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

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (73267)	2/12/2003 2:33:12 AM
From: paul_philp	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

That's funny. I saw no facts presented. Do you think Powell lied and used manufactured evidence? There was nothing in his presentation that you would consider factual? Paul

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (73267)	2/12/2003 4:03:52 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Here ya go, Karen! David Broder of the "Washington Post," a Liberal if there ever was one, answers your questions. washingtonpost.com The Road to War By David S. Broder Wednesday, February 12, 2003; Page A29 With President Bush's declaration that we have reached the "moment of truth" in the showdown with Iraq, it behooves us to ask how we got here and what, if any, options remain for avoiding war. How did Saddam Hussein become such a menace? Basically, by brutally exterminating and intimidating his internal enemies. He also had the advantage of controlling a significant slice of the world's oil resources, and he received military supplies and equipment from both the Soviet Union and the United States, who feared that Iran would become the dominant regional power. Could he have been dealt with earlier? Yes. When his armed forces were routed during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, he was extremely vulnerable. But the first Bush administration halted military operations after Kuwait was freed, in part to reassure the other Muslim countries in the alliance and in part because it believed that Hussein would be either overthrown or easily contained by an inspection regime. Seven years later, when the international inspectors were ordered to leave, the Clinton administration could have forced a showdown, but its actions never matched its hard-line rhetoric. Why did this President Bush decide to confront Saddam Hussein? A mixture of motives. From the campaign on, he described him as a menace to the region and the world. But the 9/11 terrorist attacks convinced Bush, as he said, that "time is not on our side" and that Hussein's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction was a growing menace. How did Iraq become part of "an axis of evil"? Put it down to rhetorical hubris. The phrase in the 2002 State of the Union address, linking Iraq, Iran and North Korea, was a sure applause-getter, but it has done nothing but muddle policy lines. At the moment, we are massing forces to attack Iraq, while counting on Russia, China, Japan and South Korea to take the lead in negotiating a solution to the threat of North Korea, which is expanding its nuclear weapons program. And we are covertly negotiating for Iran to stay quiet and offer help to refugees when we go into Iraq. Has the president decided what to do? Disclaimers notwithstanding, all the evidence suggests that Bush made up his mind soon after 9/11, if not before, that "regime change," i.e., the removal of Saddam Hussein, was the only certain answer to the Iraqi threat. With great skill, he has orchestrated resolutions from both Congress and the U.N. Security Council that he can legitimately claim sanction that policy. As his implied deadline approaches, there is some buyer's remorse in both bodies, but not enough to deter him from carrying out his intention. What if Iraq shows signs of cooperating with the inspectors? It is too late, in Bush's judgment, for any concessions short of complete disclosure of weapons supplies and programs -- something no one expects from Saddam Hussein. A vast American military force is in the region, ready for war. Those troops cannot be held there month after month while inspections continue. And they cannot withdraw unless Hussein capitulates to U.N. demands -- at least without terrible damage to American credibility. Will the United States go it alone? We won't have to. British troops will participate in the air and on the sea and ground, and many nations in the region will allow the use of bases. But the bulk of the fighting -- and casualties -- will be borne by Americans. Will we win? Almost certainly. But no one can guarantee how long or costly the war will be. The Gulf War was much shorter than expected, but we may not be so lucky this time. And afterward? We will be in Iraq for a long, long time. The country is an artificial construct, made up of three distinct religious/ethnic groups, with no history of democratic self-government. Its oil resources and strategic location mean some force will have to provide security and stability for years, not months. That is when we will really need allies and the legitimacy of the United Nations to avoid being cast in an imperial role. What are the risks for President Bush? They are enormous. Already the level of threat of terrorist attacks here at home has been raised to the next-highest category. Al Qaeda will use a war with Iraq to recruit supporters and may launch another attack. Israeli-Palestinian tensions will increase, and more bloodshed may result. Divisions in NATO have become far more public and intense. The price of oil is increasing and could tip a shaky U.S. economy into trouble, jeopardizing Bush's reelection. With all these risks, why is Bush doing this? Because he is convinced that failure to deal with Saddam Hussein now would lead to greater danger down the road. washingtonpost.com

