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

To: LindyBill who wrote (49098)	10/3/2002 10:44:27 AM
From: spiral3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

rolling stone gathers no moss true or false

To: LindyBill who wrote (49098)	10/3/2002 10:47:21 AM
From: Elsewhere	Respond to of 281500

"You saw the movie 'High Noon'? he asks. "We're Gary Cooper." Iraqi Official Suggests a Duel Thu Oct 3, 9:25 AM ET By SAMEER N. YACOUB, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - An Iraqi vice president offered a unique solution to the U.S.-Iraq standoff: a duel between George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein. Taha Yassin Ramadan said the duel could be held at a neutral site and with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the referee. ... story.news.yahoo.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (49098)	10/3/2002 11:08:28 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The article is correct that the National Security Strategy shares some common ground with the Project for the New American Century's (PNAC) paper on rebuilding America's defenses. newamericancentury.org Should not be surprising, as it describes itself as building on the defense strategy outlined by the Cheney Defense Department under Bush I. The question after the end of the Cold War was, "what do we do now?" The Cheney/Neocon crowd argued that we were the only superpower and we could either stay that way and remain in a position to "shape things for the better or we can throw that advantage away. [But] that would only hasten the day when we face greater threats, at higher costs and further risk to American lives." That's what Cheney said in 1992. But Bush I lost to Clinton, who believed that we should reduce the military because there were no threats to worry about. He envisioned a military involved in peacekeeping missions and humanitarian missions. Even Bush II campaigned on a platform of the US not being the policeman of the world. We were planning to return to our traditional isolationist role. Has 9/11 changed people's minds about that? Or was there a nefarious scheme of global domination kept in the administration's back pocket, as we manipulated bin Laden into attacking us so that we could take over the world? Intelligent people, I submit, would take the position that 9/11 was a wakeup call. The black helicopter crowd will take the position that Bush and the neocons were secretly planning their New World Order for decades, and this is just the next step. I can resolve both points of view with my own reduction to simplicity. The black helicopter crowd are the intellectual heirs of the pinko left who don't have the Soviet Union for support anymore, but will never tire of hoping to see the US as it is now destroyed, so we can all live in global villages, eating tofu, wearing Birkenstocks, driving econoboxes, and in general treading lightly on the earth. And the idea that grownups actually make contingency plans for eventualities that may occur long in the future is not something they grasp because they aren't very deep thinkers. So, the black helicopter crowd is right. It's a secret plan for global domination by the guys who think they have been on the side of good all along, and see no reason to stop thinking that way. They have no intention of eating tofu and listening to reggae and they have no intention of respecting the "sovereignty" of tin pot dictators running terrorist training camps, either. No, we can't all "just get along."

To: LindyBill who wrote (49098)	10/3/2002 11:52:23 AM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The president's real goal in Iraq As concise and direct a statemen as I've seen. It certainly draws the line in the sand. Thanks for the post, LB. --fl

To: LindyBill who wrote (49098)	10/4/2002 6:04:09 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Um. Would I agree that this is a good idea, or would I agree that that's where Perle wants to go? Personally, I'm somewhat uncomfortable that Perle and friends are looking past Iraq to SA and Egypt. It'd be ok if they actually talked about any of this stuff publicly, but instead we're headed toward 24/7 Saddam demonization and war propaganda. On the other hand, there is this thing about our defense budget, where the next biggest in the world is about 10% of ours, in Japan of all places. Oughta get some return on that investment, I guess, except that the promoters of the new Empire probably wouldn't be happy until the budget was doubled at least.