Terry wrote :

> >>Christian says: France and Germany are dead set against going to war
> >>without giving peace a chance.
>
>
> The central question then seems to be, "how long is long
> enough to try for a
> peaceful solution?"
>
> 12 years seems to be well past reasonable.

I certainly do not have a problem with a 12-year period. My concern is what
has changed these last few weeks/months in Saddam's behavior to mandate a
war against him.

Did he order these airliners into the WTC and the Pentagon ? No. OBL did.

Did he show signs he was once again going to invade his neighbor ? To the
best of my knowledge, no.

Did he declare war against the USA or another NATO or close ally ? To the
best of my knowledge, no.

Did he cheat, lie, deceive ? Most likely, yes. When ? That started a long
time ago. So why take action NOW and not THEN ? And then, do we go to war
with everyone who cheats, lies and deceives ? Well ..... (insert your
favorite embarassment here) then we need to go to war with North Korea (they
have a WMD program that they are not even trying to hide - in that respect,
they lie less than Saddam), and perhaps a few others.

So why the double standard ? On the one hand, the US does everything it can
to corner Saddam into obedience, on the other hand it lets Kim get a free
lunch at the West's expense. This is, at best, inconsistent, and it exactly
where I have a problem with the US perceived strategy. Why act against a
dictator and not against another one ? Because of a possible threat to th
USA ? Yes, I take the point and I perfectly agree it makes sense. But who
believes Saddam is a clearer and more present danger to the USA than Kim ?
After all, who's got the nukes AND the delivery vehicle AND the knowledge to
operate the whole system ?

It's with double standards like these that the USA is perceived in the
Muslim world and elsewhere as seriously biased against Islam. It does not
stand a detailed analysis, because (to the best of my uderstanding), the US
has rescued Muslim populations more than once. Kuwait, Bosnia and Kosovo
come to my mind. But the perception is there.

Of course, these Arab governments are no angels. As someone else pointed
out, they are quite skilled at deflecting their populations' attention to
their own outside world, for fear that a serious attempt at reform would
quite undermine their own nepotist regimes. That ends up using the
Palestinians as scapegoats, etc. But do we have to alienate the whole Muslim
world because some governments are less than democratic and less than
accountable ? We may hit the wrong target.

Islam has become the second religion in France. That is why we take great,
great caution. A wave of Muslim fundamentalism in France would probably have
effects that we don't want to see. Terrorism is an obvious one, on a scale
we most likely have not experienced.

Peace,

Christian





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