suprbuick7
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- Jul 19, 2003
UNGN what is your definition of a neoconservative? do you even know who they are within the party you endorse?? Please answer the question
More Stupid Democrat Criticisms
- Thread starter Red Regal T
- Start date
suprbuick7
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- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
Saudi Arabia sponsors terrorism and lacks human rights too, don't forget them.
Do you know who Paul Wolfowitz is? If not "google " him
Laurie Mylroie?
Thats right the "other guy" will invite terrorists to the Rose garden for tea
Do you know who Paul Wolfowitz is? If not "google " him
Laurie Mylroie?
Thats right the "other guy" will invite terrorists to the Rose garden for tea
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
I'll respond for you about Saudi Arabia: But Super, they control all our oil......
True, so we americans are P@ssies in reality because there is a double standard in the Mmiddle East.
True, so we americans are P@ssies in reality because there is a double standard in the Mmiddle East.
Axis of Evil....scary sounding isnt it
WMD.............even scarier!
Buzz words!
We stopped looking for commies under our beds, now its terrorists!
We're going to take on the world and rid it of those "EVIL" terrorists all by ourselves...
O.K., now tell me how "WE" are going to pay for it?
Our deficit is already the highest its ever been and will continue to climb.
The ignorance and stupidity that this administration is displaying is outrageous! Terrorism needs to be dealt with by "ALL" free nations and we need a president that is willing to be a "team" player. Bush has shown "0" ability to do this.
Keep the ranting, raving and finger pointing going and "nothing" will be accomplished. This is why I left the DEM/REP parties, THEY
refuse to get along. Its childish behavior like this that will destroy our great country.
Rant on fools!
WMD.............even scarier!
Buzz words!
We stopped looking for commies under our beds, now its terrorists!
We're going to take on the world and rid it of those "EVIL" terrorists all by ourselves...
O.K., now tell me how "WE" are going to pay for it?
Our deficit is already the highest its ever been and will continue to climb.
The ignorance and stupidity that this administration is displaying is outrageous! Terrorism needs to be dealt with by "ALL" free nations and we need a president that is willing to be a "team" player. Bush has shown "0" ability to do this.
Keep the ranting, raving and finger pointing going and "nothing" will be accomplished. This is why I left the DEM/REP parties, THEY
refuse to get along. Its childish behavior like this that will destroy our great country.
Rant on fools!
I don't have a definition for Neo conservative and don't care. Your definition of a liar and a flip flopper is George W Bush. Who really cares what your definition of Neo conservative is (besides WE4ster who likes to stir the pot)
Saudi arabia, Syria, Libya, Pakistan and Yemen weren't mentioned in the Axis of Evil speech because at the time of the speech, the US was holding out carrots to have the countries help support the war on terror. Iraq, Iran and North Korea had already eaten their carrots and gave no sign of cooperation with the US. Time will tell if the others will continue to help us.
George Bush's MOST VOCAL criticts AREN'T from foreign countries or Foreign leaders but are members of the Democrat party of the United States. We4ster, you'll be amazed how many countries are going to jump onboard the George Bush Bandwagon when Kerry gets his ass handed to him in November and Kennedy, Rangle, McAuliffe, Dean, et al shut their Pie Holes.
John Kerry won't invite terrorists for tea, but he has shown to have no stomach to stand up to them. Oh sure he'll THREATEN the use of force, but actually backing the threat up... well that's something different entirely. He never authorized that!
The terrorist know by now that the US under Clinton = Paper Tiger, no worries while the US under Bush = Crazy mofo, head for the cave.
Interview ANY terrorist and ask them how to defeat the US, they will ALL tell you: 1993, mogadishu. Kill a few americans, drag them through the streets on TV, the US will go away. That's Clinton's legacy. If that's the world you want to go back to, Kerry is your guy.
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
UNGN and others, what is your stance on this>>>>>>
As the war in Iraq moves toward its conclusion, neoconservatives in and around the Bush administration are beginning to aggressively push a chilling agenda for a generalized war against much of the Arab and Islamic worlds.
This program to deliberately unleash a calamitous "clash of civilizations" must be urgently confronted before it succeeds in plunging us into a cycle of uncontrolled chaos and confrontation.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey illustrated how extreme this vision really is when he recently told a group of California college students that the United States is engaged in fighting "World War IV," which will "last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II," but hopefully not as long as the Cold War.
The enemies in this war, which he unconvincingly presented as a campaign for democracy, are the rulers of Iran, the "fascist" rulers of Iraq and Syria and groups like Al Qaeda.
Woolsey also singled out the pro-American rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, declaring "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in 100 years, this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you--the [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubaraks, the Saudi royal family--most fear. We're on the side of your people."
Norman Podhoretz, editor-at-large of Commentary magazine, who was the first to dub the project World War IV, and other neoconservatives, openly call for "regime change" in a whole list of Middle Eastern states, governed by both pro- and anti-American regimes.
For Podhoretz, the global extremism, chaos and violence that the war on Iraq may provoke are not the undesirable side effects of a noble mission, but the necessary pretext for more aggressive American intervention. He says that the U.S. can "win" this war and "reform" Islam provided that America has "the stomach to impose a new political culture on the defeated parties."
Neoconservatives long have been demanding an attack on Iraq as the first step in a far more ambitious regional and global agenda, but for the past decade made little headway with the rest of the foreign policy establishment.
A 2000 report from the neocon think tank, the Project for a New American Century, co-authored by several key members of the Bush administration, laid out the vision of a world order completely dominated by unilateral American power. It also lamented that, due to opposition from more responsible elements in government, their hyper-aggressive agenda would have to be advanced slowly, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."
Playing exactly that role, the Sept. 11 attacks opened the political space necessary for the attack on Iraq, promoted mainly through the theory that Iraq might one day supply chemical or biological weapons to terrorists.
Many Americans reluctantly supported the attack on Iraq because they truly believed that it would make America safer and Iraqis freer. Precious few have willingly signed up for a new, catastrophic and completely unnecessary global confrontation with Islam.
An increasing number of more sober voices are speaking out against this recklessness.
A full scale civil war on the right over foreign policy has broken out in the press, with conservative icons such as columnist Robert Novak trading bitter accusations with overwrought neocons like David Frum, author of the irresponsible "axis of evil" speech.
