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

To: zonder who wrote (60132)	12/6/2002 6:44:08 AM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Please consider that "the rest of the planet" minds not the US "going after Bin Ladin" (where's the guy? did the US go after Bin Ladin, really?) but the fact that the Bush administration uses Bin Ladin as an excuse to invade and bully where it feels "necessary". Oh? Then why the outrage at invading Afghanistan, which was one giant terrorist camp, which even the Clinton Administration drew up plans to invade? What other country has the Bush Administration used bin Laden for an "excuse" to invade or mount operations in, that wasn't true? Yemen? Al Queda is there, beyond dispute. Pakistan? Al Queda is there, beyond dispute. Where's your examples of bullying, zonder? Indonesia? Yeah we bullied them for months trying to get them to do something about their radical "problem." They ignored us and a lot of Australians got killed. Then they listened. Saudi Arabia? LOL! Guess bullying is in the eye of the beholder. Please explain how reducing Afghanistan into rubble, installing a puppet government led by a former US oil company consultant, and killing several thousand civilians in the meanwhile is "self-defense". I would also love to hear how the "self-defense" theory applies to Iraq, where no hostilities have been seen in the last decade (i.e. containment works), no connection established between 9/11 and any Iraqi national, and even if WMDs do exist, they cannot possibly have the range necessary to strike US soil. Well if I must explain how invading a failed state that was being used as a base from which to train and operate the global terrorist network that was responsible for 9/11 was self-defense, then we have nothing to talk about. We also have nothing to talk about if you believe that the sanctions and Iraqi "containment" are intact. The subject of why Iraq is a threat has been gone over so many times on this thread it makes me dizzy, and frankly I don't believe you would benefit from it being rehashed yet again. Another viewpoint could be: "These are our long-term allies. If they have turned against us now, they just MIGHT have a point." Another viewpoint could be that our "long-term allies" have consistently been on the wrong side of the fence the last 20 years, so either they shut up, get on board, or be left behind. Alot of Americans are really sick of hearing from the snide little peanut gallery across the Pond. Derek

To: zonder who wrote (60132)	12/6/2002 6:51:17 AM
From: bela_ghoulashi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

It's so great to hear that you speak for the rest of the planet. And you do it so effortlessly. Like it's just second-nature to you.

To: zonder who wrote (60132)	12/6/2002 10:34:14 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

MORE TROUBLES WITH FRANCE? The administration also announced that it would veto any U.N. resolution that allowed the French to retaliate against Libya for the Bastille Day destruction of the Louvre that cost the lives of 3,000 French citizens and destroyed an icon of French power and culture. President Bush reiterated that the United States would not take part in any "preemptory" action against the people of Libya as part of allotting "collective" guilt for the Louvre massacre. Vice President Cheney summed up the administration's position best: "We don't want another Napoleonic-like invasion of North Africa, or more colonial adventurism on the Ivory Coast where la gloire trumps careful diplomacy. We need more evidence that Libya has ever funded any terrorists. Is there a direct connection between the Louvre bombing and Libya? If so, let the U.N. adjudicate. The days of colonization are long gone and it is time the French accept that fact and work through the U.N." Administration officials also vehemently denied reports that Americans, in exchange for U.N. support, had secretly pressed the French to make sure that a post-Khaddafi consensual government guarantee payment of billions of dollars in arms sales still owed by the Libyan dictator to Boeing and Lockheed. Washington also denied that it had demanded oil concessions for Exxon in any proposed reconstituted Libya. In the meantime, the bestselling The Big Fix was reported to be still on the New York Times bestseller list for the 23rd consecutive week. Americans in droves seemed to be buying the book's main argument that the French government blew up the Louvre in order to start a war with Libya to obtain its oil. However, not all Americans were so hardnosed. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was reportedly arguing for an American presence in the French-led coalition: "Don't worry; at the end of the day we will be on board and send a frigate or at least some military police boats to show our solidarity and thanks for Lafayette." And Attorney General Ashcroft assured the French that his investigators would pass on any information concerning the Louvre murderers "as long as the American people can be assured by the French government that so-called terrorists will not face capital charges." nationalreview.com

To: zonder who wrote (60132)	12/6/2002 10:37:00 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

ADMINISTRATION MISCUES? President Bush raised a firestorm today when he talked grandly of "An American Way." The United States, Mr. Bush asserted, as a "modern" nation would "no longer click its heels to anyone." Adding to this newfound sense of American pride, Secretary Rumsfeld scoffed that German Prime Minister Schröder reminded him of "a Hitler" in his fiery rhetoric at mass rallies. Rumsfeld's chief aide, Paul Wolfowitz, earlier had purportedly complained that Schröder was "another Caesar" who was trying to recreate German imperialism. Wolfowitz concluded that the Germans as a people were showing an "intolerant, spiteful style." And he then sighed, "At least we don't have powerful, perhaps overly powerful, pressure-groups like those in Dresden and Hamburg to deal with in our own election politics." But in what must have been the most-bizarre pronouncement, a peeved Bush in his latest press conference suggested to a French journalist that he come to America to get "himself circumcised" if he was still so concerned about our supposed brutality in Afghanistan. And when asked about Ari Fleischer's off-the-cuff remark that Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien was a "moron," Bush compounded the error: "He is not a moron ? or for that matter not really a cretin either. I know him." Yet another American outburst did not help the administration's damage-control efforts as former president Clinton weighed in on Turkey's application to the EU, chuckling that it would spell the "end of Europe," inasmuch as an Islamic Turkey was a "foreign" culture nationalreview.com