Nothing to see hear, move on.
Posted on 09/18/2001 5:29:07 PM PDT by Rome2000
BY WARREN P. STROBEL
Herald Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- As he weighs retaliation for last week's terrorist attacks, President Bush is receiving conflicting advice from his top aides, some of whom want to go beyond a military strike on terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden's bases in Afghanistan and topple states that have long threatened the United States, particularly Iraq.
The split between civilian officials at the Pentagon and Secretary of State Colin Powell, confirmed Monday by current and former U.S. officials, goes to the heart of Bush's proposed new war on international terrorism.
Powell, seeking to build and hold an international coalition against terrorism that includes many Muslim nations, is urging caution, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman wants to limit military strikes to bin Laden's Afghan redoubts and to use other means -- diplomacy, law enforcement and financial pressure -- to shut down terrorist networks elsewhere.
That view is not shared by the Pentagon's civilian leadership. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and others have argued strenuously in inter-agency meetings for a far more sweeping U.S. response, including a strategic bombing campaign and aid for Iraqi opposition groups to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the officials said.
The retaliatory campaign should include ``ending states who sponsor terrorism,'' Wolfowitz said at a news conference last week.
Wolfowitz's rhetoric -- which has not been repeated by other members of Bush's foreign policy team -- appeared to be a reference to Iraq.
The deputy defense secretary and other aides to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have been calling for an aggressive U.S. effort to oust Hussein since before they took office.
There is no evidence that Iraq helped plan or execute last Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to U.S. intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. But proponents of ousting Hussein cite his longtime support of terrorist movements and the hotly debated theory that Iraq played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
``This is just an added reason for making life as difficult as we can for Saddam,'' said Richard Perle, an advisor to the Pentagon and leading proponent of increased aid to the opposition Iraqi National Congress.
``If all we do is go after bin Laden, it'll make a mockery of all the president had to say about waging a war on terrorism,'' Perle said.
But a response that goes beyond bin Laden and Afghanistan's Taliban leaders, who host the terrorist mastermind, poses potentially grave problems for Bush and his diplomacy.
During the Persian Gulf War, Bush's father held together a fractious international coalition that included many Arab states by sticking to the narrow goal of ousting Hussein's troops from Kuwait rather than occupying Iraq and removing its leader.
Bush and Powell have rallied many world leaders to their side over the last week. But there is virtually no support in this new international coalition, particularly among its Muslim members, for attacks on Iraq or other Middle Eastern nations that give succor to terrorists.
``We're trying to build a coalition and people are lining up to join us, and they [Pentagon officials] want to blow it all to hell by bombing Iraq tomorrow,'' said a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The Pentagon proposals are ``exactly the kind of thing that would just alienate a lot of people,'' said Kenneth Pollack, a Persian Gulf specialist at the White House National Security Council until earlier this year.
Also in the back of officials' minds is then-President Bill Clinton's response to the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, also traced to bin Laden's network.
Many people worldwide did not begrudge the United States the right to retaliate for the bombings.
But Washington was widely seen to lose the moral high ground when, in addition to sending cruise missiles to terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, it targeted a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan whose links to bin Laden remain in dispute to this day.
If Bush's retaliation goes beyond bin Laden, ``there's a real possibility that we're going to start losing support left and right,'' said Pollack, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Nothing to see hear, move on.
This guy isn't a former official, he is a current official.
Bush will either do the right thing, or he won't.
Time will tell.
Powell takes his marching orders from the U.N. in cases like this. He doesn't realize that the General Assembly is anti-American. Nor does he realize that this is our war, not that of "the international community."
CFR? I think that says it all.
Here is the deal, and I am going to explain this one time, and one time only. THE PRESS MAKES STUFF UP!!! NO BUSH OFFICIAL WOULD SAY THIS TO THE PRESS, especially in the middle of a WAR! A senior administration official could be some leftover fourth-level clerk in the state department who is PO'd that Maddy Albright isn't there anymore.
You are way too easy to spin. That is what the media is counting on, and the Clintonistas use it. Didn't you notice that Clinton was on NBC tonight? Didn't you notice that suddenly we get all these stories about division in the Bush Administration? Get a clue!
President Bush is not going to cave. The very idea is ridiculous. Now quit whining, and get with the program, for we are going to war.
Powell. The same guy that suggested that Bush 41 not go after Hussein. He's now saying the same thing again????
I pray Bush does the right thing. I believe he will.
But I wouldn't say it was a sure thing.
Thought so.
"To: HAL9000
For almost all of the last 3,000 years or more most people of Arabic descent have been under the subjugation of some other nation and race. They are very angry and very bitter. But like every subjugated people in history, they are plagued with members of their own group who will sell them out for a small sum of money or a small amount of power. Subjugated peoples often establish cultural rules that offer heavenly rewards for the sacrifice of their life. It is usually only desperate causes that encouage their people to die in order to kill some of their perceived enemy. Causes do not encourage their followers to die for a cause, if the cause could succeed with out it.
But for every person willing to die for the cause there are usually a hundred would would sell out the cause for money or position. It is hard to keep members of a cause, if the cause nearly always loses. That is why the history of arab defeats is so important.
These are not exclusive Arab characteristics. It is the way many races have reacted over the years to centuries of defeat.
The usual attemp to stop it is bluster and threats. But that almost never works.
In a land where per capita income is less than 900 dollars a year, the price of anyone's death is cheap by our standards.
The prime reason Bush did not have congress delcare war, was that if we did, we would be bound by the rules of war as defined in the Geneva Convention on warfare. Killing the leader of the nation you are at war with is prohibited. Attacks to take out an individual person are a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Paying one Arab to kill another is not allowed. It is a War Crime if war is Declared. Paying a third Arab to then kill the second is really frowned on. It is a war crime punishable by death. There is no way we would want to declare war. But Osama bin Laden was certainly hoping we woud. His supporters on this site have been posting demads for a declaration of war. As someone said, "Dubya wasn't born no yesterday."
I watched some of the Rumsfeld news conference today. He said the best defense against terrorists is a good offense. He said we would use all the weapons in our arsenal to achieve our goal. I ask you to make a list of ALL WEAPONS in our arsenal. That just might give you a clue.
The Muslim extremeists were certain that we would fight them using the rules of the Geneva Convention on warfare. It ain't gonna happen.
Bush as an experiened Texan is undoubtedly in favor of using the Mexican Knife Fight rules instead. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the published rules for a Mexican knife fight, there is just one rule It is "There ain't no rules."
We will not move quickly. Bush must wait until many in the media are screaming for him to attack. If he can get that going, then when he does attack the cries of too much force and collateral damage will fall on deaf ears.
Bush ist taking on the Islamic American haters, and the Us Media. Both are going to lose.
25 Posted on 09/18/2001 12:18:36 PDT by Common Tator
Ask you a question, do you believe that most in the Muslim world abhor what happened?
Because that's not only coming from the press and the Arabs, it's coming from the Administration.
40 hate crime investigations launched today my friend.
If we fail to maintain that policy, then we have just given the rest of the world permission to attack us at any time. We were just talking big, but when actually attacked, the US ended up being just a bunch of wimps.
Anyone know where to find plans from the 1950's on how to build a fallout shelter? I have a feeling that building one may be usefull in the near future.
LOL!
The Taliban declared holy war on us today.
Do you think they are going to abide by the Geneva Convention?.
God save us from ourselves.
As as been repeatedly pointed on to you on this thread.....WHERE IS YOUR PROOF OF THAT STATEMENT?
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