Forum

U.S. and manhood: Leadership is about respect, not just fear

Robert Wright NYT
Tuesday, August 03, 2004

John Kerry, tough-talking war hero, cut an impressive figure at last week’s convention, maybe impressive enough to threaten the Republicans’ time-honored dominance of the manliness issue - that is, national security. But you can already hear the Republican reply taking shape: All right, you’ve shown us your muscles, but where’s the beef? What exactly is your strategy for the war on terrorism?

It’s a tricky question. National security challenges rarely lend themselves to the programmatic laundry lists that are tossed at domestic problems, and global terrorism may be the most complex national security challenge ever. That’s why the few specifics Kerry did offer on the terrorism front were underwhelming - he’s against closing fire stations, for example. Still, there is a way for Kerry and John Edwards to frame an antiterrorism strategy that, though not programmatic, would be genuinely illuminating and politically powerful, cutting to the core of President George W. Bush’s greatest national security failure. And they may be closer to this formula than they realize, for it fits naturally into the rhetorical framework the Democrats built at their convention.

Kerry rightly stressed how thoroughly Bush has lowered the world’s opinion of the United States. In elaborating, he said that America can’t fight a war on terrorism without allies. That’s true, but it doesn’t by itself underscore the penchant for complex thought that Kerry attributed to himself in his acceptance speech. Even Bush now seems to realize that antagonizing allies is a bad idea. In fact, since the dawn of recorded history, just about everyone has recognized this.

What is new, and uniquely challenging, about the war on terrorism is that hatred of America well beyond the bounds of its alliance now imperils national security. Fervent anti-Americanism among Muslims is the wellspring of terrorism, regardless of whether they live in countries whose governments cooperate with us. Yet this is a part of world opinion Kerry didn’t talk about.

His reticence is understandable. Fretting about Muslim opinion sounds a little like worrying that your enemy may not like you - even though, of course, the Muslims you’re worrying about are the ones who haven’t signed on with the enemy but may be leaning that way. So when Democrats talk about Muslim hatred, they’re just begging to be called wimps by all those right-wing bloggers who have Machiavelli’s dictum - better to be feared than loved - tattooed across their chests.

But, however steep the rhetorical challenge posed by the fact that real men don’t need love, the Democrats have already gone a ways toward meeting it, and they’ve done so on the strength of a single word: respect. As anyone who tuned into the convention for more than a few minutes is probably aware, the Democrats want an America that is “respected in the world.” And even if Kerry’s concrete elaborations on this theme were about the importance of allies, respect is the perfect entrée to the issue of Muslim hatred - a way to confront Machiavelli’s dichotomy without winding up on the girlie-man side of it.

We Americans don’t need to be loved in the Muslim world, but we need to be respected. And even real men want respect. After all, strength can command respect. In fact, instilling fear can help instill respect. It’s just that fear isn’t enough. (This could be the epitaph of Bush’s foreign policy: Apparently fear wasn’t enough.)

For a nation to be thoroughly respected, the perception of its strength needs to be matched by a perception of its goodness. It helps to be thought of as just, generous, conscientious, mindful of the opinion of others, even a little humble. In lots of little ways, Bush has given the world the impression that we’re not these things.

Kerry touched on some of this, noting that global leadership means inspiring more than fear. But he didn’t carry the respect theme explicitly into the context of Muslim opinion.

Doing so wouldn’t by itself amount to a strategy for the war on terrorism. But it would add a new dimension to the Democrats’ emerging critique of the president’s foreign policy - and a potent one. The plummeting regard for America in Muslim nations like Indonesia over the last few years is a well-documented fact. If voters can see the link between this and the security of their children - see that for every million Muslims who hate America, one will be willing to fly an airplane into a shopping mall - then Bush will have a lot of explaining to do. And existing criticisms of his policies will acquire new force. (Given how unpopular the Iraq war was known to be in the Muslim world, wasn’t the lack of postwar planning beyond inexcusable?)

The Kerry-Edwards ticket might also profit from the fact that much of this Muslim antipathy seems to be focused on Bush personally. (His unfavorability ratings in Morocco and Jordan are 90 percent and 96 percent, respectively.) Changing administrations - “rebranding” America - could help give us a fresh start.

Thoroughly addressing the issue of Muslim hatred would pose some risks. Kerry would have to stress that he’s willing to antagonize Muslims - or anyone else - when essential American principles or obligations are involved. And even that assurance wouldn’t wholly buffer him from right-wing flak.

But the very difficulty of taking on this issue is part of its virtue. Kerry’s biggest manhood problem has nothing to do with Vietnam or the war on terrorism. Rather, it’s the sense that he never attacks an issue unflinchingly - that he waffles on the tough ones, that his only constancy lies in the wordiness of his bromides. Maybe what he needs is to take a sensitive, complicated problem, lay down a core conviction, and stick with it through thick and thin.

By the way, Machiavelli might approve. Though he favored fear over love, he said that being feared and loved is the best situation of all. And failing that, a leader at least “ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred.” If George W. Bush is too macho for Machiavelli, then surely John Kerry can make the case that Bush is too macho for America.

Robert Wright, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, is the author of “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.”

http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=532228.html

Bush vows to revamp intelligence oversight
Christine Hauser/NYT NYT, AP
Tuesday, August 03, 2004

NEW YORK President George W. Bush announced Monday that he would establish the post of national intelligence director, one of the main recommendations of the 9/11 commission’s report, which called United States intelligence agencies collectively dysfunctional.

Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, Bush also said that he would adopt another recommendation the commission made last month - the creation of a national counterterrorism center. “We are a nation in danger,” Bush said.

The commission suggested that the new center conduct strategic analysis of intelligence, plan and assign intelligence operations and oversee what intelligence is collected.

