Well, of course he has. But now he's got his people saying it. [url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62438-2003Feb24.html[/url] Both the things I put in bold are pretty bad, but the 2nd one is deeply disturbing. It exposes Bush professions of multilateralism as a total lie.
I disagree. I think he has given up on multilateralism. 4-6 months ago he goes before the UN and says for the past 12 years SH has violated every resolution this body has passed. Your either an organization with some bite and will enforce your resolutions or your just a worthless collection of diplomats. The Securtiy Council response has shown that they don't care that SH has violated every resolution in the past including the most recent, still no justification for war. I think the appropriate analogy to the UN is the US pre-Constitution. The Articles of Confederation provided a national government, but that government didn't have the power to do anything. Everyone generally liked the concept of the national government, but when it came to implementing the national government, no one wanted it to have any real power. As a result, it was worthless.
Perhaps a better analogy is that there are UN resolutions requiring that Israel get out of the West Bank area for many years. We should do to Saddam as we have done to Israel. Or should we do it the other way around?
Too bad you can't compare those two at all. Saddam, well we know his track record. Israel, from its first minutes of independence, has been under Arab attack. Had these countries simply had not invaded Israel, their land wouldn't have been taken. I don't feel sorry for aggressive countries that lose land due to their offensives. They should have thought about those things before they invaded.
You didn't pick up on this when Bush has been saying for the past few months that either the UN goes along with the US or it is irrelevant.
Except there is no resolution that requires Israel to withdraw from territories in exchange for nothing. "Affirms that the fulfillment of Charter principles requires the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East which should include the application of both the following principles: -Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict; -Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;
Let's see, we're up to 17 UN Resolutions that Saddam has ignored. He just got ordered by Blix to destroy some long range missiles and he's refusing to do that. And the country that is basically the enforcement arm of the UN wants to take care of the matter and a large portion of the membership doesn't want it to. Sounds to me like the UN is already irrelevant.
Your first clue should've been when Bush told the world flat out, "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists". Get on board, or get out of the way. Bush is responsible for protecting the very existence of this nation, and I applaud him for his stubborness in letting no one stand in the way of his job.
Of course, the Arab states -- as well as liberals who invoke the "Israel violates resolutions why aren't we invading them??" red-herring argument -- conveniently ignore or are unaware of this important quid pro quo.
Karl and Ben, If you are going to invoke "quid pro quo," then at least admit that Israel hasn't exactly simply been hanging onto the territories as collateral. This would ignore the zealots who've continued to set up illegal settlements in flagrant disregard of the UN resolutions. It also ignores the treatment of the Palestinian civilians living within the territories who DO have much in common with say, the Kurds in Iraq, as far as brutal treatment a state forces of terror. Edward Said: "But what is so monumentally hypocritical about the official US position is that literally everything Powell has accused the Ba'athists of has been the stock in trade of every Israeli government since 1948, and at no time more flagrantly than since the occupation of 1967. Torture, illegal detention, assassination, assaults against civilians with missiles, helicopters and jet fighters, annexation of territory, transportation of civilians from one place to another for the purpose of imprisonment, mass killing (as in Qana, Jenin, Sabra and Shatilla to mention only the most obvious), denial of rights to free passage and unimpeded civilian movement, education, medical aid, use of civilians as human shields, humiliation, punishment of families, house demolitions on a mass scale, destruction of agricultural land, expropriation of water, illegal settlement, economic pauperisation, attacks on hospitals, medical workers and ambulances, killing of UN personnel, to name only the most outrageous abuses: all these, it should be noted with emphasis, have been carried on with the total, unconditional support of the United States which has not only supplied Israel with the weapons for such practices and every kind of military and intelligence aid, but also has given the country upwards of $135 billion in economic aid on a scale that beggars the relative amount per capita spent by the US government on its own citizens."
Interesting that you say "the territories" given that the word was specifically not included in the resolution. "We didn't say there should be a withdrawal to the '67 line; we did not put the 'the' in, we did not say all the territories, deliberately.. We all knew - that the boundaries of '67 were not drawn as permanent frontiers, they were a cease-fire line of a couple of decades earlier" Lord Caradon, British Ambassador to the UN, 64-70.
And we get a moronic statement in the bargain, that anybody with half a diplomatic brain would not have said, whether he meant it or not.
Sure, the borders were never "natural" or set in stone, agreed upon, etc. But I think we can agree that the West Bank has been a continuing hinge in the move towards peace. And both sides have seen it as such. In any case, that little quibble merely ignores the main point I was trying to make.
