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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (23382)	1/7/2004 5:56:14 PM
From: gamesmistress	Respond to of 793660

..We had been at war with Iraq since 1990. We had no-fly zones set up over 1/3 of the county, and were being shot at, and shooting back daily. Iraq was 'on parole' and violating its parole six ways from Sunday. Thing is, Nadine, as far as the American public was concerned, the war was over in 1991. The stuff about the no-fly zones and Iraq violating "parole" was not generally known. You know how rare enforcement of UN sanctions is, and how an "old-fashioned" invasion, such as Iraq into Kuwait or 9/11, has to take place before most people are convinced.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (23382)	1/7/2004 7:01:16 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793660

And how, pray, do you intend to do this without violating the sovereignty of whatever country the terrorists happen to be in? Nuance. We hit'm hard with nuance. <g> Seriously, I'm making a distinction between violating the sovereignty of a country by popping in and unloading on a pack of terrorists that threaten us in a quasi-police action vs. "declaring" war on a country, taking the country on rather than the terrorist renegades, taking over the country. I realize that's a bit of a tight squeeze. But all of this is a tight squeeze if you don't cling strictly to one end or the other. The paradigms are shifting all around us and it's hard to find solid footing, legitimacy. I expect what my country does to be clearly legitimate. How can you talk as if Iraq were some random sovereign country? I realize that Iraq was on borrowed time based on the previous war and the UN sanctions. If we took over Iraq on that basis, then it should have been because the UN's patience ran out, not ours. Technically, they were UN sanctions. OTOH, if we took over Iraq on the basis of the US war on terrorism, then we needed a clearer, more immediate connection with potential terrorist attacks on us than what we had. Now maybe some can put the two of them together, half of each, and come up with a whole. I have tried and failed. I realize these seem like fine points to those who are in with both feet. For those of us more temperate and conservative when it comes to establishing precedents, breaking old ties, and starting wars, they seem important and we're distressed by how cavalierly some brush them off.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (23382)	1/7/2004 11:11:16 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793660

Stand Up to Sharon by Pat Buchanan December 15, 2003 issue Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative Israel is a “thunderously failed reality” that “rests on a scaffolding of corruption, and on foundations of oppression and injustice.” Were these words spoken by an American leader, he would be denounced as an anti-Semite. But these are the words of a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset who cries for his country. “The countdown to the end of Israeli society has begun,” writes Avraham Burg, “the end of the Zionist enterprise is already on our doorstep.” “Israel, having ceased to care about the children of the Palestinians, should not be surprised when they come washed in hatred and blow themselves up in the centers of Israeli escapism.” Burg implores “Diaspora Jews” to “speak out.” To little avail. Why? Why, when a Knesset member is unintimidated, are we so silent? Why, when Ariel Sharon is dragging America’s good name through the mud and blood of Ramallah and Jenin, are we so tongue-tied? Did not Burke instruct us, “To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards out of men”? Israelis are speaking truth to power. Army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon has told Israel’s press it was Sharon who undermined Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Twenty-seven Israeli Air Force pilots have refused to obey “immoral orders” for air strikes on “populated civilian centers.” Five hundred Israeli soldiers have refused to take part in the repression. Four ex-chiefs of Shin Beit—Ami Ayalon, Carmi Gillon, Yaakov Peri, Avraham Shalom—have charged Sharon with leading Israel to ruin. “We are heading downhill toward near-catastrophe,” says Peri, “If we go on living by the sword, we will continue to wallow in the mud and destroy ourselves.” Ayalon and Palestinian academic Sari Nusseibeh have issued a declaration of principles calling for Israel’s withdrawal to her 1967 borders. Ex-Justice minister Yossi Beilin has negotiated a detailed accord with a former Palestinian minister. Colin Powell wrote a letter of support. Where is George W. Bush? Why is he silent when Sharon has led us into a cul-de-sac from which he cannot find an exit? Why is our president letting Sharon ravage what is left of our reputation in the Arab world? Sharon promised peace and security. He has delivered war and hatred. Over 700 Israelis are dead. Some 2,500 Palestinians have died, including hundreds of children. Scores of thousands have been wounded. Homes and olive groves have been destroyed. Yet still Sharon approves new settlements without a peep of protest from President Bush. When Howard Dean suggested that U.S. Mideast policy needed to be more “even-handed,” he was warned by Democratic bosses never to use that term again. Why are our politicians so craven, so terrified of an Israeli lobby that does not speak for Israel, let alone for America? Israel is in an existential crisis. Its options for survival are narrowing by the month. It can push all the Palestinians into Jordan, a monstrous crime of ethnic cleansing some on the Israeli Right are advocating. It can wall off Israel and Jerusalem and leave the Palestinians in a truncated, tiny state that will become an eternal spawning pool of terror, as Sharon is now doing. Or it can give the Palestinians what Oslo, Camp David, Taba, the Saudi Plan, and “road map” promised: a homeland. If Israel is to remain democratic and Jewish, she must either let the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem go—or annex them all and grant Palestinians full rights as citizens in a binational state. Are Israeli Jews willing to practice in their country what American Jews preach in ours, equality and multiculturalism? Israel is free to choose her course. But America needs a Middle East policy Made in the USA, not in Tel Aviv—or at AIPAC or AEI. President Bush should restate U.S. support for the survival of Israel but also register America’s disgust with Sharon’s duplicitous policy of creeping annexationism and repression, while talking of peace. Sharon should be told to vacate every settlement and outpost put up since Bush took office and to tear down any part of his new wall that encroaches on the land of the coming nation of Palestine. Else, American aid stops. If this undermines Sharon, so much the better. If we are to preach democracy to the Arabs, let us also preach it to the regime that claims to be the only democracy in the region as it holds three million persecuted Palestinians in human bondage. As Israel’s benefactor and guardian, we have a right to demand that our values be respected in her treatment of the Palestinians, that our vital interests always be kept in mind, as they have rarely been in 50 years. If Mr. Burg can stand up to Sharon, why cannot Mr. Bush? December 15, 2003 issue Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (23382)	1/8/2004 12:29:30 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793660

Gee, I thought Ray Duray was crazed. WE must free our minds to use the brains and Michael Moore provides the information and conceptual relevance to frame the context of the ongoing debate about America's hegemonic lust for flag-planting and the cannabilistic murder and consumption of its own poor people and children. ("Yes," says George W. "let the NRA pass me some dark meat from the ghetto to go with my blood pudding.") Even now, as Uncle Sam's jackboot grinds free speech to a bloody pulp in his own homeland and democracy withers under direct orders from Washington in Australia, the grasping octopus of American imperialist adventurism is no closer to singing its swan song. On Mars the Stars and Stripes flies -- the Red Planet, how appropriate, red with the blood of workers poisoned by the toxic byproducts of the imperialist war machines march on the high frontier of space in its phallic symbols of globalised corporate power. Did you know that every rocket that takes off from Cape Canavaral kills 73 seabirds (on average) and has led to nervous conditions amongst neighbouring manatees. Michael Moore sees and speaks these truths in a simple, down-to-earth way that people who have been denied the benefits of tertiary education (unlike me and most Age readers) can understand. His truths are such a challenge to the patriarchal power structure and its Zionist puppetmasters that it requires definite bravery to articulate them. They shot Martin Luther King and John Lennon in America. How long can it be before this large precious object is martyred by the same interests that gave us the Big Mac, George W. Bush, and showers instead of relaxing baths. Ogram N'otsgnik theage.com.au