also provide peacekeeping forces to separate the parties. Neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian rulers can resist such pressure, and most of their constituents will gratefully accept it. It is time for the Bush administration to apply the lessons Mr. Cheney brought home from his journey. o Henry Precht is a retired Foreign Service officer with experience in the Middle East since 1964. csmonitor.com