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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (55354)	10/29/2002 1:22:14 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"He went to Paris, looking for Answers, to questions that bothered him so" ("He Went To Paris" Jimmy Buffett) That was me, in '54. Loved the place, disliked the people. George Will keeps giving me more reasons why. washingtonpost.com Fowl Cries From the U.N. By George F. Will Tuesday, October 29, 2002; Page A21 European elites were lamenting America's insufficient respect for Europe and for multinational undertakings when Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission, which Europe's elites hope foreshadows a European superstate, said: "Stupid." That was his description of the European Union's budget rules. It has been said that housing developments are named for what is destroyed by development -- Rolling Acres, Forest View, Green Meadows. The EU's budget rules are named for what they impede: They are named the Stability and Growth Pact. It ostensibly obligates EU members, regardless of their particular economic conditions, to have budgets generally balanced, and stipulates stern financial penalties for deficits exceeding 3 percent of GDP. But these rules have the strength of cobwebs. Nations violate them, often masking noncompliance with creative bookkeeping. Europe's nations still have different notions of their needs and interests, and act accordingly. So "Europe" remains a merely geographical, not political, denotation. Which brings us to President Bush's excessively patient attempt to coax the United Nations to take its Iraq-related resolutions seriously. An earnest American minority craves U.N. approval of U.S. military action against Iraq. This minority had no such craving when military action was against Serbia. Then NATO's approval was considered an adequate proxy for the United Nations'. Americans eager for U.N. approbation are really concerned not with all the 190 other U.N. members but with the European ones. And primarily those Western European nations that these earnest Americans visited using their Eurail passes when they were graduate students. Such as France. Its great-power pretenses have been increasingly unconvincing since the Franco-Prussian war. Today it tries to use its anachronistic seat as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council as a substitute for real geopolitical weight. But this is increasingly preposterous. A few years ago, at a meeting in Europe of NATO defense ministers, the French participant behaved, well, very French, haughtily stressing his nation's disagreements with, and independence from, America. But shortly after the U.S. secretary of defense returned from Europe, his French counterpart called to request U.S. C-130s to airlift French troops to an emergency. France's minimal airlift capacity was in disrepair. As Gulf War combat approached, France loaded one of its two aircraft carriers with aircraft, many of them Korean War vintage, and dispatched it toward the gulf. Then France had second thoughts, and the carrier turned back. France illustrates Europe's feckless desire to have geopolitical weight without paying the price, particularly in military muscle, for such weight. Even if Europe were ever to summon the will to wield real power, its fading economic vigor would preclude doing so. Europe's welfare and labor laws (during France's recent fling with a mandatory 35-hour workweek, government enforcers patrolled companies' parking lots to detect people working illegally hard) are suffocating the continent's creative energies. And demographic trends guarantee stagnation. Nine of the world's 10 oldest populations are in European nations. By 2050 most European nations' populations will be smaller than they are today -- Italy's, 25 percent smaller -- and only 57 percent of Europe's population will be of working age. There will be just three Italian workers for every two retirees. Aging populations, declining birthrates and intolerance of invigorating immigration make for long-term economic anemia. The French, like other Europeans eager to compensate for their chosen, self-inflicted weakness, want the United States to take the United Nations, hence them, seriously. They should be careful what they wish for. European elites say European unity -- meaning the EU's bureaucratic superstructure piled atop the nations' bureaucracies -- will give Europe the weight of one great nation to match America's weight. It will not, but Europe's pretense of oneness should be honored. The United Nations should be reformed. It should grant just one membership -- it can be a permanent member of the Security Council -- for "Europe." There should be no separate U.N. membership for the member states of the EU, any more than there is for Ohio. For now, America should put a sensible Iraq resolution to a U.N. vote, note with mild interest any French veto, and proceed with the pursuit of American interests. The French rooster crows during Europe's dusk. A chronicle of the First Crusade was titled "Gesta Dei per Francos" -- "The Deeds of God Through the French." Crowing comes naturally to a nation whose symbol is a rooster, but crowing does not resonate from a perch in the United Nations, which does not take its own resolutions seriously and can hardly be taken seriously as long as it incorporates the fiction that France is a significant power. washingtonpost.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (55354)	10/29/2002 1:24:06 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Looks like 43 has also had it with the French. washingtonpost.com Bush to Force Vote on Iraq Resolution White House Hopes Deadline Would Forge Security Council Deal By Mike Allen and Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, October 29, 2002; Page A01 DENVER, Oct. 28 -- President Bush plans to force a vote in the Security Council over the future of Iraq if substantial progress toward a stringent weapons inspection plan is not made by next week, senior administration officials said today. White House officials said the administration had decided to set what amounts to a deadline for action as a tactic to reach a compromise with U.N. Security Council members over a resolution demanding that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein abandon his weapons programs or face possible military action. As the White House sought to increase pressure on the council, diplomats said that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made progress today in discussions with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, and that Washington is considering compromise wording to allay French concerns that the United States will use a new U.N. resolution as a "trigger" for war. Officials said Powell will work to force a vote before next week, regardless of whether the United States has the votes to pass the tough resolution it is seeking. Opening what administration officials have billed as a make-or-break week for an Iraq resolution, Bush said at a campaign rally today that Hussein "has made the