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Brilliant! And of course we must bomb Basra in order to protect it's citizens from a humanitarian disaster that we have caused by bombing Basra in the first place. rgds Dermot At 08:42 24/03/03, CJRCLEVELAND@aol.com wrote: ><A >HREF="http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2003/mar/030313.freundlich.h >tml"> >http://www.npr.org/programs/atc/transcripts/2003/mar/030313.freundlich.html ></A> > >PETER FREUNDLICH: > >All right, let me see if I understand the logic of this correctly. We are >going to ignore the United Nations in order to make clear to Saddam Hussein >that the United Nations cannot be ignored. We're going to wage war to >preserve the UN's ability to avert war. The paramount principle is that the >UN's word must be taken seriously, and if we have to subvert its word to >guarantee that it is, then by gum, we will. Peace is too important not to >take up arms to defend. Am I getting this right? > >Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the >democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, >because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a >little thing like democracy as they define it. > >Also, in dealing with a man who brooks no dissension at home, we cannot >afford dissension among ourselves. We must speak with one voice against >Saddam Hussein's failure to allow opposing voices to be heard. We are sending >our gathered might to the Persian Gulf to make the point that might does not >make right, as Saddam Hussein seems to think it does. And we are twisting the >arms of the opposition until it agrees to let us oust a regime that twists >the arms of the opposition. We cannot leave in power a dictator who ignores >his own people. And if our people, and people elsewhere in the world, fail to >understand that, then we have no choice but to ignore them. > >Listen. Don't misunderstand. I think it is a good thing that the members of >the Bush administration seem to have been reading Lewis Carroll. I only wish >someone had pointed out that "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking >Glass" are meditations on paradox and puzzle and illogic and on the >strangeness of things, not templates for foreign policy. It is amusing for >the Mad Hatter to say something like, `We must make war on him because he is >a threat to peace,' but not amusing for someone who actually commands an army >to say that. > >As a collector of laughable arguments, I'd be enjoying all this were it not >for the fact that I know--we all know--that lives are going to be lost in >what amounts to a freak, circular reasoning accident. > >_______________________________________________ >Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. >To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss >To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk >All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk