Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (36220)	8/7/2002 12:25:41 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

As I said, my take on Sharon (based on what he taught my brother-in-law) is that he wants to hang on to the West Bank for strategic reasons, not religious reasons. Yes, he was a clear proponent of Greater Israel. But now he says -- even to Likudniks who are not happy to hear it -- that a Palestinian state is inevitable. He just doesn't intend for it to be a terrorist state, nor one that has persuaded itself that it won a great victory via suicide bombing. Interesting way of putting it. Arafat, of course, is beneath contempt. Sharon, on the other hand, I thought you liked? I think Sharon is the right man for the job at hand -- winning the Oslo War. I would much rather that the war had never been started, that the Palestinians had had a rational statesman instead of a megalomaniac terrorist for their leader. At this very (thousands of miles ) far remove, do we (US) really have anything to fear from old Saddam? I think so. Not just the "what ifs" of when he gets his hands on nukes, as he surely will. The real heart of the matter, which Ajami laid out (but the Bush administration is fighting shy of), is how much damage his continued survival has done to our interests already. And he's not just surviving but outfoxing us, proclaiming his great triumph, asserting our weakness, etc. The Arabs have a great capacity for what's been called "Pyrrhic losses". If a Pyrrhic victory is a victory that is too costly, a Pyrrhic loss is a loss where you delude yourself that you really won. Do you know, I've heard perfectly rational Egyptian officers explain that they were always taught that Egypt won the 1973 wars hands down, and it wasn't until they studied it in the United States that they realized it wasn't so? The Arab world is great at this form of self delusion. The Arab world thinks that Saddam won the Gulf War due to his strength and our inherent weakness. This kind of thinking fed and fueled the killers of 9/11. I believe that what is really animating Rumsfield and Cheney is the belief that there is only one way to put a stop to this kind of thinking. Afghanistan was a help, but it's too far off the Arab radar range to really be effective. Iraq, on the other hand... Well, no, but that nobody outside the Mideast would have given a flip about what was going on inside the Middle East except for the fact that Israel was in the cross-hairs, liable to be blown away. In this alternate universe, what would we be using to fuel our cars? If you say 'hydrogen fuel cells', then I grant your point, we would care less about the Arabs than Sub Saharan Africa -g-

To: Ilaine who wrote (36220)	8/7/2002 8:00:37 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Conflict could soon be nuclear From Roland Watson in Washington Times Online August 07, 2002 THE US Congress has been warned that President Bush’s proposed attack on Iraq could escalate into a nuclear conflict. An assessment of Iraq’s capabilities says that the US is unlikely to knock out many, if any, of President Saddam Hussein’s mobile missile-launchers in a first wave of airstrikes. It raises the possibility of Baghdad hitting an Israeli city with a missile carrying biological agents, saying that Saddam is likely to use chemical and biological weapons. Israel’s likely reaction would be nuclear ground bursts against every Iraqi city not already occupied by US-led coalition forces. Senators were told that, unlike the 1991 Gulf War, when Washington urged Israel not to retaliate against Iraqi missile strikes, Israeli leaders have decided that their credibility would be hurt if they failed to react this time. The assessment was written by Anthony Cordesman, a former Pentagon and State Department official now with the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies. He was a witness before last week’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and chosen to open a national debate on the looming Iraqi conflict. He queried the ability of US forces to use pre-emptive airstrikes to cripple Iraq’s mobile launchers, which would be used for chemical or biological weapons. Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, has alluded to the problems of locating the launchers. Referring to the Gulf War, Mr Cordesman said that, despite contrary claims, the US had not detected most Iraqi chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons and missile capabilities. US and British forces also had “no meaningful success” in finding Scud missile sites, nor were the airstrikes of Operation Desert Fox in 1998, after the departure of UN weapons inspectors, successful. “It’s likely, therefore, that Iraq could succeed in launching some CBRN strikes against US coalition forces, targets in neighbouring states, and / or Israel.”It could take days to characterise biological agents. “Even US forces would only be able to firmly characterise dissemination by observing the lethal effects,” he said. The United Nations secretary-general, Kofi Annan, rejected conditions set by Baghdad for new talks and told Iraq last night he was waiting for a “formal invitation” for UN weapons inspectors to return. Mr Annan said in a letter to Iraq’s foreign minister that new talks must focus on “practical arrangements” for the resumption of inspections. timesonline.co.uk