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

To: zonder who wrote (48886)	10/2/2002 8:16:06 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

The White House On Iraq: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Proof By Arianna Huffington syndicated columnist Filed September 30, 2002 We all know who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, don't we? No, not Osama bin Laden. God, that is so last year. It never turns out to be the person you first suspect. It was Saddam Hussein. For some reason we couldn't find him when we went after him in Afghanistan, bringing that magic elixir of regime change along with us. But now we've got a better idea: track him down where he actually lives, in Baghdad, and punish him right in his own backyard. It's the only way to obtain justice for the thousands he killed on 9/11. At least that's the way the White House is now pitching the story. In this latest rewrite of history, Osama has suddenly lost his beard and grown a mustache, morphing into the Butcher of Baghdad -- or one of the look-alike stand-ins Saddam has been using for public appearances since 1998. "You can't distinguish between Al-Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," said President Bush in the Oval Office last week. Really? He can't differentiate between a group of evil ultra-radical Islamic fundamentalists that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks and an evil secular nationalist who, despite the frantic efforts of the Bush administration, has not been directly linked to 9/11? He'd better start making such distinctions -- and fast. When every expert who knows anything about the Mideast can distinguish between the two, is it too much to ask that a President who’s ready to go to war look a bit more closely? People under stress often regress to earlier stages of development. It appears that Bush is so intent on getting Saddam, so obsessively tightly gripped by a need to succeed where his war hero dad failed, so determined to lay the murderous 9/11 assault at Baghdad's door, that he's regressed to that level of childhood development where fantasy, reality and wish fulfillment are all mixed up. Except that this time, things like nuclear weapons and the safety of the world for the next few decades are involved. Now, I'm no psychologist, but I believe there is a clinical term for this condition: going off the deep end. How else to explain the president's bizarre response to a reporter's straightforward query last week about who poses a bigger threat to America, Saddam or Al-Qaeda? "That's an interesting question," he replied. "I'm trying to think of something humorous to say but I can't when I think about Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein." When did the president take over the "Tonight Show?" Why would the idea that he should make a joke about such a deadly serious subject even cross his mind? It would be like asking Danielle van Dam's parents about the trial of their daughter's murderer and having them apologize for not being ready with a humorous quip. No, Mr. President, you needn’t apologize -- your inability to treat serious subjects lightly is not one of your deficiencies. So rather than struggling to come up with a wan witticism, why don't you just answer the question? Especially since it appears by your actions that you’ve already come up with one. Instead of bothering to give the least defense of his sudden fusion of Saddam and Osama, Bush launched into a fantasy-fueled diatribe: "The danger is, is that they work in concert. The danger is, is that Al-Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world." The president's regressed condition is spreading like the West Nile virus throughout the West Wing and beyond. Witness the symptomatic blurring of fact and fantasy exhibited by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When asked at an Armed Services Committee hearing about what is now compelling us to "take precipitous actions" against Iraq, Rumsfeld barked: "What's different? What's different is 3,000 people were killed." Yeah, by Mohammed Atta and company -- not Saddam Hussein. But why quibble over details when there is a propaganda war to be won? National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice continued the assault on reality when she vaguely yet ominously claimed: "There clearly are contacts between Al-Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented." Well, then why not document them? We've documented contacts between Al-Qaeda and our oil dealers in Saudi Arabia and Al-Qaeda and our new best friends in Pakistan. But I don't see any B-2s powering up for raids over Riyadh or Karachi. As is the White House custom, Rice simply refused to back up her claims. So did Rumsfeld, who memorably rebuffed a reporter late last week by saying, "That happens to be a piece of intelligence that either we don't have or we don't want to talk about." In other words: Proof? We don't need no stinking proof! And just because I’m asking your sons and daughters to possibly sacrifice their lives for it doesn’t mean you deserve to know whether it even exits. It would be nice if we could just take them all at their word and let the bombs fall where they may. But Sen. Bob Graham, who, as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is privy to the inside scoop, says he's seen no evidence of any link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein So we're left with the fevered, infantile imaginings of the president and his pals. "We had dots before," said Anna Perez, Rice's spokeswoman. "Now we have a higher density of dots. Have we connected those dots? No." Perhaps the president should put down his saber-rattle, pick up his crayons and connect them before drawing us into a bloody war. ___________________________________________________ Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of eight books. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was sixteen and graduated from Cambridge University with a M.A. in Economics. ariannaonline.com

To: zonder who wrote (48886)	10/2/2002 9:40:19 AM
From: aladin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Zonder, I apologize for venting on you. No you never argued that point, you were just the first post I saw after reading about the UN appeasement. As to the terrorists, the US mainland was hit, but my opinion predates that. A good friend of mine was at the US Embassy in Beruit - it took 3 days to dig him out. A childhood neighbor committed suicide - he and his sister were taken by Japanese terrorists (along with an entire school bus) several were killed, several were raped. We probably don't have the numbers of dead and wounded that ME countries do, but far more than most of the Europeans. The problem I do have with many Europeans (realizing you are not one) is their anti-Americanism. They question our right to do this or that and then have the gall to wonder why we took 2 years to help out in the Balkans - their backyard. Or why we waited before taking on Hitler in WW2. So on the one hand we have no right to intervene, and on the other we have an obligation. Which is it? John

To: zonder who wrote (48886)	10/2/2002 8:49:56 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 281500

My childhood passed with news of repeated terrorist attacks. I saw bloody body parts once. Still, I knew wishing the same on others was not the best way. Ever driven in an American city or highway?? And that "one" terrorist attack attempted to murder 50,000-60,000 people in one fell swoop. For that is the normal "population" of the WTC and Pentagon combined by 10AM. And we're not even counting the fact that Flight 93 was likely heading for the Capitol to wipe out our entire congress. That was "one" sneak attack and they went for the economic and political jugular of the United States. Now go back to to your game of baccarat, if you please.. Hawk