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

To: quehubo who wrote (141434)	7/25/2004 3:06:59 PM
From: Dr. Id	Respond to of 281500

Bush Shows No Sign of Learning His Lesson About Pre-emptive War by Helen Thomas If President Bush has any grand plan for another pre-emptive war, he had better forget it. Bush has crashed landed on the fallacy of the invasion of Iraq. It will take time for the self-described "war president" to make a recovery. It brings to mind an old saying: "Some day they will give a war and nobody will come." The Senate Intelligence Committee recently delivered a thorough trashing to the U.S. intelligence that nourished administration hawks in their rush to invade Iraq. The senators -- Republicans and Democrats --unanimously rejected the reasons Bush had given to justify his attack. The panel summed up the U.S. intelligence about Iraq's links with al-Qaida and Iraq's weapons programs as "false, overstated and deeply flawed." If nothing else, that condemnation should rid Bush of any ideas he may have for other ill-advised pre-emptive wars in the Middle East or for "preventive wars," as they are euphemistically called. The bad news is that Bush shows no indication that he has learned the lesson. Earlier this week, Bush told a campaign rally in Marquette, Mich., that "America must remember the lessons of Sept. 11. We must confront serious dangers before they materialize." This is another indication that he still endorses pre-emptive war. The president's comment also stands as further evidence of the administration's dishonest -- and continuing -- propaganda program aimed at merging the war on terrorism with the war on Iraq. Days after the Senate committee's report, a British inquiry also found its government intelligence "seriously flawed" in drumming up excuses for the war. Although the U.K. inquiry absolved Prime Minister Tony Blair of "deliberate distortion" or "culpable negligence," Blair said he assumed "full personal responsibility" for the fact that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, despite his frightening warnings of imminent danger. Faced with the grim reality that their original public rationales for war have been demolished, Bush and Blair have resorted to a vague feel-good generalization that "the world is better off" without Saddam Hussein in power. While Blair did a mea culpa, we have yet to hear a similar refrain from Bush. If it matters at this stage of the game, unprovoked attacks against other nations are illegal under international law and the United Nations charter, which American leaders helped draft after World War II. Meanwhile, Bush's vaunted "coalition of the willing" -- never much to begin with -- is facing vaporization. A small troop contingent from the Philippines is pulling out of Iraq at the end of the month to save the life of a Filipino captive held by Iraqi insurgents. Four countries already have left: Spain, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Honduras. Planning to depart soon: Norway, Thailand and New Zealand. These allies trickle out as the White House and the Pentagon struggle with credibility problems created by their sorry record in truth telling about the war. One wonders if the administration can ever recover the trust it needs to rally the necessary public support for the war against terrorism. There are two other institutions that should indulge in serious self-examination. One is the U.S. news media, which -- generally speaking -- accepted the administration's jingoistic march to war without skepticism. The other is Congress, which gave Bush a blank check to invade without deeply probing the reasons. The lawmakers should be asked if they still would have voted to go to war, knowing what they know now. Although popular support for the Iraq war is waning, both Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina -- the presumed Democratic Party standard bearers in the Nov. 2 election -- are playing it politically safe -- too safe. It's incredible that both continue to defend their pro-war votes in the Senate, instead of saying that they, like the American public, were misled by the Bush administration. Challengers are expected to make a difference. On the question of the Iraq war, Kerry has passed up a chance to offer voters a choice.

