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Sat. Jul 13, 2002

QuoteLog, 7/13

QuoteLog, 7/13 – "In the wake of bin Laden’s declaration of war, people all over the world suddenly faced difficult, harrowing choices: People trapped in upper floors of the World Trade Center had to choose between jumping and burning to death; George W. Bush had to choose between an immediate, massive military response and a delayed, measured response; the Taliban had to choose between handing over bin Laden and enduring the wrath of the United States war machine; the president of Pakistan had to choose between cooperating with Bush’s war on terrorism (and risking a coup) and cooperating with Pakistan’s Islamo-fascists (and risking the wrath of the U.S. war machine). And while people all over the world were facing up to these difficult choices, the smug, dishonest lefties at Seattle Weekly-and the smug, dishonest lefties they were pandering tosought to avoid making their own difficult choice, which was essentially this: Pacifism or patriotism? Because after September 11, you could have one or the other-but you couldn’t have both [...] This is what we’re up against these days, and it depresses this Gore voter past the point of despair to write this… but… uh… the recently unveiled Bush Doctrine (rough translation: If we think you’re coming after us next Tuesday, we’ll be bombing your ass flat this Tuesday) is a necessary evil. Ask yourself this question and answer it honestly: If it was within your power in August of last year to order a pre-emptive strike that would’ve prevented the attacks of September 11, would you have done it? Of course you would. That’s the Bush Doctrine. And the Bush Doctrine’s first smackdown is going to be Saddam Hussein, who has to be removed from power before he kills thousands (or tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands) of American citizens in a major American city."

Dan Savage

"Private conversation with those in a position to know seems to make it certain that the United States will attack Iraq within the next six months, with the purpose of toppling Saddam Hussein from power for good. The Bush administration will not be deterred by European protests or by the fear of alienating regional governments in the Middle East or South Asia. It has decided that Saddam threatens America’s vital interests by his known and unrelenting efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and by his undoubted, though unproven, sponsorship of terrorism. The American judgment is that the longer Saddam is left in power, the more dangerous he will become [...] To any Iraqi with a knowledge of the history of the American civil war, the prospect of a war between Iraq and the United States must resemble that of the defiance of Arkansas or Alabama to federal authority. Iraq is bound to lose, quickly, completely and perhaps painfully. The Telegraph correctly predicted the outcome of the last war. The mistake it made – I was a party to it – was to expect that a defeat so complete as transpired would not end in Saddam’s overthrow by coup. It may have been President Bush Senior’s mistake also. His son is unlikely to make that mistake again. If the Iraqis will not dispatch their leader, the invading forces will do the work for them. Saddam, his awful family and his venal supporters are living on borrowed time. They have less than a year to enjoy their depredation of their homeland."

John Keegan, The Telegraph

"If President Bush ordered airstrikes on Iraq, this vast, remote and little-publicized base in the central Persian Gulf would be a critical hub for U.S. warplanes and their aerial pipeline of bombs and supplies. The government of Qatar is spending millions of dollars to expand al-Udeid. Over the past months, the U.S. military quietly has moved munitions, equipment and communications gear to the base from Saudi Arabia, the control center for American air operations in the Gulf for more than a decade [...] Al-Udeid’s main, 15,000-foot runway is the longest in the region and can handle the largest Air Force transport planes. Newly built hangars for fighter aircraft are hardened to withstand aerial attack. Within view from the main runway are dozens of hardened bunkers, presumably for storage of munitions and supplies. ’It is likely the most capable base in the Gulf region,’ said William Arkin, a private military analyst [...] They say the Qatari government strictly limits what can be said about the American presence [...] There are two other important U.S. military posts in Qatar. One is at Camp As-Sayliyah, on the outskirts of Doha, where tanks and other armored vehicles, ammunition and tons of other Army equipment are stored. These supplies and materials can fully outfit for combat an Army brigade of about 5,000 soldiers. In the event of war, the soldiers would fly to Qatar and match up with their equipment."

AP

"Anyone wondering why the Bush administration pays no attention to its allies should go back to those ’senior civil servants’ of Mr Simpson’s. I’ll bet Sir Humphrey had been polishing that ’bear of little brain’ crack before John showed up: you can almost hear the guy preening as he delivers it. But, you know, frankly, the Bush dummy gags are so last-millennium. Sir Humphrey doing Dubya IQ jokes is like your dad breakdancing: even if he could pull it off, it’s still squaresville [...] Europeans expend an awful lot of energy explaining why nothing can change: it’s ’absurdly ignorant’ even to suggest getting rid of Arafat; it’s preposterous to pursue ’crackpot’ (John Simpson) plans for missile defence because it would ’humiliate’ the Russians. But Bush went ahead, and the Russians are fine about it, and Yasser’s packing, and, behind the scenes, the Aussies and Canucks and not a few others are relieved that the unilateralist cowboy has killed Kyoto. Bush tosses a pebble in the water and the ripples spread across the lake; the EU drops a huge rock of conventional wisdom and it sinks without trace. I’ve said before that, if America is Coke, the world could use a Pepsi. If the EU doesn’t have the will to fulfil that role militarily, it could at least try to do it intellectually, with a bit of fresh creative thinking about some of these issues. But instead it clings to 1970s terrorists, 1970s missile treaties and 1970s environmental doom-mongering. Poor old Europe: never mind walking the walk, it can’t even talk the talk."

Mark Steyn, The Spectator