Stalwarts of the first Bush administration such as former Seretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger have been openly trying to steer President Bush away from what one unnamed former senior official called "this bum advice he has been getting" from neocons. Another observed that "The only one who can reach the president is his father but it is not timely yet to talk to him," indicating a plan for a protracted campaign. They have obvious potential allies in the Cabinet such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Liberals are also joining the fray, with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) leading the call for "a vision of the world that is very different from what these excessively ideological unilateralists want to thrust on us."
These voices of reason need to be encouraged and emboldened.
President Bush has insisted that U.S. troops will not stay in Iraq any longer than necessary. The question is, necessary for what? The Pentagon intends to rule Iraq directly for the meanwhile, and no plans exist for any election or representative government.
Among those slated for senior positions in Iraq is James Woolsey. Woolsey's latest statements, and continued ambiguity about long-term American intentions in the region, can only fuel fears that neoconservatives in the administration intend not to give Iraq back to its people as soon as possible, but to use it as a launching pad for further adventures that may truly plunge us all into World War IV.
As the war in Iraq moves toward its conclusion, neoconservatives in and around the Bush administration are beginning to aggressively push a chilling agenda for a generalized war against much of the Arab and Islamic worlds.
This program to deliberately unleash a calamitous "clash of civilizations" must be urgently confronted before it succeeds in plunging us into a cycle of uncontrolled chaos and confrontation.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey illustrated how extreme this vision really is when he recently told a group of California college students that the United States is engaged in fighting "World War IV," which will "last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II," but hopefully not as long as the Cold War.
The enemies in this war, which he unconvincingly presented as a campaign for democracy, are the rulers of Iran, the "fascist" rulers of Iraq and Syria and groups like Al Qaeda.
Woolsey also singled out the pro-American rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, declaring "We want you nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in 100 years, this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you--the [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubaraks, the Saudi royal family--most fear. We're on the side of your people."
Norman Podhoretz, editor-at-large of Commentary magazine, who was the first to dub the project World War IV, and other neoconservatives, openly call for "regime change" in a whole list of Middle Eastern states, governed by both pro- and anti-American regimes.
For Podhoretz, the global extremism, chaos and violence that the war on Iraq may provoke are not the undesirable side effects of a noble mission, but the necessary pretext for more aggressive American intervention. He says that the U.S. can "win" this war and "reform" Islam provided that America has "the stomach to impose a new political culture on the defeated parties."
Neoconservatives long have been demanding an attack on Iraq as the first step in a far more ambitious regional and global agenda, but for the past decade made little headway with the rest of the foreign policy establishment.
A 2000 report from the neocon think tank, the Project for a New American Century, co-authored by several key members of the Bush administration, laid out the vision of a world order completely dominated by unilateral American power. It also lamented that, due to opposition from more responsible elements in government, their hyper-aggressive agenda would have to be advanced slowly, "absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."
Playing exactly that role, the Sept. 11 attacks opened the political space necessary for the attack on Iraq, promoted mainly through the theory that Iraq might one day supply chemical or biological weapons to terrorists.
Many Americans reluctantly supported the attack on Iraq because they truly believed that it would make America safer and Iraqis freer. Precious few have willingly signed up for a new, catastrophic and completely unnecessary global confrontation with Islam.
An increasing number of more sober voices are speaking out against this recklessness.
A full scale civil war on the right over foreign policy has broken out in the press, with conservative icons such as columnist Robert Novak trading bitter accusations with overwrought neocons like David Frum, author of the irresponsible "axis of evil" speech.
Stalwarts of the first Bush administration such as former Seretary of State James Baker, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger have been openly trying to steer President Bush away from what one unnamed former senior official called "this bum advice he has been getting" from neocons. Another observed that "The only one who can reach the president is his father but it is not timely yet to talk to him," indicating a plan for a protracted campaign. They have obvious potential allies in the Cabinet such as Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. Liberals are also joining the fray, with Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) leading the call for "a vision of the world that is very different from what these excessively ideological unilateralists want to thrust on us."
These voices of reason need to be encouraged and emboldened.
President Bush has insisted that U.S. troops will not stay in Iraq any longer than necessary. The question is, necessary for what? The Pentagon intends to rule Iraq directly for the meanwhile, and no plans exist for any election or representative government.
Among those slated for senior positions in Iraq is James Woolsey. Woolsey's latest statements, and continued ambiguity about long-term American intentions in the region, can only fuel fears that neoconservatives in the administration intend not to give Iraq back to its people as soon as possible, but to use it as a launching pad for further adventures that may truly plunge us all into World War IV.
Exactly what I was saying,
Rising Partisanship Ties Up Congress
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress returns from a holiday recess next week rife with political bad blood, making it increasingly tough to accomplish much this election year.
Partisanship is at an all-time high," said Bruce Josten, a Capitol Hill lobbyist and an executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . "Democrats and Republicans not only don't trust each other, they hold each other at a high level of contempt."
Amid such hostility, the Senate is largely paralyzed. Democratic roadblocks are lined up against dozens of judicial nominations, and there is also gridlock on stacks of legislation on matters ranging from energy to tort reform.
With control of the narrowly Republican-led Senate and House of Representatives at stake in the November elections, and polls showing the public split, both sides are jockeying for position as they swap charges and countercharges.
Rising Partisanship Ties Up Congress
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Congress returns from a holiday recess next week rife with political bad blood, making it increasingly tough to accomplish much this election year.
Partisanship is at an all-time high," said Bruce Josten, a Capitol Hill lobbyist and an executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce . "Democrats and Republicans not only don't trust each other, they hold each other at a high level of contempt."
Amid such hostility, the Senate is largely paralyzed. Democratic roadblocks are lined up against dozens of judicial nominations, and there is also gridlock on stacks of legislation on matters ranging from energy to tort reform.
With control of the narrowly Republican-led Senate and House of Representatives at stake in the November elections, and polls showing the public split, both sides are jockeying for position as they swap charges and countercharges.
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
Hey WE4ster,
Do you think they will even read it? I would bet the farm most of these guys never heard of "neocons" .well TTA was honest enough to admit he didn't.
