The Republican Jewish Coalition recently detailed Michael Moore's views on Israel. We thought we would share their release with our readers. Michael Moore on Israel: Quotes from Michael Moore's book, "Dude Where's My Country?" (Warner Books, 2003) regarding the United States support for Israel:
# Moore dedicated his book "Dude, Where's My Country?" to Saint Pancake Rachel Corrie, an International Solidarity Movement nutcase volunteer who was killed March 16 when she climbed in front of a Caterpillar bulldozer that was destroying tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to illegally smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza
# "Of course many Israeli children had died too, at the hands of the Palestinians. You would think that would make every Israeli want to wipe out the Arab world, but the average Israeli does not have that response. Why? Because IN THEIR HEARTS, THEY KNOW THEY ARE WRONG, AND THEY KNOW THEY WOULD BE DOING JUST WHAT THE PALESTINIANS ARE DOING IF THE SANDAL WERE ON THE OTHER FOOT."
Actually Mike, it's because the Israelis have more humanity in their souls than you do.
# "Hey, here's a way to stop suicide bombings — give the Palestinians a bunch of missile-firing Apache helicopters and let them and the Israelis go at each other head to head. Four billion dollars a year to Israel — four billion dollars a year to the Palestinians — they can just blow each other up and leave the rest of us the hell alone."
Were either of them bothering you in the first place?
# "Now I'm not just talking about your everyday anti-Semites. No, I'm talking about a perceived notion that we Americans are supporting Israel in defending itself its oppression of the Palestinian people. Now where did those Arabs come up with an idea like that? Maybe it was when the Palestinian child looked up in the air and saw an American Apache helicopter firing a missile into his baby sister's bedroom just before she was blown into a hundred bits."
Mike couldn't find a single concrete example of this, of course.
# In 1987, Moore was honored by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for his "courageous efforts in journalism." (ADC Times, January 1990, page 4)
# In 1990, speaking before the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Moore announced that he would refuse to attend a screening of his movie "Roger and Me," which was being held in Jerusalem. He was quoted as saying that he would not attend until Israel ceased to occupy the West Bank and Gaza. (Arab American News, 1990)
Those clever Israelis, they'll never see his fat ass in their country!
# Moore attended and spoke at a June 5, 1990, demonstration protesting the continued Israeli occupation at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. (Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July, 2001)
# In October 2003, Moore was honored by the Muslim American Public Affairs Council (MPAC) with a media award. (www.mpac.org)
# In his book "Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation," Moore proposed that Congress give Israel 30 days to end the bloodshed taking place in its name, and if Israel did not do so, funding to Israel should be cut. He also noted that while individual terrorism is bad, state-sponsored terrorism is truly evil. Moore also proposed that the Palestinians be given their statehood and receive twice as much economic assistance from the United States as Israel receives.
Which the Paleos would pee away on guns, hidden bank accounts and Semtex.
# "In Liverpool, [Moore] paused to contemplate the epicenters of evil in the modern world: "It's all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton." (David Brooks in the New York Times, June 26, 2004)
# Recently Moore had no comment when questioned about the rumor that members of Hezbollah had been involved in the distribution of "Fahrenheit 9/11." (http://www.moorewatch.com)
# Moore tried to prevent "Fahrenheit 9/11" from being shown in Israel. (New Yorker Magazine, February 16, 2004)
I would have tried to prevent it as well.
# Moore stated: "Anyway, the support Bush and the Republicans feign for Israel is because Israel is near our oil. If the oil wan't there, I bet those same Republicans wouldn't [care] about Israel." (Los Angeles Times, June 22, 2004)
Michael Moore on America:
# While promoting his book "Dude, Where's My Country?" in Germany, Moore gave a speech in which he asserted that "Americans are possibly the dumbest people on the planet ... in thrall to conniving, thieving, smug pricks. We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing." (The Washington Dispatch, June 26, 2004)
He was speaking about the dhimmicratic moonbats at the time.
# "I want Bush paraded in handcuffs outside of a police house as a common criminal because I don't know if there's a greater crime than taking people to war based on a lie. I've never seen anything like Bush and his people. They truly hate our Constitution, our rights and our liberties. They have no shame in fighting for their corporate sponsors." (Quote from Moore in The Mirror, Nov. 3, 2003)
# In "Dude, Where's My Country?" Moore proposed that the Patriot Act is as un-American as "Mein Kampf." He wrote: "The Patriot Act is the first step. 'Mein Kampf'... 'Mein Kampf' was written long before Hitler came to power. And if the people of Germany had done something early on to stop these early signs, when the right-wing, when the extremists such as yourself, decide that this is the way to go, if people don't speak up against this, you end up with something like what they had in Germany. I don't want to get to that point."
