More Pearls from Perle
A strong warning to Syria Barry James/IHT International Herald Tribune Saturday, April 12, 2003 Perle, a Pentagon adviser, sees more preemption in future PARIS Richard Perle, one of the chief U.S. ideologists behind the war to oust Saddam Hussein, warned Friday that the United States would be compelled to act if it discovered that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have been concealed in Syria. . Perle said that if the Bush administration were to learn that Syria had taken possession of such Iraqi weapons, "I'm quite sure that we would have to respond to that." . "It would be an act of such foolishness on Syria's part," he continued, "that it would raise the question of whether Syria could be reasoned with. But I suppose our first approach would be to demand that the Syrians terminate that threat by turning over anything they have come to possess, and failing that I don't think anyone would rule out the use of any of our full range of capabilities." . In an interview with editors of the International Herald Tribune, Perle said that the threat posed by terrorists he described as "feverishly" looking for weapons to kill as many Americans as possible obliged the United States to follow a strategy of preemptive war in its own defense. . Asked if this meant it would go after other countries after Iraq, he replied: "If next means who will next experience the 3d Army Division or the 82d Airborne, that's the wrong question. If the question is who poses a threat that the United States deal with, then that list is well known. It's Iran. It's North Korea. It's Syria. It's Libya, and I could go on." . Perle, a Pentagon adviser as a member of the Defense Policy Board, said the point about Afghanistan and now Iraq was that the United States had been put in a position of having to use force to deal with a threat that could not be managed in any other way. . The message to other countries on the list is "give us another way to manage the threat," he said, adding, "Obviously, our strong preference is always going to be to manage threats by peaceful means, and every one of the countries on the 'who's next?' list is in a position to end the threat by peaceful means." . "So the message to Syria, to Iran, to North Korea, to Libya should be clear. if we have no alternative, we are prepared to do what is necessary to defend Americans and others. But that doesn't mean that we are readying the troops for a next military engagement. We are not." . The former official in Republican administrations said the United States also has "a serious problem" with Saudi Arabia, where he said both private individuals and the government had poured money into extremist organizations. . "This poses such an obvious threat to the United States that it is intolerable that they continue to do this," he warned. . He said he had no doubt that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. . "We will not find them unless we stumble across them," he said, "until we are able to interview those Iraqis who know where they are. The prospect of inspections may have had the effect of causing the relocation of the weapons and their hiding in a manner that would minimize their discovery, which I believe will turn out to mean burying things underground in inaccessible places." . He added that the speed of the coalition advance, "may have precluded retrieving and using those weapons in a timely fashion." . Asked if the United States was doomed to follow a policy of preemption alone, Perle replied that it is necessary to restructure the United Nations to take account of security threats that arise within borders rather than are directed across borders. . "There is no doubt that if some of the organizations that are determined to destroy this country could lay their hands on a nuclear weapon they would detonate it, and they would detonate in the most densely populated cities in this country, with a view to killing as many Americans as possible, " he said. Yet there was nothing in the UN charter authorizing collective preemption to avoid such threats. . "I think the charter could say that the terrorist threat is a threat to all mankind," Perle said. . Perle said resentment over France's opposition to the war ran so deep in the United States that he doubted there could ever be a basis for constructive relations between the two governments. . "When you have both the government and the opposition agreed on one thing, which is that they are not sure whether they want Saddam Hussein to win, that is a shocking development and Americans have been shocked. The freedom fries and all the rest is a pretty deeply held sentiment. I am afraid this is not something that is easily patched and cannot be dealt with simply in the normal diplomatic way. because the feeling runs too deep. it's gone way beyond the diplomats." . Perle said he had no doubt the world is safer than it was a month ago. "The idea that liberating Iraq would spawn terrorists all over the Muslim world I think will
Re: Re: Pearls from Perle and Hammurabi
The Absolute Mind manifests itself through Bush. Bush is obviously conscious of this in his claim he is bringing Freedom to Iraqthink of how rationality is embodied in the weapons of mass destruction of the US and how might is now making the right of pre-emptive war in International Law. Cheers, Ken Hanly - Original Message - From: soula avramidis To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2003 1:33 AM Subject: [PEN-L:35896] Re: Pearls from Perle and Hammurabi "History suggests not. The UN arose from the ashes of a war that theLeague of Nations was unable to avert. It was simply not up to confrontingItaly in Abyssinia, much less - had it survived that debacle - to taking onNazi Germany." If history is repeating itself, then is this the tragedy or the farce? if it is a farce, it is too tragic to contemplate. How is one to distinguish between tragedies and farces, the problem with this is people may laugh in the wrong place or at inopportune moment and offend other people, say at a funeral. So I searched someone who knows Iraq and its culture for a proverb that may throw some wisdom on the matter, and he says, one ancient Babylonian proverb said and this is well documented :"the greatest of calamities or tragedies is that which makes you laugh", meaning that one is so hurt such that one is driven to insanity. here of course, farce and tragedy coincide in actuality, making the matter somewhat dialectical. speaking of the dialectic, this leads to Hegel on war, or his patronizing stance with the Prussian court, and for that you may look up his philosophy of right, but in short one may quote this: [Conflict with another sovereign state] is the moment wherein the substance of the state--i.e. its absolute power against everything individual and particular, against life, property, and their rights, even against