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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (35705)	1/19/2004 9:25:33 PM
From: coug	Respond to of 89467

Thanks lurqer, They both had the same ideas.. Iconoclastic, like me.. <g>... c

To: lurqer who wrote (35705)	1/19/2004 9:25:34 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

The Slow Collapse Belmont Club Despite the brave talk about the effectiveness of nonproliferation treaties, sanctions and quiet diplomacy, the saga of the development of the Pakistani nuclear bomb and its associated delivery systems demonstrates their ultimate futility. In 1965 Pakistan began its first tentative steps toward acquiring nuclear technology. It refused to sign the nonproliferation treaty. By 1980, intelligence reports indicated that it was beginning to acquire weapons designs and uranium enrichment technology from China. Despite US export controls, Pakistan acquired key materials and parts from world industry. By the mid-1980s, it had a uranium enrichment program, which the US attempted to halt by restricting aid. By the late 1980s, Pakistan had a stock of weapons-grade material and was testing weapon components. At the beginning of the 1990s, it began to acquire further nuclear-related material from Europe. Shortly afterward, Pakistan began to suggest that it already possessed nuclear warheads and was actively shopping for missiles and other delivery systems. The Clinton administration, apparently despairing of stopping the Pakistani program, attempted to negotiate a "cap" on the number of weapons available to Pakistan and India. It eased aid restrictions in an effort to influence Pakistani behavior with a carrot instead of a stick. To no avail. By 1996, Pakistan doubled its uranium enrichment capacity and began to manufacture weapons grade plutonium. In 1997, Pakistan demonstrated a new intermediate range ballistic missile and fired five nuclear test devices, each twice the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Somewhere over these thirty years, Pakistan -- or at least individual Pakistanis -- began negotiating "cooperative" agreements with Iran and possibly a number of Islamic Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia. The Washington Post reports that the Father of the Pakistani A-bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan and at least two of his top aides, both brigadier generals, "may have helped Iran develop its nuclear program". Pakistan now claims they were acting without authorization, a regrettable development which just now it seems, has come to light. One thing they also may have done is offer to sell nuclear secrets or the weapons themselves to countries like Saudi Arabia. The Guardian reports that Saudi Arabia is considering purchasing nuclear weapons -- from whom do you suppose? -- in response to "the absence of any international pressure on Israel, which has an estimated 200 nuclear devices". It is hard to escape the conclusion that neither pre-emptive warfare, nonproliferation treaties, sanctions, aid programs nor diplomacy can do more than slow down the spread of weapons of mass destruction. By 2025, a period equal to the time elapsed between the first Pakistani nuclear research effort and their tests, WMD technology should be available to every country that can afford a national airline. Long before then, the model of bipolar nuclear deterrence will have collapsed in tatters. The industrial nations, which in the years following World War 2, declined to acquire their own nukes, will no longer be able to rely on an American nuclear umbrella when confronted, not by a single unitary aggressor, but by a host of smaller, resentful regional rivals. Seen in that light, the Global War on Terror and Operation Iraqi Freedom may not be departures from the norm of international relations, so much as an bid to salvage it. They are the first attempts to find alternatives to the great edifice of treaties which, designed in an era where distance was an effective barrier between nations and effective military force a rare commodity, is no longer sufficient to deal with the challenges that confront it. Whatever the defects of American policy, it at least has been the first to realize that it is no longer possible to return to business as usual. belmontclub.blogspot.com posted by wretchard \| Permalink: 12:49 PM Zulu

To: lurqer who wrote (35705)	1/19/2004 9:59:57 PM
From: coug	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

Just learned that CNN projected Kerry the winner and I thought of this quote, This one I am almost certain of this time from dear, long departed .. Samuel Clemens.. "Whenever I find myself with the majority, I have to rethink my position".. Or something to that effect..... I am like that..And ALL others should be too... LOL.. P.S.. Just confirmed and the establishment press is eating it up.. c

To: lurqer who wrote (35705)	1/19/2004 11:08:54 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 89467

So many lies...... So little time..... Panorama condemns BBC's own conduct in Kelly affair By Alasdair Palmer (Filed: 18/01/2004) Panorama, the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, will this week broadcast a special peak-time programme deeply critical of the way the corporation handled its coverage of the events that led to the Hutton inquiry. The programme has caused intense divisions within the BBC as it will be hard-hitting in its scrutiny of some of its own journalists and will also clear the Government of dishonesty in its handling of intelligence material. The timing of the broadcast, exactly one week before Lord Hutton makes his long-awaited report into the events surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the weapons expert, is also controversial. The programme, A Fight to the Death, is expected to be particularly critical of Andrew Gilligan, the BBC's Today programme journalist who reported alleged concern in the intelligence services about the Government's first dossier about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. It also criticises the corporation for standing by Gilligan before conducting an adequate investigation to establish the facts. Greg Dyke, the director-general of the BBC, has said privately that he will not see the programme until it is broadcast and he will not intervene before it is shown. The programme has led to tensions within the BBC, particularly between current affairs staff, who made the programme, and news journalists, who are often rivals. Panorama will be presented by John Ware, one of the BBC's most experienced reporters, and will last for one and a half hours. Unusually for a current affairs programme, it will be transmitted at peak time at 8.30pm on Wednesday. The programme's makers emphasise that they are not seeking to pre-empt Lord Hutton's report. The documentary is believed to contradict the position on the controversy taken by Gavyn Davies, the chairman of the BBC's board of governors, and other senior BBC executives. They have said that the story - which initiated the row with the Government over the preparation of the intelligence dossier on Iraq and that led to the death of Mr Kelly - was substantially correct. Panorama will examine the central allegation of the report broadcast at 6.07am on May 29 last year by Gilligan, the defence correspondent, on the Today programme: that the Government "probably knew the 45-minute warning [that Iraqi technicians could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of being given the order to do so] was wrong". Gilligan reported that the claim was nevertheless dishonestly put into the dossier by the Government over the objections of the intelligence services. Although the BBC has admitted that Gilligan's report was "flawed", it has continued to maintain that his subsequent broadcasts on the same day and thereafter - some of which continued to amount to an allegation of dishonesty in the drawing up of the dossier - were largely correct. The programme will be welcomed by Tony Blair because it clears the Government of dishonesty. It says that no evidence was produced at the Hutton Inquiry to show that Alastair Campbell, then the Prme Minister's communications chief, or anyone at No 10, ordered anything to be inserted into the dossier. Rather, it asserts that any "sexing up" of the dosser was done because the intelligence services too readily agreed to some of No 10's suggestions. The documentary will be critical of the BBC's decision to stand behind Gilligan's report without fully investigating how well-founded his original claim was and the inconsistencies in his broadcasts. Moreover, had BBC managers looked at the reporter's original notes of his meeting with Dr Kelly, they would have discovered that these did not record Dr Kelly as saying the words Gilligan attributed to him. No one asked to see his notes, however, and so the BBC only discovered that what came to be the central plank of its defence - that Mr Gilligan was "only faithfully reporting the words that his source had told him" - was unsupported when the reporter gave evidence to the Hutton Inquiry. He was then forced to admit that "I do regard those words as imperfect and I should not have said them". The role of the Prime Minister is understood to feature prominently in the programme, which examines Tony Blair's role in how Dr Kelly came to be named and thus exposed to a furious political storm. telegraph.co.uk.