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

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (80789)	3/9/2003 8:40:55 PM
From: marcos	Respond to of 281500

Interesting list over there - #reply-18675689 .. it's missing some, like Porfirio Díaz, Gerado Machado, etc, but perhaps they fall outside the timeframe chosen .... but i don't see Saddam Hussein there either, and he does have some claim to the status I expect this to be quite a short 'war' ... can't really call it war, with the weaponry so heavily weighted to one side, it's more target practice, a duckshoot with eight-gauges ..... there will be very few US casualties, and a high proportion of those will come from US fire, accidents, carelessness applied to overwhelming firepower in the fever of 'battle' .... but it will be short, matter of hours, very few days imho What comes after stands to be far more bloody for non-iraquis present - the occupation ... some of how that goes will depend on how many iraquis are killed/maimed/orphaned in the 'war', but not all ..... i wonder how i might feel were my country invaded by a single other country from the other side of the planet, if i might sit myself down and ponder what perhaps i might find to do in response Were Iraq to be truly liberated by a multilateral force sharing military and subsequent nation-building responsibilities, instead of just being invaded by orders of very few men in one capital, i think i just might be inclined to regard the whole situation in another light ..... although, who knows, who can imagine such a quandary without experiencing it Iraq stretches from the land of Hezbollah east to the land of the mad ayatollahs, from the land of the wahhabi north to the people who wiped out the armenians .... that's injun country .... as Bilow points out, there is little chance of subduing the region by brute force without killing five or ten per cent minimum, in this case that adds up to tens of millions slaughtered, and i really wonder if the whole unilateral scheme will work even then ...

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (80789)	3/9/2003 9:05:12 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

Gorby: 'Consumption' fueling war By Jill Dougherty, CNN Moscow Bureau Chief MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) --To former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, talk of war against Iraq sounds too familiar. Twelve years ago, he tried to prevent the first Gulf War by using the political power of the United Nations. But if that war was sparked by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, this war, Gorbachev says, is being fueled by the demands of a consumer society out of control and dependent on imported oil. "The U.S. is facing real problems with this consumer society," Gorbachev says, speaking to CNN through an interpreter. "On the one hand, it can be a stimulus for development and initiative. But there is also an abnormal aspect to it: super consumption, too many goods. "It's almost to the point that moral criteria are set aside. Five percent of the world's population is using 42 percent of the world's energy. How much further can you develop? Where can you find the resources?" The real threat to the West, Gorbachev says, is terrorism. And you can't fight terrorism with huge armies and massive weapons. "Especially when circumstances are throwing billions of people into poverty, then it's easy for any terrorist organization to recruit people for its cause," he says. "We need to fight poverty and disease, and protect our ecology." Twelve years ago, Gorbachev sent his top Middle East adviser, Yevgeny Primakov, to Baghdad to try to head off a war. Two weeks ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin did the same thing, sending Primakov back to Baghdad. Even at this 11th hour, Gorbachev says he believes there may be one extraordinary chance to avert war. "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a decisive person. You don't need to demonize him. I would approach him," Gorbachev says. "In his position, in order not to expose his people to this escalating situation, he could say, 'OK, I am stepping down from the presidency.' The Iraqi people can decide on a new government, and in that case I think the U.N. Security Council should offer him a guarantee of security." Gorbachev says he agrees that Iraq must disarm. But, he says, you don't need a war to do that. If there is a war, he says, no one knows how it will end -- and the world, he believes, will never be the same. Find this article at: cnn.com