Roger
You are absolutely correct---I will make every effort to resist the temptations which I have yielded to.
I would like to add my thanks to the creators of this forum and also wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year(2003) time is accelerating to Mach 1
New Years Greetings and Best wishes to all. I am likely to be a bit distracted by the considerably less troublesome demands of freinds and family today, but all of you are in my thoughts, as is the issue at discussion in this thread.
timber who suspected Christopher's skills andmotives when he was relevant.
So that we may enter the new year in hot debate on the current "hot" topic----North Korea, I'm starting a new thread same subject under Politics. I hope you will all join me there.
perception, Although A2K doesn't drag like Abuzz on long forums, it's a good idea to start a new thread. Maybe, some of us can come up with 'new' thoughts about this topic of North Korea. My take on all this "Axis of Evil" scenario is to keep the populace brain-washed on terrorism, so this current administration can assure themselves of another term in office - mostly hawks. c.i.
C.I.
Hawks feed on doves----Thought I'd add that so ya'all don't get too complacent and eat too much tomorrow. Fat doves are a real delicacy.
The doves are the ones that can be 'brain-washed.' The fear factor for doves is more easily influenced. c.i. HAVE a HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I don't eat no doves, an' i think dove hunting is an exercise in vacuity second to none in the realm of "sport"--the clueless stalking the brainless.
I'll be winning hearts and minds, encouraging democracy and counting bodies for the next few days, so a happy new year to all, and wish that you will be careful and safe, and have an enjoyable holiday.
Don't we all know that the administration's longterm ties to Iraq complicate the issue of "preemptive strike" considerably? The news of Rumsfeld's past relationship with that nation is now almost old news.
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,867033,00.html
Is this perhaps why so many Americans seem to be increasingly less enthusiastic about the proposed invasion? Might we look forward to a peaceful new year?
I think this old news has already been discounted at the market, don't you?
Roger -- You've zoomed in on what bothers me most -- the national shrug when it comes to Iraq (among other things!) But the media seem to be hammering the administration's obsession with Iraq more and more... Anyway, let's HOPE for a peaceful new year!
I agree, roger. I'm constantly amazed that some folks are amazed to discover politicians and diplomats frequently have multiple agendas, some of which might be contradictory and/or covert. Geoploitics is and never has been a simple, easily understood, straightforward matter. "Politics makes strange bedfellows" is a truism for a reason. Distasteful as they may be, pragmatics, subterfuges and expediences are the stock-in-trade of diplomats. If such were not the case, there would be no diplomacy. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which formally ended hostilities between Britain and her former American Colonies was essentially an endrun around the aims and intentions of our dear and trusted partners The French, who felt themselves and their interest a bit betrayed to have been excluded from the negotiations. Further complications arose, as has been the wont of conduct among nations from at least the time of the advent of the keeping of records of such.
timber and roger
Yes - tides change, fortunes turn, old allies become new enemies, secret pacts are made and subterfuges engaged.
But those are elements regarding relationships between nations, between, more or less, two-faced, skulduggerous, ex-car salesman leaders.
It's the subterfuges commited by these guys upon their own citizenry that I find really morally repellant. And, it's probably no surprise to you that I consider this present crowd is far too comfortable with the range of instances where they find happy justification.
It just shouldn't be allowed.
Yes....they have done some good things. I note them. But, really, it's like you've just had a whopper coronary, and your heart stops dead away - but, your life is saved by this brilliant visiting heart surgeon. And then he boinks your wife.
It just shouldn't be allowed.
No, I think you misunderstood, blatham. Alliances shift and change, and we all know it, so no dispute. So far as our complicity in furnishing Iraq with biologicals suitable for military use (and we have some) I do not justify it, and am way beyond uncomfortable with the idea.
The point of my comment on old news was to point out that this past relationship in fact has little impact on the "preemptive strike" doctrine. We do have a problem over there. At some time in the past, we (and others) at least made it easier for the problem to grow, if in fact we did not indeed nurture it at some time in the past. This does not mean the problem is going away of its own accord.
I don't think the above either supports or opposes a preemptive strike doctrine; I am saying the link we are discussing changes nothing.
You may recall that I'm not all that keen on the United States doing it without significant support other than Britain, and to the smug condemnation of all others. We are not the only nation to have supplied Iraq with the means of production for chemical and biological munitions, and we will not be the only nation affected, or even most effected, when she decides to use them. Having put the problem (okay, acquiesced) to the UN, it now becomes difficult to act in a unilateral or bilateral manner if Saddam is able to out manouver the UN inspection teams. That consideration is quite possibly the reason for the 'increasingly less enthusiastic' support cited by Tartarin, above.
In the course of referring to prior posts, I lost this baby twice. The first may or may not have been more coherent.
but if anyone happens to know, what was the purpose in anyone sending Iraq that stuff in the first place?
My concern is how much has been sent over that isn't "on the books." Cover-ups, I'm afraid, work more in politics that are discovered. Okay, this brings up apparitions of conspiracy theories but I was a very close friend of someone in Orange County who was very high up in the Nixon Administration and he told me some things that I had to swear to secrecy. I have no reason not to believe what he told me and it makes me very suspicious of what every adminstration thinks is necessary to conceal for "National security."
LW, I have similar, and no doubt similarly founded, suspicions of a variety of issues. Neither politics nor diplomacy inspire unquestioning trust.
timber
No purpose, dys. Just stupid or insane. I thought we had forsworn such weapons ourselves, so why on god's green earth are we sending them to a dictator with a clear intent to use them, even though said dictator did happen to be going in our direction at the moment.
It is arguable that biologicals might, just might be used in some sort of defensive research, but even that sounds thin. In any case, I believe the articles I saw on this in both WSJ and Yahoo's news section indicated the quantities were way beyond reason for this type research. SNAFU
I'm not sure how reliable the following reports are on Iraq, but here's a link that summarizes some of the problems.
http://www.accesshistory.com/iraq.html
Can anybody confirm, deny or expand on these reports? c.i.
