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Politics : HOWARD DEAN -THE NEXT PRESIDENT? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mephisto who wrote (1223)	12/30/2003 7:37:10 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 3079

"The embrace of Saddam in the 1980's and what it emboldened him to do should caution us as Americans that we have to look closely at all our murky alliances," he said. "Shaking hands with dictators today can turn them into Saddams tomorrow." Kinda negates the prevalent liberal view that the US has controlled and directed every dictator who has ruled since the end of WWII, doesn't it?.. After all, here's Saddam, purchasing Chemical Weapons from Europe (France and Germany) and over a million tonnes of Soviet (Russian) ordnance including tanks, AK-47s, RPG-7s, jets, artillery, and SCUDs, and all the US offered was "combat planning assistance" out of fear that Iran might win the war and totally reshape the balance of power in the region in favor of radical Shiites leaders. And we even had to suck up and "soften blows" to entice him to improve relations!!... So much for the claim that the US "created" Saddam.. Seems to me the French and Russians did most of that work, and have received little of the blame. Hawk

To: Mephisto who wrote (1223)	12/30/2003 8:15:05 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3079

Howard Dean: The Democrats' death wish David Limbaugh December 30, 2003 Governor Dean says the Democrats' 2004 presidential aspirations are doomed if he doesn't get the nomination. Dean's Democratic opponents say the Democrats are doomed if Dean does get the nomination. I think they're both right. Dean said, "If I don't win the nomination, where do you think those million and a half people, half a million on the Internet, … (are) going to go? They're certainly not going to vote for a conventional Washington politician." Dean has a point. He's the only one who's been able to fire up the Democrat base. If his opponents can't do that, how can they woo the general election voter? But the very qualities that make Dean so attractive to his extremist base make him a dark horse in the general election as well. He is antiwar and anti-Bush to the point of seeming irresponsible. He's irascible to the point of seeming unstable. And he is profoundly weak in the areas he needs to be strongest in: foreign policy and national security. President Bush excels in these areas, which is quite ironic, considering that a few short years ago, elitists were lampooning Bush for mispronouncing the names of obscure foreign leaders. They still deride him for his allegedly simplistic worldview. What compounds the irony is that the elitists' favorite party, the Democrats, are about to nominate a guy (Dean) who is very unsophisticated and unknowledgeable in foreign affairs and actually does have a simplistic worldview. The Boston Globe reports that Dean's worldview is that of "a doctor who wants to see evidence of a problem and fix it, rather than an idealist with lofty academic visions." Recognizing this, the Democratic establishment recently organized a six-hour foreign policy tutorial for Mr. Dean. But neither that little homeschooling session, nor Dean's sit-downs with former President Clinton have kept him from further blunders. Dean referred to Russia as the Soviet Union, a faux pas virtually ignored by a media that pilloried Mr. Bush for much less. Even if we overlook that mistake, it's hard to ignore other evidence revealing Dean's surprisingly shallow foreign policy perspective. He said we should demand that Pakistan cough up Osama bin Laden or go in and get him ourselves, overlooking the complexities facing Pakistani President Musharraf's delicate hold on power and how much his support means in the war on terror. Dean's own advisers have admitted to his naivete on this, as well as his limited understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the broader Middle East picture. Dean has indicated, essentially, that he would resume President Clinton's failed policies toward North Korea, continuing to bribe them into discontinuing their nuclear program, when we know this policy gave us the worst of both worlds: we lost our money and North Korea continued to produce their nukes. And Dean has done anything but inspire confidence with his inconsistent positions on SDI. Sometimes he says he would abolish the program and other times that he would only reduce funding for it. Dean will eventually have to deal with the reality that if he had been commander in chief, Saddam would still be in power. Potentially even more troubling for him is his earned image as a borderline pacifist. Former national security adviser Samuel Berger said he believed that Dean "would be willing to use military force if called for." What? You mean there's sufficient doubt that the Democrats' leading candidate for commander in chief would use military force to defend the United States' strategic interests that Berger felt compelled to dispel it? Dean has also made some remarkably ridiculous statements that he'll have to explain. He suggested that bin Laden could be innocent. He cited reports that President Bush knew in advance of the September 11 attacks, then quickly denied subscribing to the idea, a ploy even many liberals admitted was intended to smear President Bush. And, Dean said that America was no safer for having captured Saddam Hussein. Finally, The Washington Post reported that Dean admitted in an interview that while he planned to give his base the red meat it craved, he (wouldn't) be talking like this during the general (election)." Quite an admission. As if all this weren't bad enough for Mr. Dean, understand that a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey revealed that most Democrats know "hardly anything" or "nothing" about his policy positions. And don't forget that the very Democrats who love Dean because of his staunch liberalism deny he's a liberal. Go figure. Did I mention that President Bush is very strong in the polls right now and is riding a booming economy, brought on by his tax cuts that Mr. Dean advocates repealing? townhall.com