Said is a pretty good Conrad critic, but his radical anti-Americanism (even as he has been so comfortably ensconced at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and other institutions) makes him marginal in my view. As for the the Likud-Conservative faction in Israel politics, well, Sharon is a thug, but he's a thug born of the Middle Eastern view of violence begetting violence, then kiss and make up, then violence again. Ever read Thomas Friedman's Beirut to Jerusalem...and the chapter on "Hamas Rules"? For Sharon, Hamas rules are still operative. I bet, though, the Israelis --and even Sharon -- would IMMEDIATELY negotiate with a truly authoritative Palestinian political body that can actually engage in sovereign discussions. I am a pessimistic on that score, but it's an option if someone in the Palestinian body politic has the power, and guts, to seize it.
Your paragraphs, in order: 1) I think you initially confuse Said with Ihab Hassan (Said's been at Columbia for over 30 years). Regardless, I wouldn't call Said anti-American at all...in fact I think he's one of our foremost champions of democracy. 2) So Sharon is a "thug," while Said works for Israeli-Palestinian recuperation? And you think the Hamas Rules are the more legitimate? 3) This paragraph pretty much summarizes what Said says in EVERY column he writes currently for Al Ahram. Seriously, he never fails to criticize the spineless and incompetent Arab leadership around the world.
Don't put words into my mouth...I didn't say Hamas Rules were "legitimate." My point was that they were operative]/i] for Sharon...and other radical Islamic factions. Yes, it's the same Said, but I think he was a UWM in the 70s, maybe visiting. And yes, you are right about his view on the Arab leadership...if I recall, he was part of Palestinian parliament in exile, but left due to his frustration with Arafat. Still, he hews to the "America as imperialist" line, which I find distatesful.
No, that was an entirely appropriate term, that encompassed the mood of the country and the correct policy to follow. The problem is, it's irrelevant in this case, because (say it with me) IRAQ HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11.
It seems funny and embarrassing that you essentially admit that you define "anti-American" as ideas "which I find distasteful." The sad truth, of course, is that you are simply more honest about what the phrase means. Whether it's some internet soccer fan or William Bennett or Donald Rumsfeld, WHOEVER uses the term "anti-American" is always only ever saying "this idea goes against MY vision of what is important in American culture." Anyway, would your alleged "anti-American" thesis be less distasteful if it was restated? "Certain men temporarily hired to run parts of the American government have at various times and to various degrees often seen imperialism as a legitimate foreign policy paradigm." Whether you like it more or not, it's much closer to what Said (and the rest of the alleged "anti-American crowd) argues. If anti-Americanisim means anything, it certainly does not apply to champions of free speech, individual human rights, and democracy such as Said, Chomsky, or Zinn. And when it comes down to it, there probably is something close to a truly "anti-American" viewpoint emerging in parts of the Muslim world, among the extremists. By definition, it must be irrational, and clearly Bin Laden exploits and fosters this type of idiocy in his followers.
It's easy to take potshots at the USA, it's the the lazy out to assume the USA is some malevolent slouching animal. Frankly, if George Bush could wave a magic wand, have the entire world become democratically capitalist with free institutions run by rational men (AND women), he'd do it in a New York minute. THAT's the American vision, though some would call this "cultural imperialism." Some of them are teaching at Morningside Heights. Meanwhile, "Imperialism" is a very loaded word, used to "effect" and to condemn. I prefer the literal meaning -- i.e, what the British, Dutch, French, and Germans did in in the 19th century -- colonizing and subsuming other nations. That's NOT what we're doing now. Bin Laden's view -- and the views of fundamentalist theocrats everywhere -- is ultimately medieval, as you point out.
no it simply points out that Bush has finally matured to the point that he no longer blindly accepts the lies and doubledealing of allies (France and Germany) and continued obfuscation in the UN whose purpose is not to enhance peace - but merely relies on appeasement. How many resolutions and lies and half truths will you accept from Hussein before you realize nothing works with him but power. Once again - the history of the Middle East is replete with the lesson that absolute power rules . Hussein will never respond to the UN - and the UN knows this ... or these countries are simply willing accomplices to Hussein's motives. No I think what has happened is that our President has deeply matured from a national security perspective and has the convictions to state his beliefs clearly, unlike previous wishy - washy administrations .... hmmm who might I be referring to?
thank you - what most people seem to forget is that the President's first responsibility is Commander in Chief and to protect the sovereignty and welfare of the citizens. Obviously Bush and his team have decided that after 9/11 the world has seriously changed and Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, Iraq, and North Korea are part and parcel of that and have to be dealt with from that framework. The debate is absolutely healthy and necessary ... and at the end of the day he is the Commander in Chief and will take action as necessary. Nothing in the Constitution requires him to get approval of the UN - thank God.