The GOP was hijacked and these guys in this forum are too blind to see it. They will argue without knowing who is running their endorsed Govt.
Paul O'Neill's book is a real eye opener. Politics before policy, no competing views allowed on environmental/ energy policy debates.eg. The Kyoto agreement but the morons here will call it lies , fabrications, heresy. They are either plain ignorant or afraid to know the truth.
Do you think they will even read it? I would bet the farm most of these guys never heard of "neocons" .well TTA was honest enough to admit he didn't.
The GOP was hijacked and these guys in this forum are too blind to see it. They will argue without knowing who is running their endorsed Govt.
Paul O'Neill's book is a real eye opener. Politics before policy, no competing views allowed on environmental/ energy policy debates.eg. The Kyoto agreement but the morons here will call it lies , fabrications, heresy. They are either plain ignorant or afraid to know the truth.
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
analogy: Lets find out what is the best auto Detroit ever produced?
Independent Thinkers who read :Ok lets contact Mustang, covette, camaro, mopar guys to hash this out. test our opinions
GOP Sheep:No lets not invite them we will get just us, the Turbo buick guys to determine what is the best auto ever produced.
UNGN I am simplyasking you to readup on those in the president's cabinet who are making policy decisions. NEOCONS(This isn't a trick of any kind) If you agree with them that is fine, but they are not the whole GOP
How can these guys continue to argue if they don't even know who the players are????????????????????????
Independent Thinkers who read :Ok lets contact Mustang, covette, camaro, mopar guys to hash this out. test our opinions
GOP Sheep:No lets not invite them we will get just us, the Turbo buick guys to determine what is the best auto ever produced.
UNGN I am simplyasking you to readup on those in the president's cabinet who are making policy decisions. NEOCONS(This isn't a trick of any kind) If you agree with them that is fine, but they are not the whole GOP
How can these guys continue to argue if they don't even know who the players are????????????????????????
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
UNGN
I agree that Kerry changed his mind on issues . I posted those issues GWB changed his mind on (the facts ) and you disagree??? how?? It is fact You have to admit when the truth is evident, even if you don't like it. ( Hint: It will make your arguments stronger/ more believable)
I agree that Kerry changed his mind on issues . I posted those issues GWB changed his mind on (the facts ) and you disagree??? how?? It is fact You have to admit when the truth is evident, even if you don't like it. ( Hint: It will make your arguments stronger/ more believable)
suprbuick7
Its called Blind Faith..
I know all about the neo's and they scare the crap out of me..
I do think that you are being an alarmist about them. I think that there are to many smart people in this country who will stop them..They arent making many points in Iraq, so it will be hard for them to push their agenda through.. I hope..
Its called Blind Faith..
I know all about the neo's and they scare the crap out of me..
I do think that you are being an alarmist about them. I think that there are to many smart people in this country who will stop them..They arent making many points in Iraq, so it will be hard for them to push their agenda through.. I hope..
Red Regal T
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2001
You're on to us now. Bush was hoping the 9/11 attacks would happen so we could attack Iraq.
We thought we could get away with it, but you're too smart. suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
No offense Red Regal but you lend no coherent staments of fact to any of these arguments. You just drop by now and then to type in some rhetoric.
Do you know what "neoconservatves are??????????
Do you know what "neoconservatves are??????????
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
We4ster,
You might be right, but what I have read really scares me. and I can't believe that the average GOP wouldn't notice what has happened to their party. It is funny how once this discussion has elevated to certain levels many of those dabating have evaporated
You might be right, but what I have read really scares me. and I can't believe that the average GOP wouldn't notice what has happened to their party. It is funny how once this discussion has elevated to certain levels many of those dabating have evaporated
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
Conservative Pat Buchanan interviews Richard Perle Neocon hawk / presidential adviser PLEASE READ the follwing:
BUCHANAN: Many Americans are angry with President Bush and his administration because they feel they were misled by lines like this from my next guest—quote—“With each passing day he comes closer to his dream of a nuclear arsenal. We know he has a clandestine program, spread over many hidden sites, to enrich natural uranium to weapons grade. How close is he to nuclear weapons? We do not know. Two years, three years, tomorrow even?”
That and other statements by Richard Perle, former chairman of the
Pentagon‘s prestigious Defense Review Board and author of “An End to Evil:
How to Win the War on Terror,” now appear to have been false.
Richard, let me ask you, were you misled when you indicated that Saddam Hussein had uranium enrichment facilities operating in his country and he could have a nuclear weapon in one, two or three years?
RICHARD PERLE, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, it now looks as if that information was incorrect, yes.
You had always to face the question, when you have a variety of reports, how much risk are you prepared to take? It‘s easy, in retrospect to say, well, that was wrong, we shouldn‘t have taken it seriously. We didn‘t take seriously other reports that turned out to be right and we paid a very heavy price for that.
BUCHANAN: Well, it certainly is true, if Saddam Hussein—and I was opposed to the war—if he were working on nuclear weapons, had an active program, and your statement were correct, I think the case becomes persuasive that you ought to go to war. Where did you get that information?
PERLE: Well, the information about his nuclear infrastructure was consistently reported by American intelligence. We didn‘t know the exact state of it. But we knew that he had had a program, that scientists had been trained for that purpose.
BUCHANAN: So, at Defense Review Board, you had access to American intelligence?
PERLE: No, this has nothing to do with the Defense Review Board.
BUCHANAN: All right, let me cite you something else here. And it‘s a statement by you, I believe, just a couple of months before that.
You cited Saddam‘s bombmaker, Khidhir Hamza—and that‘s the name of a book of his—in late 2001 as saying this. This is Hamza: “We began to build uranium enrichment facilities, many facilities, and we built 400 of them and they‘re all over the country. Some of them look like farmhouses, some of them look like classrooms, some of them look like warehouses. You will never find them.”
He lied to you, didn‘t he?
PERLE: Well, I don‘t know whether he lied or the report of the activities of which he had personal knowledge was no longer valid at the point at which he said that.
(CROSSTALK)
PERLE: I have no reason to believe he lied.
