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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (116280)	10/6/2003 11:00:01 AM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

all that Giuliani accomplished was to spread the hookers around the 5 boroughs I don't think that this is true. I spend plenty of time in the boroughs, and I can't recall seeing any hookers (well, maybe I am not that good at spotting them... -g). Over the past several years the boroughs of NYC became "gentrified" as much as any urban area, maybe more... Prices of real estate in Brooklyn and Queens are astronomical. Giuliani would be re-elected in this one party Dem city in a flash - if it weren't for term limits.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (116280)	10/6/2003 11:12:38 AM
From: aladin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

ST, There are many brutal dictators around the world. Where and how do we start? Or are you claiming that it is only ok if we attack all of them at the same time? Clinton's positive legacy was Kosovo, but he also abandoned Somalia and let Rwanda die. That was his failure as President and his long term legacy. Bush's father did noble work in Kuwait and especially Somolia, but failed utterly when he abandoned the Shia's. In my opinion Bush gets high marks for Iraq and Afghanistan, barely marginal marks for UN support in Liberia, but if he ends his presidency as a failure it will be with Africa or North Korea, not Iraq. Remind me again who speaks for the dead, and what level of killing renders a nation states sovereignty null and void. Strangely, today we have liberals arguing against human rights and for sovereignty. Maybe it would have been different if Saddam had been against abortion. John

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (116280)	10/6/2003 7:50:02 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Since you used a local crime case to make your point, let me mention another one that I know about. In NYC, we had a prostitution problem around the 42nd street. Giuliani used a lot of heavy handed tactics to "clean it up". On the face of it he succeeded as you no longer see the kind of scenes you used to see. But in reality he made the problem worse. Well, then you're one of the first people to claim that NYC is worse crime-wise than before they decided clean things up. I happen to have been born and raised in NYC and the surrounding region, and though I no longer live there, I was very pleased at the changes that took place when they decided to finally take some overdue action. And the problem was hardly confined to a few hookers on 42nd St. You cannot have a functioning democratic society if law abiding citizens like myself cannot mind our own business and safely take public transportation after a certain hour, and I think this goes for Paris where I've lived as well. Is there any reason to believe he [Saddam]could not have been bribed to police the terrorist for us in exchange to minor concessions on our part ? You've conveniently forgotten that he was offered a large sum of money to leave the country and take his sons with him. I'm sure France would have been more than happy to take him in.... Once again, I don't see that it was really our job to do something about that regime in Iraq which has been a thorn in the side of the entire region for 30 years. Iraq had been a threat to other Arabs more than anything else. By any moral logic, the civilized world should be content to get rid of any criminal regime like that, but neither morals nor simple common sense apply in international diplomacy. It's more than possible for things to turn out better in Iraq than if Hussein and his family had been left in power, despite the fond hopes of the bed wetting left wing to see a world problem to blame the USA on, though it isn't going to be as easy as Shrub and his associates thought, and the work will now continue past his administration.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (116280)	10/7/2003 1:12:47 AM
From: frankw1900	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Is there any reason to believe Saddam was an imminent threat? No. Bush said he wanted to deal with the Iraq regime before it became an imminent threat. The problem was the very nature of the regime. With respect to this I always have differed with Bushites who pushed the WMD argument, not because I believed there were no WMDs, but because of the nature of the regime: it was incorrigible and as soon as the pressure was off it would be vigorously developing WMDs and threatening it's neighbours and a very large part of the world's (not just the US's) oil supplies. Also, I believe the very evil nature of the regime was in itself an excellent -probably the best- reason to invade. Is there any reason to believe he could not have been bribed to police the terrorist for us in exchange to minor concessions on our part? No. He was sitting on an ocean of oil which he was managing to get revenues from despite sanctions because both US's friends and enemies were buying oil from him. But, in any case, Hussein is profoundly untrustworthy as are the people who manned his regime. He would never stay bought. He would not police the terrorists but, instead, direct them for his own ends. Did we do this the best way? Was GW truthful to us in his reasoning for the urgent necessity of the war? Bush certainly believed what he said. The fact continuously avoided by many, and I fault the US government for not pushing this line vigorously enough, is that Gulf War 1 never ended. This was certainly Hussein's view. He never abided by any of the post war requirements except when they were rammed down his throat. Before you answer, keep in mind that as brutal and ruthless as Saddam was (is?) he was very logical in his policies (it is just that he had no conscience and no regards for human life). So I don't see why he could not have been bargained with. Without examining the "logic" of Hussein's behaviour -which is very debatable- I think it's pretty clear from his track record that bargaining with Hussein has always been a one way ticket to failure. He has only ever kept a bargain to the degree it was convenient to him. I should point out that your own words highlight the difficulty: "he had no conscience and no regards for human life". You can be quite sure that if some someone is utterly ruthless with respect to human life ("no conscience"), then it is likely (as in 99% likely) he will be utterly untrustworthy in nearly all other areas. (I call this the Ted Bundy rule).