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

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (67574)	1/22/2003 12:38:54 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

CITIES FOR PEACE -- Be the NEXT TO JOIN! Here's something we can all do. We can petition our city councils to sign Resolutions in opposition to the war. Even if the Council refuses to take up the measure, attendees at City Council meetings can be made aware, via the introduction of Resolutions as "new business" that other American cities are bravely taking the lead in defying a madman in the White House. citiesforpeace.org **January 21, 2003 -- 42 cities have now passed resolutions against the war as Chicago, Des Moines, Gary, and Northampton join the list. Other Resolutions Opposing War in Iraq California Arcata Berkeley Los Angeles (campaign underway) Oakland Sacramento (campaign underway) San Francisco (Adobe Acrobat format) San Luis Obispo (read news article) Santa Barbara Santa Cruz Sebastopol Topanga Canyon (campaign underway) Colorado Boulder (campaign underway) Silver Plume (campaign underway) Telluride Connecticut Cornwall (campaign underway) New Haven Salisbury Florida Gainesville (campaign underway) St. Petersburg (campaign underway) Illinois Charleston (campaign underway) Chicago DeKalb (campaign underway) Evanston Oak Park (campaign underway) Indiana Gary Iowa Des Moines Maryland Baltimore Takoma Park (Adobe Acrobat format) Maine Bar Harbor (campaign underway) Mount Desert (campaign underway) Portland (campaign underway) Massachusetts Amherst (campaign underway) Brookline (Adobe Acrobat format) Northampton Somerville Michigan Alma (campaign underway) Ann Arbor Berkley (campaign underway) Charlevoix (campaign underway) Clawson (campaign underway) Detroit Ferndale Hamtramck (campaign underway) Kalamazoo Lake Orion (campaign underway) Lansing (campaign underway) Livonia (campaign underway) Marquette (campaign underway) Petoskey (campaign underway) Plymouth (campaign underway) Royal Oak (campaign underway) Southfield (campaign underway) Traverse City Troy (campaign underway) New Jersey Jersey City (campaign underway) New Mexico Albuquerque Santa Fe New York Danby Ithaca New Paltz New York City (campaign underway) Rosendale Syracuse Woodstock North Carolina Carrboro Chapel Hill (campaign underway) Ohio Cleveland (campaign underway) Dayton (campaign underway) Oregon Eugene Portland (campaign underway) Pennsylvania Haines Township Philadelphia York Texas Austin (campaign underway) Corpus Christie (campaign underway) Dallas (campaign underway) Galveston (campaign underway) Houston (campaign underway) Utah Salt Lake City (campaign underway) Virginia Charlottesville (campaign underway) Washington Bellingham (campaign underway) Seattle Washington, DC (Adobe Acrobat file) Wisconsin Madison Vermont Burlington

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (67574)	1/22/2003 12:40:37 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Friends Through Thick and Thin? Blair and Bush are increasingly isolated on the question of war with Iraq "For Blair, the dangers of being too close to Bush are looming larger with every opinion poll. This week, the latest Guardian/ICM polling shows British opinion running 47 percent against to 30 percent in favor of war in Iraq. A vast majority—81 percent to 10 percent—want to see any military action backed by the United Nations." NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE Jan. 21 — How close is too close to power? Normally that would be an easy question to answer: there’s no such thing. But when that power involves the life-and-death decision of going to war, maybe you can get too a little too close for comfort. SINCE HE WAS SWEPT to power on a landslide victory in 1997, Tony Blair has worked hard to align himself as much as is humanly possible to Washington’s power. It’s not an original strategy-it worked superbly well for Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. And Blair has added some fresh twists of his own-including a potentially awkward transition from close personal friend of Bill Clinton to close personal friend of George W. Bush. But Blair pulled it off nicely, and in the days after the September 11 attacks and through the war in Afghanistan, the British prime minister’s friendship with Bush was the envy of Europe. No other world leader was invited to Washington to hear Bush’s ultimatum to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, delivered less than two weeks after the 9-11 attacks. “Once again, we are joined together in a great cause,” Bush said to a standing ovation from Congress as Blair struggled to suppress his trademark grin. For Bush and Blair, their alliance harkened back to the glory days of World War II. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 / 5 Blair under pressure on Iraq NBC’s Keith Miller reports on the intense political and public fire on Blair, for his support of Bush and the possible war on Iraq. 2 / 5 Blair makes his case on Iraq Britain confirms the mobilization of troops and equipment as British Prime Minister Tony Blair expresses skepticism towards Iraq’s weapons declaration. NBC’s Kiko Itaska reports. 3 / 5 Blair releases report on Iraq threat As NBC’s Campbell Brown reports, President Bush and Prime Minister Blair do have some differences. 4 / 5 Bush, Blair meet to show solidarity over Iraq President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair tried to show a united front on Iraq but communicated a confusing message instead. NBC’s Norah O’Donnell reports. 5 / 5 Blair expresses support British Prime Minister Tony Blair voiced unwavering support for the U.S. response to the war on terrorism. NBC’s Campbell Brown reports. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If that was the high moment in the odd-couple marriage between the conservative president and the liberal prime minister, the next few weeks will be the toughest test of their friendship. For Blair, the dangers of being too close to Bush are looming larger with every opinion poll. This week, the latest Guardian/ICM polling shows British opinion running 47 percent against to 30 percent in favor of war in Iraq. A vast majority—81 percent to 10 percent—want to see any military action backed by the United Nations. But that’s not the only problem facing Blair as he prepares to meet Bush for a council of war at Camp David at the end of the month. In a Washington sharply divided between doves and hawks, Blair’s aides are finding it tough to keep the trust of both sides as President Bush makes those life-and-death decisions. While Blair, for instance, views another round of debate at the United Nations as a prerequisite to military action, inside the Bush administration, the biggest advocate for that strategy is Secretary of State Colin Powell. So is working with Powell a good or bad thing? That depends on who’s influencing Bush’s decision. If it’s Vice-President Dick Cheney, or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then the Blair’s proximity to Powell looks misplaced. One senior British official recounts a recent conversation—over a cup of tea, no less—with a senior aide to Dick Cheney. “Are you bothered when I say to you that a second U.N. Security Council resolution would be the best outcome for Tony Blair and the British government?” he asked. “I understand where you are coming from,” was the cool response. Is the 'Special Relationship' Starting to Fray? “You have to be careful that you don’t become part of the interagency process,” admits one senior British official. “You must not be seen as just one faction in the great debates that come to the principals, because then you find yourself carrying water that perhaps you should not be carrying. You have to give advice as a candid, close ally, but not as part of the internal process.” Even Powell is far from being committed to another U.N. vote; Powell says he’s only promised to consult the U.N. one more time. And Powell is skeptical that U.N. weapons inspectors are doing any good at all. “Don’t forget the chicken farm,” says one Powell aide. “In 1995, the inspectors were ready to say they found everything and that nothing was left. Then we got a defector who told us about the chicken farm. They went to the farm and found a hen-coup full of documents that revealed Iraq had a bio-weapons program. Inspectors on their own—without Iraqi cooperation—may not be able to find anything.” Newsweek International January 27th Issue • International Editions Front • Atlantic Cover Story: Tony Blair--The Man in the Middle • Asia and Latin America Cover Story: Rebelling Against Genetically Modified Crops • World View: It's Time to Talk To the World • Letter From America: The Big Game, Part 37 • International Periscope & Perspectives • International Mail Call • The Last Word: Hugo Chavez That is Blair’s worst fear. Without a smoking gun, and without Powell’s support for U.N. backing, the French and Germans will leave him isolated in Europe by highlighting the lack of evidence against Saddam—just as they did at the U.N. this week. When push comes to shove, there is little doubt that Blair will stand close to Bush and hope, as his aides suggest, that Britain will be flooded by patriotic fervor when the troops go to war. Yet you can hear the nervousness in the voices of British officials. Will their American friends make a better case for war? Will a smoking gun emerge? Will another act of terrorism convince the world of the need to confront Saddam? When you’re as close to the world’s only superpower as Blair is to Bush, you may have influence. But you still don’t know if your worries will be laid to rest before the shooting starts.