# In October of 2003, Moore was quoted in the University of Michigan's student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, as saying "there is no terrorist threat in this country. This is a lie. This is the biggest lie we've been told."
I'm almost afraid to ask who he thought rammed the airplanes into the WTC.
# On his book tour to promote "Dude, Where's My Country?" Moore stopped off in Cambridge, England, where he lamented before a large audience, "You're stuck with being connected to this country of mine, which is known for bringing liberty sadness and democracy misery to places around the globe." (NewsMax.com, June 6, 2004)
# While on his recent book tour, Moore told a crowd in Berlin: "Don't be like us. You've got to stand up, right? You've got to be brave." (David Brooks in the New York Times, June 29, 2004)
The Euros have taken his advice; many of them are not like us.
# In an open letter to the German people in Die Zeit, Moore asked: "Should such an ignorant people [as the United States] lead the world? Don't go the American way when it comes to economics, jobs and services for the poor and immigrants. It is the wrong way." (David Brooks in the New York Times, June 30, 2004)
Yep, don't do it our way, we have one of the world's strongest economies, lowest unemployment rates, a safety net for the poor and open arms to immigrants.
Posted by: Korora ||
07/31/2004 12:02:25 AM ||
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Moore dedicated his book "Dude, Whereâs My Country?" to Rachel Corrie,..
Well that was pretty damn quick. I didn't even have to bother reading the rest of the post...
#4
The US supports Israel because it is near the oil??? What kind of idiotic crap is that? Oh wait, its the Democrat's own Leni Riefenstahl. Never mind.
Posted by: Ben ||
07/31/2004 9:57 Comments ||
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Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 00:34 ||
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That's good, he will make good cannon fodder for the rest of the campaign.
Posted by: Capt America ||
07/31/2004 1:04 Comments ||
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He can hire Jamie Grelick as well. Her latest gig is done. She should be totally free just as soon as she makes a little stop at the National Archives for some "research."
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 1:54 Comments ||
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#7
...As for Edwards: the man's a trial lawyer who made himself exceedingly rich guzzling money from the Average American's medical insurance contributions. Winning cases using junk science. Enriching his like costs each American family involuntary thousands of dollars each year. The man's utter scum.
Just to clarify my position: I do not object to profit or personal wealth, at all. But I do object to obtaining it through fraud, intimidation and dishonesty.
#8
Twenty years ago, the doctor I go to was charging me $15 for an office visit; now it's five times that. The difference? Medical malpractice insurance premiums of over a hundred thousand dollars a year-- and that's for a doctor who's never been sued for malpractice.
The lying bastard Democrats claim to be our champions, looking out for our "rights" against the predations of greedy doctors; yet it is the the Democrats themselves, pimping for their rich trial lawyer buddies, who have made medical care so expensive.
"Utter scum" is an understatement. People like John Edwards are predators.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/31/2004 5:19 Comments ||
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G. Carlton Meyer has some really hare-brained ideas - but I think some of this article is sound - although we don't pay rent at many of these bases - physically hauling equipment and supplies from the continental US must be costing us a mint. The question here is whether deterrence can be achieved with radically-shrunk footprints or without troops on-site at all. It's also true that our troops do get valuable experience from having these bases because they get to train on local terrain and work out logistical issues related to supplying troops there.
A chart in the 4-22-02 issue of "Aviation Week" explains why the Bush administration opposes increases in active duty manpower. The planned FY2003 defense budget of $379 billion is nearly the same $380 billion in Reagan's FY1983 budget 20 years ago. These figures are adjusted for inflation for current year dollars. However, Bush will spend only $69 billion to procure new weapons compared to Reagan's expenditure of $121 billion. This is because Bush must spend $94 billion in manpower costs for 1.4 million active duty troops, while Reagan spent $84 billion for 2.1 million active troops. So it now costs $67,000 per GI compared to $40,000 per GI in 1983. This amounts to a 67% increase, and remember all these figures have been adjusted for inflation.
The actual costs for each GI are over $100,000 each when total costs such as base housing, recreation, veterans benefits, and retirement benefits are included. This is why the big surge in military spending cannot pay for all the new weapons each service wants to buy, and adding manpower and big pay increases worsens the problem. Keep mind that the cost of new weapons has risen much faster than the inflation rate.