BUCHANAN: But, Richard, uranium enrichment facilities, unlike, say, anthrax, which you can move out of the country, maybe he had it. You‘ve got a uranium-rich facility and you‘ve got materials there that you can pick up afterwards. He says 400 of them. They‘re in classrooms. They‘re in warehouses. They‘re on farms and things like that. Our people went in there. They found zero.
PERLE: I understand.
I believe he was referring not to large installations, but to very small installations, a way of responding to the destruction of their nuclear reactor in 1981, where, as he related it, they built tiny little facilities in order to spread them around.
BUCHANAN: Have you talked to him after we went to war and said, listen, where the devil are these 400 uranium-enrichment facilities? I mean, they would have traces of uranium in them and everything.
PERLE: It appears that that information was incorrect. I‘m not prepared to conclude that he lied simply because he was incorrect. Not all errors are lies.
BUCHANAN: Four hundred facilities, Richard?
PERLE: Well, 400 places in which enrichment was taking place or could take place.
BUCHANAN: Before the war, you said—quote—“I think there would be dancing in the streets if Saddam were removed from power, and the reaction of the Iraqi people would be reflected in the attitude of the Arab world generally.”
We now find America has, by most surveys, the Pew survey and others, has never been more hated there. And, of course, there may have been dancing in the streets that first day. But there certainly is no dancing in the streets that we‘re there now. What happened?
PERLE: Well, there was indeed dancing in the streets at the liberation of Iraq. It was widely regarded as a liberation, except by those people who were in power with Saddam Hussein and clearly were facing a pretty bleak future.
We‘ve been there too long, in my view. We have become an occupying power. We should have transferred authority before now. And in order to facilitate the transfer before now, we should have gone into Iraq with Iraqis at our side. And I regret that we didn‘t do that. That was my strong preference.
BUCHANAN: Mr. Chalabi?
PERLE: Mr. Chalabi and others in the Iraqi National Congress.
BUCHANAN: All right, do you feel we should have gone in and transferred power quickly and then moved our forces out?
PERLE: No, I think there‘s an argument for our remaining there alongside the Iraqis, but not in a position as an occupying power, the situation that will prevail when we do hand over sovereignty.
BUCHANAN: All right, but, right now, we have a serious uprising in Fallujah, obviously, and Ramadi, the Sunni areas, and a much smaller, but intense resistance from Shiites under this al-Sadr. And it‘s got our people very much preoccupied and we‘re going to have to put in two more combat brigades, 6,000 to 10,000 more troops, going to hold over troops coming back to the United States.
Should the United States—we went in to get rid of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. Should we fight a war in Iraq to build a democracy when it‘s quite clear this is going to be a long, extensive, bloody mess to do it?
PERLE: Well, I don‘t know that it‘s going to be a long, extensive, bloody mess. It‘s certainly not easy. No one ever said it would be easy.
If the question is should we now pack up and go home and leave Iraq in an unstable situation, the answer is no. If you want to see dancing in the streets, you‘ll see terrorists dancing in the streets if we are defeated in Iraq.
BUCHANAN: I think much of what the president said, if we were defeated, the consequences are exactly as he said them.
But I think there‘s a feeling on part of the American people that they were sold a bill of goods, that this was about taking down Saddam, who‘s a monster. And whatever he‘s got, weapons of mass destruction, we can‘t take the risk. And now suddenly we‘ve got mission creep. We‘re going to build democracy . And it looks like a bait and switch. Guys, they got us in there, and now they had another agenda and now they‘re putting through third agenda and there‘s nothing we can about it. Isn‘t there some justification for folks feeling that way?
PERLE: No, look, I think there‘s another way to look at this. And I suggest you look at it in this other way. And that is, we went into Iraq for all the reasons the president indicated and based on the best information that we had at the time.
Having gone into Iraq, having removed Saddam‘s regime, we are now encountering issues that have to be dealt with.
BUCHANAN: All right.
PERLE: This isn‘t bait and switch. There was no false reason put in front and a real reason behind it. We‘re responding to circumstance.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: All right, if there‘s no bait and switch, who got it wrong? Who indicated that this would be a cakewalk, we would go in, get this done, you know, flowers in the streets—you saw the question the president was asked—and democracy would sprout in the Middle East and the Palestinians and Israeli would get together, all this hooey about all these wonderful things that were going to happen?
And now the Americans say, we‘re in a hellish mess. And I think they might agree with you in saying, we can‘t just walk out. Who made the blunder in Iraq?
PERLE: First of all, I don‘t accept the caricature of the argument that was made before.
There were errors about what we would find when we got there. There‘s no question about that. We did not find the weapons of mass destruction that we had every reason to believe Saddam had hidden. And the evidence for that came from the CIA and other intelligence organizations, not only ours, but those of our allies.
BUCHANAN: But weren‘t we misled about the kind of resistance we would run into? When you take a look at right now, a year later, casualties are escalating. They‘re running at about 160, 180 a month now in Iraq. No one predicted that.
Who made the mistake of thinking this would be a piece of cake?
PERLE: Well, I don‘t know that—I certainly didn‘t say it would be a piece of cake.
BUCHANAN: No, but I mean, who did? The president was
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: No, he was hammered the other night on this, Richard And people asked him, and he said, we‘ve had—it‘s been some tough weeks. Did he anticipate this?
PERLE: Well, you‘ll have to ask him what he anticipated. But I don‘t ever recall the president ever saying it was going to be a piece of cake.
BUCHANAN: Did you anticipate this?
PERLE: Did I anticipate that there would be resistance?
BUCHANAN: Like this?
PERLE: Yes.
Did I anticipate that we would have as many terrorists coming into the country and organizing their kind of suicidal resistance? I don‘t think that could have been foreseen.
BUCHANAN: Well, let me ask you, how long do you think we‘ll be in there fighting? How much treasure—I guess it‘s $150 billion for Iraq now. How many lives will it take before we get—quote—“the job done”? I guess that‘s build democracy and turn it over to the Iraqis and enable us at least to bivouac, go back to encampments and then pull out? How long?
PERLE: I can‘t answer that.
BUCHANAN: What would be your estimation?
PERLE: I don‘t know. I think that the handover of authority will significantly improve the situation, not on day one necessarily, but I think we‘ll see a rapid political change.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: If we were back, say, in December of 2001 or before 2002, would you—I mean, would you have recommended as enthusiastically we go to Iraq as you did at that time?
