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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (69043)	1/27/2003 1:37:03 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

Good comment from an Israeli blogger: The Jewish War? by Elliot Chodoff Its not easy being responsible for all the world's problems, but somebody has to do it. From plagues to blood libels, economic disasters, wars and even 9/11, someone has always found a way to pin the blame on the Jews. In today's New York Times, Maureen Dowd, criticising the Bush Administration's rationale for an attack on Iraq, manages to take a swipe at conservatives and Israel simultaneously stating that, in the eyes of the administration and its supporters, the Europeans "have no moral authority on the subject of standing up to tyrants who invade their neighbors and gas their own people. And they have no interest, as American conservatives do, in helping Israel by getting rid of Saddam." (NYTimes, "Portrait of a Laddy," January 26, 2003) Would the average Israeli like to see Saddam removed from power? Of course. But so would the average Iraqi. To imply that American policy is somehow being directed by Israeli needs in removing Saddam as a threat is to play into one of the oldest hate games in history, from Pharaoh through the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf: blame the Jews. And why not? It has an impressive track record of diverting discussion from the real issues of threat and oppression. Having spent the past week in reserve duty reviewing more than I ever wanted to know about Saddam's capabilities in the chemical and biological departments coupled with estimates of how, when and why he would launch weapons of this type against Israeli population centers, I can easily understand Dowd's point and juxtaposition: just as WWII was about Jews being shipped to the Nazi gas chambers, this war is about Saddam shipping his gas chambers to the Jews. There is only one flaw in Dowd's logic: the Holocaust was a result of WWII, not its cause; likewise, Israel's involvement will be a result of an American attack on Iraq, and only if Saddam fires missiles at us. You don't have to be Jewish to understand that Israel's interest in Saddam's removal is based on exactly the same factors that motivate the US in its Iraq policy: it will be a good thing for the world in general to remove a murderous dictator who tortures and slaughters his own citizens, has a track record of invading his neighbors and using chemical weapons against his own citizens as well as enemy soldiers, and is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons. And good riddance. chodoff.blogspot.com

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (69043)	1/27/2003 11:07:44 AM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Clear Ties of Terror By WILLIAM SAFIRE Safire has, apparently, given up on the claim there is an Iraqi link to 9-11. As for the rest of this, I don't find anything new, something that links Saddam to Al Qaeda. The argument, in its strongest form, seems to be that he his harboring Al Qaeda but, with the exception of the assertion of the hospital treatment episode, I don't see any strong evidence to support that. The Al Qaeda presence in the Kurdish area in the north is weak since I assumed Saddam has no control in the north.