“This new center will build on the analytical work - the really good analytical work - of the Terrorist Threat Integration Center,” Bush said in referring to an office that already exists, “and will become our government’s knowledge bank for information about known and suspected terrorists.”

“Today I am asking Congress to create the position of a national intelligence director,” he said. “The person in that office would be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and will serve at the pleasure of the president.”

But the intelligence director will not be a cabinet post, he said, in a departure from what the 9/11 commission had urged.

“I don’t think the person should be a member of my cabinet,” the president said. “I will hire the person and I can fire the person.” At the same time, he said, “I don’t think that the office should be in the White House, however, I think it should be a stand-alone group to better coordinate.”

Currently, the director of central intelligence is both the overseer of the 15 intelligence agencies and the head of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Under the new system, Bush said, the CIA will be managed by a separate director. The new national intelligence director will oversee the foreign and domestic activity of the various intelligence agencies as the president’s “principal intelligence adviser.”

The White House is under pressure to act quickly on the commission’s findings, especially in light of recent warnings that Al Qaeda intends to strike before the November elections.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, has come out in favor of creating the post of national intelligence director, saying that if he were president he would enact many of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations immediately by executive order or other presidential action.

On Sunday, Kerry said that he supported making the new intelligence post a White House position because it would mean greater accountability. A sense of urgency to act on the 9/11 report has been evident on Capitol Hill, with senior members of both parties making plans for hearings. White House officials said last week that Bush and his senior aides were examining the extent and range of control of the intelligence position and the big issues like keeping it free from political interference. Bush did not say whether the new director would have budget authority over any agencies.

Kerry faults terror response

Kerry said Monday that Bush had responded too slowly to the terrorist threat and had adopted policies that have encouraged terrorism, The Associated Press reported from Grand Rapids, Michigan.

“I regret that the president has no sense of urgency,” Kerry said during a hastily called news conference following Bush’s announcement of his support for naming a national intelligence director and establishing a counterterrorism center.

Kerry welcomed Bush’s decision to embrace some of the 9/11 commission’s recommendations but argued that with the nation at war, the Republican incumbent and self-described “war president” should move more quickly.

Earlier in the day, in an interview on CNN, Kerry said the administration’s policies were “actually encouraging the recruitment of terrorists.” The administration has not reached out to other countries and the Muslim community, he said, and has not done enough to protect ports, chemical plants and nuclear facilities.

Bush rejected that criticism during his Rose Garden appearance, telling reporters, “It is a ridiculous notion to assert because the more the United States is on the offense more people want to hurt us.”

The New York Times
http://www.iht.com/bin/print.php?file=532253.html

If I Were President—Addressing the Democratic Deficit

By John Kerry

March/April 2003

Democrats must resist a new orthodoxy within our party—a politically stagnating shift that does a disservice to more than 75 years of history. That is the new conventional wisdom of consultants, pollsters, and strategists who argue that Democrats should be the party of domestic issues alone. 

They are wrong. As a party, Democrats need to talk about all the things that strengthen and protect the United States. We need to have a vision that extends to the world around us, and we should remember that this vision is as old as our party. Woodrow Wilson was elected president during a time of peace, but he led during a time of war. Franklin Roosevelt was elected to tackle the Great Depression, create Social Security, and put the United States back to work. But no one should forget that he did those things even as he responded to Pearl Harbor and marshaled the nation’s troops from Normandy to Iwo Jima. And John F. Kennedy didn’t try to change the subject of the debate when Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower’s vice president brought up foreign policy. Kennedy challenged the United States globally, insisting that the country do more and better, not because these things are easy but because they are hard.

It’s our turn again to talk about things that are hard.

SIDEBAR: John Kerry Profile
The war on terrorism is different than any war in history. Intelligence is this nation’s most important weapon but also its greatest vulnerability. It is now common knowledge that crucial intercepts from September 10, 2001, weren’t translated until two days later because of severe understaffing at U.S. intelligence agencies. As of January 2002, the U.S. Army had an average 44 percent shortfall in translators and interpreters in five critical languages: Arabic, Korean, Mandarin-Chinese, Persian-Farsi, and Russian. The State Department reported a 26 percent shortage of authorized translators and interpreters.

Americans’ security depends on helping the people of the Middle East see and act on a legitimate vision of peace.

To remedy this intelligence deficit, U.S. college campuses need to overcome a Vietnam-era mind-set that demonizes the CIA and FBI. To respond to the new threats, we must redouble our information-gathering efforts and make sure proper officials heed critical information, so that when we talk about preventing another September 11, we’re dealing in reality, not rhetoric. We also face critical choices in the makeup and structuring of the U.S. armed forces. Operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia, and the Persian Gulf have highlighted changes in military tactics and equipment needs. Outdated military equipment may please defense contractors, but it won’t win tomorrow’s battles. A modern military means smarter, more versatile equipment; better intelligence; advanced communications; long-range air power; and highly mobile ground forces.
Predictably, the Bush administration has talked about improvements but so far has failed to enact meaningful change. It is up to Democrats to understand and prepare for Fourth Generation warfare (fighting unconventional forces in unconventional ways) so our nation can be better prepared to wage and win the new war.

We must also change the way we interact with the world. For people who have suggested that unilateralism is “just the American way,” it’s time to acknowledge that, more and more, our allies are our eyes and ears around the globe and will play a critical role in intelligence operations. We need partners. We should work on our public and private diplomacy more thoughtfully, sensitively, and intensely to develop both.

I support the Bush administration’s goal of a regime change in Iraq. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is a renegade and outlaw who turned his back on the tough conditions of his surrender put in place by the United Nations in 1991. But the administration’s rhetoric has far exceeded its plans or groundwork. In fact, its single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown phrases have alienated our allies and threatened to undermine the stability of the region.

