Posted on 10/03/2002 12:54:58 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Edited on 04/29/2004 2:01:21 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Despite some Democratic divisions, the Senate moved closer Wednesday to sanctioning war with Iraq with the introduction of a bipartisan resolution that gives President Bush the authority to commit U.S. troops. Continues.
The agreement reached between President Bush and House leaders on a resolution authorizing the use of force to topple Saddam Hussein ratchets the pressure on Tom Daschle, top Senate Democrat and leading liberal hardliner.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
hehehe, given the 'bad blood' between the Torch and 'Laughtenberg', wouldn't surprise me in the least if the Torch works to undermine his nemesis behind the scene.
Hey John - you forgot one: Communists. Or just plain 'the enemy within'. When the left has Hitchens resigning from The Nation, you know that they've gone too far.
I'd like to see Nickles and DeLay as the top Republicans, though.
Castro's lesson for Saddam*** The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved peacefully, after an American show of force involving a naval blockade and the assembly of an invasion fleet. A pre-emptive U.S. strike was at the ready. The key difference between 1962 and 2002 is that the U.S. was then dealing with another major power, not the local despot. The WMDs were in Soviet hands, and the Kremlin had larger concerns to consider when facing an aroused United States.
Mr. Castro showed himself to be emotionally unstable and reckless during the crisis, even calling on Khrushchev to launch a nuclear first strike on the United States rather than back down. Mr. Castro also opposed any arms inspections and wanted Moscow to keep a secret arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons in Cuba for use against an invasion. (At the height of the crisis, the Kremlin drafted an authorization for the Soviet commander in Cuba to use tactical nukes against U.S. forces).
In the wake of the crisis, Mr. Castro felt secure enough to launch a campaign of subversion throughout Latin America. He played a major role in the wars in Central America and sent Cuban troops to fight in support of Marxist regimes in Africa. Cuba remains a center for international terrorism and last December hosted a meeting of Latin American and Middle Eastern groups including the Columbian FARC and representatives from Iraq. Mr. Castro provided critical support (including personnel) to help Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez survive a coup attempt. And he is courting the Chinese. The cost of abandoning regime change in Cuba has been very high.
Saddam is in charge of his own WMD arsenal and Iraq's nuclear weapons program. He does not need subsidies from a patron, as he has plentiful oil reserves to finance his regime. He may already believe the chemical and bioweapons he possessed in 1991 deterred a U.S. march on Baghdad. Should he acquire nuclear weapons, his confidence as a survivor and leader of radical movements in the Middle East will skyrocket. A sizable proportion of the Iraqi people, as well as other Arabs, will hail Saddam as a leader who has what it takes to make the "imperialists" and their "puppets" back down.
Regime change in Iraq is a strategic necessity. It cannot be postponed, because time is not on America's side. Saddam must be removed before he has even a single nuclear bomb, and before he has the means to deliver his other WMDs on a large scale to distant targets. An invasion to liberate Iraq will be costly in money and effort, and possibly in lives. But the long-term costs of allowing Saddam to strengthen his position will be much higher on all counts. ***
At least post the whole damn piece before (repeatedly) pushing your comments on us. I agree with you most of the time, by the way, in substance -- though not when you're being condescending or a Bush-bot.
Those who prefer that posters not evade the local discussion mores. MadIvan, who inserts his tedious one-line commentaries in nearly all his news postings, is another one. The endless "barf alert" tags are accepted local mores (so much the worse for FreeRepublic), but they're "merely" entirely discourteous to readers.
FreeRepublic is under court order not to publish whole articles from certain news sources.
Not CNN, as I had understood. (Has this changed?) In any event, TWO LINES is not a decent excerpt. It's a mere token preface to personal (and endlessly repeated) commentary that doesn't belong "above the line" -- literally -- separating news from commentary. Some come here only for the former, and that choice deserves respect.
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