posted on September 30, 2002 08:14:28 AM new
We WANT this war, the sooner the better, so let's stop critisizing and give our support to the little man in the chair. His war will be the best thing that possibly could happen for us all.
The control of the Iraq oil reserves and output, second largest in the world, will lower oil prices in this country across the board and the great American way of life will be assured of continuance indefinitely - long after we're all dead and gone we'll rest easy knowing that we helped to give our descendents Winnabagos for unlimited use, cheap oil for all of our industrial use, and no one will go hungry or cold in America ever
again.
That's what's going on right now, and it's the best possible thing. It doesn't matter if Iraq has weapons or not. It doesn't make any difference what he's done in the past. Any and all rhetoric about spreading democracy or human rights preservation is BS. No one cares about any of that. The bottom line is that we must have the Iraqi oil. Would you have someone else control it and meter it out to us? OPEC? Those filthy thieves? This is our chance to bypass all of that crap and have our own stores of oil as large or larger than any in the world. How can you resist?
The oil companies are in the wings right now licking their chops and ready to give us all freedoms which we could only imagine before now.
"The world's biggest oil bonanza in recent memory
may be just around the corner, giving U.S. oil
companies huge profits and American consumers
cheap gasoline for decades to come.
And it all may come courtesy of a war with Iraq.
While debate intensifies about the Bush
administration's policy, oil analysts and Iraqi exile
leaders believe a new, pro-Western government --
assuming it were to replace Saddam Hussein's
regime -- would prompt U.S. and multinational
petroleum giants to rush into Iraq, dramatically
increasing the output of a nation whose oil reserves
are second only to that of Saudi Arabia."
"There already is a stampede, with the Russians,
French and Italians already lined up," said Lawrence
Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry
Research Foundation, a New York think tank funded
by large oil companies.
posted on September 30, 2002 08:27:11 AM new
And I thought it ironic that most of the big SUVs around here sport a disproportionate number of US flag stickers. Gotta defend that energy source.
posted on September 30, 2002 12:04:42 PM new
This is no time to embrace a philosophy of honesty in government. If such a thing were to come about, a massive loss of jobs among information handlers would ensue, and the headspinning would move to tailspinning with an already faltering economy. Why, some unenlightened and irreverent reporter might foolishly use the now obsolete word, depression. And by depressing us all further confuse the fact that in Iraq lies our salvation.
As I was meandering through a world news site recently I came across an article in Pravda about Putin's negotiations with the US over Russia's support for invasion. Russia of course has made clear that it wants a cut of the oil revenue in repayment for its Iraqi debt and to be able to cut loose without interference or censure on the dissidents in Georgia. We conceded fairly easily to Russian demands for support with the Afghanistan invasion and that may have set a bad precedent. Also, the lingering resentment toward Afghanistan from the Soviet failure with its own invasion may have benefitted us in the bargaining. I'm sure that there's still much more under the table or in the background with issues relating to the effects of Iraqi conquest on the price of Russia's considerable oil reserves as well as Russia's long-term intentions for the republics with which it has been exercising more muscle recently.
Anyway, I thought the article somewhat refreshing in that it laid out directly chief issues which the Western press usually eventually reveals but only indirectly and after reading dozens of articles. It does require us to consume more media though.
And then think of the enormous time and expense that the neoconservative right has spent in creating a New Age dress for manifest destiny and leading her to a world debut.
Saddam was right when he said to the UN General Assembly,"The U.S. administration wants to destroy Iraq in order to control the Middle East oil, and consequently control the politics as well as the oil and economic policies of the whole world." US motives, as this writer suggests are predatory, not exemplary.
"The Bush administration and U.S. oil firms have stayed quiet on the subject of Iraqi oil, perhaps leery of accusations that an attack on Iraq is motivated by U.S. desires to have greater control of world oil. A spokesman for oil giant Chevron-Texaco, based in San Francisco, declined to comment whether the company is interested in postwar Iraq, saying the issue is "too speculative."
The Iraqi government has taken the propaganda bull by the horns, accusing Washington of waging an imperialist grab for oil.
Some domestic U.S. critics, while reluctant to appear sympathetic to Hussein, partially echo his claims.
"The administration doesn't want oil to be part of the war discussion because it undercuts the reasoning that the rush to war is because of an imminent (Iraqi) military threat," Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and author of "Global Petro-Politics," wrote in the March issue of Current History magazine.