As both a soldier and a senator, I learned that when it comes to war, our goal must not be just regime change but a lasting peace. The United States has won the war in Afghanistan without securing the peace. This administration has failed to make its case on the international stage or to the American people for the rationale of starting the war or for the means of ending it. We cannot afford to put the security of our allies, the region, and ultimately ourselves at risk for the vague promises we have heard to date. We must do better.

American leadership means we must listen to the cultures and histories of other countries and work harder to build coalitions and partnerships. But for two years, the Bush administration has drifted from its chosen proactive message of disengagement to the reactive, mixed, and contradictory messages of reluctant engagement.

We can and must engage thoughtfully, strategically, and firmly. Nowhere is the need more clear or urgent than in North Korea.

But the Bush administration has offered only a merry-go-round policy: Bush and his advisers got up on their high horse, whooped and hollered, rode around in circles, and ended up right back where they’d started. By suspending the talks initiated by the Clinton administration, asking for talks but with new conditions, refusing to talk under the threat of nuclear blackmail, and then reversing that refusal as North Korea’s master of brinkmanship upped the ante, the administration sowed confusion and put the despot Kim Jong Il in the driver’s seat. By publicly taking military force, negotiations, and sanctions off the table, the administration tied its own hands behind its back.

Now, finally, the Bush administration is rightly working with allies in the region—acting multilaterally—to pressure Pyongyang. It’s gotten off the merry-go-round; the question is why one would ever want to be so driven by unilateralist dogma to get on in the first place. Draining the swamps of terrorists will require much greater involvement in the world. It must include significant investments in the education and human infrastructure of troubled countries. The globalization of the last decade proved that simple measures like buying books and teaching family planning can do much to expose, rebut, isolate, and defeat apostles of hate. These and other techniques are crucial to ensuring that children are no longer brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers and that terrorists are denied the ideological swamplands in which they thrive. Foreign aid must be increased and reformed to focus on education. We must give countries in the Middle East a reason to want peace. In the next few years, if changes aren’t made, the potential for violence in that region will only increase. If we fail to reach the children and the families wrecked by the violence of poverty and seclusion, the growing population of unemployed and unemployable kids will find in fanaticism a tragic answer to its problems. Americans’ security depends on helping the people of the Middle East see and act on a legitimate vision of peace.

It’s up to the United States to respond. Only the United States is in a position to lead the effort with other governments and private-sector partners to beat this pandemic; only the United States has the resources to make a difference. An American president once said, “We cannot . . . be content to rot by inches in ignoble ease within our own borders, taking no interest in what goes on beyond them, sunk in scrambling commercialism; heedless of the higher life, the life of aspiration, of toil and risk . . . We cannot sit huddled within our own borders and avow ourselves merely an assemblage of well-to-do hucksters who care nothing for what happens beyond.”

The Republican Party has in too many ways already disavowed the lessons of that Republican leader, Teddy Roosevelt. Our party can’t afford to repeat those mistakes, not when national greatness hangs in the balance. It is time for Democrats to make clear once more: We will never surrender or submit—not on any issue, and not on any question before this country.

 
If I Were President—Addressing the Democratic Deficit
SIDEBAR: John Kerry Profile
 
Sen. John Kerry (Massachusetts):

Kerry was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1984, after serving as lieutenant governor of Massachusetts for two years.

Kerry sits on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; the Committee on Finance; the Committee on Foreign Relations; and the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

In 1989, as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics, and International Operations, Kerry oversaw the publication of a 1,166-page report titled “ Drugs, Law Enforcement and Foreign Policy ,” which faulted U.S. government officials for turning a blind eye to the narcotics-trafficking activities of the Nicaraguan contras. Kerry joined with 44 other Senate Democrats to vote against the 1991 resolution on the Use of Force Against Iraq, arguing that economic sanctions should be given more time to work before “rushing headlong into war.” He supported granting the president fast-track trade negotiating authority in 1997 and voted in favor of permanent normal trade relations with China in 2000. In 1999, Kerry sided with 47 other senators in favor of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and also supported legislation that called for the deployment of national missile defense as soon as such a system is technologically feasible. He is the chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies Task Force on Strengthening U.S. Leadership on HIV/AIDS; in 2000, he cosponsored legislation to facilitate the creation of a “trust fund” by the World Bank to raise money from governments, the private sector, and nongovernmental organizations as part of the global effort to prevent the spread of AIDS. Also in 2000, Kerry mediated negotiations in Cambodia to establish a tribunal to prosecute surviving leaders of the Khmer Rouge. In 2002, he voted with 28 other Senate Democrats and 48 Senate Republicans in favor of a resolution authorizing the Bush administration to use force to ensure Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2164.php

Pas de Roses sans Soros
Publié le 30/07/04 sur infoguerre.com|  | 

C’était une belle histoire. Un beau pays perdu entre la Mer Noire et les montagnes du Caucase, pauvre mais d’importance stratégique, du nom de Géorgie était gouverné par un vieux président corrompu, survivant du Politburo soviétique, Edouard Shevarnadze. Face à lui, le jeune et dynamique leader de l’opposition Mikheïl Saakashvili qui allait libérer le pays du vilain Shevarnadze dans une exemplaire Révolution des Roses.

La Révolution des Roses fut déclenchée par la contestation des résultats des élections législatives de novembre 2003. Une partie seulement des votes était comptée et rendue publique, que déjà l’opposition dénonçait des fraudes massives destinées à donner une majorité parlementaire au parti du Président. La population géorgienne était désespérée et en colère contre les fléaux du chômage, de l’inflation galopante, des coupures incessantes de gaz et d’électricité. Mais il fallut attendre les deux derniers jours précédant la chute de Shevarnadze pour que les manifestations rallient enfin les grandes foules sur la place centrale de la capitale Tbilissi.

Le reste, nous l’avons vécu en direct sur CNN. Le beau et courageux Saakashvili qui prend d’assaut le Parlement une rose à la main et dépose le méchant Président Shevarnadze.

