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

To: aladin who wrote (48214)	9/30/2002 8:41:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

But why would he do this? I think the guy is a "Refugee from the '60s," and this gives him a chance to relive the glory days. He has a safe district. Seven terms now. He doesn't care what the conservatives write or say about him, as long as they spell and say his name right. Hey, he gets National exposure on "This Week." Congressmen will give the right and left for this.

To: aladin who wrote (48214)	9/30/2002 11:41:09 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

But why would he do this? Someone on this board, forget who it was, surmised about Bush that it was possible he might, on occasion, act from principle rather than narrowly conceived political motives. That may or may not describe Bush. It certainly describes McDermott. What he is saying and doing may not be good politics but he is certainly doing it because he thinks it's the right thing to do. He certainly and obviously thinks going to war is unacceptable; that the sanctions contribute to suffering in Iraq (and he's not dumb so he would know the role of Saddam in increasing the suffering) just as Pollack notes in his book they do (let me stop a moment--Pollack makes the point the sanctions were originally designed as a short term measure because the international consensus assumed Saddam was on the way out, that as he stayed in power they became a misbegotten long term policy that paradoxically was hard to dismantle because surrounding countries began to benefit by the illegal trade they fostered--and that it's possible to design sanctions that don't leave Saddam as much space to short change the Iraqi population but that most countries would not accept--okay back to the McDermott); and that calling this to the attention of the American public will make war less likely. You might quarrel with the political wisdom of all this. I do. But it's very principled behavior.