"If the real motives were made clear -- that this is a grab for oil and an attempt to break the back of OPEC -- it would make our motives look more predatory than exemplary."
"For Russia, the United States' fixation with regime change in Iraq presents a major dilemma. Voting for the U.S. draft resolution with its automatic trigger for military action and a rigged setup to provoke Iraqi noncompliance is almost out of the question. However, blocking the resolution's passage would open the door to U.S. unilateral action, bypassing the UN and thus undermining this unique venue for Russia's international influence -- not to mention the possible damage to Russian economic interests in Iraq and the discomfort of a new strain in the U.S.-Russian relationship."
"Fortunately, we have the French. Their proposal for two UN resolutions on Iraq, one demanding the immediate return of inspectors and a second one later authorizing the use of force -- if necessary -- is the best option to deal with the current impasse.[b] Russia needs to rally behind the French initiative in order to escape the uncomfortable political conundrum of the Bush administration's drive to unseat Saddam Hussein, whatever it takes."
"The initial strike or attack, will be started at the WTC on 9-11-2001, by our brothers in faith. 3 Mile Island and Pentagon are as well the goals that we will not miss at the initial terrorist stage of the attack. If everything goes as planned the attack will work. After Americans, who undoubtedly will think that Osama is to be blamed and will start a war with his group, there stands the Russian Empire, to gain the first fruit of war and money promised by the Americans. Finally with Wildcard, the American intelligence service officer Briland Delmart Puba and Bastien Marc will have the deal (or "business" ) in a way suitable for us, our American official guarantees it. Bastien will die of natural cause, Lt. Vreeland will become a wanted criminal, all his navy (or "sea" ) records will disappear."
FYI:
"Briland Delmart Puba" mentioned above is in reality Delmart E. "Mike" Vreeland, who claims to have been working for the Office of Naval Intelligence at the time.
"Bastien Marc" is (or rather, was -- he died from an overdose of poison while on a secret intelligence assignment in Russia) Marc Bastien, purportedly a CSIS (Canadian intelligence) agent who worked out of the Canadian embassy in Moscow.
If you want to read more about any of this, go here and here and here.
posted on October 1, 2002 05:41:28 AM new
Having US control of the mid-east oil fields is a much better prospect than who controls it now.
Securing the oil fields will also allow for a viable peace plan for Israel. The Arafats and terrorists of the region will be history without oil money and the threat of an embargo.
Once the oil supply is secured, the entire region can be reformed.
posted on October 1, 2002 11:55:05 AM new
I don't know what to make of Vreeland, Pat. I read some about him last spring and your link brought me up to date. If nothing else, he's a fascinating character and his exploits read like a Tom Clancy story in search of a plot.
Though he lies a lot, enough of the information that he's given is verifiable that it seems likely he's been involved with intelligence work as he claims. His lying seems to be partly cover and partly grandiosity. I doubt that a lot of that could ever be sorted out, but the chief point of interest is the 9/11 connection and the letter.
I think that he did know about the plans prior to the attacks. But then as we now know, many government's intelligence agencies had prior information, except supposedly ours. The source of his information and his role in conveying it allow for too many possibilities and agenda to lead in any clear direction. It's possible that the purpose Vreeland and the letter itself serve, with or without his knowledge, is only a red herring in the wonderful, wacky world of espionage. Who knows!
posted on October 1, 2002 07:13:18 PM new
This is an email I received from the office of my Congress Representative today.
Thank you for contacting me about Iraq. The following is the statement I
have issued:
As the winds of war drift over the Capitol, the weightiest of all
decisions is before us...do we go to war against Iraq?
Among the questions I am wrestling with are: a preemptive strike; do we go
it alone? And if we do, what effect would this have on the war against
terrorism? What is the urgency? Does Saddam Hussein possess an arsenal of
weapons of mass destruction placing the U.S. in imminent danger? And what
are the costs to the American people both short and long term?
Over the past month, I have attended classified briefings and many other
meetings listening to and questioning a wide range of experts to help
answer these questions.
I have come to the following conclusions.
1. A unilateral, pre-emptive strike as proposed by the Administration is
a dramatic, unwise, and extraordinary departure from U.S. foreign policy.