La fleur délicate, la jeunesse du héro et son pacifisme à la Gandhi firent de la Révolution des Roses géorgienne une belle histoire qui pourrait en inspirer d’autres…

Quelques faits qui ont étrangement échappé aux fins limiers de CNN :

- Saakashvili est diplômé en droit de l’Université américaine de Columbia (1994) et titulaire d’un doctorat de sciences juridiques de l’Université George Washington (1995). C’est à cette époque qu’il développe de nombreux contacts dans la classe politique américaine ;
- 80% des membres du nouveau gouvernement formé par Saakashvili après son élection triomphale à la Présidence de la République en janvier 2004 ont étudié et/ou travaillé aux Etats-Unis ; la plupart d’entre eux pour la Fondation Soros et l’agence américaine d’aide au développement USAID, notoirement très liée au Département d’Etat ;

- A la tête de l’opposition, on retrouve le mouvement de jeunesse ‘Kmara !’ (« Ca suffit ! » en géorgien) dont les méthodes, les slogans et les drapeaux sont calqués sur le mouvement yougoslave ‘Otpor’, fer de lance de la Révolution qui mit un terme au régime Milosevic. En fait de mouvement de jeunesse, ‘Kmara !’ est une structure issue d’un projet financé par la Fondation Soros à hauteur de USD 700.000 et visant à une « mobilisation citoyenne de la société civile ».

- Six mois passés en Yougoslavie ont permis à Saakashvili de se familiariser avec la méthodologie de la Révolution de velours ; lui et d’autres jeunes politiciens d’Ukraine, de Moldavie, d’Arménie, d’Azerbaïdjan, etc, ont été formés à la « transition démocratique accélérée » dans un centre situé à 70 km de Belgrade ;

- Autre personnage récurrent de cette belle histoire, l’ambassadeur américain en Géorgie, Richard Miles avait précédemment occupé les mêmes fonctions en Azerbaïdjan (1992-1993), en Yougoslavie (1996-1999) et en Bulgarie (1999-2001) où chaque fois des changements politiques spectaculaires amènent au pouvoir, soit par l’élection soit par la révolution, des régimes favorables aux Etats-Unis et à leurs intérêts ;

- Afin d’interrompre le discours de Shevarnadze devant le Parlement et de mettre en fuite le vieux Président, Saakashvili ne s’en remet pas qu’à la seule rose qui a fait sa gloire, mais aussi à un solide gilet pare-balles ainsi qu’à un groupe de gardes du corps bien armés qui l’aideront ce jour-là à pénétrer dans l’enceinte pourtant bouclée du Parlement ;

- A la seconde où était annoncée en direct sur CNN la nouvelle de la démission du Président Shevarnadze (avant même d’être relayée par les médias géorgiens !), un imposant feu d’artifice spontané était tiré depuis les hauteurs de Tbilissi ;

- Afin de soutenir l’objectif affiché par les nouvelles autorités géorgiennes de lutter contre la corruption dans la haute fonction publique, de grandes sociétés privées américaines (USD 3, 000,000) et Georges Soros lui-même (USD 2 ,000,000) vont financer le paiement des salaires du Président Saakashvili, du premier ministre Zhvania et du Président de l’Assemblée Burjanadze (USD 1,500) ainsi que ceux des ministres du gouvernement (USD 1, 200) .

Après cette dernière réussite de la Révolution des Roses en Géorgie, Georges Soros déclare ouvertement qu’il souhaiterait étendre l’expérience du changement de régime démocratique et pacifique au continent africain… En attendant, on scrute avec impatience la nomination de Richard Miles à son prochain poste diplomatique.

Dana Darbo

ROBERT SCHEER
An Excuse-Spouting Bush Is Busted by 9/11 Report
Robert Scheer

July 27, 2004

Busted! Like a teenager whose beer bash is interrupted by his parents’ early return home, President Bush’s nearly three years of bragging about his “war on terror” credentials has been exposed by the bipartisan 9/11 commission as nothing more than empty posturing.

Without dissent, five prominent Republicans joined an equal number of their Democratic Party peers in stating unequivocally that the Bush administration got it wrong, both in its lethargic response to an unprecedented level of warnings during what the commission calls the “Summer of Threat,” as well as in its inclusion of Iraq in the war on terror.

Although the language of the commission’s report was carefully couched to obtain a bipartisan consensus, the indictment of this administration surfaces on almost every page.

Bush was not the first U.S. president to play footsie with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, nor was the Clinton administration without fault in its fitful and ineffective response to the Al Qaeda threat. But there was simply no excuse for the near-total indifference of the new president and his top Cabinet officials to strenuous warnings from the outgoing Clinton administration and the government’s counter-terrorism experts that something terrible was coming, fast and hard, from Al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden’s gang, they said repeatedly, was planning “near-term attacks,” which Al Qaeda operatives expected “to have dramatic consequences of catastrophic proportions.”

As early as May 2001, the FBI was receiving tips that Bin Laden supporters were planning attacks in the U.S., possibly including the hijacking of planes. On May 29, White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke wrote national security advisor Condoleezza Rice that “when these attacks [on Israeli or U.S. facilities] occur, as they likely will, we will wonder what more we could have done to stop them.” At the end of June, the commission wrote, “the intelligence reporting consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a calamitous level.” In early July, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft was told “that preparations for multiple attacks [by Al Qaeda] were in late stages or already complete and that little additional warning could be expected.” By month’s end, “the system was blinking red” and could not “get any worse,” then-CIA Director George Tenet told the 9/11 commission.

It was at this point, of course, that George W. Bush began the longest presidential vacation in 32 years. On the very first day of his visit to his Texas ranch, Aug. 6, Bush received the now-infamous two-page intelligence alert titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States.” Yet instead of returning to the capital to mobilize an energetic defensive posture, he spent an additional 27 days away as the government languished in summer mode, in deep denial.

