First of all, sorry, this isn't very well written so I apologize in advice if it's a bit disjointed and/or boring. The news is weird right now. It's literally all over the place and totally contradictory. I assume that implies that this is all still up in the air and no one is really quite sure how it is going to turn out.
We've got numerous stories about Gore (who has always supported regime change in Iraq) doing his speech about how Bush's Iraq war makes the world more dangerous. He says, “If you are going after Jesse James you ought to organize the posse first… We should focus first and foremost on our top priority — winning the war against terrorism.” That said, Senator Tom Daschle has said that Democrats would fully back Bush on the war. As that article points out, short of largely ignored newspapers, there's been essentially no public debate on this — at all. As is pointed out in this editorial, congress — and America — needs to remember the lessons of Tonkin*.
That said, reading Gore's full speech (it's more thoroughly quoted in the first link), it's very much an “on the fence” speech. As Buchanan points out, Democratic presidential hopefuls are pretty scared of “being on the wrong side of a popular war.” He brings up another interesting point, which is that time is running short — US troops are simply not trained in summer desert war and would be at a massive disadvantage should Saddam manage to push things back by six months.
Let's see if I can dig up some good news in the region. Does nine Israeli women's groups coming forward to support resolutions to have the butcher Ariel Sharon tried for war crimes? (No, not for his current crimes, but for truly bloody and horrific massacres where he murdered about 1,700 Palestinians). It must be quite sobering for Israelis, and probably even more so for Israeli-Americans (I'm sure there are many on IAM), when they wonder how different the world would be today if Sharon had lost the last election…
Since the US has a history of international betrayal, they have zero support from the rebel forces in Iraq, who also seek to overthrow Saddam. Remember, in the 1980s the US stocked Saddam with germ warfare ingredients in order to attack his enemies, but now it's a new administration and suddenly they're threatening to end him for it. So you can see why countries are wary to make deals of any kind with the US.
The CIA on the other hand has a very interesting story as to what it's all about:
Anyway, getting back to the contradictions, while the Arab League has said war with Iraq will “open the gates of Hell in the Middle East”, most Arab nations are either quietly helping the US or staying silent. But then also, probably thanks to a “image makeover“, Saddam is enjoying support from the Shiite Muslim community. Now the Saudis are saying that it's the US, not Iraq, which threatens regional peace. Even the British are backing down on regime change support, and the Germans have just elected an aggressively anti-war government — this is a big deal because there are currently about 70,000 US troops in Germany, and they may be banned from German airspace, dramatically altering US military presence in Europe.
But why regime change? There are no viable leaders who could be put into place, and there's no reason to believe that any new regime wouldn't be worse — at least the current one is stable. The reason is simple: The US doesn't care about terrorism or non-existent weapoons of mass destruction. They care about their corporate interests, which are achieved by war and political control of the region (which means regime change). If anything, the constant call for regime change is proof of the hidden agenda. Then of course we've got the Israelis and their lies and attrocities and genocidal rages and very clear and unhidden agenda…
And then it just starts getting silly. Psyops…
* The Tonkin incident was a fabricated attack (a la “he has weapons of mass destruction”) by the Vietnamese on American ships which was used to have congress give LBJ a black cheque, and look how well the illegal war on Vietnam turned out for both the citizens of America and of that entire region of Asia. (Hence the quote at the top).
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