To: quehubo who wrote (141434)	7/25/2004 3:08:36 PM
From: Dr. Id	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Published on Tuesday, July 20, 2004 by the Guardian/UK Iraq is not Improving, it's a Disaster The Only Sensible Objective now is Orderly Disengagement, and Soon by Oliver Miles The Commons debate on Iraq today is a historic opportunity for parliament. British policy in Iraq is at a turning point, and we can exercise a vital degree of influence on US policy as well. Earlier in the summer, there were some welcome international developments. One was the security council resolution of June 8 endorsing the formation of a sovereign interim government, which did something to heal the rifts created in 2003. Another was the successful low-key handover of authority. But the impression that the situation in Iraq itself is much improved is down to Iraq fatigue in the media. The security situation is calamitous. Two recent attacks killed nine US marines; an attack on the Iraqi minister of justice killed five bodyguards; bombings and attacks on Iraqi security forces have caused multiple deaths; targets in Falluja have been bombed by the US air force; foreigners have been kidnapped or executed with the aim of driving foreign troops and foreign companies out of Iraq. This, however, is the tip of the iceberg. Attacks on US troops are running at dozens a day, frequently accompanied by looting, burning and stoning. It is generally believed in Baghdad that around 1,000 Iraqis leave the country every day for Jordan and Syria because the security situation is intolerable. According to the Iraqi media, gunmen have killed six Baghdad local councilors in the last two weeks and roughly 750 in the last year. Friends of the Americans such as Ahmad Chalabi are discredited; enemies such as the young Shia firebrand Moqtada al-Sadr have their tails up. Meanwhile, the Butler report, which followed the devastating critique by a Senate committee of the failure of American intelligence, has dominated the headlines. Senior members of the British intelligence community have accused Tony Blair of going way beyond anything any professional analyst would have agreed. But the media have allowed themselves to be carried away by the question of secret intelligence, and have ignored equally or even more important questions of policy. Senator Kerry has accused President Bush and his administration of misleading the public about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction and specifically about nuclear involvement. They "misled America... And they were wrong. And soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong". In Britain, now that it is clear that US and British policy has been based on a deception, it is equally clear that Iain Duncan Smith and the shadow cabinet were also deceived. There are plenty of uncomfortable questions to ask about who deceived whom, and Michael Howard has at last said that he couldn't have voted for war in the House of Commons in March 2003 if he had known then what he knows now, though for reasons as yet unexplained he says he is still in favor of the war. Others have gone further: the Labour MP Geraldine Smith has said: "I feel that I was deceived into voting for a war I was morally opposed to." The assessment of intelligence is open to debate. But other failings are less easy to explain away. The prime minister should be pressed to say what happened to the detailed plans for postwar Iraq which, he told parliament just before the war, had been worked out with our allies. Perhaps they were part of the State Department plans, which we now know were consigned to the wastepaper basket by Donald Rumsfeld. The story of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay is a disgrace. When will we learn whether Britain has equally disgraced herself? What is clear is that no British minister could survive if he had said, as Rumsfeld said: "Technically, unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva convention. We have indicated that we do plan to, for the most part, treat them in a manner that is reasonably consistent with the Geneva conventions to the extent they are appropriate." Most important of all, of course, is the future. As a number of Washington analysts have pointed out, the success of coalition policy will depend on resisting the temptation to impose policies that support US, not Iraqi, goals. As Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution put it: "I would advise them to lose the argument to the Iraqis on some of the big issues - it shows an Iraqi government is really in charge." This is where parliament can exercise its influence. Unless we really want to rebuild the British empire, under our flag or the stars and stripes, the only sensible objective now is disengagement in as good order as possible. No scramble to get out, but send no more troops and look for every opportunity to build up Iraqi prestige, authority and responsibility. · Oliver Miles is a former ambassador to Libya and organized the letter signed by 52 former British ambassadors criticizing Bush and Blair's Middle East policy © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

To: quehubo who wrote (141434)	7/25/2004 3:30:57 PM
From: dumbmoney	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I believe the end game for humanity is a liberal progressive capitalist democratic society. How depressing. I also believe that in today's world we cannot coexist peacefully having nations working away from these types of values and institutions. Why not? Liberating Iraq is all about bringing these values to an area of the world we can no longer let rot. We weren't letting the Middle East "rot". That's our policy toward Africa. Our policy toward the Middle East is to meddle incessantly, and our reward for doing so is terrorism.