PERLE: Yes. I believe we were right to go to Iraq. I think we were managing a risk. The risk was very real.
And the fact that we did not find the anthrax that we knew he had created and that he refused to account for doesn‘t change the fact that leaving him in possession of what we believed he had was simply too dangerous. We followed strong leadership.
BUCHANAN: Given the American people‘s—the declining support for Iraq and the fact that Kerry‘s moved ahead, solely, probably because of these two weeks, do you think President Bush is in peril of losing his reelection, at some peril in any event, because of the situation in Iraq, because he went to war in Iraq?
PERLE: I think the president‘s going to win this election, and I think the American people will give their approval to his steadfastness and resilience. If he were to pick up and leave now, then I think he‘d put his presidency at risk. And what does Kerry offer the country?
BUCHANAN: Not a great deal.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
PERLE: He did vote with the president after he didn‘t vote with the president.
BUCHANAN: I know he did.
Thank you very much for coming, Richard Perle. We appreciate it. We hope you‘ll come back.
PERLE: Thanks.
BUCHANAN: Many Americans are angry with President Bush and his administration because they feel they were misled by lines like this from my next guest—quote—“With each passing day he comes closer to his dream of a nuclear arsenal. We know he has a clandestine program, spread over many hidden sites, to enrich natural uranium to weapons grade. How close is he to nuclear weapons? We do not know. Two years, three years, tomorrow even?”
That and other statements by Richard Perle, former chairman of the
Pentagon‘s prestigious Defense Review Board and author of “An End to Evil:
How to Win the War on Terror,” now appear to have been false.
Richard, let me ask you, were you misled when you indicated that Saddam Hussein had uranium enrichment facilities operating in his country and he could have a nuclear weapon in one, two or three years?
RICHARD PERLE, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Well, it now looks as if that information was incorrect, yes.
You had always to face the question, when you have a variety of reports, how much risk are you prepared to take? It‘s easy, in retrospect to say, well, that was wrong, we shouldn‘t have taken it seriously. We didn‘t take seriously other reports that turned out to be right and we paid a very heavy price for that.
BUCHANAN: Well, it certainly is true, if Saddam Hussein—and I was opposed to the war—if he were working on nuclear weapons, had an active program, and your statement were correct, I think the case becomes persuasive that you ought to go to war. Where did you get that information?
PERLE: Well, the information about his nuclear infrastructure was consistently reported by American intelligence. We didn‘t know the exact state of it. But we knew that he had had a program, that scientists had been trained for that purpose.
BUCHANAN: So, at Defense Review Board, you had access to American intelligence?
PERLE: No, this has nothing to do with the Defense Review Board.
BUCHANAN: All right, let me cite you something else here. And it‘s a statement by you, I believe, just a couple of months before that.
You cited Saddam‘s bombmaker, Khidhir Hamza—and that‘s the name of a book of his—in late 2001 as saying this. This is Hamza: “We began to build uranium enrichment facilities, many facilities, and we built 400 of them and they‘re all over the country. Some of them look like farmhouses, some of them look like classrooms, some of them look like warehouses. You will never find them.”
He lied to you, didn‘t he?
PERLE: Well, I don‘t know whether he lied or the report of the activities of which he had personal knowledge was no longer valid at the point at which he said that.
(CROSSTALK)
PERLE: I have no reason to believe he lied.
BUCHANAN: But, Richard, uranium enrichment facilities, unlike, say, anthrax, which you can move out of the country, maybe he had it. You‘ve got a uranium-rich facility and you‘ve got materials there that you can pick up afterwards. He says 400 of them. They‘re in classrooms. They‘re in warehouses. They‘re on farms and things like that. Our people went in there. They found zero.
PERLE: I understand.
I believe he was referring not to large installations, but to very small installations, a way of responding to the destruction of their nuclear reactor in 1981, where, as he related it, they built tiny little facilities in order to spread them around.
BUCHANAN: Have you talked to him after we went to war and said, listen, where the devil are these 400 uranium-enrichment facilities? I mean, they would have traces of uranium in them and everything.
PERLE: It appears that that information was incorrect. I‘m not prepared to conclude that he lied simply because he was incorrect. Not all errors are lies.
BUCHANAN: Four hundred facilities, Richard?
PERLE: Well, 400 places in which enrichment was taking place or could take place.
BUCHANAN: Before the war, you said—quote—“I think there would be dancing in the streets if Saddam were removed from power, and the reaction of the Iraqi people would be reflected in the attitude of the Arab world generally.”
We now find America has, by most surveys, the Pew survey and others, has never been more hated there. And, of course, there may have been dancing in the streets that first day. But there certainly is no dancing in the streets that we‘re there now. What happened?
PERLE: Well, there was indeed dancing in the streets at the liberation of Iraq. It was widely regarded as a liberation, except by those people who were in power with Saddam Hussein and clearly were facing a pretty bleak future.
We‘ve been there too long, in my view. We have become an occupying power. We should have transferred authority before now. And in order to facilitate the transfer before now, we should have gone into Iraq with Iraqis at our side. And I regret that we didn‘t do that. That was my strong preference.
BUCHANAN: Mr. Chalabi?
PERLE: Mr. Chalabi and others in the Iraqi National Congress.
BUCHANAN: All right, do you feel we should have gone in and transferred power quickly and then moved our forces out?
PERLE: No, I think there‘s an argument for our remaining there alongside the Iraqis, but not in a position as an occupying power, the situation that will prevail when we do hand over sovereignty.
BUCHANAN: All right, but, right now, we have a serious uprising in Fallujah, obviously, and Ramadi, the Sunni areas, and a much smaller, but intense resistance from Shiites under this al-Sadr. And it‘s got our people very much preoccupied and we‘re going to have to put in two more combat brigades, 6,000 to 10,000 more troops, going to hold over troops coming back to the United States.
Should the United States—we went in to get rid of Saddam and weapons of mass destruction. Should we fight a war in Iraq to build a democracy when it‘s quite clear this is going to be a long, extensive, bloody mess to do it?
PERLE: Well, I don‘t know that it‘s going to be a long, extensive, bloody mess. It‘s certainly not easy. No one ever said it would be easy.
If the question is should we now pack up and go home and leave Iraq in an unstable situation, the answer is no. If you want to see dancing in the streets, you‘ll see terrorists dancing in the streets if we are defeated in Iraq.
BUCHANAN: I think much of what the president said, if we were defeated, the consequences are exactly as he said them.
But I think there‘s a feeling on part of the American people that they were sold a bill of goods, that this was about taking down Saddam, who‘s a monster. And whatever he‘s got, weapons of mass destruction, we can‘t take the risk. And now suddenly we‘ve got mission creep. We‘re going to build democracy . And it looks like a bait and switch. Guys, they got us in there, and now they had another agenda and now they‘re putting through third agenda and there‘s nothing we can about it. Isn‘t there some justification for folks feeling that way?
PERLE: No, look, I think there‘s another way to look at this. And I suggest you look at it in this other way. And that is, we went into Iraq for all the reasons the president indicated and based on the best information that we had at the time.
Having gone into Iraq, having removed Saddam‘s regime, we are now encountering issues that have to be dealt with.
BUCHANAN: All right.
PERLE: This isn‘t bait and switch. There was no false reason put in front and a real reason behind it. We‘re responding to circumstance.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: All right, if there‘s no bait and switch, who got it wrong? Who indicated that this would be a cakewalk, we would go in, get this done, you know, flowers in the streets—you saw the question the president was asked—and democracy would sprout in the Middle East and the Palestinians and Israeli would get together, all this hooey about all these wonderful things that were going to happen?
And now the Americans say, we‘re in a hellish mess. And I think they might agree with you in saying, we can‘t just walk out. Who made the blunder in Iraq?
PERLE: First of all, I don‘t accept the caricature of the argument that was made before.
There were errors about what we would find when we got there. There‘s no question about that. We did not find the weapons of mass destruction that we had every reason to believe Saddam had hidden. And the evidence for that came from the CIA and other intelligence organizations, not only ours, but those of our allies.
BUCHANAN: But weren‘t we misled about the kind of resistance we would run into? When you take a look at right now, a year later, casualties are escalating. They‘re running at about 160, 180 a month now in Iraq. No one predicted that.
Who made the mistake of thinking this would be a piece of cake?
PERLE: Well, I don‘t know that—I certainly didn‘t say it would be a piece of cake.
BUCHANAN: No, but I mean, who did? The president was
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: No, he was hammered the other night on this, Richard And people asked him, and he said, we‘ve had—it‘s been some tough weeks. Did he anticipate this?
PERLE: Well, you‘ll have to ask him what he anticipated. But I don‘t ever recall the president ever saying it was going to be a piece of cake.
BUCHANAN: Did you anticipate this?
PERLE: Did I anticipate that there would be resistance?
BUCHANAN: Like this?
PERLE: Yes.
Did I anticipate that we would have as many terrorists coming into the country and organizing their kind of suicidal resistance? I don‘t think that could have been foreseen.
BUCHANAN: Well, let me ask you, how long do you think we‘ll be in there fighting? How much treasure—I guess it‘s $150 billion for Iraq now. How many lives will it take before we get—quote—“the job done”? I guess that‘s build democracy and turn it over to the Iraqis and enable us at least to bivouac, go back to encampments and then pull out? How long?
PERLE: I can‘t answer that.
BUCHANAN: What would be your estimation?
PERLE: I don‘t know. I think that the handover of authority will significantly improve the situation, not on day one necessarily, but I think we‘ll see a rapid political change.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: If we were back, say, in December of 2001 or before 2002, would you—I mean, would you have recommended as enthusiastically we go to Iraq as you did at that time?
PERLE: Yes. I believe we were right to go to Iraq. I think we were managing a risk. The risk was very real.
And the fact that we did not find the anthrax that we knew he had created and that he refused to account for doesn‘t change the fact that leaving him in possession of what we believed he had was simply too dangerous. We followed strong leadership.
BUCHANAN: Given the American people‘s—the declining support for Iraq and the fact that Kerry‘s moved ahead, solely, probably because of these two weeks, do you think President Bush is in peril of losing his reelection, at some peril in any event, because of the situation in Iraq, because he went to war in Iraq?
PERLE: I think the president‘s going to win this election, and I think the American people will give their approval to his steadfastness and resilience. If he were to pick up and leave now, then I think he‘d put his presidency at risk. And what does Kerry offer the country?
BUCHANAN: Not a great deal.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
PERLE: He did vote with the president after he didn‘t vote with the president.
BUCHANAN: I know he did.
Thank you very much for coming, Richard Perle. We appreciate it. We hope you‘ll come back.
PERLE: Thanks.
Red Regal T
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2001
I know what peaceniks and wimps are. You just believe in peace at any cost.
I don't have to search around for statements other people make so I can cut and paste it here. There's many of you liberals shooting off at the mouth all over. That's why I started this thread. Face it, Bush will be re-elected in November and you can go burn the flag somewhere else.
Red Regal T
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2001
You liberal wimps do know it all. blah-blah-blah
suprbuick7
New Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2003
Red Regal, You have crossed the line of confirmed MORON status.
You obviously don't or can't read the previous posts; where I endorsed bombing, and attacking w/ troops the culprits of (9/11) not SH who is simply an ideological ( is that too big a word for you?) target of the neoconservative radical right.
You obviously don't or can't read the previous posts; where I endorsed bombing, and attacking w/ troops the culprits of (9/11) not SH who is simply an ideological ( is that too big a word for you?) target of the neoconservative radical right.
Red Regal T
Senior Member
- Joined
- May 24, 2001
I've been listening to these same dumb arguments since before the Iraq war started. It's YOU, and people like you, who don't get it.
I can cut and paste too............
Tony Blair
Sunday April 11, 2004
The Observer
We are locked in a historic struggle in Iraq. On its outcome hangs more than the fate of the Iraqi people. Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than 'the power of America' that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance in Iraq would be snuffed out. Dictators would rejoice; fanatics and terrorists would be triumphant. Every nascent strand of moderate Arab opinion, knowing full well that the future should not belong to fundamentalist religion, would be set back in bitter disappointment.