Unilateralism sends the wrong message to our allies in the world because
coalitions lend legitimacy to what we do. Never has it been more
important to have our allies with us.
2. Because experts cannot say with certainty what Saddam has in his
arsenal, there is a strong case for the return of weapons inspectors to
Iraq. But this time the rules must be different. 100 inspectors are not
enough. A team of 1000 led by the U.S. through the U.N. must have
unrestricted access and there must be deadlines.
3. As we continue to hunt down terrorists around the world, the tools of
terrorism remain unchecked.
President Bush should demand that the right wing of his own party in
Congress give him permanent authority to waive conditions that are
stopping the funding of Nunn-Lugar, the law that safeguards dangerous
materials and weapons after the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
Why? Because the very materials that Hussein needs, fissile materials and
more, are left unguarded across the former Soviet Union today. The
Administration should bring its full authority to this and Congress should
authorize the President to extend such programs to any other nation where
a threat exists. Terrorists need tools to implement their evil. We have
to stop them cold everywhere.
4. The midterm elections are but a handful of weeks away. President Bush
should, as his father did, call for a vote of the Congress after the
elections, not before. Our armed forces and their families should not
have to ponder whether partisan politics are pushing the President.
Our nation's greatest and most enduring strengths are drawn from our
principles of democracy. While our military is the mightiest of all, we
view war as a last resort, not the first and only option. People around
the world are drawn to the best of what we are, especially when we conduct
ourselves in concert with our principles. This, in my view, is our
greatest strength.
I will do what I believe is best for the country I love and the people I'm
privileged to represent. I shall vote no on the President's resolution to
go to war.
posted on October 2, 2002 05:39:08 AM new
Chococake,
Good response! It sounds like you have directed her down the right track!!!
It's interesting that Nunn-Lugar will continue to be underfunded while we invest in George's quest for weapons of mass destruction elsewhere. I just looked at a map of the nuke pipeline.
With the United States seemingly moving ever closer to a confrontation with Iraq, and with the debate about the advisability of an attack growing ever more heated, now seems a fitting time to take a considered look at Iraq, and at some of the arguments, both historical and new, on the subject of U.S. involvement there. A collection of Atlantic articles from 1958 to the present offers a variety of perspectives on this volatile nation and its contentious relationship with the United States.
Iraq was created after World War I, when Britain joined three provinces of the former Ottoman Empire to form a new nation. Iraq's territory comprised a southern region dominated by Shiite Muslim Arabs, a middle section including Baghdad and composed mainly of Sunni Muslim Arabs, and a mountainous northern area populated by the non-Arab Muslim group known as Kurds. To rule Iraq, Britain installed a monarchical branch of the noble Arab Hashemite lineage, which held power until 1958, when it was toppled in a military coup.
It was in that year that William R. Polk wrote "The Lesson of Iraq" (December 1958) which considered the origins of the coup, its possible consequences, and the goals the United States should now hold for the region. "The problems of the Middle East," he pointed out, "will be with us for the foreseeable future":
[Those problems] are primarily the responsibility of the peoples of the area, but they also affect us closely, for the Middle East provides 80 per cent of the oil required by the European economy, is crossed by the major trade routes between Asia-Africa and Europe, and could be the seedbed of a war.
The ruling figure behind the Hashemite monarchy had been the pro-Western prime minister, Nuri al-Said. He had been murdered in the coup, and it was now unclear whom the U.S. should deal with in its interactions with Iraq. Polk emphasized that given the importance of the region to the U.S.'s own interests, and Prime Minister Nuri's advanced age, the U.S. should have been better prepared for the possibility of change.
In the case of his retirement, which Washington should have foreseen, upon whom or what were we planning to rely? Nuri built no party organization and had no follower of sufficient ability to succeed in command. The hatred directed toward his government, which was held in check by the fear he inspired, could not be controlled by any associates or followers.
Nuri's autocratic governing style, Polk suggested, had been the primary cause of his government's overthrow. As money had begun to flow into Iraq—a result of increasing oil revenues—Nuri had sought to invest much of it in modernization. A significant component of this modernization effort consisted of sending young people abroad to learn professional skills in Europe and America. Upon their return to Iraq, many of these young people chafed under Nuri's rigid regime, and their frustration had eventually led to revolt.
