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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rascal who wrote (13669)	2/28/2003 3:04:15 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Yes, Hussein is evil, but what's the rush? By Sheila Suess Kennedy Editorial The Indianapolis Star February 27, 2003 indystar.com In the wake of massive, worldwide demonstrations against President Bush's rush to war, right-wing pundits and citizen hawks have questioned the patriotism of the protesters ("My country right or wrong!") and accused them of lacking concern for our troops. They have adopted the administration's simple logic that "If you aren't with us, you're against us." This "either/or" approach to issues may work for editorial cartoons, but it makes lousy policy. Fortunately, most Americans take a much more nuanced approach. According to polls, we believe Saddam Hussein is evil and that the world would be better off without him, but we don't understand what the big rush is. Most of us are willing to take part in a truly multilateral operation through the United Nations but are wary of going to war alone and suspicious of an administration that tells us we are going to ignore the United Nations and invade Iraq because Iraq has ignored the U.N. This continued ambivalence of the American public has not been lost on the White House, which understands that it must make at least a show of working through the world community. So Bush has gone shopping for allies. The same administration that just cut mental health benefits for poor people; that is unable to find the promised cash to fund state and local homeland security efforts; that "forgot" to budget a single dollar for the continued pacification of Afghanistan has promised Turks $26 billion if it will let our troops deploy from their country. Leaving aside the moral and geopolitical implications of buying one's allies, $26 billion is a lot of money. Bush's budget is deep in red ink, and that is without a single dollar budgeted for a war and its aftermath that analysts say could easily cost $1 trillion. The surplus Bush inherited is a distant memory. His tax policies have plunged state and local governments into record deficits. Experts claim that a war with Iraq will bankrupt America's airlines, deepen the recession and inflate the price of gasoline. We are in a world of fiscal hurt while Bush is using $26 billion to bribe Turkey to be our friend. When America last took troops into Iraq, it was under a President Bush who had carefully assembled a multinational force, who had engaged in the demanding job of negotiating with allies and reassuring nonaligned nations. There are many reasons to emulate that approach, not the least of which is that those other nations picked up 90 percent of the tab. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kennedy is assistant professor of law and public policy at the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis.