From: Progressive Response [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 25 January 2003 04:04
To: Progressive Response
Subject: [PR] Iraq, North Korea, Africa
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The Progressive Response 24 January 2002 Vol. 7, No. 02
Editor: Tom Barry
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The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric
Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign
Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an
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Tom Barry, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the
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codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be contacted at
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**** We Count on Your Support ****
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I. Updates and Out-Takes
*** A U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ CAN BE STOPPED ***
By Stephen Zunes
*** THE COMING WAR WITH IRAQ: DECIPHERING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S MOTIVES
***
By Michael T. Klare
*** IRAQ, NORTH KOREA, AND THE U.S. NUCLEAR "...OR ELSE" ***
By Col. Dan Smith (Ret.)
*** BUSH NO-SHOW IN MAURITIUS REFLECTS DEEPER DISDAIN ***
By William Minter
*** SUPPORTING THE PROGRESSIVE RESPONSE ***
II. Outside the U.S.
*** THE PROSPECTS FOR AL QAEDA ***
By Paul Rogers
III. Letters And Comments
*** LONG LIVE MULTILATERALISM ***
*** RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN KOREA ***
*** OIL INDUSTRY ***
*** THE MORE THINGS CHANGE ***
*** ANOTHER NUCLEAR WAR? ***
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I. Updates and Out-Takes
*** A U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ CAN BE STOPPED ***
By Stephen Zunes
(Editor's Note: The recent demonstrations across the U.S. and throughout
the world represent an unprecedented mobilization against a war before it
has actually begun. As FPIF editor Stephen Zunes notes, these anti-war
mobilizations demonstrate the best chance for stopping an invasion of Iraq.
The following excerpt is from a global affairs commentary available in its
entirety online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301activists.html
.)
Despite increased preparation for war, there is a growing perception that a
U.S. invasion of Iraq can be stopped.
There is little question that were it not for the anti-war movement, the
United States would have gone to war against Iraq already. It was the
strength of opposition to plans for a unilateral U.S. invasion that forced
the Bush administration to go to the UN in the first place. So far, Iraqi
compliance with the United Nations weapons inspectors has made it extremely
difficult for the administration to proceed with its war plans.
UN Security Council resolution 1441--written by and pushed through by the
United States to strengthen the power of UN inspections and weaken the
ability of Iraq to evade them--was modified before passage so that military
action to enforce the resolution is possible only with explicit Security
Council authorization. In order for such authorization to go forward, Iraq
would have to do something rather brazen and stupid which--while it
certainly cannot be ruled out--has thus far forced a reluctant Saddam
Hussein to cooperate with the new inspections regime.
This does not mean that the Bush administration--which has repeatedly shown
its contempt for international law--would not proceed with an invasion
anyway. In October, the U.S. Congress, with support of both the Republican
and Democratic leadership, granted President Bush the authority to invade
Iraq without UN Security Council authorization. This war resolution was
illegal, however, since such an invasion would violate the United Nations
Charter, which was signed and ratified by the United States; Article VI of
the U.S. Constitution declares such international treaties as "supreme
law."
The Bush administration has demonstrated, however, that it does not have
great respect for the Constitution either. What, then, might be able to
stop an invasion?
Again, it would be the strength of anti-war opposition.
Already, a number of Democrats who supported the war resolution and then
saw their party lose miserably in the November elections, are now arguing
against a rush to war. Some top military brass and career officials in the
Department of Defense are quietly but firmly expressing their opposition to
the war, recognizing that an invasion of Iraq would be the most complicated
and bloody U.S. military operation since Vietnam.
The intelligence wing of the Central Intelligence Agency--unlike the
operations wing--is composed largely of professionals whose concerns are
less ideological. They are focused instead on how to protect American
security. CIA cost/benefit analyses have shown that a U.S. invasion of Iraq
would threaten rather than protect American interests.
In effect, we have the ironic situation where the peace movement finds some
of its most significant allies are the Pentagon and the CIA. These very
influential actors in foreign policy decisionmaking could potentially allow
cooler heads to prevail.
The anti-war movement is strong and is growing. Already, the demonstrations
against a U.S. invasion of Iraq--which hasn't yet happened--have been
larger than those against the Vietnam War during the first three years of
heavy fighting by American soldiers.
Today's anti-war movement is far more diverse in terms of women and people
of color in positions of leadership. Increasing numbers of poor and working
class people are becoming involved in anti-war activities, recognizing that
it is their loved ones who will be doing most of fighting and dying and it
is they who will be disproportionately affected by the inevitable cutbacks
in social programs made necessary by this incredibly expensive military
adventure. The diverse age range of the anti-war movement is also a
significant indicator of its strength, blending the experience of activists
from the 1960s and earlier with the energy and creativity of younger
activists.
Despite all this, the Bush administration may still decide to forge ahead
with its planned invasion. It is far from inevitable, however, and there
are increasing signs that this war can indeed be stopped before it starts.
(Stephen Zunes <[log in to unmask]> is an associate professor of Politics and
chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San
Francisco. He is Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project
(online at www.fpif.org) and is the author of the recently released book
Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism
<www.commoncouragepress.com>.)
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*** THE COMING WAR WITH IRAQ: DECIPHERING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S MOTIVES
***
By Michael T. Klare
(Editor's Note: FPIF Advisory Committee member Michael Klare deciphers the
Bush administration's motives in promoting an invasion of Iraq. The full
global affairs commentary (excerpted below) is available online at
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301warreasons.html .)
The United States is about to go to war with Iraq. As of this writing,
there are 60,000 U.S. troops already deployed in the area around Iraq, and
another 75,000 or so are on their way to the combat zone. Weapons
inspectors have found a dozen warheads, designed to carry chemical weapons.
Even before this discovery, senior U.S. officials were insisting that
Saddam was not cooperating with the United Nations and had to be removed by
force. Hence, there does not seem to be any way to stop this war, unless
Saddam Hussein is overthrown by members of the Iraqi military or is
persuaded to abdicate his position and flee the country.
The most fundamental question of all is: WHY are we going to war?
In their public pronouncements, President Bush and his associates have
advanced three reasons for going to war with Iraq and ousting Saddam
Hussein: (1) to eliminate Saddam's WMD arsenals; (2) to diminish the threat
of international terrorism; and (3) to promote democracy in Iraq and the
surrounding areas.
These are, indeed, powerful motives for going to war. But are they genuine?
Is this what is really driving the rush to war? To answer this, we need to
examine each motive in turn.
(1) Eliminating weapons of mass destruction: The reason most often given by
the administration for going to war with Iraq is to reduce the risk of a
WMD attack on the United States. To be sure, a significant WMD attack on
the United States would be a terrible disaster, and it is appropriate for
the President of the United States to take effective and vigorous action to
prevent this from happening. If this is, in fact, Bush's primary concern,
then one would imagine that he would pay the greatest attention to the
greatest threat of WMD usage against the United States, and deploy
available U.S. resources--troops, dollars, and diplomacy--accordingly. But
is this what Bush is actually doing? The answer is no. Anyone who takes the
trouble to examine the global WMD proliferation threat closely and to gauge
the relative likelihood of various WMD scenarios would have to conclude
that the greatest threat of WMD usage against the United States at the
present time comes from North Korea and Pakistan, not Iraq.
(2) Combating terrorism: The administration has argued at great length that
an invasion of Iraq and the ouster of Saddam Hussein would constitute the
culmination of and the greatest success in the war against terrorism. But
there simply is no evidence that this is the case; if anything, the
opposite is true. From what we know of Al Qaeda and other such
organizations, the objective of Islamic extremists is to overthrow any
government in the Islamic world that does not adhere to a fundamentalist
version of Islam and replace it with one that does. The Baathist regime in
Iraq does not qualify as such a regime; thus, under Al Qaeda doctrine, it
must be swept away, along with the equally deficient governments in Egypt,
Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. If follows from this that a U.S. effort to oust
Saddam Hussein and replace his regime with another secular government--this
one kept in place by American military power--will not diminish the wrath
of Islamic extremists but rather fuel it.
(3) The promotion of democracy: The ouster of Saddam Hussein, it is
claimed, will clear the space for the Iraqi people (under American
guidance, of course) to establish a truly democratic government and serve
as a beacon and inspiration for the spread of democracy throughout the
Islamic world, which is said to be sadly deficient in this respect. But is
there any reason to believe that the administration is motivated by a
desire to spread democracy in its rush to war with Iraq? There are several
reasons to doubt this. First of all, many of the top leaders of the current
administration, particularly Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, were
completely happy to embrace the Saddam Hussein dictatorship in the 1980s
when Iraq was the enemy of our enemy (that is, Iran) and thus considered
our de facto friend. There is another reason to be skeptical about the Bush
administration's commitment to democracy in this part of the world, and
that is the fact that the administration has developed close relationships
with a number of other dictatorial or authoritarian regimes in the area.
So, if concern over WMD proliferation, or the reduction of terrorism, or a
love of democracy do not explain the administration's determination to oust
Saddam Hussein, what does?
I believe that the answer is a combination of three factors, all related to
the pursuit of oil and the preservation of America's status as the
paramount world power. These concerns undergird the three motives for a
U.S. invasion of Iraq. The first derives from America's own dependence on
Persian Gulf oil and from the principle, formally enshrined in the Carter
Doctrine, that the United States will not permit a hostile state from ever
coming into a position where it can threaten America's access to the Gulf.
The second is the pivotal role played by the Persian Gulf in supplying oil
to the rest of the world: whoever controls the Gulf automatically maintains
a stranglehold on the global economy, and the Bush administration wants
that to be the United States and no one else. And the third is anxiety
about the future availability of oil: the United States is becoming
increasingly dependent on Saudi Arabia to supply its imported petroleum,
and Washington is desperate to find an alternative to Saudi Arabia should
it ever be the case that access to that country is curtailed--and the only
country in the world with large enough reserves to compensate for the loss
of Saudi Arabia is Iraq.
It is this set of factors, I believe, that explain the Bush
administration's determination to go to war with Iraq--not concern over
WMD, terrorism, or the spread of democracy. But having said this, we need
to ask: do these objectives, assuming they're the correct ones, still
justify a war on Iraq? Some Americans may think so. There are, indeed,
advantages to being positioned on the inside of a powerful empire with
control over the world's second-largest supply of untapped petroleum. If
nothing else, American motorists will be able to afford the gas for their
SUVs, vans, and pick-up trucks for another decade, and maybe longer. There
will also be lots of jobs in the military and in the military-industrial
complex, or as representatives of American multinational corporations
(although, with respect to the latter, I would not advise traveling in most
of the rest of the world unless accompanied by a small army of bodyguards).
But there will also be a price to pay. Empires tend to require the
militarization of society, and that will entail putting more people into
uniform, one way or another. It will also mean increased spending on war,
and reduced spending on education and other domestic needs. It will entail
more secrecy and intrusion into our private lives. All of this has to be
entered into the equation. And if you ask me, empire is not worth the
price.
(Michael T. Klare <[log in to unmask]>, author of Resource Wars: The New
Landscape of Global Conflict and a professor of peace and world security
studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., is a military affairs
analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)
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*** IRAQ, NORTH KOREA, AND THE U.S. NUCLEAR "...OR ELSE" ***
By Col. Dan Smith (Ret.)
(Editor's Note: Dan Smith highlights the contradictions in Bush
administration policy by examining the different approaches it has taken to
North Korea and Iraq in this excerpt from a global affairs commentary
available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301nkiraq.html .)
Mohamed El-Baradei, Director of the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA), is a busy diplomat. In Iraq, as part of the UN effort to determine
the extent of Baghdad's weapons of mass destruction program, his inspectors
are looking at facilities that have been or may be associated with nuclear
weapons development. Simultaneously, almost halfway around the globe, he is
trying to persuade North Korea to reverse course by readmitting IAEA
monitors and re-freezing its nuclear weapons complex. As he addresses the
immediate questions of each country's nuclear efforts and status, he also
must finesse the U.S. threat--the inverted U.S. "or else" should either
country continue to defy the international community.
The puzzle facing El-Baradei and the world is why the United States seems
bent on war with a country (Iraq) in which inspectors have virtually free
rein to act. Simultaneously the U.S. is pushing for extended diplomacy with
a country (North Korea) that has expelled IAEA inspectors, announced its
withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), disabled
observation cameras, and is in the process of restarting is plutonium
producing nuclear reactor.
By any measure, North Korean actions since October are more direct
challenges to international norms than anything Iraq has done over the same
period. The chief U.S. complaint about Iraq is that Saddam Hussein cannot
be trusted to adhere to UN Security Council demands that he give up his
ambitions to develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Yet by
expelling IAEA inspectors, restarting its dormant graphite nuclear plants,
covertly attempting to develop a uranium enrichment program, and
threatening to resume long-range missile development, Kim Jong Il has also
demonstrated a readiness to ignore international agreements.
But unlike Baghdad, with whom Washington has no agreements, Pyongyang
claims that the United States broke its promises under the 1994 Agreed
Framework--i.e., the United States has failed to act on instituting normal
diplomatic relations, has fallen behind schedule in constructing two light
water nuclear reactors, has cut off promised fuel oil deliveries, and has
not removed North Korea from the list of terrorist states. Moreover, the
North Koreans believe they are on Washington's nuclear "hit list." For
North Korea, all this suggests that the way forward is to revive and
strengthen the Agreed Framework.
In the end, both the Iraqi and North Korean situations are about energy.
With Iraq, it is about reliable access to cheap oil for the United States
and its allies. With North Korea, it is about a reliable source of cheap
power for that country's needs. By any calculation, war in either place
would be much more costly in human lives and material destruction than
allowing the diplomatic process to fully play out. Washington can raise or
lower the temperature depending on what it does next, not only directly
with North Korea but in how well it listens to the serious reservations of
allies about attacking Iraq without a smoking gun.
If the latter stand-off ends peacefully with Baghdad in acceptable
compliance with UN resolutions, it will augur well for Korea. If Baghdad
and President Saddam's regime are in ruins, North Korea may well decide it
has nothing to lose by pressing ahead with unregulated nuclear weapons
development, missile tests, and a more aggressive posture on the peninsula.
If the latter happens, the odds for a new Korean war will increase
dramatically.
(Dan Smith <[log in to unmask]> is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy
In Focus (online at www.fpif.org) is a retired U.S. army colonel and Senior
Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National
Legislation.)
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*** BUSH NO-SHOW IN MAURITIUS REFLECTS DEEPER DISDAIN ***
By William Minter
(Editor's Note: Analyst William Minter discusses the Bush administration's
disdain for Africa in this excerpt of a global affairs commentary available
in its entirety online at
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301africa.html .)
In mid-December, in the midst of the controversy over racist remarks by
Senator Trent Lott, Bush administration officials intimated that a
presidential trip to Africa in January would demonstrate the U.S.
president's sensitivity to African American concerns. If President George
W. Bush had followed through on his plan to visit five African
countries,Africans would have posed hard questions: Is your policy "just
another trip"? Or are you willing to commit real resources to responding to
the deadly threat of AIDS, and to other urgent African priorities?
An answer of a sort came just before Christmas, when a White House press
release curtly announced that the trip was being postponed. Later Secretary
of State Colin Powell also called off plans to fill in for President Bush
at the U.S.-Africa consultation being held in Mauritius this week. Heading
the U.S. delegation instead will be U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick, who will tout the benefits to Africa of the Africa Growth and
Opportunity Act (which mandated this second consultation), and pitch other
U.S. policies for promoting free trade.
Both the reduced U.S. presence in Mauritius and the exclusive focus on
trade accurately reflect the realities of current U.S. Africa policy.
Washington policymakers are offering band-aids for the continent's gaping
wounds, while pushing policies that add to the damage and deprive Africans
of resources to fight back. This is evident in the U.S. willingness to use
Africa as a military staging ground for war in the Middle East, while
ignoring Africans' concerns for their own security.
As African countries face the combined impact of famine and AIDS, they also
see their agriculture devastated by another killer: agricultural trade
subsidies in the U.S. and Europe. Last year's U.S. farm bill, for example,
added some $83 billion in new subsidies for rich U.S. farmers, whose
exports already undercut developing country farmers who produce rice,
maize, and other food crops. Such subsidies also undercut African exports.
In a report last fall, for example, Oxfam calculated that U.S. cotton
farmers received subsidies of $3.9 billion. Oxfam estimated the damage to
African cotton producers from these subsidies at about $300 million a year.
Most official speches in Mauritius will undoubtedly extol the potential
mutual benefits of expanded U.S.-African trade. But that potential stands
little chance of being realized with the current business-as-usual policy.
When and if President Bush does visit Africa, he may seek to avoid
answering the question of whether he values African lives. Two years into
his administration, the policy record leaves little doubt that the answer
is "no."
(William Minter <[log in to unmask]> is a senior research fellow at Africa
Action, the oldest U.S.-based advocacy group on African affairs. This
commentary was originally published in Le Mauricien
(http://lemauricien.com/), January 15, 2003.)
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II. Outside the U.S.
(Editor's Note: FPIF's "Outside the U.S." component aims to bring non-U.S.
voices into the U.S. policy debate and to foster dialog between Northern
and Southern actors in global affairs issues. Please visit our Outside the
U.S. page for other non-U.S. perspectives on global affairs and for
information about submissions at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/index.html.
If you're interested in submitting commentaries for our use, please send
your solicitation to John Gershman at <[log in to unmask]>.)
*** THE PROSPECTS FOR AL QAEDA ***
By Paul Rogers
(Editor's Note: This is excerpted from a longer Outside the U.S. global
affairs commentary located at
http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0301alqaeda.html .)
Sixteen months after the attacks of 11 September, what is the status of al
Qaeda and what are its prospects?
Al Qaeda and its associates have been maintaining a level of activity over
the past sixteen months that is actually higher than in the months leading
up to the New York and Washington atrocities. Major incidents include the
killing of French technicians in Karachi and the attempt to bomb the U.S.
consulate in the same city, the attack on the Limberg oil tanker, the Bali
bomb, the Paradise Hotel bomb at Kikambala, and the attempt to shoot down
an Israeli charter airliner taking off from Mombasa airport.
There have been many lesser incidents in numerous countries, and a number
of major attempted incidents have been intercepted, including planned
attacks in Paris, Rome, and Singapore. Away from al Qaeda itself, Chechen
rebels laid siege to a Moscow theater and, more recently, bombed the
Russian administrative building in Grozny that was presumed to provide the
greatest place of safety in the city for Russian civilians. There have, in
addition, been frequent bombings in the Philippines.
Though some of these may not be directly connected to al Qaeda, they should
be analyzed in the context of a number of other incidents in a range of
countries where there are also no clear links with al Qaeda as such. The
ricin incident in Britain may be an example of this, and some other
interceptions in Europe seem to show little connection.
More generally, the trend now appears to be for al Qaeda and its associates
to be proselytizing among Islamic communities in many parts of the world
via videos, tapes, and direct contacts, replacing the single "safe haven"
of Afghanistan with many small safe havens around the world.
In general, such a dispersal of a paramilitary organization would be
regarded by western security authorities as a success. On this measure, al
Qaeda would be considered to be in retreat. This is clearly not the case,
given the extent of current activity.
There are two explanations for this. The first is that al Qaeda might have
appeared to be thoroughly centered on Afghanistan, but this was never the
whole picture. Long before 9/11, it was an organization with affiliates and
supporters across much of the Middle East and North Africa as well as in
some communities in Asia, Europe, and North America.
The second explanation is that there is probably more support for al Qaeda
in many countries than there was two years ago. Although al Qaeda
previously gave little support to the Palestinians, and even less to the
secular regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, it has embraced both causes and
is achieving considerable success in promoting the view of a deeply
anti-Islamic U.S./Israeli "axis of evil."
In Afghanistan, thousands of U.S. troops are tied down trying to kill or
capture Taliban and al Qaeda militias, and there have been substantial
recent tensions with Pakistan over border crossings. Osama bin Laden,
Mullah Mohammad Omar, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar all elude capture, and the
CIA is authorized to kill more than twenty al Qaeda leaders if it cannot
capture them.
This very decision has its own consequences, as was seen in Yemen with
tragic results. First, a CIA drone was used to destroy a vehicle in which
an al Qaeda leader was travelling but, within a few weeks, a secular
politician, Jarallah Omar, was assassinated and two days later three
missionaries from the U.S. were murdered.
Some western security analysts argue that these independent attacks are
proof that al Qaeda is in retreat, and is unable to coordinate its
operations. This may miss the point. Al Qaeda has always been a partially
dispersed network, and what is now significant is its greater concentration
on this aspect of its organization, a process aided by increasing support
for at least some of its overall aims.