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (67574)	1/22/2003 1:09:56 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Thinking About Iraq (I) By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN As the decision on Iraq approaches, I, like so many Americans, have had to ask myself: What do you really think? Today I explain why I think liberals under-appreciate the value of removing Saddam Hussein. And on Sunday I will explain why conservatives under-appreciate the risks of doing so — and how we should balance the two. What liberals fail to recognize is that regime change in Iraq is not some distraction from the war on Al Qaeda. That is a bogus argument. And simply because oil is also at stake in Iraq doesn't make it illegitimate either. Some things are right to do, even if Big Oil benefits. Although President Bush has cast the war in Iraq as being about disarmament — and that is legitimate — disarmament is not the most important prize there. Regime change is the prize. Regime transformation in Iraq could make a valuable contribution to the war on terrorism, whether Saddam is ousted or enticed into exile. Why? Because what really threatens open, Western, liberal societies today is not Saddam and his weapons per se. He is a twisted dictator who is deterrable through conventional means. Because Saddam loves life more than he hates us. What threatens Western societies today are not the deterrables, like Saddam, but the undeterrables — the boys who did 9/11, who hate us more than they love life. It's these human missiles of mass destruction that could really destroy our open society. So then the question is: What is the cement mixer that is churning out these undeterrables — these angry, humiliated and often unemployed Muslim youth? That cement mixer is a collection of faltering Arab states, which, as the U.N.'s Arab Human Development Report noted, have fallen so far behind the world their combined G.D.P. does not equal that of Spain. And the reason they have fallen behind can be traced to their lack of three things: freedom, modern education and women's empowerment. If we don't help transform these Arab states — which are also experiencing population explosions — to create better governance, to build more open and productive economies, to empower their women and to develop responsible media that won't blame all their ills on others, we will never begin to see the political, educational and religious reformations they need to shrink their output of undeterrables. We have partners. Trust me, there is a part of every young Arab today that recoils at the idea of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, because of its colonial overtones. But there is a part of many young Arabs today that prays the U.S. will not only oust Saddam but all other Arab leaders as well. It is not unreasonable to believe that if the U.S. removed Saddam and helped Iraqis build not an overnight democracy but a more accountable, progressive and democratizing regime, it would have a positive, transforming effect on the entire Arab world — a region desperately in need of a progressive model that works. And liberals need to take heed. Just by mobilizing for war against Iraq, the U.S. has sent this region a powerful message: We will not leave you alone anymore to play with matches, because the last time you did, we got burned. Just the threat of a U.S. attack has already prompted Hezbollah to be on its best behavior in Lebanon (for fear of being next). And it has spurred Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah to introduce a proposal to his fellow Arab leaders for an "Arab Charter" of political and economic reform. Let me sum up my argument with two of my favorite sayings. The first is by Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, who says: "In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car." It is true of countries as well. Until the Arab peoples are given a real ownership stake in their countries — a real voice in how they are run — they will never wash them, never improve them as they should. The second is an American Indian saying — "If we don't turn around now, we just may get where we're going." The Arab world has been digging itself into a hole for a long time. If our generation simply helps it stop digging, possibly our grandchildren and its own will reap the benefits. But if we don't help the Arabs turn around now, they just may get where they're going — a dead end where they will produce more and more undeterrables. This is something liberals should care about — because liberating the captive peoples of the Mideast is a virtue in itself and because in today's globalized world, if you don't visit a bad neighborhood, it will visit you. nytimes.com