As I said, I think that war is now inevitable (short of Saddam backing down) for the US can no longer afford not to go to war. If the US shows itself as a paper tiger, Korea (and others including Saddam) will begin to a move - erroneously confident that the US will not act.
So, there's a problem.
The other possibility is that when the UN doesn't back the invasion - then Bush and Blair will accept the defeat and pull back the troops anyway - on the grounds that the UN won't go along with them.
Or will the UN accede to the invasion.
Harry
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Keith wrote:
Watching the contorted faces of Bush and Blair last night on Newsnight during the press conference after their private meeting, I thought that here were two desperate men. Something serious had happened between them. They'd had a fight but had to pretend that all was well.Blair is desperate because he's taken his own Labour Party MPs to the edge of the precipice and they're not going to stomach his support for Bush for much longer. On the 15 February, the planned mass demonstrations in London at which more than a million people are expected will show that he doesn't have the country behind him either. (Farcically, the Government are trying to prevent the demonstration taking place at Hyde Park under Health and Safety Regulations! You've never heard such nonsense in your life! Government ministers are actually saying that because it's likely to be rainy and muddy then a lot of people are going catch cold! And bird life is going to suffer, too, with all these people collecting and shouting slogans!) Bush is desperate because if he loses the support of Bush then he has no halfway heavyweight international support for his policy and he might not get a second resolution through the UN Security Council. He might then do what he is threatening to do -- invade Iraq without UN support. But before then he will have to face the demonstrations of 15 February all round the world and in his own country. Bush is also a coward. He hadn't the courage to tell his previous Treasury Secretary to his face that he was sacked. Instead, he sent him a memo. Whether Bush's desperation or Bush's cowardice will come out on top is anybody's guess at the moment. He's driven himself -- or rather Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfovitch have driven him -- into a corner from which I don't think he can escape. If he invades Iraq and attacks Basra and Baghdad with hundreds of Cruise missiles as some of his staff are threatening to do, then he's going to kill thousands of women and children and that, quite simply, is unsustainable. Even the supine American masses will rise up against him. He'll be impeached for illegal practice of war and thrown out well before the next Presidential Election in 2004. Besides, even if he were to achieve a quick victory, how does he know that he can establish a reliable government in Baghdad that will then give him the long-term oil contracts that American oil corporations (and the Carlyle Group) wants? If Bush merely invades Iraq and lays seige to the big cities in the hope that sooner or later a palace coup d'etat will bring Saddam down, how long is he going to be able to sustain this and carry the American public with him? This is hardly the action of the Warrior President that he's making himself out to be. And this type of seige is going to be a costly business even if he doesn't fire missiles in their hundreds and thousands. It is going to be a heavy drain on an economy already carrying large debts at all levels -- federal, state, business and consumers. Is Bush going to win the next Presidential Election while all this dilly-dallying and economic deterioration is going on? Hardly, I'd have thought. Keith Hudson
****************************** Harry Pollard Henry George School of LA Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tel: (818) 352-4141 Fax: (818) 353-2242 *******************************
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