To: Mephisto who wrote (1223)	12/31/2003 8:20:10 PM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3079

The U.S. Winked at Hussein's Evil December 30, 2003 latimes.com Robert Scheer: Sometimes democracy works. Though the wheels of accountability often grind slowly, they also can grind fine, if lubricated by the hard work of free-thinking citizens. The latest example: the release of official documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that detail how the U.S. government under presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush nurtured and supported Saddam Hussein despite his repeated use of chemical weapons. The work of the National Security Archive, a dogged organization fighting for government transparency, has cast light on the trove of documents that depict in damning detail how the United States, working with U.S. corporations including Bechtel, cynically and secretly allied itself with Hussein's dictatorship. The evidence undermines the unctuous moral superiority with which the current American president, media and public now judge Hussein, a monster the U.S. actively helped create. The documents make it clear that were the trial of Hussein to be held by an impartial world court, it would prove an embarrassing two-edged sword for the White House, calling into question the motives of U.S. foreign policy. If there were a complete investigation into those who aided and abetted Hussein's crimes against humanity, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and former Secretary of State George Shultz would probably end up as material witnesses. It was Rumsfeld and Shultz who told Hussein and his emissaries that U.S. statements generally condemning the use of chemical weapons would not interfere with relations between secular Iraq and the Reagan administration, which took Iraq off the terrorist-nations list and embraced Hussein as a bulwark against fundamentalist Iran. Ironically, the U.S supported Iraq when it possessed and used weapons of mass destruction and invaded it when it didn't. It was 20 years ago when Shultz dropped in on a State Department meeting between his top aide and a high-ranking Hussein emissary. Back then the Iraqis, who were fighting a war with Iran, were our new best friends in the Mideast. Shultz wanted to make it crystal clear that U.S. criticism of the use of chemical weapons was just pablum for public consumption, meant as a restatement of a "long-standing policy, and not as a pro-Iranian/anti-Iraqi gesture," as State's Lawrence S. Eagleburger told Hussein's emissary. "Our desire and our actions to prevent an Iranian victory and to continue the progress of our bilateral relations remain undiminished," Eagleburger continued, according to the then highly classified transcript of the meeting. The Shultz/Eagleburger meeting took place between two crucial visits by Rumsfeld, acting as a Reagan emissary, to Hussein to offer unconditional support for the Iraqi leader in his war with Iran. In the first meeting, in December 1983, Rumsfeld told Hussein that the United States would assist in building an oil pipeline from Iraq to Aqaba, Jordan. He made no mention of chemical weapons, even though U.S. intelligence only months earlier had confirmed that Iraq was using such illegal weapons almost daily against Iranians and Kurds. That administration's eye was not on the carnage from chemical weapons but rather the profit to be obtained from the flow of oil. In a later meeting with an Iraqi representative, as recorded in the minutes, "Eagleburger explained that because of the participation of Bechtel in the Aqaba pipeline, the Secretary of State [Shultz] is keeping completely isolated from the issue. Iraq should understand that this does not imply a lack of high-level [U.S. government] interest." (Shultz had been chief executive of Bechtel before joining the Reagan administration and is currently a director of the company, which is signing contracts for work in Iraq as fast as U.S. taxes can be allocated.) Minutes of that meeting and others in which the United States ignored Hussein's use of banned weapons while extending support to the dictator mock the moral high ground assumed by George W. Bush in defense of his invasion. If, as Bush II says, Hussein acted as a "Hitler" while "gassing his own people," during the 1980s, we were fully aware and implicitly approving, via economic and military aid, of his most nefarious deeds. Hussein's crimes were committed on our watch, when he was a U.S. ally, and we knowingly looked the other way. But don't take my word for it; check out nsarchive.org .