Tartarin, I just don't agree. I respect your viewpoint, and admire the way you present it, but I just can't share it. Perhaps I am guilty of "American Impatience", perhaps as a veteran, a news junkie, and an avocational historian, I simply perceive that all the "jaw jaw" offers not resolution but continuation.
I guess I am impatient. I am a bit dismayed. I am hopeful. I am deeply concerned about The Post War, about the potential for ecologic and civilian disaster vested in Saddam, about Korea, about both The US and The Global Economy, and many other things. As far as I'm concerned, far too much effort and time, to say nothing of lives, have been squandered by jawing. I feel strongly that it is long past time we came to grips with such issues and did more than talk about them. The UN approach in re Iraq does not prevent conflict; nor has it done so elsewhere ... Angola, Algeria, and all the other examples through Zaire and Zimbabwe come to mind. It merely postpones it at best. Procrastination does not yield progress.
timber
Timber -- I see your point of view and also CI's and everyone else's, but for a moment look at this from the point of view of those who will pay the highest price -- with their livelihoods, their families, their lives. If it were your livelihood, your family, your life, would you be in a hurry for agony and obliteration? Or would you say please, please, give the diplomats more time to work this out? And particularly when, as you and others suggest, the aftermath is so iffy and possibly so counterproductive that these people may well die in agony only to enable continuing and worse atrocities?
BillW wrote:roger, the only thing I seem to remember is that the only two limits on Iraqi missiles is range (90 miles) and warhead capability. I'm sure there are some others - But I basically understand the Scud is less than 90 miles, but from the results I heard - who would want one anyway. They seem to be able to target a direction, ie, N-S-E-W and maybe NE,NW,SE,SW; but, that's about all.
Scud range Walter suggests I check up on my geography, so I better. There does seem to be some confusion on the range of the beast. I don't recognize the web site here, and Jane's is down for maint at the moment, so this one may be out to lunch. Who wants one, though, and the probable accuracy is not the issue, of course. Range is.
(Paul Krugman compares the President to Humphrey Bogart's--IMO--most famous character: )
Aboard the U.S.S. Caine, it was the business with the strawberries that finally convinced the doubters that something was amiss with the captain. Is foreign policy George W. Bush's quart of strawberries?
Over the past few weeks there has been an epidemic of epiphanies. A long list of pundits who previously supported the Bush administration's policy on Iraq have publicly changed their minds. None of them quarrel with the goal; who wouldn't want to see Saddam Hussein overthrown? But they are finally realizing that Mr. Bush is the wrong man to do the job. And more people than you would think ?- including a fair number of people in the Treasury Department, the State Department and, yes, the Pentagon ?- don't just question the competence of Mr. Bush and his inner circle; they believe that America's leadership has lost touch with reality.
If that sounds harsh, consider the debacle of recent diplomacy ?- a debacle brought on by awesome arrogance and a vastly inflated sense of self-importance.
Mr. Bush's inner circle seems amazed that the tactics that work so well on journalists and Democrats don't work on the rest of the world.
George W. Queeg
roger, accuracy only counts if you care
Quote:"Dig in boys for an extended stay
Those were the final orders to come down that day
Waiting to be saved in the Phillipines
You'll wait forever for the young Marines
Now I believe to be here is right
But I have to say that I'm scared tonight
Crouching in this hole with a mouth full od sand
What comes first, the country or the man...
Over here, over there,
It's the same everywhere...
A boy cries for his momma,
Before he dies for his home."
-- "Everywhere" - Billy Bragg
God bless the young men who fight for the things we take for granted every day.
- TW
And God bless in no less measure those who are in Washington today fighting for the peace the rest of the world wants and deserves.
tw wrote
Quote:God bless the young men who fight for the things we take for granted every day.
So what are those things?
Not to prolong a side issue, BillW, but the limitations are on range (90miles or 150km approximately), not the level of accuracy the things were able to achieve a decade ago. And sometimes the would hold together long enough to hit a city, which was good enough as Mr. Hussein seemed not greatly concerned with the military value of his targets. Civilian populations were as good as any other.