societies and associations--makes the nullity of these finite things an accomplished fact and brings it home to consciousness. (PR:323) "War is the state of affairs which deals in earnest with the vanity of temporal goods and concernsWar has the higher significance that by its agency, as I have remarked elsewhere, "the ethical health of peoples is preserved in their indifference to the stabilization of finite institutions; just as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm, so also corruption in nations would be the product of prolonged, let alone `perpetual,' peace." (PR:324R) Then the words of an idealist sycophant (Hegel), devoid of any concrete substance, in which he extols the Prussian drive for war, are taken by one Lee Harris, in 'Our world historical gamble'. to imply that war is necessary for the betterment of the human spirit: "The war with Iraq will constitute one of those momentous turning points of history in which one nation under the guidance of a strong-willed, self-confident leader undertakes to alter the fundamental state of the world. It is, to use the language of Hegel, an event that is world-historical in its significance and scope. And it will be world-historical, no matter what the outcome may be. Such world-historical events, according to Hegel, are inherently sui generis - they break the mold and shatter tradition. " Indeed momentous, the war is not with Iraq it is on Iraq, and it is literally the molestation of the weak by the powerful; one x us pilot described the bombing of the escaping convoys from Kuwait in 1991 as "shooting fish in a barrel", later known as the highway of death. This weak and powerful business reminds me of something I read long ago which is to the first political manifesto known to man, Hammurabi's code in which he says: "The great gods have called me, I am the salvation-bearing shepherd, whose staff is straight, the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad; in my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I enclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to bespeak justice in the land, to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king of righteousness." The man may have a visionary too: for he says: "In future time, through all coming generations, let the king, who may be in the land, observe the words of righteousness which I have w
Re: Pearls from Perle and Hammurabi
"History suggests not. The UN arose from the ashes of a war that theLeague of Nations was unable to avert. It was simply not up to confrontingItaly in Abyssinia, much less - had it survived that debacle - to taking onNazi Germany." If history is repeating itself, then is this the tragedy or the farce? if it is a farce, it is too tragic to contemplate. How is one to distinguish between tragedies and farces, the problem with this is people may laugh in the wrong place or at inopportune moment and offend other people, say at a funeral. So I searched someone who knows Iraq and its culture for a proverb that may throw some wisdom on the matter, and he says, one ancient Babylonian proverb said and this is well documented :"the greatest of calamities or tragedies is that which makes you laugh", meaning that one is so hurt such that one is driven to insanity. here of course, farce and tragedy coincide in actuality, making the matter somewhat dialectical. speaking of the dialectic, this leads to Hegel on war, or his patronizing stance with the Prussian court, and for that you may look up his philosophy of right, but in short one may quote this: [Conflict with another sovereign state] is the moment wherein the substance of the state--i.e. its absolute power against everything individual and particular, against life, property, and their rights, even against societies and associations--makes the nullity of these finite things an accomplished fact and brings it home to consciousness. (PR:323) "War is the state of affairs which deals in earnest with the vanity of temporal goods and concernsWar has the higher significance that by its agency, as I have remarked elsewhere, "the ethical health of peoples is preserved in their indifference to the stabilization of finite institutions; just as the blowing of the winds preserves the sea from the foulness which would be the result of a prolonged calm, so also corruption in nations would be the product of prolonged, let alone `perpetual,' peace." (PR:324R) Then the words of an idealist sycophant (Hegel), devoid of any concrete substance, in which he extols the Prussian drive for war, are taken by one Lee Harris, in 'Our world historical gamble'. to imply that war is necessary for the betterment of the human spirit: "The war with Iraq will constitute one of those momentous turning points of history in which one nation under the guidance of a strong-willed, self-confident leader undertakes to alter the fundamental state of the world. It is, to use the language of Hegel, an event that is world-historical in its significance and scope. And it will be world-historical, no matter what the outcome may be. Such world-historical events, according to Hegel, are inherently sui generis - they break the mold and shatter tradition. " Indeed momentous, the war is not with Iraq it is on Iraq, and it is literally the molestation of the weak by the powerful; one x us pilot described the bombing of the escaping convoys from Kuwait in 1991 as "shooting fish in a barrel", later known as the highway of death. This weak and powerful business reminds me of something I read long ago which is to the first political manifesto known to man, Hammurabi's code in which he says: "The great gods have called me, I am the salvation-bearing shepherd, whose staff is straight, the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad; in my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I enclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to bespeak justice in the land, to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king of righteousness." The man may have a visionary too: for he says: "In future time, through all coming generations, let the king, who may be in the land, observe the words of righteousness which I have written on my monument; let him not alter the law of the land which I have given, the edicts which I have enacted; my monument let him not mar. If such a ruler have wisdom, and be able to keep his land in order, he shall observe the words which I have written in this inscription; the rule, statute, and law of the land which I have given; the decisions which I have made will this inscription show him; let him rule his subjects accordingly, speak justice to them, give right decisions, root out the miscreants and criminals from this land, and grant prosperity to his subjects." Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Platinum - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, live on your desktop!
