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

To: jcky who wrote (39611)	8/23/2002 3:47:16 PM
From: jlallen	Respond to of 281500

I agree the Administration needs to makes its case public WHEN it is ready to move....I don't think its going to be all that tough. Saddam has done all the heavy lifting for the US.....

To: jcky who wrote (39611)	8/23/2002 6:44:54 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

No it's not. < Without building a credible case for pre-emptive strike and regime change in Iraq, this is exactly how the rest of the world will view the Bush administration.> I'm the rest of the world and to me there is plenty of case for the USA to take over Iraq by conquest, take possession of the oil, colonize Iraq and call it another state. As Hawk points out [though a lot of people don't seem to understand it] there is not actually any international law that has any ethical foundation. It's just anarchic international agreement which pretends to be international law. The dominant group boycotts or attacks to enforce their view of the law. It's still law of the jungle out there, but with the Arabian Nights style of shifting alliances and anarchic gang mentality. The USA of course defends itself as it sees fit, consistent with whatever ethical standards they feel like bringing to bear. They are mindful of the perspective of foreigners because the USA is not an island. The USA depends on my investments for example, as well as huge international trade, not to mention the wish of many Americans to travel to other countries. Meanwhile, more Moslem Head-Hacking mystics carry out their malevolent trade, leaving a brother to carry his sibling's head in a box. This time in the Philippines. nzherald.co.nz Moslem Lebanese rapist thugs are being gaoled in Australia for decades. Good riddance. Moslems complain that Lebanese and Moslems are getting a bad name by referring to religion and origin. They should more enthusiastically teach their horrible offspring that rape, murder and mayhem are not normal behaviour. Maybe Moslems should teach ethics in their Madrassas instead of Islamic mystical madness if they don't like being categorized as Head-Hacking wackoes. abcnews.go.com Where there are Moslems, there's Head-Hacking. It's a law of nature. Cannibalism and slavery used to be common. Moslems still have Head-Hacking of those they dislike [not that the victims have done any damage to somebody and deserve punishment]. Moslems are starting to look like cannibals and slave-drivers with their medievil ways. Mqurice

To: jcky who wrote (39611)	8/23/2002 7:43:51 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Former Secretaries of State Wary of Iraq Attack Thu Aug 22, 10:38 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger said on Thursday he was not convinced that the time was right for military action against Iraq, while Madeleine Albright ( news - web sites), who held the job until last year, said Iraq is "not a direct threat to the United States." Eagleburger, part of a Republican faction with reservations about attacking Iraq, said that unless the Bush administration has evidence that Iraq is very close to developing weapons of mass destruction, he would not support a unilateral U.S. military campaign to topple President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites). President Bush ( news - web sites) has said he supports "regime change" in Iraq and that he will weigh all options, including military force. The debate over Bush's plans for Iraq has heated up this month, but U.S. officials continue to say the president does not have any war plans on his desk. The debate has split Republicans into two factions -- those who say that delaying action is dangerous and those who say the administration should not act precipitously. "When we don't have the allies with us, when we haven't very clearly stated what we will do once we've gotten Saddam out of there, assuming we can get him out without too much agony, then we ought to take our time," Eagleburger said in an interview on CNN. "I'm not at all convinced now that this is something we have to do at this very moment," added Eagleburger, who was secretary of state at the end of the term of former President George Bush, the father of the current U.S. president. Albright, who served as secretary of state under President Bill Clinton, said Iraq posed a threat to the region, but had been limited by ongoing international sanctions. "It is not a direct threat to the United States," Albright said on the PBS program "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." Albright said there must be a discussion about whether the United States would be better off with "a pre-emptive attack on Iraq from where we are now, where, in fact, I believe that Iraq and Saddam Hussein are contained pretty well within this sanctions box." FIGHTING TERRORISM OR FIGHTING IRAQ? "I think the main problem here is whether this is our number one priority or whether our number one priority is fighting terrorism," Albright added. "And it would seem to me that we would be sacrificing a lot of the cooperation that we're getting in the fight against terrorism for what is unclear as a goal in Iraq." Speaking on the same program, Henry Kissinger, another Republican former secretary of state, said Iraq "threatens the United States by its capacity to threaten its neighbors." To permit Iraq to develop weapons of mass destruction in violation of U.N. resolutions "seems to me an unprecedented situation justifying unprecedented measures," said Kissinger, secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Eagleburger said that the United States would have to use overwhelming force to make sure a military operation succeeds, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars, and would have to stay in Iraq as an occupying force for years to come. Washington's European and Arab allies and friends are almost universally opposed to military action. Even Britain, the European country usually closest to U.S. foreign policy, said on Thursday its aim in Iraq was to get U.N. weapons inspectors back in. Kissinger said that "were we to go to war, we have to do it in a manner where even if we don't have support at the beginning, other nations can participate in the process of reconstruction and governance that has to take place afterwards as we have so successfully done in terms of organization in the Balkans." Eagleburger said he would support Bush wholeheartedly if Bush produced evidence against Saddam. "I need to be told in no uncertain and clear terms that he now has his finger on a trigger for a nuclear weapon or something of this sort that is close to being developed." "If the intelligence is clear ... then all the president needs to do is say that to the American people and, at least as far as I am concerned, I will believe him implicitly, and in those circumstances then, yes, we should go," he said.