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

To: LindyBill who wrote (69933)	1/29/2003 7:03:21 PM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Evidence? as Alfonso Bedoya said in "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. Here's another voice - this time a US citizen who performed US foreign service, in Iraq. philly.com The Philadelphia Inquirer Posted on Wed, Jan. 29, 2003 Conversations on War \| Current facts don't justify an attack, a professor says By Murray Dubin Inquirer Staff Writer As our nation moves toward war with Iraq, we set out to talk to people about war and peace, their families and their world. This conversation with Elwyn Chase is one in a weekly series. [Photo legend: Elwyn Chase, 76, is a professor emeritus at St. Joseph's University. He was a U.S. Foreign Service officer in Baghdad; Belfast, Northern Ireland; and Genoa, Italy. He is single and lives in Center City.] I really lost patience when [national security adviser] Condoleezza Rice talked about the new preemptive war policy. We are a sovereign nation, and we want everyone to respect our sovereignty. To do that, we have to respect theirs. On the information Washington seems to have, there is no justification for an attack on Iraq. When President Kennedy learned about the Russian missiles in Cuba, [U.N. Ambassador] Adlai Stevenson brought out pictures of the missiles and laid them on the table. Where are the pictures now? You don't say, "Oh, we'd betray our sources." I learned in the Foreign Service that you can learn anything you want from anyone, if you pay them. If Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, do we just wait until it uses them? Yes. That's what we do. Wait until something is attacked. Tell me about yourself. Been at St. Joseph's since 1969. I taught a few years at Immaculata before that. My father was a professor of chemistry at Drexel. My mother was a housewife and then, after we all grew up, a director of dramatic productions at Drexel. I grew up in Haverford Township. Went to Haverford High, Penn, and Johns Hopkins for graduate school. Then to Bryn Mawr for my Ph.D., after the Foreign Service. I was in the Foreign Service from 1950 to 1962. I became interested when I was in the Navy during the war. I was in Baghdad between 1952 and 1954. It was a city of a million and had no sewage system. Can you imagine what it smelled like? I was the economic officer. There was a king then. They shot him to death in the revolution in 1958. Few people in the Foreign Service made it for two years, because they got sick. I got amoebic dysentery. You couldn't eat anything that wasn't cooked like crazy. When you went out to a sheikh's house for dinner and you were served lettuce, you didn't like to say, "I won't eat this." So I'd eat it. I lasted my two years. You believe we don't understand the Iraqi people? Americans, and everybody else, have no ability to put themselves in the shoes of others. Dealing with people is understanding their point of view. Not agree with, but understand. Sen. Patty Murray [D., Wash.] got into trouble because she said bin Laden is practically worshipped in much of the world. She's absolutely correct. We have to understand he is a hero. We don't have to agree. So what do we do? We don't call names. We don't call the head of North Korea a pygmy. You don't try to belittle them or take away their dignity. We can't act like kids on the street. Americans have more nuclear missiles than anyone, they are the only country that has ever used them, and what they are saying now is, "Do as I say, not as I do." Do you understand how this seems? How does it seem? Grossly immoral. Israel has disobeyed far more U.N. resolutions than Iraq has. Do we say anything about it? No. I expect international politics to be about power, but I wish we would just admit what we are doing and not try to make it seem moral. What are we doing? In my mind, it's not about oil companies making a lot of money, it's about maintaining for the U.S. a low price of oil. About keeping Iraq from controlling the supply, especially of itself, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. You'd really have control of oil if you got those three. I agree we have to keep [Saddam Hussein] from doing that. He's a monster, a maniac for power. But he thinks he's doing the right thing. Americans think when Hitler laid his head on the pillow at night, he thought, "Oh, boy, have I been evil today!" He thought he was doing a wonderful thing for the Aryans. That's why I really dislike this talk of the "evil" empires. Do you think Hussein has weapons of mass destruction? Yes. In that desert, you could hide anything from anybody. If not for Iraq, would you support the President? I'd be against Bush. I'm a New Deal liberal. I wish the Democratic Party was back in power. I'm disgusted. They should have been against this war. They're all me-tooers. Contact staff writer Murray Dubin at 215-854-2797 or mdubin@phillynews.com. To see other interviews in this series, go to inquirer.philly.com/go/conversations.