|
Comment on this article |
View comments |
Email this Article
|
|
News :: International Relations |
|
THE LAST U.S. DCM IN BAGHDAD ASSAILS PERLE AS LIKUDNIK |
Current rating: 0 |
by Rosalinda
(No verified email address) |
06 Mar 2003
|
Asked by Bill Moyer about Perle's arguments for a war,
Wilson said, ``Well, he's certainly the architect of a study that was produced in the mid-'90s for the Likud Israeli government called `A Clean Break, A New Strategy for the Realm.' And it makes the argument that the best way to secure Israeli security is through the changing of some of these regimes beginning with Iraq and also including Syria. And that's been since expanded to include Iran.'' While defending America's committment, since 1948, to protect Israel's existence, he also noted, ``There are those who believe that perhaps we've confused our responsibilities with the slavish adherence to the Likud strategy.'' |
[Source: PBS transcript of Bill Moyers interview
with Joseph C. Wilson, IV, Monday, March 3, 2003.]
THE LAST U.S. DCM IN BAGHDAD WARNS OF CONSEQUENCES OF IRAQ
WAR AND ASSAILS PERLE AS LIKUDNIK. Joseph Wilson, who was the
last U.S. Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad on the eve of the
1991 Gulf War, told Bill Moyers in a PBS-TV interview Monday
night, that the U.S. should stick with intrusive inspections and
abandon plans for a war to unseat Saddam Hussein. He debunked
the idea that the ``shock and awe'' massive aerial bombardment of
Baghdad, planned as the opening shot of any war, will have few
civilian casualties.
He warned that, under conditions of a U.S. attack,
Saddam would fight to the death, with tens of thousands
of Republican Guard crack troops joining him in a final,
disastrous battle. But the most important feature of the Wilson
interview was his denunciation of Richard Perle and the whole
``Clean Break'' strategy.
Asked about Perle's arguments for a war, Wilson said,
``Well, he's certainly the architect of a study that was produced
in the mid-'90s for the Likud Israeli government
called `A Clean Break, A New Strategy for the Realm.'
And it makes the argument
that the best way to secure Israeli security is through the
changing of some of these regimes beginning with Iraq and also
including Syria. And that's been since expanded to include Iran.''
While defending America's committment, since 1948, to
protect Israel's existence, he also noted, ``There are those who
believe that perhaps we've confused our responsibilities with the
slavish adherence to the Likud strategy.''
He also scored
President Bush for his close ties to Sharon, telling Moyers,
``...there are those who wonder about the depth of our ties and
the extent to which our national security responsibilities may
somehow be confused with our support for the current government in Israel.''
He also went into an in-depth warning about the consequences
of foisting ``democracy'' on Iraq by fiat, predicting that future
elections would pit ``demagogues'' against ``populists'' and that
they'd compete for who would be more anti-American and anti-Israeli.
He concluded by emphasizing that, in his judgment,
the road to peace in the Middle East had to run through
Jerusalem, not through Baghdad.
LEESBURG, March 4 -- ``THERE IS STILL TIME'' TO STOP THE IRAQ
WAR, SAID SENIOR DEMOCRATIC SEN. TED KENNEDY (D-MA) in a March 4
interview on NBC TV's``Today Show.'' He called for a full Senate
debate against the war to take place NOW, and later the same day,
addressed a major Methodist conference in Washington.
In the interview, when hit point-blank by inteviewer Katie
Couric's assertion that ``a lot of people are speculating that at
the end of next week, a war will begin, after the U.N. votes on
that second resolution,'' Kennedy made clear that {war is not
inevitable.}
He said:
``Well, there's still time. {Certainly a lot has happened.
A lot has changed at the United Nations, hasn't it, over the
period of the last 10 days? And I would hope that the
administration would get the word.} (clearly referencing the
international opposition, demos, etc). The fact is, we are
stronger when we work together.''
``We need the United Nations in North Korea, don't we? We
have to work with our allies in Asia on North Korea because of
its danger, don't we? Yes. And we have to work with our allies
in other pressure points around the world. That's a fact. And
we shouldn't have a go-it-alone, rush-to-war policy, which this
administration has.''
Later in the day, Kennedy was the featured speaker at the
United Methodist Church Conference in Washington, where he said
(among other things), ``With inspectors on the ground and stiff
international pressure still possible, this is an unnecessary war.''
It is extremely significant that Kennedy, an opponent of
the Iraq war, was invited by the Methodist conference, since this
is the Protestant denomination to which George W. Bush belongs,
and which is beginning to mobilize heavily against the war.
The head of the United Methodist Church
has been trying for months to meet with Bush,
and the White House has rebuffed the Methodist leader,
and his colleagues from the National Council of Churches.
Kennedy not only opposed the war, but gave a very effective
point-by-point criticism of Bush's actions. He said that after
so much international support for America, after 9/11,
``President Bush squandered too much of the good will of the
world community because of his single-minded rush to war with
Iraq, even if he has a few, or even no allies to go to war with him...."
To much applause, Kennedy also blasted Bush's Feb. 26
speech about so-called "democracy" at the American Enterprise
Institute on Feb. 26.