“In sum,” said the 9/11 commission report, “the domestic agencies never mobilized in response to the threat. They did not have the direction, and did not have a plan to institute. The borders were not hardened. Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic surveillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts. The public was not warned.”

In her public testimony to the commission, Rice argued that the Aug. 6 briefing concerned vague “historical information based on old reporting,” adding that “there was no new threat information.” When the commission forced the White House to release the document, however, this was exposed as a lie: The document included explicit FBI warnings of “suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.” Furthermore, this briefing was only one of 40 on the threat of Bin Laden that the president received between Jan. 20 and Sept. 11, 2001.

Bush, the commission report also makes clear, compounded U.S. vulnerability by totally misleading Americans about the need to invade Iraq as a part of the “war on terror.”

For those, like Vice President Dick Cheney, who continue to insist that the jury is still out on whether Al Qaeda and Iraq were collaborators, the commission’s report should be the final word, finding after an exhaustive review that there is no evidence that any of the alleged contacts between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein “ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States.”

So, before 9/11, incompetence and sloth. And after? Much worse: a war without end on the wrong battlefield.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer27jul27.story

The Metrosexual Superpower

By Parag Khanna

July/August 2004
The stylish European Union struts past the bumbling United States on the catwalk of global diplomacy.

According to Michael Flocker’s 2003 bestseller, The Metrosexual Guide to Style: A Handbook for the Modern Man, the trendsetting male icons of the 21st century must combine the coercive strengths of Mars and the seductive wiles of Venus. Put simply, metrosexual men are muscular but suave, confident yet image-conscious, assertive yet clearly in touch with their feminine sides. Just consider British soccer star David Beckham. He is married to former Spice Girl Victoria “Posh” Adams, but his combination of athleticism and cross-dressing make him a sex symbol to both women and men worldwide, not to mention the inspiration for the 2002 hit movie Bend It Like Beckham. Substance, Beckham shows, is nothing without style.

Geopolitics is much the same. American neoconservatives such as Robert Kagan look down upon feminine, Venus-like Europeans, gibing their narcissistic obsession with building a postmodern, bureaucratic paradise. The United States, by contrast, supposedly carries the mantle of masculine Mars, boldly imposing freedom in the world’s nastiest neighborhoods. But by cleverly deploying both its hard power and its sensitive side, the European Union (EU) has become more effective—and more attractive—than the United States on the catwalk of diplomatic clout. Meet the real New Europe: the world’s first metrosexual superpower.

Metrosexuals always know how to dress for the occasion (or mission). Spreading peace across Eurasia serves U.S. interests, but it’s best done by donning Armani pinstripes rather than U.S. Army fatigues. After the fall of Soviet communism, conservative U.S. thinkers feared a united Germany vying with Russia for hegemony in Central Europe. Yet, by brandishing only a slick portfolio of economic incentives, the EU has incorporated many of the former Soviet republics and satellites in the Baltics and Eastern Europe. Even Turkey is freshening up with eau d’Europe. Ankara resisted Washington’s pressure to provide base rights for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But to get backstage in Brussels, it has had to smooth out its more unseemly blemishes—abolishing the death penalty, taking steps to resolve the Cyprus dispute, and introducing laws to protect its Kurdish minority.

Metrosexuals may spend a long time standing in front of the mirror, but they never shop alone. Stripping off stale national sovereignty (that’s so last century), Europeans now parade their “pooled power,” the new look for this geopolitical season. As a political, economic, and military union with some 450 million citizens, a $9 trillion economy, and armies surpassing 1.6 million soldiers, Europe is now a whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Indeed, Europe actually contributes more to U.S. foreign policy goals than the U.S. government—and does so far more fashionably. Robert Cooper, one of Britain’s former defense gurus now shaping Europe’s common foreign policy, argues that Europe’s “magnetic allure” compels countries to rewrite their laws and constitutions to meet European standards. The United States conceives of power primarily in military terms, thus confusing presence with influence. By contrast, Europeans understand power as overall leverage. As a result, the EU is the world’s largest bilateral aid donor, providing more than twice as much aid to poor countries as the United States, and it is also the largest importer of agricultural goods from the developing world, enhancing its influence in key regions of instability. Through massive deployments of “soft power” (such as economic clout and cultural appeal) Europe has made hard power less necessary. After expanding to 25 members, the EU accounts for nearly half of the world’s outward foreign direct investment and exerts greater leverage than the United States over pivotal countries such as Brazil and Russia. As more oil-producing nations consider trading in euros, Europe will gain greater influence in the international marketplace. Even rogue states swoon over Europe’s allure; just recall how Libya’s Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi greeted British Prime Minister Tony Blair during a recent meeting in Tripoli. “You are looking good,” gushed Libya’s strongman. “You are still young.”

Brand Europe is taking over. From environmental sustainability and international law to economic development and social welfare, European views are more congenial to international tastes and more easily exported than their U.S. variants. Even the Bush administration’s new strategy toward the “Greater Middle East” is based on the Helsinki model, which was Europe’s way of integrating human rights standards into collective security institutions. Furthermore, regional organizations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Mercosur, and the African Union are redesigning their institutions to look more like the EU. Europe’s flashy new symbol of power, the Airbus 380, will soon strut on runways all over Asia. And the euro is accepted even where they don’t take American Express.

But don’t be deceived by the metrosexual superpower’s pleatless pants—Europe hasn’t lost touch with its hard assets. Even without a centralized military command structure, the EU has recently led military operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Macedonia, and it will increase troop deployments to support German and British forces in stabilizing Afghanistan. European countries already provide 10 times more peacekeepers to U.N. operations than the United States. In late 2004, the EU will take over all peacekeeping and policing operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina from NATO, and Europe’s 60,000-troop Rapid Reaction Force will soon be ready to deploy around the world.