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (73267)	2/12/2003 4:19:38 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Take a look at the Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 link....definitions and differences are there.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (73267)	2/12/2003 6:21:55 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is a post about a solution for the North Korean situation. If you react in horror to it, think what conditions would be like today if Clinton had done this in '94. And ask yourself what we may face in a couple of years if we let things fester. Defending America's Second Front By Robert Tracinski Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced Tuesday that the United States is thinking about redeploying 24 long-range bombers within easy striking distance of North Korea. The only thing we ought to find shocking about this announcement is the fact that the administration is only considering this option. Faced with grave threats to our security, there is no excuse for being so tentative about defending the second front in America's War on Terrorism. This announcement comes after official confirmation that North Korea is moving its store of Plutonium-bearing nuclear fuel rods to reprocessing plants, which would allow the Stalinist regime to begin producing nuclear bombs within the next few weeks or months. The timing, I am sure, is no coincidence. The North Koreans are hoping that the Bush administration can't walk and chew gum at the same time, that Bush will be so busy with the war in Iraq that he will let North Korea slide until it is too late. There are plenty of American commentators and politicians who tell us that this is inevitable, that the North Korea problem can only be solved through months of painstaking diplomacy. But we don't have that long ? and we don't need that long. We don't have that long, because by the time the diplomats are done jaw-jacking, the North Koreans could have more than half a dozen nuclear weapons. This would pose an intolerable threat to the 37,000 American troops stationed in South Korea, and it would pose an even more intolerable risk that nuclear weapons material could be sold to terrorists, who would use it to kill tens of thousands of American civilians. We don't need that long, because our military drew up plans for the proper response almost a decade ago, during the Clinton administration's stand-off with North Korea in 1994. The solution is to bomb the North Korean nuclear facilities and reprocessing plants, a series of targeted strikes that would halt North Korea's nuclear program overnight. Then cut off all foreign aid to North Korea and starve the regime into collapse. But, the appeasers will now scream, this strategy carries an unacceptable risk that North Korea will strike back at South Korea, potentially killing tens of thousands. That fear is why the Clinton administration, showing the same courage and foresight that caused them to shelve half a dozen plans to take out Osama bin Laden, caved in and settled for a fraudulent compromise deal, long since violated by North Korea. But this timid approach refuses to recognize the fact that America has an unchallengeable military advantage, from our conventional forces and from our enormous nuclear arsenal, and all we need is the courage to use it, unreservedly and unapologetically. We should bomb North Korea, then make it clear to them that any retaliation means their total annihilation. For North Korea, a war means suicide, and they know it. We need to make it clear that we know it, too. North Korea is a hold-over from the Cold War, and what is required to deal with them is old-fashioned Cold War brinksmanship. The squeamish left would like us to believe that this kind of Cold War threat was some form of wild-eyed lunacy. But such policies are merely a recognition of the grave seriousness of the nuclear threat we face. If you think the stakes are being exaggerated, consider the current debate in Egyptian newspapers. Observing that Iraq and North Korea have gotten away with illicit nuclear weapons programs for as long as a decade at a time, Islamic hard-liners are now demanding that Egypt restart its nuclear weapons program. The reason is simple. Nuclear proliferation is not kept in check by the paper barriers of U.N. treaties; it is kept in check by the threat of overwhelming force. If we aren't willing to use that kind of force against North Korea, then every tin-pot dictatorship on earth will scramble to acquire nuclear weapons, creating a world so dangerous that facing down North Korea will look, in retrospect, like a walk in the park. U.S. military doctrine is based on acquiring the ability to fight two major wars at the same time. But destroying the North Korean nuclear program will not require an enormous new quantity of material resources, just a few dozen bombers, and a few dozen ICBM silos. What our North Korea strategy really needs is something in much shorter supply: enough extra courage and moral resolve for a vigorous defense of America's second front. aynrand.org