Ridiculing the claims that war would lead to peace,
stability and prosperity, not just for the Iraqi people,
but for the Palestinians as well, Kennedy said,
"We all heard of rosy scenarios, but that was ridiculous!"
|
Comments
|
OSAMA NOT OUR CREATION, CLAIMS RUMSFELD |
by Rosalinda
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2003
|
[Source: Afghanistan Today, March 1]
OSAMA WAS NOT OUR CREATION, CLAIMS RUMSFELD,
RESPONDING TO A QUESTION FROM AL JAZEERA.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
was charged with responsibility for Osama Bin Laden because of
the U.S. creation of the mujaheddin during the ``surrogate war''
against the Soviets in Afghanistan. There were many different
factions involved in the ``war of liberation'' in Afghanistan
against the Soviet Union, Rumsfeld said. That included Osama bin
Laden. But he flatly denied that Osama was a creation of the
United States to be used against the Soviet Union, an issue which
has undoubtedly been dogging him ever since the events of 911.
[Source: ``A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the
Realm,'' by Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks,
Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, Jonathan Torop, David Wurmser,
Meyrav Wurmser, IASPS, July 8, 1996.]
PERLE AND FEITH'S ``CLEAN BREAK'' DOCUMENT FROM 1996
SPELLED OUT CURRENT WAR SCHEMES IN MIDEAST.
The ``Clean Break'' strategy of Richard Perle, Doug Feith, et al.
have reached critical mass, with much of the leading press in the
English- and Arabic-speaking world exposing this IASPS (Institute
for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies) document as the
basis for the entire utopian/chickenhawk war drive in the Middle
East, coming from both within the Bush Administration and the
Sharon regime.
On July 8, 1996, Richard Perle
hand-delivered a copy of ``A Clean Break: A New Strategy for
Securing the Realm,'' to incoming Israeli Prime Minister and
rabid Jabotinskyite Benjamin Netanyahu.
Two days later, Netanyahu
dutifully delivered a speech before a joint session of the U.S.
Congress, drawn largely from the Perle-delivered text.
Several
excerpts from the six-page ``Clean Break'' memo serve as a useful
reminder of just how much this insane schema has driven Mideast
events since the Bush and Sharon inaugurations in 2001.
On the Israeli relationship with the Palestinian Authority:
``Israel can... Change the nature of its relations with the
Palestinians, including upholding the {right of hot pursuit} for
self defense into all Palestinian areas and nurturing
alternatives to Arafat's exclusive grip on Palestinian society...
Israel has no obligations under the Oslo agreements if the PLO
does not fulfill its obligations.''
And: ``Early adoption of a bold, new perspective on peace
and security is imperative for the new prime minister. While the
previous government, and many abroad, may emphasize `land for
peace'--which placed Israel in the position of cultural,
economic, political, diplomatic, and military retreat--the new
government can promote Western values and traditions. Such an
approach, which will be well received in the United States,
includes `peace for peace,' `peace through strength,' and self
reliance: {the balance of power}.''
On the priority to overthrow Saddam Hussein: ``Israel can
shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and
Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.
This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in
Iraq--an important Israeli strategic objective in its own
right--as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions. Jordan
has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting
the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq.''
While the Perle gang's schemes to promote a conflict among
the Arab nations, by pushing a Hashemite versus House of Saud
rift, have hardly been a resounding success, the idea of hot
pursuit reinvasion of the Palestinian territories and the top
priority of overthrowing Saddam Hussein has certainly been the
cornerstone of the Sharon and chickenhawk policies.
(The full text of Clean Break and other related IASPS studies
can be found at www.israeleconomy.org)
|
|
WOLFOWITZ-LIBBY-PERLE-FEITH = AUTHORS OF IRAQ WAR |
by Rosalinda
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
08 Mar 2003
|
[source: New York Times, by Maureen Dowd, March 2]
MAUREEN DOWD HITS WOLFOWITZ-LIBBY-PERLE-FEITH "IMPERIAL
BLUEPRINTS," AS THE REAL REASON FOR IRAQ WAR.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd locates the origins of
President Bush's recent speech at the American Enterprise Institute,
in the neo-con chickenhawks' plans drawn up ten years ago.
"Conservatives began drawing up steroid-fueled plans to
reorder the world a decade ago, imperial blueprints fantastical
enough to make `Star Wars' look achievable,"
Dowd writes.
"In 1992, Dick Cheney, the defense secretary for Bush 41, and his
aides, Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby, drafted a document
asserting that America should prepare to cast off formal
alliances and throw its military weight around to prevent the
rise of any `potential future global competitor' and to preclude
the spread of nuclear weapons."
Dowd then notes that the "solipsistic grandiosity" of their
plan was offputting to Bush 41, and that for Bush 41 and Colin
Powell, "this looked like voodoo foreign policy, and they
splashed cold water on it."
She continues:
"In 1996, Richard Perle, now a Pentagon adviser, and Douglas
Feith, now a Rumsfeld aide, helped write a report about how
Israel could transcend the problems with the Palestinians by
changing the "balance of power" in the Middle East, and by
replacing Saddam.
"The hawks saw their big chance after 9/11, but they feared
that it would be hard to sell a eschatological scheme to stomp
out Islamic terrorism by recreating the Arab world. So they found
Saddam guilty of a crime he could commit later: helping Osama
unleash hell on us."
And now, Dowd adds, "After obscuring the real reasons for
war, the Bushies are now obscuring the Pentagon's assessments of
the cost of war ($60 billion to $200 billion?), the size of the
occupation force (100,000 to 400,000?) and the length of time
American troops will stay in Iraq (2 to 10 years?)."
|
|
