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

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (8452)	2/15/2003 10:23:13 AM
From: PartyTime	Respond to of 25898

Fillmore--I need the link for that very excellent background description as to what led to current events. Also for your Post 8462. Thanks!

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (8452)	2/15/2003 10:52:39 AM
From: BubbaFred	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

"..biggest demonstration of "People Power" since the Vietnam War, peace campaigners from Antarctica to Iceland poured scorn on President George W. Bush's hawkish stance. "I look at Bush but see Hitler," proclaimed the banner of a Bulgarian protester in Sofia. Saturday February 15, 8:40 PM Millions plead to Bush: Give peace a chance By Paul Majendie asia.news.yahoo.com LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of protesters were expected to take to the streets around the world on Saturday to urge the United States to give peace a chance and not to rush into war with Iraq. In the biggest demonstration of "People Power" since the Vietnam War, peace campaigners from Antarctica to Iceland poured scorn on President George W. Bush's hawkish stance. "I look at Bush but see Hitler," proclaimed the banner of a Bulgarian protester in Sofia. "The whole world is against this war. Only one person wants it," said Muslim teenager Bilqees Gamieldien as she protested in the South African city of Cape Town. "What the United States is doing now is wrong. We are on the brink of World War Three," said Japanese housewife Mariko Ayama at a Tokyo rally. One Russian protester's banner in Moscow showed a photograph of the U.S. president with the words: "Butcher: Get out of other people's lands." Massive rallies were staged around the globe, with more than 600 cities and towns pledging to join in. The protesters received a boost on Friday when U.N chief weapons inspector Hans Blix told the United Nations he held out hope arms inspections in Iraq were working. And the rallies offered a boost to Iraq's own cause. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, in the Italian city of Assisi to pray at the tomb of St Francis, said: "The people of Iraq want peace and millions of people around the world are demonstrating for peace, so let us all work for peace and resist the war." "This is a day all good women and men in the world will show the protest against the war of George W. Bush," he told Reuters. "Our hearts are with them." In Australia, about 16,000 activists gathered in the capital Canberra a day after about 150,000 protested in the southern city of Melbourne in what was Australia's largest protest since the anti-Vietnam War marches of 30 years ago. In nuclear-free New Zealand, several thousand people marched through the centre of the nation's main city Auckland, while a plane trailed a giant banner reading "No war, peace now". "STOP THE WAR!" More than 2,000 South Koreans gathered in the capital Seoul, shouting "Bush, terrorist!" and "Stop the war!". In mainly Muslim Malaysia, about 500 protesters protested outside the U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Protesters waved placards reading "Drop Bush not bombs", "No war for oil" and depicting Bush with yellowing missiles for teeth. In Europe, the same message echoed across the continent. In the French city of Toulouse, marchers walked in the cold winter sunshine under banners reading: "No blood in the oil", and "No to war for petrol". That cry was echoed in Johannesburg where thousands chanted "no blood for oil". In Moscow, about 400 people, hoisting aloft anti-war banners and chanting "No to war in Iraq", marched from Russia's Foreign Ministry building to the U.S. embassy in a communist-led protest at U.S. policy on Iraq. In London, thousands of protesters from all walks of life streamed into the capital for a march expected to attract up to 500,000 people in the biggest peace rally in British political history. German police expect more than 100,000 people to attend a rally in the centre of Berlin. "We haven't seen anything comparable in Germany since the 1980s," organiser Malte Kreutzfeldt said. "And it will be the first global demonstration of such a scale," he added. In Italy, tens of thousands of people, from dreadlocked teenagers to greying pensioners -- all wrapped in rainbow-coloured flags --gathered in Rome for a peace march expected to draw more than one million people. But the voice of protest was muted in the Middle East. Protests planned in Cairo were limited by a huge security presence. Security was visibly beefed up in central Cairo, notably around the U.S. and British embassies. Apart from some peaceful demonstrations in Bahrain and Yemen recently, there have been virtually no anti-war protests in the conservative Gulf Arab region, where protesters need official permission to take to the streets. That prompted the United Arab Emirates al-Bayan newspaper to comment: "Today, the people of the world and more than one million Europeans demonstrate against an attack on Iraq while the Arab people and their leaders are in a deep coma."

To: Crimson Ghost who wrote (8452)	2/17/2003 3:49:19 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

Re: War with Iraq Is Dangerous Folly I guess the following excerpt sums it up: Many say, "Ah! But if only we had finished the job in 1991, Iraq would be no threat." There it is again: the childish presumption that politicians can achieve the outcomes they wish, by force, in foreign lands. It is not in our politicians' power "to finish the job" as they would like. They are on other people's turf, in an unfamiliar culture, and they do not have - can never have - control of the outcome. They can influence it, but they can't control it. With each intervention our government fails to learn that human affairs are too complex and unpredictable even for very smart, very wise, very educated, well-intentioned - but nevertheless human and limited - politicians and bureaucrats in Washington to control. ________________________ Besides, Zionist warmongers fail to factor in the ripple effects a war against Iraq will send throughout the region... To begin with, who can seriously expect Iran to stay put all along? Iranian moderates, together with their figurehead Mohamed Khatami, will be among the war's first casualties: Iranian hawks will rightly claim that Zionist America can't be trusted to mend fences with Islam and that Iran's national interest is gravely threatened by the US's encirclement strategy... Hence the likely destabilization of Afghanistan (and the assassination of M. Karzai). Next, in the grand scheme of things, the snafu brought upon Iraq will topple the only Arab country that, so far, posed a SECULAR threat to Israel. Indeed, however unsavory Saddam's regime may be, it's still based on the Ba'athist ideology which places the nation-state above religious persuasions. Iraq, religiously speaking, is tolerant towards Christianism, Islam, and even Judaism --to the point of appointing a Christian as Foreign Minister (Mr Tareq Aziz). Therefore the geopolitical crackdown on Iraq will strenghten the Muslim theocracies, namely Saudi Arabia and Iran. And that's precisely the long-term, ultimate goal of the Judeofascist warmongers: just as Israeli hawks need Hamas and Islamic Jihad (and Hezbollah) to brand the Palestinian fighters as Islamic fanatics, Sharon and his Judeofascist schemers strive to turn the Israeli-Arab conflict into a clash between "Judeo-Christian Civilization" and "Islamic barbarians".... Gus