Most Army and Marine Corps Generals remain fixated with increasing manpower levels. What few can grasp is that every dollar spent on procurement provides equipment that can be used for 30 years, but every dollar spent on manpower disappears each payday. To solve this manpower demand, the Army needs to quickly free manpower and resources by closing several outdated and expensive overseas outposts. Closing overseas bases saves far more than domestic bases since the cost to sustain overseas bases is much higher, especially the PCS moves, and the problems of job losses and economic impact are not a concern.
Posted by: Zhang Fei ||
07/31/2004 10:12:13 AM ||
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WASHINGTON (AP) - For the first time in the nearly three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, a prisoner picked up as a potential terrorist and held nearly incommunicado at a U.S. prison in Cuba got a chance Friday to convince his jailers that he should go free. The hearing at the Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the government's most visible response since a Supreme Court ruling last month granted new legal rights to about 600 foreign-born men held at the U.S. base on Cuba's southeastern tip.
Separately Friday, the Justice Department filed its first detailed response to lawsuits from Guantanamo detainees. The detainees have no constitutional rights, including the right to see a lawyer, the government said in federal court filings. The Supreme Court's ruling gave the Guantanamo prisoners a means to challenge their captivity in federal court, and the government will allow outside lawyers to help them, but that does not mean that wider constitutional protections apply, government lawyers wrote. "As aliens detained by the military outside the sovereign territory of the United States and lacking a sufficient connection to this country, petitioners have no cognizable constitutional rights," the lawyers said in court papers.
At the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Gordon England said the hearing into whether the Navy is properly holding an unidentified prisoner as an enemy combatant is the first of some 600 to be held over the coming one to four months. The administrative hearing was closed to the press and the public. Pentagon spokeswoman Cmdr. Beci Brenton said there was no immediate decision on the prisoner's fate.
Human rights lawyers said the military process is a sham, part of government foot-dragging since the Supreme Court largely rejected the Bush administration's legal arguments in three cases about the detention of potential terrorists. "The government is making every effort they can to comply as minimally as possible with the Supreme Court's opinion and the Constitution and to delay as long as possible the moving forward of these cases," said Jeffrey Fogel, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents several detainees.
His dedication to constitutional rights prolly doesn't extend to the victims of terrorists.
In the Guantanamo case, the high court allowed the prisoners to petition an American judge for their freedom, even though they are being held on Cuban soil. The court was not specific about how or where the prisoners could sue, but lawyers representing about 50 prisoners have taken their cases to federal court in Washington. Those cases are separate from the military's hearings. The Pentagon set up the hearings after the high court's ruling and has characterized them as a first step toward preparing the government's legal defense for eventual lawsuits in civilian courts.
Defense lawyers said the process is an end-run around the Supreme Court. "The Supreme Court made clear that the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to go before a federal judge with a lawyer to challenge their detention," said Deborah Pearlstein, director of law and national security at Human Rights First. "These hearings do not provide a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention, and may even jeopardize any later legal challenges."
Um no, the SC said they had to have a hearing, and that's what they're getting.
A panel of military officers will decide whether each prisoner is indeed an enemy combatant, as the military contends. The prisoner will have no lawyer with him - only a personal representative supplied by the military. "If they're not an enemy, if determination is made they're not an enemy combatant, we'll work with (the State Department) to return them to their home country," England said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/31/2004 12:50:21 AM ||
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It would be fun to have the Marine DI performing the "hearing." After every statement he could yell, "I can't HEAR YOU." - Sgt Carter.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 1:51 Comments ||
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From The Washington Post, an opinion artice by Daniel Wolf, a Washington DC lawyer who has just returned from a fact-finding mission in Sudan with Refugees International.
On the morning of July 12, hell descended on the village of Donki Dereisa. Shortly before sunrise, Fatima Ibrahim, 28, awoke to the deafening sound of exploding ordnance falling from the sky. As she emerged from her mud hut with her 10-year-old daughter, she saw fires blazing all around and scores of heavily armed men on horseback attacking from every direction. With bullets whistling past, Ibrahim and her daughter ran for their lives, ducking into a nearby ravine, where they hid without food or water for the next two days. From the ditch, Ibrahim witnessed a horrific avalanche of violence that will haunt her for life. With Sudanese foot soldiers at their side, the mounted attackers shot the panicked and unarmed villagers in cold blood. Approximately 150 people, including 10 women, were killed. But the worst was to come.