United Nations look foolish" by continuing to stockpile weapons of mass destruction. "If the United Nations does not have the will or the courage to disarm Saddam Hussein, and if Saddam Hussein will not disarm for the sake of peace, for the sake of freedom, the United States will lead a coalition and disarm Saddam Hussein," Bush said. After six weeks of negotiations, the Bush administration is essentially reaching the endgame in its campaign to persuade the 15-nation Security Council to adopt a robust resolution to force Hussein to give up his deadliest weapons. France and Russia, two of the council's five members with veto power, have voiced the fiercest opposition, with officials saying they suspect Washington will use the resolution to justify a military overthrow of the Iraqi regime. But other countries also harbor concerns. A resolution proposed by the United States would strengthen the rules of engagement for U.N. weapons inspectors, granting them authority to demand immediate access to any location in Iraq. The resolution would also find Iraq in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations, a phrase used previously to justify military action. It would also warn that Iraq may face "serious consequences" if it continues to defy the inspectors. The way administration officials explain their strategy, they could accomplish their goals regardless of the outcome. They said that if the United Nations approves a tough resolution, they expect Hussein would quickly be found in contempt of his promise to the group, as part of the Persian Gulf War cease-fire in 1991, to destroy his weapons of mass destruction. If the Security Council does not approve a resolution -- or, more likely, votes to support a resolution that does not include a mechanism for enforcing its demands -- Bush could continue with preparations for military action. Throughout the U.N. debate, the Pentagon has been heavily building up its troops, equipment and airstrips in the region. The White House did not set a formal deadline for approval of a resolution today, but senior officials said Bush is likely to begin calling for creation of a coalition to strike Iraq if U.N. negotiators are not close to a muscular resolution by next week. "We're not at the point of giving ultimatums," a senior White House aide said. But the official added: "The president has made it very clear that we are nearing the end of this process. I predict this will be concluded by the end of next week, but we're not ruling anything out." While the White House sought to maintain an atmosphere of urgency, the Security Council met behind closed doors today to hear the views of Hans Blix, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, on the U.S. draft resolution. Blix told reporters after the meeting that the council should pass a resolution that would prevent Iraq from engaging in "cat-and-mouse play" with the inspectors and subject Baghdad to a tough "reaction" if the regime failed to cooperate. He also said that a Security Council finding that Iraq is in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations could be helpful if it makes Iraq realize that "non-cooperation will entail reactions by the council." Blix also signaled for the first time that he will probably not send inspectors to Iraq if the council cannot agree on a new resolution. Citing concerns that there "might be other consequences" -- an apparent reference to possible U.S. war plans -- he suggested it would be unwise to send inspectors without the council's full backing. He said it is "almost inconceivable" to order inspectors into Iraq "while half of the council wants us to be there and the other half of the council does not want us to be there." "Let me stress that from the inspectors' horizon, council unity is of the greatest importance," Blix said during the closed-door council meeting. "We have difficulty in acting with full strength if we feel that we do not have the backing." While administration officials characterized his remarks as an endorsement of their policy, Blix cited concerns about a number of provisions in the U.S. inspection resolution and said he wanted no part in triggering a war in Iraq. "I will not agree with an interpretation suggesting that we have peace and war in our hands," he told the council, according to a copy of his statement. "We report. It is the Security Council and its members who decide." Blix said there would be "great practical difficulties" in fulfilling a U.S. proposal calling for taking Iraqi scientists and their families out of the country to be interviewed. Bush has publicly cited the need to allow Iraqi officials and their relatives to leave the country so that they can provide an honest account of advances in the Iraqi weapons program without fear of punishment by the regime. The proposal has been opposed by Blix and other council members who said it would potentially place the United Nations in the awkward position of aiding a defector program. Blix also said Iraq would not have sufficient time to meet a 30-day deadline to file a "complete and final declaration" on the status of its civilian chemical and biological facilities. The Bush administration has insisted that Iraq quickly file the declarations so that it can begin to test whether Iraq is being truthful about its weapons programs before inspectors return to Baghdad. France, Russia and China have also expressed reservations about the tight deadline, fearing that Washington will cite any omission from the declaration as a pretext for military action. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan called for unity, but said that a final deal would require give on both sides. "It's a grave matter; it's a question of war and peace," Annan told reporters outside the council. "I'm still hopeful that the council will come up with a resolution that all of them can sign to, or a vast majority. But it would require some compromises to get compromises." At an earlier stop in Alamogordo, N.M., Bush drew laughter from the rural audience when he said he had told the United Nations "as clearly as I could, in Western language," of his ultimate intentions. "You have the choice as to whether or not you will allow this dictator to continue to defy the United Nations, and therefore weaken you," he said today, "or you can join with the United States and disarm him like he said he would do."

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (55354)	10/29/2002 4:53:31 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

I don't think you posted this comment by Sullivan, Nadine. Tuesday, October 29, 2002 >>>>>>MUHAMMAD AND THE JEWS: Somehow I knew more of this would emerge. The Associated Press is reporting that "Muhammad also is linked to a shooting last spring at a Tacoma synagogue in which no one was injured, Tacoma police said." So he was a terrorist, a Muslim, a member of the fanatical anti-Semitic group the Nation of Islam and someone who shot up a synagogue. Who'd have thought it? As I've been saying for days now, connect the dots... Because the mainstream media will do all they can to avoid it. <<<<<