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Politics : TRIAL OF SADDAM HUSSEIN -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: goldworldnet who wrote (210)	12/20/2003 12:37:44 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 493

.....But very bright, and credible!!

To: goldworldnet who wrote (210)	12/20/2003 12:37:56 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 493

Paddlin' Madeleine Jay Bryant (archive) December 20, 2003 \| Print \| Send My conspiracy theory is that once again the Democratic establishment is playing Madeleine Albright for a sucker. Remember back when then President Bill Clinton trotted her out in front of the press as spokesperson for his cabinet in saying that he had not had sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky? In an administration where the competition for Lowest Moment is vast, that has to rank right up there – the Secretary of State reduced to spreading the President's lies about his satyriasis. So we know she's willing to paddle the party canoe on command. Now someone has provoked her to spread an even bigger lie. In case you missed the story, it goes something like this: while waiting in the "green room" for an appearance on Fox News, Madeleine was chatting with Mort Kondracke and suggested that Osama bin Laden has already been captured and President Bush is waiting for the right political moment to announce it. Sure the incident makes her look stupid. You think Terry McAuliffe gives a fig about that? But here's what I'll bet the farm on: she didn't come up with the idea herself. Her comment came on the heels of Congressman Jim McDermott's allegation that the U.S. could have picked up Saddam Hussein at any time but chose to make the nab when Bush needed a boost in his job approval ratings. McDermott's statement was made shortly after Howard Dean opined on the radio that the "most interesting" theory about 9/11 was that the Saudis had tipped Bush off to it in advance. Anybody see a pattern here? I've decided to get into the act, and am already spreading two totally unfounded rumors: first that McDermott's celebrated trip to Iraq in 2002 was for the purpose of helping Saddam plan the hiding of his WMD's. (What? You don't believe this? Are you aware that Congressman McDermott is from the state of Washington, site of the Hanford Nuclear plant, where they know all about disposing of deadly stuff?) The other rumor is that George Steinbrenner paid off the major league baseball players union to kill the Red Sox deal to get Alex Rodriguez. I like that one a lot, and you've got to admit Steinbrenner had both motive and opportunity, being as how he and the union are both in New York and the principal beneficiary of the trade falling through would be the Yankees. Rumors have long been a major form of political communications. "If I haven't heard a good rumor by ten o'clock," a veteran campaign manager once told me, "I start one." I know another political operative who used to pay potato chip truck drivers to spread political rumors to every little country store in rural Georgia. Or at least that was the rumor. Think of Albright as a potato chip truck driver. The thing about rumors is that no matter how ridiculous they are, someone will believe them. The other thing is that they're immortal. The Democrats have many fears as they contemplate the 2004 election, led by the fact that their list of candidates for president is weaker than dime beer. One of their other fears grows out of the fact that President Bush has a real knack for the dramatic – like going to Baghdad for Thanksgiving, for example. So they're using the rumor mill to discount any dramatic pro-Bush events that may happen between now and You Know When. So what happens if the good guys in Afghanistan – maybe even some of the fine Canadian troops serving there – root Osama out of his spider hole sometime next year, heaven forbid at a key moment in the US political calendar? In the minds of the Bush-haters, the ridiculous Albright rumor, by then shorn of its immediacy and just simply out there as part of the landscape, will become a straw to grasp. Count on Howard to sanctimoniously but very publicly deny that he believes it was all plotted as an October Surprise, no matter how many of his followers think otherwise, and no matter that it is an "interesting" theory. Actually, I'd prefer a late July Surprise, say just about the time the Democratic National Convention kicks off in A-Rod-less Boston. But I'm not planning the political timing of the capture of Osama, and neither is anyone else. The rumor, though, is now out there, courtesy of Paddlin' Madeleine, and in the minds of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, it will not die. In a way, I wish Kondracke had kept his mouth shut. Veteran GOP media consultant Jay Bryant's regular columns are available at www.theoptimate.com, and his commentaries may be heard on NPR's 'All Things Considered.' ©2003 Jay Bryant

To: goldworldnet who wrote (210)	12/20/2003 12:42:08 AM
From: calgal	Respond to of 493

Dean, Kerry Want Clinton to Broker Mideast Peace Friday, December 19, 2003 By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos WASHINGTON — Bill Clinton (search) could pose a striking — and promising — contrast to President Bush's efforts if he accepts the mission proposed by two would-be Democratic presidents to pursue Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, say some foreign policy analysts. Those supporters add that considering the former president for the job helps Democrats John Kerry (search) and Howard Dean (search) send the right message about their visions for peace in the Middle East. "Clinton would be a formidable negotiator. He has plausibility with both sides in the region, he knows the players and he knows the issues, probably better than any president — probably better than this president," said Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute (search), a Democratic think tank built around Clinton's political philosophies. "It would be hard to pick a better representative of American interests." Both Kerry and Dean have publicly stated that if elected in 2004, they would consider tapping Clinton — who unsuccessfully attempted to broker two major peace accords between the embattled parties during his eight-year tenure — for the demanding diplomatic mission. "This administration has abandoned the Middle East without any real engagement, " said Kerry campaign spokesman Dag Vega. "Clinton and others who have experience with the personalities there can help us make progress." But not everyone has taken a positive view of such a scenario. Some experts say platitudes about enjoining Clinton are a gratuitous political gesture meant to curry favor with the former president, who is still regarded as an active leader of the Democratic Party. "I'd say it had little to do with the Middle East peace process and more to do with the fact that Bill Clinton is the remaining glue that holds the Democratic Party together," said Mike Franc, political analyst with the Heritage Foundation (search). "It's an indirect way of saying that the Bush team hasn't done a very good job," said Gary Schmidt, executive director of the Project for a New Century (search), a foreign policy think tank founded by neo-conservative Bill Kristol (search). It also "assumes that the Clinton way was ever going to be successful," Schmidt added. Clinton sought to help reach a breakthrough in the Middle East beginning with the 1993 Oslo Accords (search), a series of agreements negotiated between the Palestinians and Israelis to grant eventual and complete control of the West Bank and Gaza to a newly-created Palestinian Authority. But talks broke down after the 1996 election of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (search), a Likud Party hard-liner, and violence in the region re-escalated. Near the end of his second term in 2000, Clinton again sought to force progress, hosting Netanyahu's successor, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak (search), and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat (search) at Camp David. Despite a near compromise, Arafat walked out and the talks disintegrated. Abandoning those talks gave Palestinian terrorist groups the opening to begin fighting anew, and after Likud Party leader Ariel Sharon (search), now the prime minister, angered Palestinians by visiting the Temple Mount, among the holiest of shrines for both Jews and Muslims, the Al-Aqsa Intifada, or second uprising, began. Since September 2000, nearly 3,500 Israelis and Palestinians have died in the violence. In a speech to his nation on Thursday, Sharon announced that if the U.S.-backed "road map to peace" falters in the next few months, Israel could begin taking unilateral steps to disengage from the Palestinians, including redeploying Israeli Defense Forces to new areas and moving Jewish settlements to safer areas in the West Bank and Gaza — something he's never before stated publicly. Sharon added that he will continue with the process of constructing a wall around the disputed territories to protect Israelis from homicide bombers. While Sharon said that all of Israel's actions will be done in consultation with the United States, the speech indicates that the Bush administration has had little success in moving the sides closer to peace. Some observers have complained that the reason for that may be that, unlike Clinton, Bush appears less enthusiastic about attempting to broker peace in the region. Others have suggested that Bush is commanding a situation so different and more difficult than the one Clinton had to lead that the two approaches can't be compared. "The conditions are fundamentally different today than they were three years ago, and most of that has to do with the actions of the Israelis and the Palestinians," said Ted Galen Carpenter, foreign policy analyst with the Cato Institute (search). "The Bush administration could have been as active or more active than the Clinton administration and it wouldn't have made any difference." The current administration has been hobbled by infighting over how to approach the Middle East, while Bush "hasn't invested himself in terms of his prestige, or intellectually," said Joe Montville, former foreign service agent and a senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (search). Montville said that a prestigious envoy like Clinton, who has already invested enormous time and energy in the process, could lend power to the position. But, he added, Clinton still must learn the lessons of his own tenure — that he failed to recognize cultural and political subtleties before talks broke down, in part, because he pushed too aggressively at Camp David in order to secure his own legacy. Montville said he believes Clinton could learn those lessons before undertaking a new mission. "Clinton is teachable, he is a quick study," Montville said, and as a former president, "he has the stature of a supreme diplomat and peace-builder." Vega said those characteristics led Kerry not only to suggest Clinton as a special envoy to the Middle East, but other former commanders-in-chief Jimmy Carter and George Herbert Walker Bush. "There are statesmen on both sides of the party we could use," Vega said, adding that the Massachusetts senator recognizes the value of tapping into the authority of a former U.S. president in order to carry a message into diplomatic minefields. But before any further talk of choosing an envoy, the candidates need to lay out their specific visions for the region, said Henry Siegman, director of the Middle East Project at the Council on Foreign Relations (search). "It's delusional on the part of Kerry and Dean to believe that the success of the American role in the peace process depends on the envoy," he said. "The candidates have to say what their policies are, what it is they stand for. There is a lack of honesty here and an avoidance of addressing the real issues."

To: goldworldnet who wrote (210)	12/20/2003 12:43:05 AM
From: calgal	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 493

So, I will reiterate this point!! :) AP Poll: Saddam Capture Gives Bush Boost Friday, December 19, 2003 WASHINGTON — Americans think the war in Iraq was the right decision by a 2-1 margin and are more inclined to approve of the job done by President Bush in foreign policy and terrorism following the capture of Saddam Hussein, an Associated Press poll found. They remain wary, however, of the continuing deadly conflict in Iraq. Saddam's capture appears to have given Bush's re-election prospects a boost: The poll conducted for the AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs (search) found that nearly half of respondents, 45 percent, said they would definitely support Bush's re-election, while 31 percent said they would definitely vote against him. A month ago, people were evenly divided on that question, at 37 percent definitely for and 37 percent definitely against. Two-thirds in the poll said they were confident the United States would capture or kill Usama bin Laden, who is believed to have orchestrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. That's up from about half who felt that way in a poll in September. "I'm confident we'll capture Usama bin Laden," said Jill Chiccino, a surgical technician from Wilmington, Del. "I still don't feel that will solve terrorism, but it may help." More than six in 10 registered voters, 63 percent, said they approved of Bush's handling of foreign policy and terrorism, up from 54 percent who felt that way in early December in an AP-Ipsos poll. Bush's overall job approval among voters was 59 percent, up from 53 percent in early December but still far below his mid-70s war ratings from earlier this year. Asked whether they thought Saddam's capture last weekend would cause violence against U.S. troops to increase, decrease or stay about the same, the biggest group, 47 percent, said they expected no change. A third, 33 percent, said violence would decrease and 19 percent said it would increase. People were evenly divided on whether Saddam would get a fairer trial from an international tribunal or from Iraqi courts. "Iraqi courts will be controlled and run by the United States," said attorney Adam Allen of Tampa, Fla. Six in 10 thought the government was likely to be embarrassed by some of the information disclosed by Saddam in a trial. That was higher than the percentage of people who felt Saddam's disclosures would embarrass the governments of France, Russia, Britain or Germany. Six in 10 said the capture made it more likely the United States would get help from longtime allies who opposed the Iraq war, but only 12 percent said they felt that was "very likely." Overall support for Iraq policy was strong in the poll. Seven in 10 said they believed the Iraq war was an important part of the campaign against terrorism rather than a distraction, as some critics have charged. And by more than a 2-1 margin, people said the war was the right decision and not a mistake. Respondents were divided on whether the war in Iraq has made terrorist attacks in this country more likely, 40 percent, or less likely, 49 percent. Almost two-thirds said they expected a terrorist attack on a major U.S. city, building or national landmark in the next year. But only 15 percent said they thought such an attack was very likely. In a different poll in May, almost half said a terrorist attack was very likely in the near future. "I'm not expecting anything as bad as 9-11," said Indiana college student Deanna Moon. But she expected the United States would be attacked by people loyal to Saddam and bin Laden: "There's going to be something here and there because their followers are so nutty." The AP-Ipsos poll of 1,001 adults was taken Monday through Wednesday and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, slightly larger for subgroups such as registered voters.