Ibrahim told Refugees International about a week after the attack that among those captured during the assault were four of her brothers and six young children, including three of her cousins. As Ibrahim watched in horror, several of the attackers began grabbing the screaming children and throwing them one by one into a raging fire. One of the male villagers ran from his hiding place to plead for their lives. It was a fatal error. The raiders subdued the man and later beheaded him and dismembered his body. All six of the children were burned. Ibrahim's four brothers have not been heard from since. ...
But recent events suggest that in making these commitments [to the UN], Khartoum's objective was to stall for time in the hope it might deceive the international community into believing the crisis had been brought under control. This cynical approach is graphically illustrated by the recent arrest and prosecution of a group of alleged Janjaweed militiamen on charges of robbery and murder in southern Darfur's provincial capital of Nyala. According to reliable sources inside the government, the "Janjaweed" were in fact common criminals plucked from a Nyala jail, who were informed that they would be sentenced to death unless they agreed to pose as Janjaweed and confess to the crimes. The true killers remain at large.
Nor is there any indication that Khartoum intends to disarm or otherwise rein in the Janjaweed. To the contrary, the government and the Janjaweed have continued jointly and relentlessly to pursue their terrorist campaign in the few remaining regions of Darfur under government control where African villagers have not yet been driven from their homes.
Ironically, at the same time that it has been sponsoring these assaults, the Sudanese government has been aggressively attempting to persuade the displaced people of Darfur to return home. But returnees have been killed, beaten, raped and threatened by roaming bands of Janjaweed. It is hardly surprising that most of the displaced have heeded the Janjaweed's warning and spurned the government's invitation to return home. The government, however, appears to be committed to its policy of repatriation, and there is a danger that in the face of continued resistance by the displaced it will begin to forcibly return people en masse and declare an end to the crisis. If that happens, they will all be vulnerable to the same kinds of deadly violence that caused them to flee in the first place. ...
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
07/31/2004 9:14:03 AM ||
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Sudan has rejected a new UN resolution, which says Khartoum must halt atrocities by Arab militias in the western Darfur region within 30 days. Information Minister Al-Zahawi Ibrahim Malik said the document was incorrect. But Sudan's UN ambassador Elfatih Erwa said the government would nonetheless comply with the US-drafted resolution. The UN Security Council adopted the document after the US dropped the word "sanctions" and added economic and diplomatic "measures". The vote was passed with two abstentions - from China and Pakistan. Diplomats say it is not up to Sudan to accept or reject the resolution, the BBC's Susannah Price at the UN in New York reports.
Friday's resolution "does not conform with the agreements between the government and the United Nations," Mr Malik said in a statement quoted by the Associated Press. "It pains Sudan to have to express its rejection of the Security Council resolution," Mr Malik said. He said the government was capable of "disarming all the looting and robbing gangs". Mr Malik also said the resolution focused on Arab militias more than humanitarian issues in Darfur. US Ambassador John Danforth told the Council after the vote: "The government of Sudan has left us no choice. It has done the unthinkable, it has fostered an armed attack on its own civilian population, it has created a humanitarian disaster. "The responsibility for this disaster lies squarely on the government of Sudan," he said.
The newly passed resolution calls on Sudan to make good on promises it made on 3 July to rein in the fighters. It calls for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to issue a report in 30 days on the progress made in each of those areas. The US removed any specific reference to sanctions in the resolution after objections from seven members - including China, Russia and Pakistan - who believe Khartoum needs more time to act. Aid agencies believe the resolution has been fatally weakened by the changes. "The Security Council have today proved unanimous in their inaction," the representative of one major aid agency working in Darfur, which wanted to remain anonymous, told BBC News Online. "The only thing the UN Security Council has delivered is... another 30 days in which civilians will continue to live in fear of being killed or raped. The government of Sudan will be celebrating yet another failure to call them to account."
Posted by: Bulldog ||
07/31/2004 2:48:21 AM ||
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Okay, now that Sudan has expressed its disapproval, what are the consequences going to be? Hmm?
The US removed any specific reference to sanctions in the resolution after objections from seven members - including China, Russia and Pakistan - who believe Khartoum needs more time to act.