In the fight against terrorism, Europe also displays the right ensemble of strengths. Europeans excel at human intelligence, which requires expert linguists and cultural awareness. French espionage agencies have reportedly infiltrated al Qaeda cells, and German and Spanish law enforcement efforts have led to the capture of numerous al Qaeda operatives. After the March 2004 terrorist attack in Madrid, Spain’s incoming prime minister immediately declared his country would “return to Europe,” signaling his opposition to the Bush administration’s war on terror. Indeed, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s “New Europe” is already passé, shorter lived than the bellbottom revival.

To some observers, the EU may always be little more than a cheap superpower knockoff with little substance to show but a common multilingual passport. But after 60 years of dressing up, Europe has revealed its true 21st-century orientation. Just as metrosexuals are redefining masculinity, Europe is redefining old notions of power and influence. Expect Bend It Like Brussels to play soon in capital cities worldwide.

Parag Khanna is a fellow in global governance at the Brookings Institution.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/files/story2583.php

>> Pourquoi ne pas proposer un véritable forum de discussion (organisé), où le débat et l’échange entre lecteurs pourait avoir lieu ?
Merci
François ;o)  >>

quand on regarde la tenue des textes sur le forum du monde ou psyops & spinmeisters professionels sont plus que presents pour aliener les conversations, je n aimerais pas que cela se produise ici aussi..
les redacteurs ont autre chose a faire..
ici l air est frais, pas besoin de l empester avec ce genre d oportunistes..

a moins que quelqu un a une soluce pour faire le tri avec ce genre de trolls.

Europe must take itself seriously, says top Brussels envoy

29.07.2004 - 17:33 CET |
By Honor Mahony EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS -

The European Union has to learn to take itself seriously before it can expect the United States to treat it as an equal, the outgoing EU ambassador to the US has warned.

Speaking before the Foreign Affairs Committee in the European Parliament on Thursday (29 July), Günter Burghardt said that getting Washington to treat the 25-nation bloc as a partner “depends on how seriously we take ourselves” adding “that is something only we can manage”.

The German diplomat said that while there is an overall general will by the EU to “enter into a partnership of equals” it is undermined by the fact that some member states continue to accord bilateral interests more importance.

Refusing to comment on whether George W. Bush will be re-elected in November and what it would mean for transatlantic relations, Mr Burghardt said that, in 2005, the ties should be renewed anyway.

Renewing the ties
He said that the transatlantic agenda has not been updated since 1995 although since then the European Union has undergone its biggest enlargement ever and agreed a new Constitution.

He says the Constitution will allow Europe to be taken more seriously as now the EU is represented by the head of the EU Presidency, the European Commission President and three foreign ministers - from the EU presidency at the time, Chris Patten (external relations commissioner) and Javier Solana (EU High Representative).

Under the new Constitution, Europe’s foreign policy will be the domain of the new EU foreign minister.

Extreme neo-cons out?
The ambassador, who is expected to be replaced later this year by former Irish prime minister John Bruton, does not deny that there are, and will continue to be, fundamental differences between the two sides.

One of them is the two different attitudes to the “notion of sovereignty”. The US sees its sovereignty as “unlimited” he said and this will not change whereas the EU is more about “joint sovereignty” and “multilateralism”.

The vast majority of the questions Mr Burghardt received from MEPs centred around the idea that Washington and the US President do not take Europe seriously and whether the ordinary American had any interest in Europe.

By way of reply, he said there is still a huge amount of “good will” among Americans towards Europe.

He added that the “extreme” neo-conservatives “are no longer setting the agenda” and that those people who spoke about new and old Europe (famously US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld) have “suddenly dried up”.

http://euobserver.com/?aid=17028&rk=1

“If they were to do real investigations we would see several significant high level criminal prosecutions in this country. And that is something that they are not going to let out. And, believe me; they will do everything to cover this up.”

-Sibel Edmonds, former FBI translator

interview ici..
http://baltimorechronicle.com/050704SibelEdmonds.shtml

une femme a suivre..

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
NATO Training Unit OKd Amid U.S.-France Spat
By Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writer

July 31, 2004

PARIS — NATO ambassadors agreed Friday to dispatch a small military contingent to Iraq to train Iraqi security forces, but a dispute over the command structure of the force remained unresolved.

Officials with the defense alliance announced in Brussels that a 40-member advance team would depart within days for Baghdad to prepare Iraqi staff for a NATO operation there. The alliance will begin training Iraqi forces outside the country in August.

“Through this assistance, the alliance is contributing substantially to the goal shared by the entire international community: to help Iraq provide for its own peace and security,” NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.

Alliance leaders still must work out the delicate question of the command structure for the Baghdad training force, an issue that has caused more tension between the United States and France.

Washington wants a commander of the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq to have authority over the NATO trainers. Paris has insisted that the force answer to the NATO hierarchy. Its position has had the support of Germany, Belgium and Spain.

The advance team will report by Sept. 15 to Brussels — where the 26-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization has its headquarters — with recommendations for structuring the relationship between the NATO training unit and U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

“NATO will not be absorbed by the coalition,” a French diplomat said this week during negotiations in Brussels. The government of French President Jacques Chirac wants to avoid any scenario in which the alliance could be drawn into combat in Iraq.

France led international opposition to the war in Iraq. Last year, French representatives in Brussels resisted efforts to have NATO play even a symbolic role in the war.

French diplomats have not wavered from their view that the war was a mistake, citing the bloodshed and chaos in Iraq and the failure of the United States to find weapons of mass destruction. France has made it clear that it will not send troops to join the U.S.-led forces on the ground.

Nonetheless, France has tried to smooth relations with the United States, especially after Iraq was granted sovereignty late last month.

