Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3603)	1/24/2003 11:18:51 PM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 25898

I think it's good for the soul to periodically publish this for contemplative reasons: web.amnesty.org web.amnesty.org web.amnesty.org web.amnesty.org web.amnesty.org

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3603)	1/25/2003 12:05:58 AM
From: Brumar89	Respond to of 25898

Our military forces in those countries are far stronger than the local military. In Kuwait's case, it is thoroughly dependent upon the American military for its defense. And what should we call the situation in Kuwait immediately after we had expelled the Iraqi army? Wasn't Kuwait effectively occupied by the American military immediately after the Iraqi army was kicked out?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3603)	1/25/2003 2:48:35 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 25898

Awaiting Mideast upheaval By H.D.S. Greenway Columnist The Boston Globe 1/24/2003 ''A DEVASTATING, knockout blow against Saddam Hussein, followed by an American sponsored effort to rebuild Iraq and put it on a path towards democratic governance, would have a seismic impact on the Arab World for the better.'' So wrote William Kristol and Robert Kegan in The Weekly Standard recently. They adequately expressed the view of many in the Bush administration who believe that a ''regime change'' in Iraq could lead not just to the end of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction but to beneficial regime changes throughout the Middle East. It is interesting to remember what people were saying 12 years ago after George Bush senior rolled back Saddam Hussein's aggression against Kuwait. ''A new chapter in the history of the Arab nation,'' said Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, in an interview a few days after the war had ended. An ''earthquake that could crack open men's minds,'' said Israel's deputy prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. US prestige had never been higher. Secretary of State James Baker said: ''Look, we've done everybody in the region a great favor, including Israel.'' And before the year was out the Soviet Union was gone and the United States emerged as the sole superpower. But 12 years later the Middle East looks much the same. There is no doubt that getting rid of Saddam would do everybody in the region a great favor, especially Iraq. But back then, after the first Gulf War, the centrality of the Palestinian issue, the hopes of the Arabs and the fears of the Israelis, was on everybody's lips. Mubara k said: ''If we could manage to reach a comprehensive and fair settlement,'' it could rid the region of its main threat to stability ''for centuries to come.'' Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir, on the other hand, told his Likud Party that ''there will be an effort to use political means to snatch from Israel what could not be snatched from us by force.'' For a while it seemed that the seismic impact of the Gulf War had indeed cracked open men's minds, but not in a way that Netanyahu approved. There had been an unspoken quid pro quo for Arab participation in the anti-Saddam coalition, namely, that the United States would get serious about the Palestinian issue. And it did. The first Bush administration was the only administration to really get tough on the Israelis about Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, in stark contrast to Bush the younger, and the Madrid conference later that year led indirectly to the Yasser Arafat's acceptance of a two-state solution. The Labor Party government of Israel under Yitzhak Rabin accepted a territorial compromise for peace. Tragically, Rabin was murdered by a Jewish fanatic, and Netanyahu got back in power to put the brakes on Oslo. Still, a settlement came within an inch of succeeding under another Labor government before hopes fell apart in violence and recriminations. According to George Mitchell, who has led a commission to investigate the origins of the present intafadah, both sides were to blame, but his recommendations to bring the two sides closer were largely ignored. Ten years after the first Gulf War, all the high hopes for seismic changes in the Middle East had come to naught. Today we confront Saddam Hussein again. The centrality of the Palestinian issue is still uppermost in Arab minds, but there is no similar, unspoken commitment to do anything about it in Washington. There is no Arab coalition or consensus against Saddam this time around to be rewarded. George W. Bush has called for a Palestinian state but has done nothing to challenge Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's premise that the Palestinians must be beaten into submission or to contradict Sharon's vision of Palestinian statehood as nothing more than the Bantustans that the old, white supremacist government of South Africa called states. The seismic impact that the new imperialists in the Bush administration are looking for is aimed at our Arab allies - the theory being that a democratic Iraq will bring about democracy in other Arab regimes, displacing the present Arab regimes deemed corrupt and dictatorial. It is a noble long-term goal, but the old adage of be careful what you wish for comes into play in the short run. Too sudden modernization in traditional societies is what brought the shah of Iran to grief, and wide-open democracy today would bring Islamic fundamentalists to power in much of the Middle East. Our 10 years as the sole superpower hasn't brought us the security we wished for, nor did our Iraq victory 12 years ago bring about a stable Middle East. Our international prestige is not what it was in that first morning of the post-Cold War era. Resolving the Palestinian issue may not bring stability to the Middle East, but there is no chance without it. It ought to be higher on America's agenda, for it would do more to change the Middle East for the better than all the grand designs and imperial overreach that would go into attempting to make the entire the Middle East over in our image. ____________________________________________ H.D.S. Greenway's column appears regularly in the Boston Globe. boston.com

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (3603)	1/25/2003 3:52:08 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Presidents' Shortcomings: When Personal Is Political Los Angeles Times LETTER TO THE EDITOR January 25, 2003 Re "Propelled Toward War by a Peevish President," Commentary, Jan. 19: Richard Reeves says publicly what so many of us citizens have suspected. We now have back-to-back presidents who are missing a "chip," so to speak. Bill Clinton, with his infantile needs of sexual gratification at any cost, and George W. Bush, with his anger at being ... what? Not the son his father had wished for, not the natural leader his brother is, nearly always the buffoon of the business world, no recognition by his peers (world of wealth and privilege) as something exceptional? God knows how much the American people will suffer because of his "disorder." Reeves is correct. Bush is consumed, but with what and why? His mission, as he tells his daddy, is all-important. But to whom and for what? The majority of this country looks at this man with great reservations. He neither knows nor cares, as long as he is the center of attention and control. The more dramatic his actions (like a kid), the more attention he receives. As Reeves said, "This is one scary Texan." I say vote the guy out before he consumes the world with his disability. Gene Geary Garden Grove, CA latimes.com