Political repression in Iraq had been relatively severe. Severe enough, that is, to effectively close to the opposition all peaceful means of change and to deprive the younger generations of any overt means of giving vent to its frustrations. Student demonstrations, the traditional street forum of Middle Eastern nationalists, were suppressed by expulsion from schools, by jail sentences, or by bullets. Political opposition was thus a bar to professional advancement. At all levels, the younger and better-educated people felt stifled under the minute observations of a paternalistic government. Recently discovered police records indicate that in the city of Baghdad alone nearly 20,000 agents in the secret police kept watch. When one takes into account the Iraqi literacy rate, this means that virtually every educated man had a police double.
Polk held out a good deal of hope, however, for the future of the new regime. Given that the new government was filled with people who, like the rebels of the American Revolution, had fought for greater freedom and openness, Polk felt that the United States should welcome the regime. Instead, the U.S. was opposed to it.
The new government is at least as akin to us ideologically and seems to be a movement which might accomplish many of the sorts of reforms we would advocate; and the new government is not founded on a single, aging personality but is representative of a whole generation of those we may rightly regard as our intellectual foster children.
As for America's goals in the region, Polk distilled them to three: peace, a supply of oil for Europe, and the use of oil revenue toward modernization of the region's states. Since American and Iraqi interests were essentially identical in these respects, Iraq and the United States, Polk argued, should be able to forge a mutually beneficial relationship.
However, fractious conflicts between emerging political parties led to further coups in 1963 and 1968. In 1979 the journalist Claudia Wright visited Iraq and filed a report that April, writing that the country seemed poised for success. The regime then in power was dominated by representatives of the Baath party, which sought Arab unity and nationalism. Though ruthless in its hold on power, this government had managed to establish some degree of institutional stability and to make good use of Iraq's oil revenues. Moreover, the country was showing signs that it might emerge as the major political force in the region, especially since Egypt, traditionally predominant, had compromised its standing and leadership by signing a peace treaty with Israel. As Wright wrote,
"Iraq's emergence is the result of three things: oil, military strength, and internal development.... The combination of these three factors has led to Iraq's new status and to the recognition, everywhere else if not in the United States, of its extraordinary potential for pre-eminence in the Middle East."
She described the country as now having an aura of "self-assertion and confidence," and suggested that it might at last be heading toward an era of peace and prosperity:
After twenty years of chronic warfare in the northeast, tension, and military preparedness along every frontier, the Iraqis have little taste for military adventures or bloodshed. And on the domestic front, the present leadership cannot afford to allow the country's resources to be drained away by unproductive investment, or its energies to be wasted in protracted military conflict. Iraq's first goal, as officials declare in interviews and in the hard facts of the annual budget and the current five-year plan, is to put internal development ahead of military buildup.
During her visit, Wright took special note of Iraq's second-in-command—a charismatic man whom she believed showed great potential as a leader:
[Saddam] Hussein, forty-one years old, has worked his way up through the ranks since high school days as a Baath youth organizer. He is quite dashing and his photograph occupies a place with al-Bakr's in all ceremonial locations. If there are elements of a personality cult in the country, Hussein, who is famous for his white suits and black ties, outshines the president with his military ribbons.
Shortly after Wright's article appeared, Saddam Hussein took over the presidency from Iraq's ailing leader. But the era that began with his ascendance was a far cry from the golden age Wright had predicted.
Much of the material progress of the previous decade was gradually erased as Saddam pursued military solutions to Iraq's longstanding border disputes, first by annulling a previous treaty with Iran—thereby launching a lengthy war that was disastrous for both countries—and then by invading Kuwait in 1990, which led to Iraq's Gulf War defeat and the imposition of devastating international economic sanctions.
In "Tales of the Tyrant" (May 2002), Mark Bowden, the author of Black Hawk Down, took a close look at the bizarre personality of Saddam Hussein, and described the violence and repression that have enabled him to retain an iron grip on his country for so long. Bowden suggested that it is in part Saddam's megalomaniacal conviction that he is the God-appointed avenger of the Arab people that continually gets him and his country into trouble. One former Iraqi minister, now in exile, recalled Saddam's failure to seize a last-minute opportunity to avoid the debacle of the Gulf War:
We had the most horrible meeting on January 14, 1991, just two days before the allied offensive. Saddam had just met with the UN Secretary General, who had come at the final hour to try to negotiate a peaceful resolution. They had been in a meeting for more than two and a half hours, so hopes were running high that some resolution had been reached. Instead Saddam stepped out to address us, and it was clear he was going to miss this last opportunity. He told us, ‘Don't be afraid. I see the gates of Jerusalem open before me.' I thought, What is this #*!@? Baghdad was about to be hit with this terrible firestorm, and he's talking to us about liberating Palestine?
