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

To: LindyBill who wrote (52776)	7/4/2004 2:34:08 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 793773

MORE FROM JOHN BURNS By Cori Dauber The reason I have such abiding respect for the Times' John Burns is that he stands out as the one American reporter who never backed down from making clear to his readers what kind of a society he was reporting from, even though that meant he risked losing his reporting visa -- and once the war had started, risked a great deal more. He's on record as saying that the unwillingness of other reporters to do so, their abject caving to the regime's demands even to outright bribery just to be able to stay in the country, was a historic failing of the profession, and that Iraq under Saddam was one of the worst dictatorships of the 20th century. We've seen his straight news coverage of Saddam's day in court, and his color commentary. But today something perhaps even more fascinating: his thoughts on what the hearing, for all twelve defendants, says about all those years they controlled and terrorized a country. (Look, by the way, at the accompanying photo, which I don't think had been released before today.) He writes about how small these men look now, and how surprising that is. And about how glad they were to be told of the rights they would have. I found this line especially striking: For men who held unlimited powers, with little or no need to consult law books, it seemed possible that the moment when the manacles were removed and they stepped into court may also have been the first moment they realized that they were to be assured of rights, or even what legal rights in a country emerging from dictatorship might entail. Sun, 4 Jul 2004 07:17 AM Updated Sun, 4 Jul 2004 07:18 AM Email \| Save THE GAP By Cori Dauber The Post's online edition today has a simple, powerful story about the way American war dead are repatriated at Dover and one of the military Chaplains who greets them when they arrive with a prayer before the coffins are removed from the transport plane. The story is headlined, appropriately, "Simple, Solitary Prayers For Fallen U.S. Troops." But on the Post's home page (as always, oddly, subject to change) the headline has a negative spin, "Quck Prayers for the Fallen: Chaplain left with little time to prepare blessings for slain U.S. soldiers," as if either the Chaplain is being rushed or, worse, the flow of casualties is such that the man has no chance to prepare prayers before the next plane load has arrived. By the way, one of the two controversies about Dover was that families were not being allowed to meet the planes. That was, admittedly, probably a silly policy. But the idea that there was a ground swell of demand from families to go out to Dover was pretty clearly a press construction. And the proof is in this article. Since the policy was changed -- a single family has taken advantage of it. Now, the fact that only one family wanted it and that it meant so much to them probably also proves that it made sense to change the policy, no doubt. But it was hardly the difference between whether military families did or did not feel well treated by the military (or by the administration.) rantingprofs.typepad.com

To: LindyBill who wrote (52776)	7/4/2004 4:51:39 PM
From: Andrew N. Cothran	Respond to of 793773

Foreign Policy Incoherence of the Anti-Bushers:David Limbaugh www.newsmax.com Monday, July 5, 2004 There is such a policy incoherence - such a disconnect - among the national brotherhood of Bush-haters that an objective observer might conclude that the throng could benefit from a little group therapy. More to the point, given the particulars of his supporters' complaints against President Bush, it's difficult to see how John Kerry will make an intelligible case for his candidacy concerning Iraq if the time ever comes in the campaign when he is forced to do so. After all, it's not as though Senator Kerry has a plan to extricate us from what his multitudes regard as a quagmire. Story Continues Below Let me illustrate a bit of the confusion that clouds the lovable Bushophobes. On "Hannity and Colmes" Alan Colmes pointedly inquired of a Republican guest why a recent poll showed that some 92 percent of Iraqis viewed Americans as occupiers rather than liberators. It appeared that Alan could barely contain his glee with this news and as if he were dying to say, "See, I told you they don't like us. And they shouldn't like us - because we're imperialist pigs." I'm not trying to pick on my friend Alan, who I assume was merely spouting his party's line. But let's look at what anti-Bush diva Maureen Dowd had to say in her New York Times column on this subject. Dowd wrote, "If Americans needed any more confirmation that they're viewed as loathed occupiers, not beloved liberators, it came with the sad little spectacle of a hasty, heavily guarded hand-over that no Iraqi John Trumbell will memorialize in an oil painting of the Declaration of Iraqi Independence." Is it just me, or is MoDo gloating at the prospect that America is not being well received in Iraq? Does her antipathy for Bush cause her actually to root for American adversity in Iraq - to the point that she even finds negativity in our transfer of power to the Iraqi people? And speaking of disconnects, isn't it curious that Dowd is simultaneously denouncing both our "occupation" and our restoration of sovereignty to the Iraqis? Could therapy even help such a double-minded condition? Beyond that, here's what I mean about the incoherence of the Bush-bashers. All of their complaints about Bush's Iraq policy, if addressed and remedied, wouldn't make the slightest difference in how we are perceived there. Do you think the Iraqis care, for example, how many nations joined our coalition? Do you think it matters to them whether we allowed Saddam to violate 20 United Nations resolutions instead of 17? Do you think it matters to them whether we have located stockpiles of WMD? Do you think they would prefer to be oppressed by Saddam Hussein's regime? Besides, do the anti-Bushers think polls of the Iraqi people should dictate our foreign policy? Even if the answer is yes (God forbid), do they believe the Iraqis would like us better if John Kerry were president? Well, Kerry voted for the resolution to attack Iraq. And he has since stated, despite his schizophrenic failure to vote for the $87 billion supplemental appropriation for rebuilding Iraq and for our troops, "Whatever we thought of the Bush administration's decisions and mistakes - especially in Iraq - we now have a solemn obligation to complete the mission, in that country and in Afghanistan." Indeed, Kerry has indicated that far from withdrawing he might expand the operation with more troops (preferably with more from our allies, presumably by using a gentler tone of voice in asking for their support). But would the influx of more troops make the Iraqis view us less as occupiers? Of course not. As most reasonable people will concede, no nation relishes being occupied. So again we are entitled to ask, what is the relevance of the complaints of Kerry's supporters? Zilch, because if they succeed in electing Kerry, unless Kerry is fibbing, they'll just get more of the same. One wonders whether they've really thought it through - to the point of realizing that their own candidate has not promised to do anything appreciably different, prospectively, in Iraq. Probably so. But to them, this isn't really about Iraq. Nor is it about the alleged discontentment of the Iraqi people, because if it were, they would be praising President Bush for liberating them from Saddam. Nor is it about invading a sovereign nation without justification, for if it were, these same people would not have so unreservedly supported President Clinton's policy to take out Serbia's Slobo when he represented no conceivable threat to the United States. What it is about is regime change, not in Iraq, but in the United States. COPYRIGHT 2004 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.