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

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3246)	1/11/2004 6:38:52 AM
From: lorne	Respond to of 3959

Chinu. I don't know about other people but I for one would expect and hope that whoever is elected President of the USA ....Democrat, Republican or other.... would have as the first order of business plans to deal with areas of the world that are a threat to world stability. As Sept.11 has shown all of us...BE PREPARED! Bush began Iraq plan pre-9/11, O'Neill says By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff, 1/11/2004 boston.com ...."Beginning in the Clinton administration, official US policy called for "regime change" in Iraq, which had flouted United Nations resolutions put in place after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. But in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, the Bush administration cast its campaign against Hussein as part of the war on terror.".... ....." Candidate Bush, as early as 1999, made it clear that Iraq would be dealt with. In a speech at the Citadel military academy on Sept. 23, 1999, he said achieving peace in the world will "require firmness with regimes like North Korea and Iraq, regimes that hate our values and resent our success. I will address all these priorities in the future.".... ...." Administration officials began sending public signals about a possible confrontation with Iraq before Sept. 11. In July 2001, after an Iraqi surface-to-air missile was fired at the American surveillance plane policing a no-flight zone over Iraq, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "Saddam Hussein is on the radar screen for the administration.".... Full article >>> boston.com

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3246)	1/11/2004 6:42:54 AM
From: lorne	Respond to of 3959

Chinu. Whether you admit it or not it appears to me that change for the better is beginning in the middle East as a result of Prez Bush policies. Libyan Jews claim £100m for seized wealth By Inigo Gilmore in Jerusalem (Filed: 11/01/2004) news.telegraph.co.uk Exiled Jews are launching a multi-million pound compensation claim for property seized in Libya after Col Muammar Gaddafi signalled that he would consider making payments in his latest effort to end historic enmities. The case is being assembled by the Israel-based Organisation for Libyan Jews and the country's justice ministry. Libyan Jewish leaders say that the confiscated homes, businesses, synagogues, cemeteries and community buildings are worth well in excess of £100 million. Jews also owned large tracts of land which are estimated to be worth tens of millions of pounds. Col Gaddafi said that he was ready to compensate Libyan Jews for confiscated property while addressing his Popular Committee for Public Security and Justice last week, according to Al Bawaba, a leading pan-Arab news website, and other Arab press outlets. Last Friday, families of 170 people killed in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner - an incident blamed on six Libyans - signed a £92 million compensation deal with Tripoli in the country's latest attempt to mend relations with the West. Yoram Abib, the chairman of the Union of Libyan Jews, said: "We want to organise a private delegation, without any politicians, to visit Gaddafi so we can push forward this process of compensation because we Mizrahi Jews [from the Arab world] understand the Arab world and its leaders." Raffaello Fellah, a Libyan Jew who lost everything he owned when he left Libya in 1948, has met Col Gaddafi on a number of occasions since 1993. "I believe Gaddafi is sincere about this and we should not underestimate his courage to take bold decisions," said Mr Fellah, the co-chair of the World Organisation of Jews from Arab Countries. "I believe he is committed to paying compensation for the property. He has clearly decided this is in Libya's interests to start a new chapter. "But we are inviting Jews and our friends in Britain and the United States not to create any provocation. If we allow the music to play then we will all dance." Libya's Jews formed one of the world's oldest Jewish communities, stretching back more than 2,500 years. By 1941, Jews accounted for a quarter of Tripoli's population, maintaining 44 synagogues before the German invasion. Between 1949 and 1951, however, more than 30,000 Jews left, mostly for Israel. By the time Col Gaddafi launched the coup that brought him to power in 1969, just 500 Jews remained in Libya. He subsequently confiscated all Jewish property and cancelled all debts owed to Jews. By 1974 there were no more than 20 Jews left, and the last survivor was reported to have died in 2002. Now Libyan Jewish leaders hope that their chance of compensation will not be undermined by the row that broke out within the Israeli government after news emerged of a secret meeting between Israeli foreign ministry officials and Col Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam. The offices of Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, and Silvan Shalom, the foreign minister, are at loggerheads, with the latter accusing "hardliners" from Mr Sharon's entourage of attempting to sabotage the initiative by leaking details. That prompted Libyan officials to deny that any meeting took place. "Things have been crazy these past few days with many, many people phoning me to ask about compensation and what they might be able to get," said Rami Cahalon, 72, the chairman of the International Organisation of Libyan Jews, a larger group. He said that it was 20 years since Libyan Jews tried to audit the property they had lost and warned that the row within Israel threatened to undermine the current effort. "Certainly we are taking this very seriously but we must be patient and we must tread carefully. There is a lot of work to be done but I hope we will succeed."

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (3246)	1/11/2004 8:05:02 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 3959

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," O'Neill told CBS, Chinu.. Every President since Bush Sr. has recognized the need (and worked) to remove Saddam Hussein. And the result of that would have been contingency planning, should an opportunity arise. But clearly he couldn't muster the "casus belli" to do so in a pre-9/11 world, or he would have invaded Iraq in the first year of his term, now wouldn't he have?? Am I going to sit here and tell you that Bush wasn't interested in exploring how to get rid of Saddam? Hell no... I'd have been doing the same thing.. including covert action, if necessary (which Clinton's Security Adviser apparently refused to do... see Robert Baer, former CIA operative in Iraq). But I also would have known that I just couldn't do it without a mandate from Congress, and a statement of material breach from the UN, both of which Bush was able to obtain.. Again.. you have to ask why the French were willing to pass 1441, declaring Iraq in material breach, yet suddenly worked to thwart enforcement of that resolution. But one of the things I do find of concern from O'Neill's comments is that there seems to be a lack of discussion and debate in some of those cabinet meetings. Hopefully this is because much of the discussions have taken place prior to the actual meeting and they get together merely to affirm collectively the course of action to be taken.. But I also believe that Bush is a pretty decisive individual and someone who has some good advisors (his father, as well as Cheney and Powell). But maybe it's also indicative that some of his cabinet members are not used to thinking out of the box... I'm not sure.. All I can say is that, thus far, I'm happy with the strategic vision that seems to be at work in his mid-east strategy (carrot and stick), but I'm disappointed in how some of those strategies have been carried out tactically (post-war Iraq planning). Hawk