While the people of Iraq have suffered from such actions, Saddam himself has only consolidated his power. But ultimately, Bowden suggested, Saddam will fall, because his cruel and irrational actions have created so many enemies both within his country and beyond. Many, of course, believe that the U.S. must speed along Saddam's end—or at least curtail his power—lest Saddam find the means to lash out in some unforeseen but catastrophic way.
Over the past decade, during which Saddam has never strayed far from the headlines, a number of Atlantic authors have debated this question of whether, and to what extent, the United States and its allies should intervene in Iraqi affairs. Two articles seem to support the contention that the exploits of Saddam are America's business. In "Why the Gulf War Served the National Interest" (July 1991), Joseph S. Nye Jr. justified America's entry into the Gulf War. Saddam's Iraq, he argued, with its expansionist aims and potential for creating weapons of mass destruction, clearly posed a threat to regional (and world) stability. And Saddam's egregious violations of human rights were causing the kind of moral outrage among Americans that compels action. Nye was careful to add, however, that important to America's Gulf War victory had been the fact that it was able to martial international support and did not act alone. While American military might (or "hard power" ) was the most obvious reason for the allied victory, he explained that America's "soft power" had been equally important:
America's capacity to promote its national interests will have to rest on both hard power and soft power. Hard power is based on the familiar resources of military and economic might. Soft power, the ability to co-opt rather than command, rests on intangible resources such as culture, ideology, and the use of international institutions to determine the framework of debate. In the Gulf crisis it was important to get the hard power of the military to Saudi Arabia quickly, but it was equally important to have the soft power to shape the UN resolutions that defined Iraq's entry into Kuwait as a violation calling for sanctions.
In a more recent article, written this summer as war with Iraq was starting to loom, Robert D. Kaplan seemed optimistic about the benefits of American military involvement in Iraq. "The real question," he argued, "is not whether the American military can topple Saddam's regime but whether the American public has the stomach for imperial involvement of a kind we have not known since the United States occupied Germany and Japan." Distasteful as such hands-on involvement might be to many Americans, he suggested, it could effect important and desirable changes that would spill over into Iran and other pivotal parts of the region.
Keep in mind that the Middle East is a laboratory of pure power politics. For example, nothing impressed the Iranians so much as our accidental shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988, which they believed was not an accident. Iran's subsequent cease-fire with Iraq was partly the result of that belief. Our dismantling the Iraqi regime would concentrate the minds of Iran's leaders as little else could....
Achieving an altered Iranian foreign policy would be vindication enough for dismantling the regime in Iraq. This would undermine the Iranian-supported Hizbollah, in Lebanon, on Israel's northern border; would remove a strategic missile threat to Israel; and would prod Syria toward moderation. And it would allow for the creation of an informal, non-Arab alliance of the Near Eastern periphery, to include Iran, Israel, Turkey, and Eritrea.
But during the same ten-year stretch, several Atlantic authors have emhasized the argument that America should be extremely cautious about becoming deeply involved in Iraqi affairs. In The Atlantic's July 1991 issue, Christopher Layne's "Why the Gulf War Was not in the National Interest" appeared as a counterpoint to Joseph Nye's defense of U.S. involvement. Layne contended that the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been exaggerated in order to create a false sense of urgency that would justify going to war. Even if Iraq really had been close to developing a nuclear weapon, he argued, war would not necessarily have been warranted.
It is extremely important not to overreact to the emergence of new nuclear powers. It would be tragic if other nations (India in relation to Pakistan, for example) used the Gulf War as a precedent to justify preemptive military action against prospective nuclear rivals. Even the prospect that an egregious government may acquire nuclear weapons does not automatically justify a strike against its nuclear facilities.
Layne also emphasized the problems that had been raised by the challenge of maintaining postwar stability in the region. It wasn't clear who could replace Saddam, or if Iraq itself might disintegrate under religious or ethnic strife. A new post-Saddam regime, he pointed out, was unlikely to be much of an improvement.
