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Posted on 03/14/2003 5:47:33 PM PST by GLDNGUN
While most are aware by now that President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar will confer Sunday in the Azores, it seems just as many do not realize the weight of this meeting. This truly is a “war council”...
It's frightening how close they are getting to "aiding and abetting the enemy".
They've crossed that line, it seems to me...
Petit à petit,l´oiseau fait son nit.
One of the lessons I've learned about the internet: enjoy it, and while some posts (like this article) are worth a place in the bookmarks, don't rest hopes in such things. This person has the ring of authenticity, but we've all known other posters who had that, too. (No need to name names, but there have been several on FR alone.)
I've bookmarked this article and saved the entire thread. If Gldngun turns out to be spot-on, then I'll lead the applause. Meanwhile, it's a completely fascinating thread.
Gldngun--I can only say: from your keyboard to God's eyes!
I don't know about "big"--but certainly, in today's world, "best" might apply. Then again, I'm biased.
Taken from a parallel analysis from across the pond: Farewell to the Old World
"The pathway to post-Saddam Iraq becomes daily less misty. Before the fighting starts, we should examine how Iraq links to a series of other, more structurally momentous changes, in Britain, in Europe especially and within the global political order. Large as the military action looms, Iraq may not be the most important game afoot...."
"...(The U.S.) is now struggling with its reluctant assumption of the heavy cloak of formal imperial rule, which it tried on first in Afghanistan and which the consequences of the fall of Saddam will force it to wear for a longer time."
"This time there is no doubt of American understanding of the need to follow through...."
"...Due principally to French diplomacy, now shackled to Chirac's blunt promise to veto any prospective 18th Iraq resolution, we are closer than ever before to losing the UN....The choice is, indeed, transformation or irrelevance. If the US walks away from the UN, it will do so for years. Plainly Mr Annan knows that, even if the baying Labour backbenchers calling totemically for a second resolution do not...."
"...Nato is now passing into the shadows. The spat over defending Turkey was a superficial graze compared with the far deeper wound it sustained after 9/11. The failure to use Nato in Afghanistan maimed its credibility as a military alliance; and ironically the accession of the next wave of militarily weak members, by that act, destroyed what they thought they were joining. It was dead on arrival at Prague. But since nations have permanent interests, and tailor their arrangements accordingly, a functioning successor military alliance has for some time been working quietly inside the dead structure: an "intelligence special relationship" coalition (Australia-Canada-New Zealand-UK-US) with occasional help from others. The French officer's betrayal to Serbia of air tasking orders and Chirac's capriciousness at Pristina during the Kosovo campaign have not been forgotten in Washington."
"...the biggest miscalculations of the past few weeks have been about the EU. The EU constitutional convention, as now drafted, is straightforwardly federal. Not a word of what the British and other sceptics said was entertained. When Giscard d'Estaing presented the clauses, he did so with a brutal frankness: this is the future and those who do not like it are free to leave. The assumption is that this is a deadly threat - to be cast out into the cold. But is it? For decades there have been two visions of Europe, but only one to the fore."
This is more about three leaders issuing a statement at the conclusion of the summit.
My question is why include Spain, and not Bulgaria? Both are on the Security Council, and Spain isn't sending troops (although it does have ships in the Gulf).
Or, if this is an announcement of the Coalition of the Willing, why not bring Australia to the summit?
This summit is a big deal. No doubt about that. I'm looking forward to seeing the results.
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