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

To: PartyTime who wrote (4257)	1/29/2003 3:58:45 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Europe, Both 'Old' and 'New,' Is Wary of War By Nina Burleigh COMMENTARY The Los Angeles Times January 29, 2003 PARIS -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's catchy phrase "Old Europe" had the French and Germans apoplectic last week. It was hard to fathom the reaction. After all, blithe belligerence is a hallmark of the Bush administration style. It's been provoking transatlantic discord for more than two years. From the standpoint of an American living in Europe, I would suggest that French and German opposition to rushing into a U.S.-led war against Iraq is hardly Old Europe. Old Europe is two world wars and a continent left in deprivation and shock. Old Europe is Cold War paranoia for 50 years, relying on the United States' nuclear threat to hold back the Russians. European war dissent is actually New Europe. New Europe is united under a currency that's stronger than the dollar. New Europe is filling up with an influx of refugee Muslims. New Europe is where Mohamed Atta and company hatched their plot, and where Islamist terrorists are even now stirring up batches of poison in suburban London and hoarding weapons in the banlieues of Paris. In France, the home of 8 million Muslims, Islam is the second religion, demographically speaking, right after Roman Catholicism. French culture is infused with Arab influences, from couscous shops to the Arabic dance and protest music called rai. European countries, historically homogeneous, have their own social and political problems with Islam. The difference is they live cheek by jowl with it. The Paris suburbs are crawling with armed North African gangs, and the Parisian police are said to fear entering the high-rises. The politics of Germany, Holland, even Britain, are profoundly affected by their growing Islamic communities. Europeans also hold in living memory the real effects of wartime on their own soil. They might have learned a little about bombs, occupation and the dogs of war. Perhaps that is what Rumsfeld meant by Old Europe. These people are in no giddy rush to sign on to a conflict that will surely bring suffering to the Iraqi civilian population, if not other parts of the world. To Europeans, the United States looks like the Old World. Instead of cultivating negotiation and patience and a sense of global impact, everyone knows the Bush administration has been "hellbent," as one magazine cover put it, on war for months now. Aside from terrifying Americans with vague notions of imminent nuclear or bioterror attacks on U.S. soil, the Bush administration has done nothing to assure anyone that it fathoms the structure of Islamist terrorism or cares about the concerns of moderate Muslims. A retrograde pall prevails at the White House. According to Newsweek, the elder George Bush was seen wandering through the offices of the chief advisors last week ("I'm just here to give a little adult leadership," the former president cracked), while former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger "sat patiently in the West Wing lobby." We Americans living abroad are constantly confronted by people who stop us to opine about what a disaster this war will bring to the world. In the United States, even though "the war on terror" is a logo in every newspaper and on every television news show, the topic of war feels muted. People go about their business, pacified with the Bush administration's indifference to dissent. During a brief trip to New York this month, I caught a few minutes of the "Today" show. Katie Couric was with the troops somewhere in the Middle East and regaling Matt Lauer with her high-energy pep via satellite. Standing before a backdrop of American servicemen and servicewomen ripped from their families, Perkosaurus rex described an F-16 flight she'd experienced. "Let me tell you, Matt, it was a two-bagger!" Gales of giggles. She proceeded to hold up a camouflage apron with the "Today" show logo, made specially for the cooking segment, "coming up next!" Living abroad, I had forgotten the deliberate lack of gravitas that infuses morning television; it was appalling to behold. Couric and her peers are forbidden by ratings to disturb bleary-eyed Americans with the bitter, hard truth about what war is. As Rumsfeld pointed out last week, ugly images like that belong to Old Europe now. _______________________________________________ Nina Burleigh is author of a forthcoming book about James Smithson, whose bequest established the Smithsonian Institution. latimes.com

To: PartyTime who wrote (4257)	1/29/2003 10:18:29 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

David Limbaugh You can't ignore the evidence newsandopinion.com \| Monday morning's report by United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix confirms there's only one remaining reason to delay military action against Iraq: to give our military a little more time to complete its final preparations for the strike. But to suggest that we need to give sinister Saddam more time to comply with U.N. resolutions is insulting to our intelligence and potentially dangerous to America's fighting forces. There is simply no evidence that Iraq intends to comply with the resolutions and plenty to the contrary. Some believe that President Bush changed the rules in the middle of the game by shifting the burden to Iraq to prove it has rid itself of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and their means of production. They are gravely mistaken. By the terms of a series of U.N. resolutions since 1991, the burden has always been on Iraq. Those who contend otherwise are either willfully ignorant or deliberately deceitful. The language of the Nov. 8, 2002 Resolution (1441), passed unanimously by the Security Council 15-0, couldn't be clearer. We all, especially Saddam apologists, must read it. Here are some highlights for your consumption. The resolution states that Iraq: has not, as required by Resolution 687 (1991), provided a full and accurate disclosure of its WMD and long-range missile programs; has repeatedly obstructed U.N. inspections and ultimately ceased cooperation in 1998; has refused to allow inspections between 1998 and late 2002; has failed to comply with its commitments concerning terrorism; remains in material breach of its obligations under relevant resolutions; will be given a final opportunity to comply with its WMD disarmament obligations; will be considered in further material breach by making false statements or omissions in the required declaration and other failures to comply with resolution 1441; will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations; is required to "cooperate immediately, unconditionally and actively." Inspector Blix issued a strongly worded indictment Monday against Iraq to the United Nations -- so strong as doubtlessly to shock the appeasement crowd, which, so far, has considered Blix an ally. Blix said: Gulf War Cease-fire Resolution 687 required cooperation by Iraq. "Iraq, unlike South Africa, has not come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament demanded of it;" Resolution 687 had the twin operations of "declare and verify," but turned into "a game of hide and seek;" Resolution 1441 strongly reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate immediately, unconditionally and actively; Iraq has cooperated only on access, not on substance. Iraq has an obligation to declare all WMD programs and either to present items for elimination or else to provide evidence that nothing proscribed remains. It must be active; it is not enough to open doors. "Inspection is not a game of catch as catch can. Rather it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather it is designed to lead to trust." Blix also said Iraq: failed to permit U2 planes safely to perform aerial imagery and surveillance; likely encouraged and initiated harassment and demonstrations against inspectors; failed to account for 6,500 missing chemical warfare bombs (containing 1,000 tons of chemical agents); moved and stored chemical rocket warheads into a relatively new bunker near Baghdad in the last few years, when Iraq shouldn't have had such weapons; several thousand chemical rockets are unaccounted for; probably misled about converting highly deadly VX nerve gas into weapons; failed to account for anthrax supplies, providing no evidence of their destruction; imported banned items, including 300 rocket engines, as late as December 2002, that could be used in a missile program; failed to disclose all WMD documents in its 12,000 page, Dec. 8 declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents; stored mustard gas precursor that was found during inspections; possibly concealed information, such as a box of 3,000 pages of documents in the private home of a scientist, many relating to the enrichment of uranium. Kofi Annan and the United Nations may choose to ignore their own resolutions and the endless recalcitrance and lies of Iraq, and France and Germany can balk, but the Bush Administration has decided that 11 plus years is enough time. It is times like these that underscore how indispensable is American sovereignty, as is a president who is committed to safeguarding it and the national interest