Would a post-Saddam Hussein government adopt a less threatening foreign policy? It would in the short run, because postwar reconstruction will absorb Iraqi energies for some time. Eventually, however, Baghdad will reassert its long-standing aspirations for regional predominance. Iraq's national aspirations (including its designs on Kuwait) long pre-date Saddam Hussein, and they will not disappear just because he does.
Finally, he warned, the war had given America a dangerously inflated sense of its own importance that could eventually lead to trouble.
The war has produced the intoxicating belief that American power is unchallenged and that Washington can lay down the rules for behavior both among the nations and within them. But Americans should beware of the overweening ambition that is born of hubris. The world is not infinitely malleable. The United States has seldom done well trying to stage-manage the process of political change in other countries. It is the people in those countries who pay the price when American experiments in "nation-building" go awry. There are many problems in the world but few of them have "Made in America" solutions.
Two years later, in "The Persian Gulf: Still Mired" (June 1993), Alan Tonelson argued that the Middle East is so volatile and intrinsically unstable that America's best long-term strategy would be to downgrade its interests in the region. Saddam, Tonelson conceded, is "wicked," "stupid," and a "lunatic," whose "interests fundamentally conflict with ours." But overthrowing him, he contended, would present far more problems than would simply disentangling ourselves by renouncing our dependence on Middle-Eastern oil.
Overt American moves to oust Saddam Hussein would encounter not only severe international opposition—for exceeding the UN resolutions that authorized the Gulf War—but also severe regional opposition. For this Americans can be grateful, unless they relish the prospect of militarily occupying a country whose next peaceful transfer of power will be its first....
During the past fifty years America's need for oil has created a host of other interests and assumed responsibilities that have taken on lives of their own — from stemming the proliferation of advanced weapons to establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with the Islamic world. But without the Gulf's huge oil reserves these objectives, however important and desirable, would fade to secondary importance. Kicking the oil habit need not prevent American involvement in Gulf controversies or in active diplomatic efforts to broker an Arab-Israeli peace. It might even permit deeper involvement. But the United States would have much more control over the terms of its involvement.
Finally, in "The Fifty-First State?" (November 2002), James Fallows considered possible outcomes of a future attack on Iraq, and argued that while winning a war against Saddam would be easy, dealing with such a war's consequences would be a monumental task.
To begin with, he argued, the U.S. should not expect to be able to simply topple Saddam and then move on. Rather, a war would represent only the beginning of a "long" and "intimate" association with Iraq.
The day after a war ended, Iraq would become America's problem, for practical and political reasons. Because we would have destroyed the political order and done physical damage in the process the claims on American resources and attention would be comparable to those of any U.S. state.
Equally important, he suggested, is the fact that wars—especially in unstable regions like the Middle East—always hold the potential to set off dramatic, unpredictable chain reactions. Indeed, he emphasized, the outcome of an attack on Iraq may be impossible to anticipate.
Wars change history in ways no one can foresee. The Egyptians who planned to attack Israel in 1967 could not imagine how profoundly what became the Six Day War would change the map and politics of the Middle East.... Fifty years before, no one who had accurately foreseen what World War I would bring could have rationally decided to let combat begin....
It has become a cliché in popular writing about the natural world that small disturbances to complex systems can have unpredictably large effects. The world of nations is perhaps not quite as intricate as the natural world, but it certainly holds the potential for great surprise. Merely itemizing the foreseeable effects of a war with Iraq suggests reverberations that would be felt for decades. If we can judge from past wars, the effects we can't imaging when the fighting begins will prove to be the ones that matter most.
posted on October 3, 2002 08:57:34 AM new
I've never understood why Gephardt or Daschle were ever elected to leadership positions. But especially Gephardt. Maybe in the aftermath of the Bush devastation a new leader will emerge with a strong and honest pro-American voice. I'm not holding my breath though.
If we don't declare war on Iraq soon, I'm afraid the media will hyperventilate.
posted on October 3, 2002 09:31:12 AM new
I feel like using some hyper-hyphenated words to describe the situation. Maybe a good time to write some e-mails to my congressmen.
Helen
Locally, someone has gone on a shooting in my neighborhood and over the last 15 hours, five unrelated people have been killed in Montgomery County, Md.....a man mowing his lawn, a cab driver, a man walking out of a store, a woman cleaning her car and a woman waiting for a bus.....all randomly shot and killed by someone using a high powered rifle from an Isusi or Mitsubishi box type delivery truck. Schools are under code blue emergency status.