Jonathan Alter; MSNBC
SO IT'S TIME for a little out-of-the-box (or even off-the-wall) thinking. The first question is whether there's anyone with the stature to spearhead a creative alternative, and the answer is yes. His name is Kofi Annan. If the Secretary General decided to step forward and lead the U.N., not rhetorically but literally, the status quo in Iraq could be transformed quickly, and, most likely, peacefully. So far, the Security Council has been obstructing and dithering, but not acting. Here's something for the U.N. to do that would infuriate both the United States and Saddam Hussein, but could also lead to the removal of weapons of mass destruction without bloodshed:
Create a U.N. trusteeship in Iraq, not after the war, but before it. That's right?-take the U.N. plan for administering a postwar Iraqi government that was unveiled last week and implement it right now, with Saddam still alive. Instead of tripling the number of inspectors, as the French proposed, increase the number of U.N. officials on the ground in Iraq by twenty-fold. Fly two dozen planeloads of U.N. employees?-experts in civil administration?-into Baghdad. Fan them out across the city into every ministry and military installation ?-that should block a U.S. attack. Meanwhile, leave Saddam alone?-wherever he is?-and start running his government. Marginalize him.
Impossible, you say. Saddam is a brutal tyrant and will never allow it. But would he definitely resist? Right now, he figures he's going to die, whether he flees or not. The U. N. is the only thing keeping him alive, and not for long. His big propaganda victory over the United States is a temporary win, and it's dependent on his not offending the U.N. by killing a bunch of its people. So he would likely do no more to obstruct this contigent than he has done to obstruct the inspectors, who have been admitted almost everywhere they have sought acceess in the last four months. The difference would be that these U.N. civil administrators would not inspect, they would entrench. They would simply announce that henceforth, they were administering the departments of government, including access to all government documents.
You might call this a U.N.coup or invasion but it could also be described as a U.N. "mandate," which is hardly unprecedented. The U.N. charter has a whole section on trusteeships, which were common during decolinization. The international organization has moved in to administer governments on a temporary basis before, when conditions on the ground were chaotic. In this case, they are pre-chaotic. What's the elemental difference?
Dys -- I think the idea is travelling around right now that the General Assembly may wake up and play a role... I'm glad you posted that.
Dyslexia, that is a practical, if no longer timely, alternative to war. At this point, however, little short of a major asteroid impact is going to alter the in-place and in-motion warplans. Anytime after the Press Conferences following the Azores Meeting, The Barndoor, not The Window is open.
The time for preventing the war expired months, if not years ago. The time for dealing with Post Saddam Iraq is hours away, a few days at most, and neither the timing nor the manner of the start of the war nescessarily will be up to Bush The Younger. For a while at least, Saddam Hussein remains the most influential man on the planet. That in itself is outrageous, and totally uncceptable.
timber
Self-fullfilling prophecy -- Timber. I hate to say it to a nice guy, but people who go around saying "it's inevitable" are throwing fuel on the fire. They will have to carry some responsibility for the outcome in a free society where polls and public response do still (almost) make a difference.
Especially since many around this world are still protesting this war. If their voices do not count, as Bush seems to imply, the future looks pretty gloomy. When heads of state ignores millions in this world, there is something drastically wrong. c.i.
Maybe we should all line up in front of the UN with signs reading "Stop Bush!". That might make an impression.
Tartar, Didn't you sign that petition I posted some time back? c.i.
I can't really disagree with most of that, Tartarin. I wish I, and many others, had tried much harder and much more wisely to prevent this long ago. That I, and others, did not, is to our discredit.
I don't know if I would term it self fulfilling prophecy, but I have seen this as inevitable for quite some time. I also see IRAQ not as a war in its own right, but as just a battle or campaign in The War on Terrorism. It has been handled abominably, and the effort to package it for public consumption failed miserably.
Perhaps what upsets me most is that I perceive we as a nation often do The Right Thing for The Wrong Reasons. We seem to have knack for that. Then too there is our track record of failing to Do The Right Thing once the smoke clears and ballots replace bullets. The World is right to mistrust The US.
I devoutly hope that mistrust is misplaced. I will be dismayed, but not unsurprised, should The US once again disappoint those who rely on her, and those impacted by her actions.
An aside: e-mail traffic from The Gulf Region has been dropping off, with folks indicating to the effect, "They'll be offline for a while ... nothing special ... not to worry", and a number of still-corresponding folks have alerted recipients to a likely interuption of correspondence at any time, without much if any further notice.
timber
