From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Mon Feb 17 2003 - 11:29:37 MST
This is a genuine head-shaker. As the Guardian piece indicates, elements of
the US government are far from monolithic. I hope the needle gets threaded
somehow, with strong men no stronger than necessary. But I never had a lot
of hope about there being a pony under all that manure _somewhere_...
The historic track record of support of "'our' [sic] bastard[s]" is too great
for me to do any reflexive denial. [Grimace]
Damien Broderick wrote:
> Mike Butler quoted an interesting piece by Nick Cohen from the Guardian
> supporting an Iraq invasion, which includes this pointer:
>
> < Makiya, Salih and their comrades are fighting the political
> battle of their lives against those 'Anglo-American audiences' in the
> powerhouses of London and Washington who oppose a democratic settlement.
> (See Makiya's article on page 20.) >
>
> That piece in turn is well worth reading, and extremely disturbing:
>
> http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,896611,00.html
>
> Our hopes betrayed
>
> How a US blueprint for post-Saddam government quashed the hopes of
> democratic Iraqis.
>
> Kanan Makiya
> Sunday February 16, 2003
> The Observer
>
> The United States is on the verge of committing itself to a post-Saddam plan
> for a military government in Baghdad with Americans appointed to head Iraqi
> ministries, and American soldiers to patrol the streets of Iraqi cities.
>
> The plan, as dictated to the Iraqi opposition in Ankara last week by a
> United States-led delegation, further envisages the appointment by the US of
> an unknown number of Iraqi quislings palatable to the Arab countries of the
> Gulf and Saudi Arabia as a council of advisers to this military government.
>
> The plan reverses a decade-long moral and financial commitment by the US to
> the Iraqi opposition, and is guaranteed to turn that opposition from the
> close ally it has always been during the 1990s into an opponent of the
> United States on the streets of Baghdad the day after liberation. [etc]
>
>
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