#2
So Putin wants to give the Jinglebells more machete time. I guess that's a fitting way to repeat history:
The Red Army stood idle across the Wisla river, at one point several hundred yards from heavy fighting, and did not allow Western allies to use its airfields for airlifts -- limiting help to often inaccurate airdrops of arms.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 3:27 Comments ||
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BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - NATO countries agreed Friday to begin training Iraqi security forces after sidestepping a dispute between the United States and France over command of the alliance operation.
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said a 40-member advance team would leave for Iraq "as soon as possible" to begin the training and would report back in September about proposed relations with the U.S.-led multinational force. "It's a distinct NATO mission," de Hoop Scheffer told reporters. "The multinational force except France will give protection" and "there should be a relationship between the training mission and multinational force except France in Iraq." ... "All allies except France are determined to see a democratic Iraq succeed. They except France are united in their commitment to help Iraq provide its own peace and its own security," de Hoop Scheffer said.
The decision means the alliance except France can assume a role in Iraq - something eagerly sought by the U.S. administration - even though the differences between Paris and Washington remain unresolved. "NATO was quite disunited before and at the beginning stages of the Iraq war," U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Burns told reporters. "Today's decision for us represents the unification of NATO except France ... the NATO flag is definitely going to be in Baghdad."
In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the decision "is further evidence of allied support for the independence and sovereignty of Iraq and for freedom, democracy and stability for the Iraqi people."
De Hoop Scheffer said the mission's first task would be to set up a working headquarters to train Iraqi officers how to run and coordinate their own command and control system. The initial, 40-member mission is to be followed by a larger force. "It will certainly grow into the hundreds very rapidly in the early autumn," said Burns.
Agreement on the mission had been delayed by French objections. France, which strongly opposed the Iraq war, had abandoned its objections to a NATO presence inside the country but opposed putting the training mission under the command of U.S. Gen. George Casey, the senior U.S. officer in Iraq.
The United States had insisted that the commander of the NATO mission be linked to the U.S.-led coalition. Paris suggested postponing a decision on command until September to let the first phase of the mission begin by Aug. 6. Officials said NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, U.S. Marine Gen. James Jones, would come up with a recommendation to NATO ambassadors by Sept. 15 on a command system for the allied mission.
If we're lucky the French politicans will succumb to the upcoming August heat wave.
Washington argued that putting the mission under the U.S. command in Iraq is the best way to protect it and ensure its effectiveness. France feared the move would open the door to NATO involvement in battling the insurgency.
A Brit general would be okay -- oh, that's not what they meant either.
The U.S. proposal had the backing of a majority of the 26 NATO nations, but unanimity is needed for a decision. NATO leaders agreed to the mission at their summit a month ago but left details vague. NATO officials also put off until later another dispute, over whether the mission should be commonly funded by all allies, like the NATO peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, or only by those sending troops.
So far NATO's role in Iraq has been limited to providing logistical backup to a Polish-led division working with the American troops. Although 16 NATO members already have some troops there, they are not under the NATO flag.
They will be soon. 16 NATO nations, you say?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/31/2004 1:03:05 AM ||
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I am continually confused by France's participation in NATO decisions regarding military forces. Didn't they withdraw from the military portion of NATO? In Wikipedia I see:
...in February 1966 France withdrew from the common NATO military command. De Gaulle, haunted by the memories of 1940, wanted to retain at all cost France military independence.
What dummy let them back in the military portion?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 1:45 Comments ||
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With the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty, the United Statesâ military alliance with Europe became a reality, but according to Gaddis, even at this point the U.S. had no intention of stationing troops in Europe â its intention was to provide a security guarantee. That changed when North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950.
Opinions conflict as to whether the North Korean attack was instigated by the Soviets. The belief at the time was that the action in Korea was to serve as a distraction while the Soviet Union made its move into Western Europe.
Such a move never happened, but the United States acted quickly to demonstrate that it would tolerate no such Russian incursions. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the leader of the western Allied forces in World War II, was named Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) by the North Atlantic Council (NATO's governing body) in December 1950. He was followed by a succession of U.S. generals as supreme Allied commanders.
Which brings us, oddly enough, to France.
French President Charles de Gaulle was less than impressed with this tradition of U.S. generals as supreme allied commanders.
From about 1958 he began to complain about American hegemony in the organization, and in 1966, France officially withdrew from participation in the âintegratedâ military command structure of NATO, but claimed it would adhere to the terms of the North Atlantic Treaty in case of "unprovoked aggression."