The impasse in Brussels was resolved Friday, sources said, when France offered to set aside the disagreement over command structure to let the first phase of the training mission get underway.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nato31jul31.story

Dans The American Spectator, derrière le prétexte d’une note pour les visas sur un panneau du consulat français de New York,les habituels poncifs francophobes de l’américanosphèr(Napoléon, French impertinence and hauteur, French geopolitical ambitions etc); derrière la diatribe une crainte, celle de voir la France ouvrir la voie à une Europe-puissance capable de pendre en main son destin face aux Etats-Unis, voilà de quoi il s’agit:

Marchons, Marchons
By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. 
Published 7/22/2004 12:06:46 AM

WASHINGTON—Just when things were going swimmingly for the presumptive Democratic presidential ticket a cloud appears on the horizon. The French Consulate in New York has tacked onto its front door an announcement reminding Americans once again of French haughtiness…and of French geopolitical ambitions. In sum and in fine, Paris’s ambitions for Europe are not unlike Napoleon’s. If the French have their way, all Europe will be under the suzerainty of the French croissant, the flaky buttery croissant. Yet, modern France will conquer not with Napoleon’s legions but in the modern way with bureaucrats.

The message discovered on the front door of the ornate French Consulate and reported very thoughtfully by the enlightened Washington Times huffs: “Visas for France are not a right. Persons applying for visas are requested to show due respect for Consular personnel. Failure to do so will result in the denial of the application and denied entry into any of the EU [European Union] countries.”

Apparently the French government believes that it now, through its role in the European Union, can exert authority throughout Europe. Legal experts doubt the French interpretation of its role, but that is not the point. This little note reveals the grandiose role France sees for herself in the world. It also reveals French impertinence and hauteur. The controversy cannot help the campaign of Senator Jean-François Kerry, the Democrats’ touchy Francophile presidential candidate, whose odd behavior is so luminously reflected in this note.

What supposed rudeness drove the prima donnas in the Consulate to issue their message? Did some eye-catching milk-fed maiden from the American Midwest laugh out loud when one of the Consulate’s young boulevardiers burst into tears while esteeming her beauty? Did some no-nonsense American business type become impatient when a fop from the “Consular personnel” filled out his visa document with a government-issued quill? I have never applied for a French visa, finding as I do a two-week stay in France sufficient to admire the ruins; and frankly I cannot imagine many of my fellow Americans wanting to stay in France long enough the necessitate a visa.

I know that Jean-François boasts of the long summer vacations he has spent in the land of popinjays and poseurs with cousins and nannies, but this message only serves to remind us of how alien French neurosis is to laid-back America. Kerry in his humorlessness and pretense would be a better candidate for mayor of Paris than President of the United States. I do not mean to suggest that Kerry is corrupt in the manner of the usual French politician. I cannot imagine his filching funds from the U.N.‘s food for oil scam. Nor can I imagine his receiving campaign donations from Saddam Hussein as President Jacques Chirac allegedly did. Yet, it is increasingly apparent that Senator Kerry has more in common with a Frenchman than with an American.

This can be seen in his proud dilettantism and his vain concern for his hair and his chin. Just the other day he dragged poor Senator John Edwards, his running mate, into his hair conceit, bellowing to a crowd of supporters that the two have “better hair” than their Republican opponents. Reports of his visits to plastic surgeons continue to circulate, one of the first being a report that he sought the perfect chin from a facial sculptor known to be a plastic surgeon to the stars. More recently it has been reported by the authoritative Drudge Report that the Senator’s wrinkles are again on the rise. Such concerns have never been manifest by presidential candidates of the genuine American sort, say, Richard Nixon or Lyndon Johnson. They let the wrinkles come and the hair depart. Their concern was the national interest…and a few perks.

One of the fascinating aspects of French haughtiness is how easily it renders itself to horselaughs. That note tacked on the door of the New York consulate was meant as a gesture of seriousness about proper deportment and the result was hilaritas. Senator Kerry’s stentorian pronouncements about his policies and his noble character are meant to give us goose bumps but all we get is a tickling of our funny bones. The French nation may not be the great nation it once was, but it certainly is an amusing nation. Vive la France, the comic nation. If it causes Senator Kerry’s campaign problems let him take his complaints to Federal Election Commission.

R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. is editor in chief of The American Spectator, a contributing editor to the New York Sun, and an adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute. His Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House came out this spring.
 

question: pourquoi personne ne compare-t-il le délire sécuritaire des JO et l’euro de football du mois dernier ...

l’angleterre et l’italie ont-t-elles du protéger leurs joueurs avec des gardes armés ? ... le portugal, allié des US ne DEVAIT-il pas etre victime d’un attentat à l’image de son voisin espagnol ? ... pourquoi n’y a-t-il pas eu d’intervention OTAN avec patriots, awacs, porte-avions et forces spéciales ???

Athens installs Patriot missiles

Patriot missile launchers are at three sites around Athens
Dozens of Patriot missiles have been put in place around Athens as the Greek capital began rolling out its security operation for next month’s Olympics.
Anti-aircraft missiles are in place at three Athens sites, including Tatoi airfield near the athletes’ village, and elsewhere around Greece.

It is part of a 1.2bn-euro security plan ($1.bn), the most costly in the history of the games.

Hundreds of surveillance cameras are also being installed around Athens.

The Greek authorities said the US-made Patriot missiles were progressively installed from 1 July, and would remain in place until after the games end on 29 August.

Zeppelin airship

Three police helicopters and a Zeppelin airship, also equipped with surveillance cameras, will operate almost around the clock during the Olympics, a police source told Reuters news agency.

Patriot missiles and other anti-aircraft devices will also positioned at other cities in Greece.

Russian-made S 300 anti-aircraft missiles are protecting the city of Heraklion on the southern island of Crete, Greek Air Force spokesman Constantinos Prionas told AFP news agency.

