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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (117669)	10/25/2003 12:06:29 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Battle looms over whether Iraq threat was oversold globeandmail.com Battle looms over whether Iraq threat was oversold By PAUL KORING From Saturday's Globe and Mail BREAKING NEWS Oct. 25, 2003 Washington — A bitter partisan battle is brewing over where to lay the blame for grossly misjudging the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq: with the White House or with the spies. At stake is whether the U.S. public, Congress and allies abroad were misled into backing U.S. President George W. Bush's decision to wage war on Iraq, as Democratic presidential contenders contend. The opening salvos were fired this week when an early draft of a Senate Intelligence Committee report was leaked to The Washington Post. That draft, apparently prepared by staff under the control of the Republican chairman, fingers the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and other security authorities, faulting them for overstating both the threat of weapons of mass destruction and Baghdad's links with terrorism. Those preparing the report were taken aback at how key intelligence documents — especially the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate — relied on disputed information or circumstantial and single-source evidence, Republican and Democratic sources told the Post. Senior Democrat senators, who believe Mr. Bush bears the burden of responsibility rather than the intelligence agencies, fired back yesterday. "All I can tell you is that there is no report," said Senator John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, who vowed to force the committee to examine the Bush administration's use, interpretation and presentation of intelligence reports. In the wake of the leaked draft, which lays the blame squarely on intelligence agencies and in effect exonerates the President, Mr. Rockefeller, the committee's vice-chairman, denounced any rush to judgment. "I'm not going to characterize it as a whitewash," he said. "I'm going to characterize it as a very incomplete matter." Kansas Republican Pat Roberts, who chairs the intelligence committee, has said he wants the report completed quickly and clearly expects it to blame the CIA and other intelligence agencies. "The executive was ill served by the intelligence community," he said yesterday, characterizing their work as sloppy and inconclusive. Getting the report out quickly, and long before the presidential finger-pointing begins in earnest, appeals to Republicans. So does absolving the White House of blame. "It's my belief that what he [Mr. Roberts] wants to do is to lay all of this out on the intelligence community and never get to any other branches of government," Mr. Rockefeller said yesterday. Democrats want to delay the report at least until the spring, after the special team looking for Iraqi nuclear, germ and poison-gas-warfare programs makes its findings known. So far no such weapons have been found. That would relaunch the issue of whether Mr. Bush deliberately overstated the case against Iraq in the middle of his re-election campaign. A procedural battle is also looming inside the committee. Although its Republican chairman and majority give the President's party considerable power to direct staff and focus the investigation, Senate rules accord the minority Democrats a number of options. "We're going to get this one way or the other," Mr. Rockefeller said yesterday, referring to Democrat determination to probe whether the White House pressured the intelligence community to shape its assessment. "If the majority declines to put the executive branch at risk," he added, "then they are going to have a very difficult minority to deal with."

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (117669)	10/25/2003 2:50:21 PM
From: skinowski	Respond to of 281500

Are you saying that "nobody will be willing to blow themselves up to kill" Israelis if they abandon Israel and "leave them alone"? Not sure I understand your reply.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (117669)	10/25/2003 2:56:11 PM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Al Qaidists and their ilk are ideological revolutionaries, along the lines of Nazis - or Russian Bolsheviks. Their interpretation of Islam serves as their ideology - and their goal is capturing political power in Muslim countries. It is likely that their attacks against us are part of a program of radicalizing the Muslim masses - and of creating a "Revolutionary Situation". Would the Al Qaidists still pursue a war with us - after they move out of the caves and into Presidential palaces? That's for them to decide - and for us to find out. It is possible that they would prefer cooperation with the Great Satan - and instead, focus their energies on "re-educating" their own people, like the Soviets did, or the Nazis - or the Pol Pot Cambodians. I think that the resurgence of extreme brands of Islam has gone far beyond anything which would be within our power to influence in any significant way. If we abandon Israel - or Iraq - that would be seen merely as proof that the future belongs to our opposition. Did I just say "OUR opposition"? If my reading of the big picture is correct, then their true marks - at this stage - are their own nations. And those nations should get worried about their crazies trying to take over the asylums. Perhaps, they would be wise to ask us for help. Well... we have a "one man - one vote" system here in our neck of the woods… All a fellow can really do is... observe. Once in a while, I suppose, it's OK to step up on the soap box for 5 minutes.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (117669)	10/25/2003 5:46:20 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

But in the end, nobody will be willing to blow themselves up to kill people who have left them alone. I do not share your faith - because people have very very different notions of what "being left alone" means. As it happens, we cannot "leave Muslims alone", no matter what policies we now pursue, because their idea of being left alone would require a complete revolution in current geo-political realities. What realities? For example: Globalization is happening. Nobody can stop it. Globalization pushes our success into their face, pointing out the dire contradition between historical and Islam-promised Muslim success and current Muslim failure along so many lines. Israel exists. Unless we agree to destroy it for them, they will not consider themselves "left alone". The question of whether a Palestinian state comes into being in what borders is a huge red herring, because the Muslim world doesn't give a tinker's dam for the welfare of the Palestinians. In fact, if you listen to the Arabs, you will notice that a Palestinian state is always spoken of among them not a desirable goal to be pursued, but an immense concession to Israel to be granted reluctantly, or better yet, refused indignantly. Russia controls Chechnya, India controls half of Kashmir, the US controls Afghanistan, and now the US occupies Iraq too. Again, they are not being "left alone" due to their geopolitical weakness and utter dysfunction. A huge grievance with all Arabs - except most Iraqis, who are quite bitter about how the Arab world sided with Saddam and didn't care how many Iraqis he killed. The US is not likely to change any of these ways "we're not leaving them alone;" and we couldn't change most of them if we tried. Therefore the Muslim world is going to feel more and more "not left alone" - until they have a change of attitude and stop looking for someone else to blame all their problems on.