On Tuesday, February 25, 2003, at 12:42 PM, Wirt Atmar wrote:

> The following opinion piece is from today's NY Times. It was written
> by Jose
> Ramos-Horta, the 1996 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and current
> foreign
> minister of East TImor:

<< snip>>

> I agree that the Bush administration must give more time to the weapons
> inspectors to fulfill their mandate. The United States is an
> unchallenged
> world power and will survive its enemies. It can afford to be a little
> more
> patient. Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, has
> proved
> himself to be a strong mediator and no friend of dictators. He and a
> group of
> world leaders should use this time to persuade Saddam Hussein to
> resign and
> go into exile. In turn, Saddam Hussein could be credited with
> preventing
> another war and sparing his people. But even this approach will not
> work
> without the continued threat of force.

Agreed. It is too bad that many people perceive ALL anti-war folks as
Peaceniks.

Probably, some/many of them are, for whatever reason.

But many of them are not. Many simply want to deal with Saddam in a way
which will accomplish the mission with a minimum of bloodshed.  My
opposition to the Bush approach is  based on his precipitous attitude
embodied in his "If you're not with us, you're against us" speech. It
makes his strategy sound like it starts with an all-out war rather than
ending with one.

<<snip>>

Thanks Wirt, for the great article.

FW

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