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

To: tekboy who wrote (78046)	2/27/2003 12:55:03 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

See No Evil tompaine.com <<...How did it happen that the CIA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency and our other extravagantly funded spooks could neither prevent nor learn in advance about the most deadly attack on America since Pearl Harbor? The answer was as unpleasant as the question. If U.S. intelligence agencies did not see the attack coming it was because they were told not to look. Why? From inside the agencies were obtained statements and documents indicating that the Bush administration blocked key investigations into allegations that top Saudi Arabian royals and some members of the bin Laden family, not just Osama, funded and supported Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The reports I did based on this information won the California State University School of Journalism's Project Censored Award in 2002. It's not the kind of prize you want to win -- it's given to crucial stories that were effectively banned from U.S. airwaves and papers...>>

To: tekboy who wrote (78046)	2/27/2003 9:33:01 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

nobody in Congress, on either side of the aisle, is taken seriously by most foreign policy professionals.... Is it true you FP types took the same "I am God" course in College that the Doctors take?

To: tekboy who wrote (78046)	2/27/2003 2:12:42 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Just for entertainment, I went looking, and DeLay's Kosovo speech showed up in the Usenet archives. I have taken the liberty of bolding a particularly amusing part, ironic in light of the recent "death of NATO" blather here. Not that I'd ever accuse the "string of Perles" of being unfocused, their focus on Iraq seems to have been formulated at least a year before this particular blast from the past originally spewed forth. From groups.google.com and groups.google.com : Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise today to voice my complete opposition to sending American troops to Kosovo. There is simply no vision to this mission. Even the casual observer can see that the proposed Kosovo initiative has no timetable, no rules of engagement and no greater strategic plan for that region. Unfortunately, the undefined Kosovo mission is symbolic of the lack of direction of our recent American foreign policy. There is a 6-year trend to send American troops anywhere for any reason, but there are no consistent goals that tie all of these missions together. Ronald Reagan once said that changing America's foreign policy is a little like towing an iceberg. You can only pick up speed as the frozen attitudes and mistakes of the past melt away. America needs to quickly change directions and leave behind the chilling comedy of errors that has defined our recent foreign policy. Ronald Reagan is a statesman. During his administration, the United States was the dominant force on the world's stage because there was no mystery to American foreign policy. During that time, America boldly told the world that we would bring peace through strength. Ronald Reagan stood up to the tyranny of communism and said that the American way would triumph, but not through conciliation and not through appeasement. The United States won that Cold War because of the truth of our principles. In every corner of the world we pushed for freedom and democracy. Oh, how American policy has changed since the days of Ronald Reagan. Today there is simply no cohesion and no consistent principles that form the basis for everything we do on any spot of this map of the world. American foreign policy is now one huge big mystery. Simply put, the administration is trying to lead the world with a feel-good foreign policy. This feel-good foreign policy tears us away from peace through strength and it has resulted in creating chaos through weakness. This administration makes threats and never follows up on them. They set deadlines that are broken and reset, just to be broken again. American foreign policy failures over the last 6 years litter the international landscape. Mission-creep in Somalia cost the lives of American soldiers. North Korea continues to flaunt international law by speeding ahead with their nuclear program with no consequences whatsoever. Haiti is still not the beacon of democracy, despite sending U.S. Marines there. Afghanistan and the Sudan were bombed in the blink of an eye. Yet Osama bin Laden still represents a threat to thousands of American lives. We continuously bomb Iraq, without any clear goals, and without getting any closer to our ultimate objective of Saddam Hussein being removed from power. Russia, with its massive nuclear capability is coming apart at the seams and selling weapons and technology to scrape by, and we do nothing. China is walking all over us, pure and simple. Currently we are stuck in a never-ending peacekeeping mission in Bosnia that was proposed as a 1-year commitment. That promise was made 4 years ago. And now we have Kosovo. {time} 1700 Kosovo is not a hopeful nation aspiring to democracy. It is a big dangerous quagmire. The ethnic Albanians wanted total independence, and the Serbs do not want to give up any important parts of their country. Both parties have consistently rejected any chance of a real cease- fire. Mr. Chairman, American soldiers are trained to be warriors, not baby- sitters. The administration has no plan to do anything but just go to Kosovo, hold the hands of both sides and hope that they will behave when we leave. But of course they will not. The killing and mayhem will continue as soon as NATO pulls out. So how long does the President plan to keep our troops there any way? No occupation can or should last forever. There is a litany of reasons why we should not send troops to Kosovo, but the most compelling are the new power and responsibilities the mission unthinkingly gives to NATO. There are serious concerns about this new peace making direction for NATO. Its purpose is always to be a defensive alliance, not an offensive force. The CHAIRMAN. The time of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) has expired. (By unanimous consent, Mr. DeLay was allowed to proceed for 2 additional minutes.) Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Chairman, NATO's purpose has always been a defensive alliance, not an offensive force going into nonmember nations uninvited. Once NATO starts meddling in the internal affairs of sovereign nations, where does it stop? Think about this question for a moment. Outside of the questions of time and cost and objective, the Kosovo policy we are debating here today would have tremendous ramification on NATO's overall mission. We have to take a stand against these kinds of deployments now to ensure that we stop them before they ever get started. NATO is starting to resemble a power-hungry imperialist army. Originally designed to defend member nations from attack, it is now setting itself up to be the attacker. Despite the fact that the two parties in Kosovo refuse to negotiate even directly amongst themselves and have rejected a cease-fire, the administration threatens to bomb the Serbs to make them cooperate at the peace table. There is one major catch here. There is no peace table, just like there is no peace. The two sides continue to attack one another with a vengeance. It does not matter how many soldiers NATO sends over there, no number of troops can keep peace if there is no peace to begin with. The proposed Kosovo mission is just another bad idea in a foreign policy with no focus. As with all the recent failures in American diplomacy, the administration is trying to obscure its lack of a comprehensive agenda, and they are doing it with bombs. Bombing a sovereign nation for ill- defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly. We must stop giving the appearance that our foreign policy is formulated by the Unabomber. Mr. Chairman, sending U.S. troops to Kosovo is a lose-lose situation. No matter how we look at it, it is dangerous, it is costly. America has no strategic interests in the matter, and no one wants us to be there in the first place. Support the gentlewoman from Florida's amendment.