The Associated Press said Patriot missile sites were also being installed in the northern city of Thessaloniki and one on the Aegean Sea island of Skyros.

Le 18 juin 2004, la chaîne de télévision publique France 2 diffusait un film documentaire de William Karel intitulé Le Monde selon Bush. Ce documentaire présente une image convenue pour un public français de la consternante équipe qui préside actuellement aux destinées des États-Unis d’Amérique: l’administration Bush serait dirigée par un ramassis d’illuminés chrétiens et de brigands avides de pétrole, d’argent et de pouvoir.

Le film de William Karel commence par nous montrer l’incroyable cohorte de chrétiens fondamentalistes et de chrétiens sionistes entourant le président Bush. Parmi ceux-ci, le fameux général Boykin qui avait fait parler de lui en Colombie où il a organisé l’assassinat du trafiquant de drogue Pablo Escobar. Boykin se présente comme un chrétien fondamentaliste qui prêche dans des temples que l’Amérique est un État chrétien assailli par Satan et que l’Islam est une religion démoniaque.

Imposteur ou illuminé benêt manipulé par ses employeurs? Impossible de le dire. Il n’en demeure pas moins que le discours tenu en anglais par Boykin dans l’extrait qui nous est montré est un discours chrétien et non occultiste.

Or c’est précisément à ce chrétien, fût-il borné ou fût-il feint, que le documentaire de Karel prête une énormité sataniste!

Jugez-en vous-même! À la douzième minute du film, Boykin nous est montré prononçant un discours où il explique que le véritable ennemi n’est pas Ben Laden, mais les puissances invisibles du mal, qui se meuvent en un royaume spirituel. Cela, c’est ce qu’il dit en anglais et que l’on peut entendre sur la piste audio. Mais les sous-titres français lui font dire bien autre chose: le véritable ennemi n’est pas Ben Laden, il se trouve au Royaume des Cieux. Oui, vous avez bien lu, le véritable ennemi est au Royaume des Cieux!

Toutes les preuves à
http://eclipsenews.free.fr/docs/20040618_France2_Imposture_MondeSelonBush3.html

Merci de faire circuler largement cette information autour de vous.

Cordialement.

Le webmestre du site Dernières nouvelles de l’éclipse
http://eclipsenews.free.fr

Dernières nouvelles de l’éclipse (ou DNE, pour les intimes) est un tout nouveau site, encore en cours de préparation, qui se propose de rassembler un certain nombre de nouvelles d’actualités, noyées dans la masse des informations qui nous submergent quotidiennement, lesquelles nouvelles illustrent les progrès du Nouvel Ordre mondial et de l’apostasie généralisée de l’humanité.

L’armée américaine souffre d’une pénurie de balles
LE MONDE | 27.07.04 | 14h01

Pour être informé avant tout le monde, recevez nos alertes par e-mail. Abonnez-vous au Monde.fr, 5€ par mois

New york de notre correspondant

Le Pentagone consacre des dizaines de milliards de dollars à développer les armes du futur, mais doit faire face aujourd’hui à une pénurie de balles. L’armée américaine compte se doter dans les prochaines années d’un système de communication de tous les acteurs du champ de bataille, d’un uniforme intelligent capable de changer de couleur, de soigner le soldat et de réagir immédiatement en cas d’attaque chimique ou biologique.

En attendant, les GI en Irak et en Afghanistan risquent de se trouver à court de munitions de petit calibre pour leurs fusils M16. A tel point que le Pentagone a dû importer d’urgence des cartouches de Grande-Bretagne et d’Israël.

Cette situation est la conséquence à la fois de combats qui se prolongent en Irak au-delà des prévisions et de la fermeture de la plupart des usines qui produisaient ces munitions pour l’armée. Une seule entreprise, à Salt Lake City (Utah), fabrique aujourd’hui les balles de petit calibre de 5,56 mm pour les troupes américaines. Il y en avait cinq pendant la guerre du Vietnam. L’usine a investi pour moderniser ses machines, a triplé ses effectifs, les faisant passer de 650 personnes à 1 950 au cours des dernières années, et continue à embaucher. Mais elle n’arrive pas à satisfaire les besoins. Les troupes américaines en Afghanistan, en Irak - et pour l’entraînement à balles réelles, qui a été considérablement renforcé - consommeront cette année 1,5 milliard de cartouches. L’usine de Salt Lake City n’est pas capable d’en produire plus de 1,2 milliard. Ne voulant pas toucher à sa réserve stratégique d’un milliard de balles, le Pentagone a dû trouver une solution d’urgence pour combler le déficit. L’armée anglaise lui a cédé en juin 130 millions de cartouches provenant de ses stocks et, à la fin de l’année 2003, Israeli Military Industries a reçu une commande pour en produire 70 millions.

Cela fait grincer des dents au Congrès. Des parlementaires trouvent scandaleux que l’armée américaine dépende de fournisseurs étrangers pour quelque chose d’aussi essentiel que les balles de ses fusils. Ils craignent aussi que les producteurs étrangers en profitent pour augmenter les prix. Pour résoudre son problème, le Pentagone doit lancer un appel d’offres afin de trouver un deuxième fournisseur aux Etats-Unis-mêmes. Mais il ne sera pas capable de produire des munitions avant l’année prochaine au plus tôt.

Eric Leser

• ARTICLE PARU DANS L’EDITION DU 28.07.04

Bonjour,
effectivement, certaines personnes ont pu écrire que ce que faisaient les britanniques est génial. Cependant, peut-être que ça l’est d’un point de vue économique pour un économiste. Cependant, je vous conseille de lire l’article suivant http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/20040727.FIG0056.html où l’on parle du fait que “l’armée britannique serait aux yeux de certains experts en train de devenir une force annexe, intégrée à l’occasion dans la stratégie des Etats-Unis”.

Cordialement