I saw a helicopter while I was out walking this morning...probably Fox 5 News.
posted on October 3, 2002 10:40:45 AM new
OMG Helen that's right in your neigborhood? Are you able to stay home today? Because it seems so random, and they don't even know who they're looking for, it's dangerous for you to be out there. Stay safe, Helen.
posted on October 3, 2002 11:07:18 AM new
I just went to the grocery store in Aspen Hill where one victim was shot at a gas station. Hundreds of cameras were pointed toward the "sky"???. When I returned home, I found out that shots were fired from someone sitting on the light pole.
posted on October 3, 2002 11:43:55 AM new
Helen, I've been watching it on the news. Random shootings like this are the scariest kind. No rhyme or reason...as if there is to any killing.....
Stay safe, Helen, until they catch these crazies.[and after too!]
posted on October 3, 2002 11:57:04 AM new
When someone can climb a light pole in daylight, fire and shoot someone with one shot, you have to wonder about our "homeland security". Now, I'm going to another store in Kensington...all of this happened within a mile from my house.
posted on October 3, 2002 12:29:52 PM new
Helen, I know the temptation to run to Kensington Orchids before it closes is great. But resist it and stay home.
posted on October 4, 2002 01:24:38 PM newFINALLY!!!!
An article in the Washington Post that presents somewhat honestly the chief issue with our difficulties in building a coalition for the acquisition of Iraq. Other nations have to assess whether or not their investments will yield a justifiable return. If not for the people, who will bear the costs in money and lives, depending upon the level of commitment, at least for the corporate power structures, upon whose support governments may depend. Those countries whose citizens are well-educated and politically astute have the most difficulty in these situations. Today, that would be primarily Western European nations.
Of course, no nations will make a long-term commitment to rebuilding Iraq because of the expense and burdens of moral accountability that such a commitment would entail. But neither will any major player directly admit that intention because then much of the political and moral rationale for the ends justifying the means would appear even more absurd than it already is.
Embryonically, Iraq is an interesting study in the complexities and difficulties of 21st century imperialism.
A peripheral sidenote: I recently read an article in Pravda about a disputed regional Russian election that had to be taken to the courts for resolution. The irony of the use of the courts to settle elections attracted my attention to the article, but not having any understanding of the region or background of the dispute, I didn't follow it well. But what I found extremely interesting was that the distinction between the opposing candidates was not so much their affiliation to a political party, as that the chief distinction was that one was supported by the aluminum industry and the other by the nickel industry.
MOSCOW, Oct. 3 -- As U.S. diplomats try to figure out Russia's price for supporting a new U.N. resolution threatening force against Iraq, they could start with just two words: Jackson Vanik.
In the Russian view, that was supposed to be the trade-off the last time President Bush wanted President Vladimir Putin's backing for a war. Shortly after Putin permitted U.S. troops into Central Asia to attack Afghanistan last year, the Bush administration promised to remove trade restrictions imposed on Russia by the law known as the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
A year later, U.S. troops remain in Central Asia, and Jackson-Vanik remains on the books because Congress has not acted. Now, as Russian policymakers and opinion leaders study the balance sheet, the United States has failed to live up to many promises of a new partnership envisioned following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, particularly in strengthening economic ties.
As Washington seeks Moscow's help again, increasingly skeptical Russian leaders want to make the sure they get something in return.
"We really would like to see some reciprocal steps," Dmitri Rogozin, an ally of Putin's and chairman of the international affairs committee in the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, said in an interview.
"There is a great deal of disappointment in the Russian political class, most of all on the economic side of the issue," Andrei Kokoshin, a former national security adviser, said in a separate interview.
U.S. officials said the message has begun to come through in their conversations with Russians about Iraq. "They've been making the point very strongly that this can't be an all-give-and-no-get relationship," said a senior Bush administration official. "I don't think their concern is entirely justified . . . but they do have a point that a growing relationship has to be reciprocal, and they're making the argument very strongly."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, speaking before the U.S.-Russia Business Council today, said the administration was committed to releasing Russia from Jackson-Vanik. "We're working it with all the energy and force that we can, and hopefully we will get it behind us soon," he said.
