On Thu, 7 Apr 2005 15:01:52 -0700 (PDT), Gautam Mukunda wrote
It means that there wasn't a third option between going to war to remove Hussein and leaving him in power. It didn't exist. No one proposed one that was even vaguely plausible. You could choose one or the other.
Really? No other options? Then what of all those that opposed the war, including almost every major religious organization across the globe? Was the Pope trying to stop democracy in Iraq? The World Council of Churches, the Conference of European Churches, the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, the Middle East Council of Churches, the churches of Norway, Finland and Denmark, Greece, the United Methodist Church, my own Lutheran church and on and on and on -- were they all trying to stop democracy in Iraq when they opposed this war and proposed other options.
Are you aware of the six-point plan proposed by a group led by Jim Wallis, and Tony Blair's response to it?
I looked for the plan on-line and found it at http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_war_alternative.shtml
Let's just look at the first point:
<begin first point> 1. Remove Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party from power
The Bush administration and the antiwar movement are agreed on one thing - Saddam Hussein is a brutal and dangerous dictator. Virtually nobody has sympathy for him, either in the West or in the Arab world, but everyone has great sympathy for the Iraqi people who have already suffered greatly from war, a decade of sanctions, and the corrupt and violent regime of Saddam Hussein. So let's separate Saddam from the Iraqi people. Target him, but protect them.
As urged by Human Rights Watch and others, the U.N. Security Council should establish an international tribunal to indict Saddam and his top officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Indicting Saddam would send a clear signal to the world that he has no future. It would set into motion both internal and external forces that might remove him from power. It would make it clear that no solution to this conflict will include Saddam or his supporters staying in power.
Morton Halperin pointed out, "As we have seen in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, such tribunals can discredit and even destroy criminal regimes." Focusing on Saddam and not the Iraqi people would clearly demonstrate that the United States' sole interest is in changing his regime and disarming his weapons rather than in harming the Iraqi people. It would cause world opinion to coalesce against Saddam's regime rather than against a U.S.-led war, as is now happening.
<end first point>
What was it going to take to get the Security Council to set up such a tribunal? If the French were in cahoots in any way, shape or form, were they going to support the formation of such a tribunal?
It's a lovely idea. I'm not sure it was realistically possible. If it had been, it would have been the best course of action I've seen suggested. But I'm not sure it was.
In fact, I'm pretty sure it wasn't. I'd appreciate feedback on this by those more in the know than I. (And if I'm missing something as obvious as what's holding up my glasses, please tell me so!)
Julia _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
