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

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (134469)	5/26/2004 6:57:02 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I see, the enemy is (drum roll) those states that have financed, harbored, or at least tacitly supported, Islamic militancy and/or terrorism. And you have a problem with this? Maybe you'd just rather give them a hug.. and maybe a gentle and loving smack on the @ss for a job well done... Anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that terrorist networks cannot be created or continue to exist without state-sponsored tolerance, or at least indifference. Someone has finance them, provide them a place to train, or at the very least provide moral incentive to carry out their acts. My view is that for those nations which have not decided to make the decision to change their attitudes towards supporting, or tolerating, terrorism, should be placed under extreme political and economic pressure. And if that fails, the military option should be considered. And none of the nations you mention happen to currently fall within such a category, althought Saudi Arabia stood dangerously close to doing so prior to last May. Hawk

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (134469)	5/27/2004 12:01:22 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

HERE'S ANOTHER SPEECH PRESIDENT BUSH COULD HAVE GIVEN... Published on Wednesday, May 26, 2004 by the Daily Camera / Boulder, Colorado Bush Speech: Take Two by Tom Teepen Here's another speech President Bush could have given: My fellow Americans, I want to talk with you tonight about the situation in Iraq. I ordered our American troops into Iraq with the best of intentions and for three reasons that I thought important. I felt intervention was necessary to make sure Saddam Hussein would not use the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons that every Western intelligence agency, and the last three American presidents, felt certain he either possessed or was developing. I believed that the Iraqi people and the Middle East deserved relief from a dictatorship that was sadistic toward its own people and dangerous to its neighbors. And I felt strongly, in concert with my advisors, that a liberated Iraq, with a freely chosen government accountable to its own citizens, would be an inspiration to the peoples of the region to strive for progressive and peaceable change. I must tell you in all candor tonight that in most of these matters, I was wrong. We know now that the international economic boycott, the United Nations weapons inspections and the military containment policy of the previous administration had effectively removed the threat of weapons of mass destruction from Iraq. And rather than being inspired by our actions, the region's population have largely turned against the United States . Our troops performed skillfully and bravely and we can all take pride in having ended a dictatorship of historic villainy. By far the larger number of Iraqis are themselves pleased to have been freed from the menace that Saddam Hussein was to their very lives every day. But the consequences of my strategic miscalculations in this matter have been compounded by additional tactical miscalculations, and the sound work of our troops and the good that I hoped would come of Saddam Hussein's removal have in the main gone unfulfilled. I believed it was unnecessary to secure United Nations sanction for our invasion. That failure has undermined our ability to enlist broad or substantial support from most other nations. I had expected that the invasion would be greeted with nearly universal enthusiasm among Iraqis, but what we Americans have seen as liberation is widely mistrusted there as an occupation. As a result of that misunderstanding, we put far too few troops into Iraq to seal its borders and to prevent the emergence of armed factionalism and chaos. I had believed that the revived and expanded sale of Iraqi oil would largely pay for the transition, but it has proved necessary for you, the taxpayers, to pay the costs, now well more than 100 billion dollars. Iraqi expatriates, who we believed would form the core of a new democratic government, have misled, disappointed and perhaps betrayed us. Therefore, I have several announcements tonight. I have today asked for and received the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld as secretary of Defense. His successor will be chosen in consultation with the leadership of both parties in Congress, in the interests of establishing consensus for our remaining tasks in Iraq. I will tomorrow ask the United Nations to establish a transitional trusteeship for Iraq, so that wide international commitment can be enlisted in bringing a new Iraq into being. And I am announcing now that I will neither seek nor accept my party's nomination for a second term as your president. I want to apologize to you tonight for the miscalculations that led to my decision to intervene in Iraq and for mishandling the military and administrative challenges of the operation. I nonetheless remain committed to making every effort, including continued American military responsibility under United Nations auspices, to provide Iraq's citizens with an opportunity to develop a government that reflects their considered judgment of their best national interests and the mutual interests of their nation's component populations. Free from the need to campaign for re-election, and with this matter removed from partisan contention, I will devote the remaining months of my presidency to creating conditions, as best as I am able, that will permit the next president to conclude our experience in Iraq in a way that reflects honorably upon our country and that redeeems for the Iraqi people the high promise of their liberation. Good night. And God bless America. Copyright 2004, The Daily Camera