At the United Nations, Russia is a permanent Security Council member with veto power. Putin will play a key role in whether the United States can forge a consensus in favor of a new resolution against Iraq. Among the other permanent council members, Britain supports Bush, and U.S. officials said they believe that, if they can reach agreement with Russia, France will go along and China will abstain.
So far, Putin's standoffish reaction has frustrated U.S. efforts, despite Bush's phone calls and the work of U.S. delegations sent to Moscow. Putin opposes the tough language of the U.S.-drafted resolution and supports the return of U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq.
At home, disillusionment with Putin's friendship with Bush has grown as many Russians see few gains from the relationship. Putin wants to preserve the good ties with Bush, according to analysts and lawmakers, yet also wants to avoid inflaming hard-liners who say he has given up too much already to an ungrateful Washington.
Rogozin urged Bush to make concessions to Russia. "It would be very important at this moment to give support to President Putin, who has come up against the problem of having to prove the correctness of his political choice," he said.
The doubts about the United States come after a year of remarkable change. Putin was the first world leader to call Bush with condolences after the terrorist attacks. Later, he not only allowed U.S. forces to use bases in Central Asia, he also acquiesced to U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and to NATO membership for the former Soviet republics of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
He closed Soviet-era bases in Cuba and Vietnam, accepted the deployment of U.S. military advisers to the former Soviet republic of Georgia and swallowed a three-page treaty on strategic arms cuts instead of the full-blown pact he wanted.
In return, as Russians see it, Putin has received little. Although the administration gave Russia largely symbolic recognition as a market economy and this week announced a $300 million Export-Import Bank loan to develop the Russian oil industry, Putin's advisers had far higher hopes for help rebuilding Russia's economy.
Overall, foreign direct investment has gone down. Soviet debt has not been restructured or forgiven. Russia is no closer to membership in the World Trade Organization. Bush's decision earlier this year to impose tariffs on foreign steel was seen here as an act of hostility.
"The Russian experience has taught us that secret American understandings should not be trusted; they simply tend to cheat all the time," Sergei Markov, a political strategist close to the Kremlin, said at a conference this week. Mikhail Leontiev, a prominent television commentator, added that when it comes to obligations, "not to speak of debts of gratitude and so on, that concept is simply absent in American political culture."
To the Russians, the most galling example is Jackson-Vanik, a 1974 trade law amendment that prohibits countries without market economies from enjoying normal trade relations with the United States if they do not have open emigration policies. For years, Russia has received an annual waiver, but the fact that it still must undergo that process -- when China no longer does -- rankles deeply here.
During his summit with Putin last November, Bush promised to push Congress to lift Jackson-Vanik, but it bogged down amid Democratic objections to giving up leverage during WTO accession talks. The Bush team has not made a sustained lobbying effort since the Moscow summit in May, according to a Democratic congressional aide.
Meanwhile, Russia has upset Washington by renewing contacts with old allies who now make up what Bush termed an "axis of evil" -- proposing new nuclear cooperation with Iran, negotiating a $40 billion economic agreement with Iraq and inviting the leader of North Korea for a visit.
Some Russian hawks have proposed using such issues as bargaining chips. "We need to identify possibilities for creating such threats and 'sell' them to the West in exchange for Russia's integration into the Western world," Andronik Migranyan, an analyst at the Council of Foreign Defense Policy, wrote recently.
Putin, though, seems to want to find a deal. After reports surfaced about the $40 billion agreement with Iraq, a planned signing ceremony was put on hold. And while a deputy Iraqi oil minister arrived here this week to meet with Russian energy companies, Putin has eschewed any personal contacts with Baghdad lately.
posted on October 4, 2002 03:21:38 PM new
"Of course, no nations will make a long-term commitment to rebuilding Iraq because of the expense and burdens of moral accountability that such a commitment would entail."
I don't know that I necessarily agree with you on that point, Antiquary. Perhaps, in the spirit of Clinton semantics repartee, you should explain the phrase "long-term".
The U.S. certainly has a tradition of double-dipping in any war -- avidly seeking the highly lucrative contracts to rebuild real property infrastructures after we've contributed (either directly through military participation or indirectly via arms sales) to their destruction. Billions are being made in the Balkans right now from this very policy.
You are of course correct. I should have specified rebuilding the social and political institutions to create the ideal democratic state which figures so highly in political rhetoric.
