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

To: carranza2 who wrote (51110)	10/11/2002 11:27:55 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Who cares about the French and the Germans? The Russian position is understandable on the basis of economics. These three are ultimately irrelevant to the effort, so why expend a lot of political capital on them? Even with the French and the Russians, one gets the definite impression that they merely concerned to sell their Security Council votes at the best price. The Germans are indeed irrelevant.

To: carranza2 who wrote (51110)	10/11/2002 11:57:20 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Gawd, you're a slippery little guy, John. Or forgetful. Ah, there is another cliche somewhere, that when you run out of arguments you try to do personal attacks. Hmmm. For starters, Bush has wisely made it quite clear that the diplomacy, on this issue, is ultimately irrelevant to him. How can he have bungled a diplomatic process he's ultimately not worried about? It's not as if he has expended a lot of effort on the issue. I gather from that note that you think the Bush folk are doing the diplomacy bit well by ignoring it, by alienating traditional allies, by acting much like 7th graders with the Germans, by fulfilling the image of the international cowboy ever so eager to pull the trigger--a sort of shoot first, ask questions later style. Well, if you like that, consider that diplomacy well done, we don't have much to talk about. But even then, I would argue in response to your slippery side-step that the diplomacy has been OK. We've got Saudi Arabia on board, Qatar on board, Jordan probably on board, the Brits heartily supporting us, Kuwait onboard, Egypt silent, etc, etc. Oh, it's always possible, given the present state of US international power, to muscle folk into positions. But there are always prices to be paid. It's called absence of diplomacy. Who cares about the French and the Germans? The Russian position is understandable on the basis of economics. These three are ultimately irrelevant to the effort, so why expend a lot of political capital on them? See above.

To: carranza2 who wrote (51110)	10/11/2002 12:08:30 PM
From: zonder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Re: The ones who matter are the locals, and they are not objecting. I sincerely hope you base your opinion on your own experiences with the "locals" (I guess this denotes the Iraqi people) for a recent interview I had posted on this thread a few days ago suggests otherwise. Unless you take a woman's declaration of "I will throw them [US Army] rocks", or "They are coming here for the oil" etc to be a warm welcome. Could it be possible, do you think, that Iraqi people will not appreciate Americans invading their land, no matter how little they like Saddam?