De Gaulle demanded that NATO forces withdraw from France and that the allianceâs headquarters be moved from Paris, which is why today NATO is run from Brussels, Belgium.
Posted by: rex ||
07/31/2004 2:27 Comments ||
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To his credit, LBJ, who was President at the time, angrily asked DeGaulle if he'd like us to remove our war dead from France, too.
I believe France rejoined NATO militarily (sort of) in the 1990's--anyone know?
Thanks for the background history, rex!
GJ,I left the military in the mid 90's and France was decidedly not in the military portion of NATO. As I vaguely remember, during the run-up to the Iraq War there was and issue that France was trying to push towards resolution in the UNSC vice NATO because they didn't have a voice in NATO militarily.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 3:18 Comments ||
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SH, you just missed France's change of heart, sort of.. In December 1995, France announced that it would increase its participation in NATO's military wing, including the Military Committee (the French withdrew from NATO's military bodies in 1966 while remaining full participants in the alliance's political councils) See "International Stance" at this Military of France link.
#6
GK, so Clinton destroyed NATO as well. We got to get out of these organizations with France. It's like they are stalking us. Can we get some kind of restraining order?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 3:43 Comments ||
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#7
Could it maybe be that the NATO guys heard Skerry's acceptance speech Thursday night, and concluded by Friday morning that they were going to have to live with Bush for the next four years?
Love it, Super Hose! They are stalking us! Or they're serving as a Trojan Horse for another Islamist enemy.
Whatever the case, this time they didn't miss a good opportunity to shut up!
(Wonder if ChIraq's on his way out?)
#9
"Could it maybe be that the NATO guys heard Skerry's acceptance speech Thursday night, and concluded by Friday morning that they were going to have to live with Bush for the next four years?"
Well, that's what's happened on the betting at Intrade: shares on Bush's re-election jumped two points after Kerry's speech, after trending slowly downward for several months.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/31/2004 5:24 Comments ||
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#10
Now at 52.0/52.8, up 3 from before the convention. Kerry only does well when he's not in the news. Looks like the next good week for him will be the Trunk convention. After that, the pits. Time to put a fork in this guy. He may not be done, but there's not much time left for basting.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
07/31/2004 7:35 Comments ||
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EFLMuslims seem to want the US out so that the status quo can rule the day.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Muslim countries being sounded out by Saudi Arabia about sending troops to Iraq want a sizable reduction in U.S. and other coalition troops as part of any agreement. As troops drawn from Muslim countries, most or all from outside the Middle East, took up positions in Iraq, there would be a parallel exodus of coalition soldiers, a senior Saudi official said Friday.
The Muslim force would serve in the name of the United Nations and would supplement U.S. and other coalition troops by protecting U.N. officials and helping Iraqi security personnel patrol Iraq's borders to slow the infiltration of foreign fighters. For months, the Bush administration has been unable to persuade any Muslim countries to commit troops to Iraq. The main obstacle was the perception that Arab or other Muslim governments would be contributing to a U.S. occupation of Arab Iraq.
The Saudis, who privately dismiss any allegation that the United States wants a long-term presence as an occupying force in Iraq, are trying to counter that argument. A corresponding reduction in U.S. and other coalition forces as Muslim troops arrived would help the Saudis make their case.
A partial American withdrawal also could have domestic political dividends in this U.S. presidential election year, where sentiment against American peacekeeping operations is strong.
-snip-
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in welcoming the Saudis' efforts, said Thursday in Jeddah that many questions need to be answered about the idea, including an offsetting reduction in U.S. and other coalition forces. Referring to the complex proposal, Powell said, "We'll be examining it very, very closely."
-snip-
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 12:55:48 AM ||
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I'm not sure this is a good idea. Can any government officials from countries contributing troops to this "Muslim force" give guarantees that there are going to be NO Islamists among members of their respective troop detachments, and that their prejudices will not get in the way of fulfilling their duties?
Absent an unqualified yes to both, then the idea is probably best deposited in the trash bin.
#3
Muslim nations are not in the habit of helping others in trouble. The presence of US troops is just an excuse for Muslim's lack of guts and commitment.
#4
I seriously doubt we have any intention of leaving, since we now have an advantage we've never enjoyed before: a land base for our armed forces in the heart of the Middle East. And I don't see us giving that up before we achieve some results in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
07/31/2004 3:36 Comments ||
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#5
What is the big deal. We just want someone to provide security for the UN. The force will probably neve have to leave Malta.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/31/2004 3:45 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