If we succeed - if Iraq becomes a sovereign state, governed democratically by the Iraqi people; the wealth of that potentially rich country, their wealth; the oil, their oil; the police state replaced by the rule of law and respect for human rights - imagine the blow dealt to the poisonous propaganda of the extremists. Imagine the propulsion toward change it would inaugurate all over the Middle East.
In every country, including our own, the fanatics are preaching their gospel of hate, basing their doctrine on a wilful perversion of the true religion of Islam. At their fringe are groups of young men prepared to conduct terrorist attacks however and whenever they can. Thousands of victims the world over have now died, but the impact is worse than the death of innocent people.
The terrorists prey on ethnic or religious discord. From Kashmir to Chechnya, to Palestine and Israel, they foment hatred, they deter reconciliation. In Europe, they conducted the massacre in Madrid. They threaten France. They forced the cancellation of the President of Germany's visit to Djibouti. They have been foiled in Britain, but only for now.
Of course they use Iraq. It is vital to them. As each attack brings about American attempts to restore order, so they then characterise it as American brutality. As each piece of chaos menaces the very path toward peace and democracy along which most Iraqis want to travel, they use it to try to make the coalition lose heart, and bring about the retreat that is the fanatics' victory.
They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find.
So what exactly is the nature of the battle inside Iraq itself? This is not a 'civil war', though the purpose of the terrorism is undoubtedly to try to provoke one. The current upsurge in violence has not spread throughout Iraq. Much of Iraq is unaffected and most Iraqis reject it. The insurgents are former Saddam sympathisers, angry that their status as 'boss' has been removed, terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and, most recently, followers of the Shia cleric, Muqtada-al-Sadr.
The latter is not in any shape or form representative of majority Shia opinion. He is a fundamentalist, an extremist, an advocate of violence. He is wanted in connection with the murder of the moderate and much more senior cleric, Ayatollah al Khoei last year. The prosecutor, an Iraqi judge, who issued a warrant for his arrest, is the personification of how appallingly one-sided some of the Western reporting has become. Dismissed as an American stooge, he has braved assassination attempts and extraordinary intimidation in order to follow proper judicial process and has insisted on issuing the warrant despite direct threats to his life in doing so.
There you have it. On the one side, outside terrorists, an extremist who has created his own militia, and remnants of a brutal dictatorship which murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people and enslaved the rest. On the other side, people of immense courage and humanity who dare to believe that basic human rights and liberty are not alien to Arab and Middle Eastern culture, but are their salvation.
Over the past few weeks, I have met several people from the Iraqi government, the first genuine cross-community government Iraq had seen. People like Mrs Barwari, the Minister of Public Works, who has just survived a second assassination attempt that killed her bodyguard; people like Mr Zebari, the Foreign Minister. They are intelligent, forward-looking, tolerant, dedicated to their country. They know that 'the occupation' can be used to stir up anti-coalition feeling; they, too, want their country governed by its people and no one else. But they also know that if we cut and run, their country would be at the mercy of warring groups which are united only in their distaste for democracy.
The tragedy is that outside of the violence which dominated the coverage of Iraq, there are incredible possibilities of progress. There is a huge amount of reconstruction going on; the legacy of decades of neglect is slowly being repaired.
By 1 June, electricity will be 6,000MW, 50 per cent more than prewar, but short of the 7,500MW they now need because of the massive opening up of the economy, set to grow by 60 per cent this year and 25 per cent the next.
The first private banks are being opened. A new currency is in circulation. Those in work have seen their salaries trebled or quadrupled and unemployment is falling. One million cars have been imported. Thirty per cent now have satellite TV, once banned, where they can watch al-Jazeera, the radical Arab TV station, telling them how awful the Americans are.
The internet is no longer forbidden. Shrines are no longer shut. Groups of women and lawyers meet to discuss how they can make sure the new constitution genuinely promotes equality. The universities eagerly visit Western counterparts to see how a modern, higher-education system, free to study as it pleases, would help the new Iraq.
People in the West ask: why don't they speak up, these standard-bearers of the new Iraq? Why don't the Shia clerics denounce al-Sadr more strongly? I understand why the question is asked. But the answer is simple: they are worried. They remember 1991, when the West left them to their fate. They know their own street, unused to democratic debate, rife with every rumour, and know its volatility. They read the Western papers and hear its media. And they ask, as the terrorists do: have we the stomach to see it through?
I believe we do. And the rest of the world must hope that we do. None of this is to say we do not have to learn and listen. There is an agenda that could unite the majority of the world. It would be about pursuing terrorism and rogue states on the one hand and actively remedying the causes around which they flourish on the other: the Palestinian issue; poverty and development; democracy in the Middle East; dialogue between main religions.
I have come firmly to believe the only ultimate security lies in our values. The more people are free, the more tolerant they are of others; the more prosperous, the less inclined they are to squander that prosperity on pointless feuding and war.
But our greatest threat, apart from the immediate one of terrorism, is our complacency. When some ascribe, as they do, the upsurge in Islamic extremism to Iraq, do they really forget who killed whom on 11 September 2001? When they call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?
Or if we scorned our American allies and told them to go and fight on their own, that somehow we would be spared? If we withdraw from Iraq, they will tell us to withdraw from Afghanistan and, after that, to withdraw from the Middle East completely and, after that, who knows? But one thing is for sure: they have faith in our weakness just as they have faith in their own religious fanaticism. And the weaker we are, the more they will come after us.
It is not easy to persuade people of all this; to say that terrorism and unstable states with WMD are just two sides of the same coin; to tell people what they don't want to hear; that, in a world in which we in the West enjoy all the pleasures, profound and trivial, of modern existence, we are in grave danger.
There is a battle we have to fight, a struggle we have to win and it is happening now in Iraq.
__________________
I can cut and paste too............
Tony Blair
Sunday April 11, 2004
The Observer
We are locked in a historic struggle in Iraq. On its outcome hangs more than the fate of the Iraqi people. Were we to fail, which we will not, it is more than 'the power of America' that would be defeated. The hope of freedom and religious tolerance in Iraq would be snuffed out. Dictators would rejoice; fanatics and terrorists would be triumphant. Every nascent strand of moderate Arab opinion, knowing full well that the future should not belong to fundamentalist religion, would be set back in bitter disappointment.
If we succeed - if Iraq becomes a sovereign state, governed democratically by the Iraqi people; the wealth of that potentially rich country, their wealth; the oil, their oil; the police state replaced by the rule of law and respect for human rights - imagine the blow dealt to the poisonous propaganda of the extremists. Imagine the propulsion toward change it would inaugurate all over the Middle East.
In every country, including our own, the fanatics are preaching their gospel of hate, basing their doctrine on a wilful perversion of the true religion of Islam. At their fringe are groups of young men prepared to conduct terrorist attacks however and whenever they can. Thousands of victims the world over have now died, but the impact is worse than the death of innocent people.
The terrorists prey on ethnic or religious discord. From Kashmir to Chechnya, to Palestine and Israel, they foment hatred, they deter reconciliation. In Europe, they conducted the massacre in Madrid. They threaten France. They forced the cancellation of the President of Germany's visit to Djibouti. They have been foiled in Britain, but only for now.
Of course they use Iraq. It is vital to them. As each attack brings about American attempts to restore order, so they then characterise it as American brutality. As each piece of chaos menaces the very path toward peace and democracy along which most Iraqis want to travel, they use it to try to make the coalition lose heart, and bring about the retreat that is the fanatics' victory.
They know it is a historic struggle. They know their victory would do far more than defeat America or Britain. It would defeat civilisation and democracy everywhere. They know it, but do we? The truth is, faced with this struggle, on which our own fate hangs, a significant part of Western opinion is sitting back, if not half-hoping we fail, certainly replete with schadenfreude at the difficulty we find.
So what exactly is the nature of the battle inside Iraq itself? This is not a 'civil war', though the purpose of the terrorism is undoubtedly to try to provoke one. The current upsurge in violence has not spread throughout Iraq. Much of Iraq is unaffected and most Iraqis reject it. The insurgents are former Saddam sympathisers, angry that their status as 'boss' has been removed, terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda and, most recently, followers of the Shia cleric, Muqtada-al-Sadr.
The latter is not in any shape or form representative of majority Shia opinion. He is a fundamentalist, an extremist, an advocate of violence. He is wanted in connection with the murder of the moderate and much more senior cleric, Ayatollah al Khoei last year. The prosecutor, an Iraqi judge, who issued a warrant for his arrest, is the personification of how appallingly one-sided some of the Western reporting has become. Dismissed as an American stooge, he has braved assassination attempts and extraordinary intimidation in order to follow proper judicial process and has insisted on issuing the warrant despite direct threats to his life in doing so.
There you have it. On the one side, outside terrorists, an extremist who has created his own militia, and remnants of a brutal dictatorship which murdered hundreds of thousands of its own people and enslaved the rest. On the other side, people of immense courage and humanity who dare to believe that basic human rights and liberty are not alien to Arab and Middle Eastern culture, but are their salvation.
Over the past few weeks, I have met several people from the Iraqi government, the first genuine cross-community government Iraq had seen. People like Mrs Barwari, the Minister of Public Works, who has just survived a second assassination attempt that killed her bodyguard; people like Mr Zebari, the Foreign Minister. They are intelligent, forward-looking, tolerant, dedicated to their country. They know that 'the occupation' can be used to stir up anti-coalition feeling; they, too, want their country governed by its people and no one else. But they also know that if we cut and run, their country would be at the mercy of warring groups which are united only in their distaste for democracy.
The tragedy is that outside of the violence which dominated the coverage of Iraq, there are incredible possibilities of progress. There is a huge amount of reconstruction going on; the legacy of decades of neglect is slowly being repaired.
By 1 June, electricity will be 6,000MW, 50 per cent more than prewar, but short of the 7,500MW they now need because of the massive opening up of the economy, set to grow by 60 per cent this year and 25 per cent the next.
The first private banks are being opened. A new currency is in circulation. Those in work have seen their salaries trebled or quadrupled and unemployment is falling. One million cars have been imported. Thirty per cent now have satellite TV, once banned, where they can watch al-Jazeera, the radical Arab TV station, telling them how awful the Americans are.
The internet is no longer forbidden. Shrines are no longer shut. Groups of women and lawyers meet to discuss how they can make sure the new constitution genuinely promotes equality. The universities eagerly visit Western counterparts to see how a modern, higher-education system, free to study as it pleases, would help the new Iraq.
People in the West ask: why don't they speak up, these standard-bearers of the new Iraq? Why don't the Shia clerics denounce al-Sadr more strongly? I understand why the question is asked. But the answer is simple: they are worried. They remember 1991, when the West left them to their fate. They know their own street, unused to democratic debate, rife with every rumour, and know its volatility. They read the Western papers and hear its media. And they ask, as the terrorists do: have we the stomach to see it through?
I believe we do. And the rest of the world must hope that we do. None of this is to say we do not have to learn and listen. There is an agenda that could unite the majority of the world. It would be about pursuing terrorism and rogue states on the one hand and actively remedying the causes around which they flourish on the other: the Palestinian issue; poverty and development; democracy in the Middle East; dialogue between main religions.
I have come firmly to believe the only ultimate security lies in our values. The more people are free, the more tolerant they are of others; the more prosperous, the less inclined they are to squander that prosperity on pointless feuding and war.
But our greatest threat, apart from the immediate one of terrorism, is our complacency. When some ascribe, as they do, the upsurge in Islamic extremism to Iraq, do they really forget who killed whom on 11 September 2001? When they call on us to bring the troops home, do they seriously think that this would slake the thirst of these extremists, to say nothing of what it would do to the Iraqis?
Or if we scorned our American allies and told them to go and fight on their own, that somehow we would be spared? If we withdraw from Iraq, they will tell us to withdraw from Afghanistan and, after that, to withdraw from the Middle East completely and, after that, who knows? But one thing is for sure: they have faith in our weakness just as they have faith in their own religious fanaticism. And the weaker we are, the more they will come after us.
It is not easy to persuade people of all this; to say that terrorism and unstable states with WMD are just two sides of the same coin; to tell people what they don't want to hear; that, in a world in which we in the West enjoy all the pleasures, profound and trivial, of modern existence, we are in grave danger.
There is a battle we have to fight, a struggle we have to win and it is happening now in Iraq.
__________________