Pearls from Perle
This is a prime example of the sort of absolute nuttiness and radical imperialism that drives the Bush policy. Won't even international capital recoil at this stuff. It promises instability and constant intervention and a world race to develop WMD's. What other option is there to stop a power hungry arrogant imperialist who seems to believe in his own rhetorical madness. And at some stage the opponent will not be an Iraq which probably has few if any WMDs. In fact the US may be forced to plant them after the war. I assume they would not allow unreliable people such as Blix back in or at least not until they had planted stuff and then given inspectors intelligence about where they were. Cheers, Ken Hanly PS. Notice that at every opportunity now the Iraq war is tied in with the war against terrorism. US media dont seem to even remark on this. At least CBC has pointed this out several times. Thank God for the death of the UN Its abject failure gave us only anarchy. The world needs order Richard Perle Friday March 21, 2003 The Guardian Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions. As free Iraqis document the quarter-century nightmare of Saddam's rule, let us not forget who held that the moral authority of the international community was enshrined in a plea for more time for inspectors, and who marched against "regime change". In the spirit of postwar reconciliation that diplomats are always eager to engender, we must not reconcile the timid, blighted notion that world order requires us to recoil before rogue states that terrorise their own citizens and menace ours. A few days ago, Shirley Williams argued on television against a coalition of the willing using force to liberate Iraq. Decent, thoughtful and high-minded, she must surely have been moved into opposition by an argument so convincing that it overpowered the obvious moral case for removing Saddam's regime. For Lady Williams (and many others), the thumb on the scale of judgment about this war is the idea that only the UN security council can legitimise the use of force. It matters not if troops are used only to enforce the UN's own demands. A willing coalition of liberal democracies isn't good enough. If any institution or coalition other than the UN security council uses force, even as a last resort, "anarchy", rather than international law, would prevail, destroying any hope for world order. This is a dangerously wrong idea that leads inexorably to handing great moral and even existential politico-military decisions, to the likes of Syria, Cameroon, Angola, Russia, China and France. When challenged with the argument that if a policy is right with the approbation of the security council, how can it be wrong just because communist China or Russia or France or a gaggle of minor dictatorships withhold their assent, she fell back on the primacy of "order" versus "anarchy". But is the security council capable of ensuring order and saving us from anarchy? History suggests not. The UN arose from the ashes of a war that the League of Nations was unable to avert. It was simply not up to confronting Italy in Abyssinia, much less - had it survived that debacle - to taking on Nazi Germany. In the heady aftermath of the allied victory, the hope that security could be made collective was embodied in the UN security council - with abject results. During the cold war the security council was hopelessly paralysed. The Soviet empire was wrestled to the ground, and eastern Europe liberated, not by the UN, but by the mother of all coalitions, Nato. Apart from minor skirmishes and sporadic peacekeeping missions, the only case of the security council acting during the cold war was its use of force to halt the invasion of South Korea - and that was only possible because the Soviets were not in the chamber to veto it. It was a mistake they did not make again. Facing Milosevic's multiple aggressions, the UN could not stop the Balkan wars or even protect its victims. It took a coalition of the willing to save Bosnia from extinction. And when the war was over, peace was made in Dayton, Ohio, not in the UN. The rescue of Muslims in Kosovo was not a UN action: their cause never gained security council approval. The United Kingdom, not the United Nations, saved the Falklands. This new century now challenges the hopes for a new world order in new ways. We will not defeat or even contain fanatical terror unless we can carry the w
