CURRENT EVENTS

IMPEACHMENT

The constitution of the United States provides for the removal of the President. Presidents can be deposed if the Senate agrees with the House of Representatives that he has been guilty of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. I think the term "or other" implies that the high crimes and misdemeanors must be comparable to treason and bribery to justify impeachment. President Clintons personal life leaves much to be desired, but I don't think his sins can be compared to treason or bribery.

President Clinton should be found not guilty.

IRAQ

In the Footsteps of Machiavelli Nicolo Machiavelli , 16th century Florentine political genius, changed the world of international relations. He taught his Prince that there were reasons of state that overrode conventional morality and that power was the ultimate factor in politics. I think Presidents Bush and Clinton were and are apt pupils. In the summer of 1990, Saddam Huissan discussed his quarrel with Kuwait with US Ambassador April Glasbie. He pointed out that until the British intervened early in this century, Kuwait was a province of what came to be Iraq. Kuwait was slant drilling to tap an Iraqi oil field and to make matters worse, flooding the market to drive down the price of oil. Iraq needed oil revenue to recover from its eight year war with Iran. Ambassador Glasbie either blundered or maybe it was a Machavellian response. She said the US did not intervene in border disputes. Saddam took this to mean the United States would not object to his plans to invade Kuwait. He had good reasons to think of the US as a friend. After all, we had assisted her in her war with Iran by giving Iraq tactical military information from satellite observation of the battle scene. We loaned Iraq billions to buy our agriculture products. Ms. Glasbie’s remark sounded to him like he had our permission to invade. Soon after the cease fire in the Gulf, Iraq put down an uprising of Shiite Muslims. Although we had encouraged dissident groups to overthrow Saddam, we stood by while the uprising was suppressed. Iraq used helicopters along with ground armor in this action. When he was asked why he allowed this, General Swartzkoff said he had been outsmarted during the negotiations. He had agreed to an Iraqi request to use helicopters for transport and so couldn’t interfere with their flights even when they were being used militarily against civilians. If we had been serious in wanting dissident Shiite Muslims to become independent or even to topple Saddam, we would have told him that he was going beyond the agreement and we would have proceeded to destroy his helicopters. You have to assume that the United States is playing some Machaivellian game to account for the difference between what we say and what we do.. Maybe we really want Saddam to stay in power to prevent a power vacuum that would give free rein to Iran. Or is it possible that we are happy to see the Muslim Shiite and Suni factions fight each other? What about the no fly zones? The UN did not order them. The UN asked the allied forces to keep a watch on Saddam so he would not repeat his invasion of Kuwait or commit some other offense. The US and Britain created the no fly zones extending over more than half of Iraq as their response to the UN call. We regularly patrol these zones and attack ground to air missile sites when ever they begin to track our planes. We kept Iraq under surveillance before the gulf war. When Saddam began to move his forces towards Kuwait, we tracked his movement by our satellites. We had been observing troop movements in the mid east for years. When a closer look is needed, we use the U2 reconnaissance aircraft. So why do we maintain the no fly zones? The Administrations justification is that we need to patrol much of Iraq and Iraqi airforce planes would be a threat to us. But if we have other means of obtaining information about Saddams movements, why do we risk the lives of our pilots and spend millions to keep a carrier task force in the gulf? The search for weapons of Mass Destruction has been going on for 8 years. We have destroyed far more war material through the inspection process than was destroyed during the war. But Chief Inspector Richard Butler wants to go farther. He talks of finding computers. He warned that these might be used to help make weapons. He has found factories for making medicines and warned that they could be converted to produce biological weapons. Isn’t Saddam right when he states that it appears that Butler wants Iraq stripped of all technological capability? If that is, in fact, the goal we seek, is it justified. Was Iraq’s crime so heinous that she must suffer forever. Germany brought years of warfare to Europe in two World Wars, but when the war ended we rushed food and other material to her to reduce civilian suffering. Iraq is concerned that the inspections are being used for spying. In his interview on the PBS News Hour January 12, 1999, Thomas Pickering of the State Department admitted that Butler had sent Iraqi telephone intercepts to the Pentagon, but denied this was spying. The Pentagon reported that several high ranking Iraqi officers were killed in the pre-Ramadon attacks. We deny we are targeting Saddam, but this latest revelation makes one wonder. I think even Machiavelli would say its time to normalize relations with Iraq. What is to be gained by continuing the harsh policy against Iraq. Someday Saddam will die or be killed. Someday Richard Butler will admit he is satisfied. The longer we keep a policy in place that denies adequate food and medication to Iraqi people, the more likely it is that a post Saddam ruler will rebuild weapons of mass destruction. Saddam’s successor might be a Machiavellian too. While pretending to be a friend of the US, he might just produce a super biological weapon that would be brought to the US in a suitcase. It is in our own interest to normalize relations with Iraq. KOSOVO ERRORS

KOSOVO ERRORS

The US policy on Kosovo is wrong. Clinton refers to it as the NATO policy, but can anyone argue that the NATO policy is not formed by the US? This situation was a job for the UN, but apparently the US concluded we could not persuade the UN to let us call the shots.

We base our policy on the tragic expulsions of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, but did nothing when 1/2 million Serbs were expelled from Croatia.

We tried to get Yugoslavia to allow foreign military personnel into Kosovo during negotiations in France. Yugoslavia refused to accept foreign troops on their soil, as would almost all sovereign nations. We then launched a massive air war on Yugoslavia. We use high altitude bombing that has resulted in large scale civilian deaths. It weapons have hit the Chinese embassy and the home of the Swedish ambassador. One missile strayed into a neighboring neutral country.

But the basic error is that we are morally wrong to attempt to right a wrong with a wrong.