In particular regions, local paramilitary groups may concentrate on local
issues, but they are doing so as part of a loose international movement
that may on balance not be losing any of its force. Once again, we are
faced with a situation in which all the emphasis in the war on terror is
focused on pre-emption and capture--beating the terrorists into submission.
Meanwhile, there is scarcely any focus on the reasons for the groundswell
of support for al Qaeda and its associates in the first place, a support
that is likely to be enhanced still further by a war with Iraq.
(This article was first published in its entirety on the global issues
website www.opendemocracy.net as part of an ongoing debate about Global
Security. Paul Rogers is professor of peace studies at Bradford University
and is openDemocracy's international security correspondent. He is a
consultant to the Oxford Research Group. The second edition of his book
Losing Control has just been published by Pluto Press.)
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III. Letters And Comments
*** LONG LIVE MULTILATERALISM ***
Re: Our Fateful Choice
(http://www.presentdanger.org/pdf/PrD-OurFatefulChoice.pdf)
I read through your statement on proposing an alternative U.S. foreign and
military policy. I very much appreciate your suggestions and fully agree,
if the U.S. is not to end up fully isolated in the world, it must now
abandon hostile policies that threaten rather than promote world peace and
security. Sure the 9/ 11 attacks were horrible, but that in no way
justifies the infringement of civil or human rights (at home / or abroad),
nor does this permit the Bush government do be arrogant toward other
nations, anyone, or any organization that rightly criticizes U.S. foreign
policy. Dissent in America is not unpatriotic, rather it is the complete
reverse, it is the best sign of patriotism to America. Long live
multilateralism.
- Walter Onubogu, International Labour Organisation <[log in to unmask]>
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*** RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN KOREA ***
Re: Roh's Election and Widening Gap
(http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0301korea.html)
Thank you Mr. Shorrock for your article on the recent developments on the
Korean peninsula. Your observations and perspective reflect what most
concerned and informed Koreans feel and think. Also, I really liked your
challenge to progressives in the U.S. to liberate themselves from certain
values through which they may not be able to understand other nations and
cultures, and people's aspirations.
- Kil Sang Yoon <[log in to unmask]>
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*** OIL INDUSTRY ***
Re: New Oil Order (http://www.fpif.org/papers/oil.html)
An excellent article, underscoring the close links the Bush administration
has with the oil industry, which is really running the U.S.'s foreign
policy both in Afghanistan and the Gulf.
- Philip Fowler <[log in to unmask]>
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*** THE MORE THINGS CHANGE ***
Re: U.S. Declares Open Season on UN Workers
(http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0301unwork.html)
It's astonishing how the U.S. has adopted some of the tactics employed
during the cold war by the former Soviet Union in the UN Security Council
debates whenever an issue unfriendly to itself or to one of its satellites
was put to a vote. Time and again the Soviet delegate's hand was raised and
his voice loudly uttered the usual "nyet." In this way the Security Council
capability of handling objectively with peace-threatening pressing issues
or other issues connected with human rights violations by the Communist
countries was automatically rendered impotent. It seems that the U.S. that
led the free world struggle against Soviet imperialist ambitions and its
influence has found it convenient to adopt the same tactics. One should
bear in mind that the present Republican administration's loudly proclaimed
determination to set up "democratic" governments in the Middle East,
whatever might that mean in view of the present political and
socio-cultural conditions prevailing in this region has a certain
similarity to the Soviets setting up also "democratic" (albeit people's
democracies)in Eastern Europe, regardless of the peoples' desires. The more
things change the more they look alike.
- Eliezer Haffner <[log in to unmask]>
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*** ANOTHER NUCLEAR WAR? ***
I am one of the hundred thousand Americans living here in Japan including
my wife and three children. Now our lives are facing a danger, a nuclear
threat, and we really feel our government's priority should change from
Iraq to North Korea. Kim Jong Il, North Korea's dictator, is without a
doubt the most dangerous terrorist in the world. This warlord's country is
starving and having succeeded to develop nuclear warheads, they are ready
to attack Japan anytime. We really want our government to take action. Of
course, our wish is not use of force, but to have a peaceful resolution as
a civilized nation. We sincerely hope you can help us because Kim Jong Il
is a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein and ignoring his threat
consequentially can cost more American lives.
- Reverend William F. Parkinson <[log in to unmask]>
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