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

To: HG who wrote (12612)	2/25/2003 2:52:52 AM
From: ajax99	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

9-11 is a good way to rally the sheep - many Americans are still very angry about 9-11 - most Americans don't know the difference between Saddam and Bin Ladin so it's easy to get the transfer to Iraq. Few in the main stream media seem to question it and the supports here love to trot it out because there are not any real reasons to attack Iraq at this time.

To: HG who wrote (12612)	2/25/2003 3:19:24 AM
From: Volsi Mimir	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 25898

OK lets agree on oil -- The French agreement? you must mean. Wouldn't you agree that they have just as much oil staining their greedy little hands as the great Satan seems to have. In my opinion its the best place to start in this "chess game" Friends are enemies are friends because of needs. Iraq is a pawn with natural resources that Europe (France and Germany) does not have. Chirac and Saddam have been buddies since the eighties (nuclear plant). They are pulling the wool over these peace marching idiots who can't see a larger picture. In the name of peace lets let Saddam have another 12 years of torture, mayhem and dictatorship. If France and Germany and Russia agreed with the rest of the world then just the show of force would of brought down the walls around him. That would be one of many. And the lesson would reverb among the others. Then go after Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and free women who are slaves to some sacrosanct caste system made up only to control and oppress in the name of the same god that is loving and kind and will lead into war the victor (who ever prays harder and has more bombs) When America has dwindles in strength then there will be another to take its place. Maybe China. That's just history. 911 changed me from a "who cares" to a "I care" Iraq is also a symbol of something that should of been taken care of when Powell was in the military not a statesman, when we traded stocks and believed in bubbles and didn't care about those others even after 17 resolutions were passed. So its a redeeming of them and an unknown uncertain future for all of us. What would you propose. What is your solution.

To: HG who wrote (12612)	2/25/2003 3:37:10 AM
From: OpenSea	Respond to of 25898

Great op ed about Bush's crumbling credibility in the NY Times today: Threats, Promises and Lies By PAUL KRUGMAN o it seems that Turkey wasn't really haggling about the price, it just wouldn't accept payment by check or credit card. In return for support of an Iraq invasion, Turkey wanted — and got — immediate aid, cash on the barrelhead, rather than mere assurances about future help. You'd almost think President Bush had a credibility problem. And he does. The funny thing is that this administration sets great store by credibility. As the justifications for invading Iraq come and go — Saddam is developing nuclear weapons; no, but he's in league with Osama; no, but he's really evil — the case for war has come increasingly to rest on credibility. You see, say the hawks, we've already put our soldiers in position, so we must attack or the world won't take us seriously. But credibility isn't just about punishing people who cross you. It's also about honoring promises, and telling the truth. And those are areas where the Bush administration has problems. Consider the astonishing fact that Vicente Fox, president of Mexico, appears unwilling to cast his U.N. Security Council vote in America's favor. Given Mexico's close economic ties to the United States, and Mr. Fox's onetime personal relationship with Mr. Bush, Mexico should have been more or less automatically in America's column. But the Mexican president feels betrayed. He took the politically risky step of aligning himself closely with Mr. Bush — a boost to Republican efforts to woo Hispanic voters — in return for promised reforms that would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants. The administration never acted on those reforms, and Mr. Fox is in no mood to do Mr. Bush any more favors. Mr. Fox is not alone. In fact, I can't think of anyone other than the hard right and corporate lobbyists who has done a deal with Mr. Bush and not come away feeling betrayed. New York's elected representatives stood side by side with him a few days after Sept. 11 in return for a promise of generous aid. A few months later, as they started to question the administration's commitment, the budget director, Mitch Daniels, accused them of "money-grubbing games." Firefighters and policemen applauded Mr. Bush's promise, more than a year ago, of $3.5 billion for "first responders"; so far, not a penny has been delivered. These days, whenever Mr. Bush makes a promise — like his new program to fight AIDS in Africa — experienced Bushologists ask, "O.K., that's the bait, where's the switch?" (Answer: Much of the money will be diverted from other aid programs, such as malaria control.) Then there's the honesty thing. Mr. Bush's mendacity on economic matters was obvious even during the 2000 election. But lately it has reached almost pathological levels. Last week Mr. Bush — who has been having a hard time getting reputable economists to endorse his economic plan — claimed an endorsement from the latest Blue Chip survey of business economists. "I don't know what he was citing," declared the puzzled author of that report, which said no such thing. What Americans may not fully appreciate is the extent to which similarly unfounded claims have, in the eyes of much of the world, discredited the administration's foreign policy. Whatever the real merits of the case against Iraq, again and again the administration has cited evidence that turns out to be misleading or worthless — "garbage after garbage after garbage," according to one U.N. official. Despite his decline in the polls, Mr. Bush hasn't fully exhausted his reservoir of trust in this country. People still remember the stirring image of the president standing amid the rubble of the World Trade Center, his arm around a fireman's shoulders — and our ever-deferential, protective media haven't said much about the broken promises that followed. But the rest of the world simply doesn't trust Mr. Bush either to honor his promises or to tell the truth. Can we run a foreign policy in the absence of trust? The administration apparently thinks it can use threats as a substitute. Officials have said that they expect undecided Security Council members to come around out of fear of being on the "wrong" side. And Mr. Bush may yet get the U.N. to acquiesce, grudgingly, in his war. But even if he does, we shouldn't delude ourselves: whatever credibility we may gain by invading Iraq is small recompense for the trust we have lost around the world.