| To: sea_urchin who wrote (21335) | 7/7/2004 5:14:09 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Footnote --my email to arabnews.com:
Turkey’s EU Membership
I beg to disagree with your editorial analysis (Chirac’s Rationale, July 1) on the French stance vis-à-vis Turkey. But first, let me debunk the myth that the US earnestly supports Turkey’s EU membership.
It’s in the best, if covert, interest of the US to keep Turkey isolated and surrounded by foes — Russia, Greece (on the issue of Cyprus, at least), Kurdistan, and Turkophobic EU countries (Poland, Bulgaria, etc.). However, US officials are smart fellows and well aware of the current climate of anti-Americanism across Europe. Hence they realize that the shortest way to kill a proposal — any proposal — in Europe is to brand it “American”. My point is that if the Bush administration really wanted to hasten Turkey’s entry into the EU they would keep quiet about it and wouldn’t sweat EU leaders into accepting Turkey’s candidature.
Now you claim that the current French administration is racist and Arabophobic. How wrong: The previous French administration — dubbed “Raffarin II” — boasted of two ministers of Algerian extraction [*]. And what of President Chirac’s triumphant visit to Algeria last fall? Keep in mind that, back in 1954-1962, Lt. Jacques Chirac did fight the French-Algerian war, unlike President Bush who watched the Vietnam War on TV. Chirac is a Gaullist, that is to say, he is keen to preserve France’s Gaullist legacy: Independence of Algeria and respect for the Arab people.
Therefore, don’t misconstrue Chirac’s statements regarding Turkey. Obviously, he must take into account French opinion, which is lukewarm about welcoming Turkey into the EU club. Yet Chirac’s anger was not so much directed at the idea of Turkey joining the EU as at Bush’s cunning attempt to foil it.
After all, it would have been in France’s best interest to have Turkey as a full-fledged European partner back in March 2003 when France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg openly opposed the US occupation of Iraq.
Gustave Jaeger • Brussels, Belgium, published 7 July 2004
arabnews.com
[*] YOUNG people waving Algerian and Moroccan flags flocked to the Place de la République in Paris to celebrate the re-election of Jacques Chirac on the night of the second round of the French presidential election on 5 May 2002. A few days later Tokia Saifi joined the new government as secretary of state for sustainable development, and Hamlaoui Mekachera was appointed minister for veterans. Saifi is the daughter of Algerian immigrants, Mekachera a former Algerian officer in the French army.
[...]
mondediplo.com |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (21340) | 7/7/2004 10:56:21 AM | | From: sea_urchin | | | | Gustave > US officials are smart fellows and well aware of the current climate of anti-Americanism across Europe. Hence they realize that the shortest way to kill a proposal — any proposal — in Europe is to brand it “American”.<
I agree with you. That was a smart move by the US and for many reasons:
1. If EU accepts Turkey, then Turkey owes that to the US and this gives the US another toe-hold in Europe
2. IF EU accepts Turkey, then the domino chain can continue to the next US surrogate -- and the next, as I mentioned in my previous post
3. If the EU does not accept Turkey, then Turkey cannot hold the US responsible, on the contrary, it brings Turkey closer to the US especially as the US (and Israel) are about to double-cross Turkey over Kurdistan. Therefore Turkey is cornered.
So, the EU and Turkey are both damned if they do (get married) and damned if they don't. Either way, the US wins. |
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| To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (21339) | 7/7/2004 11:41:30 AM | | From: sea_urchin | | | | Gustave > I'm more and more convinced that the key to all this mess lies in the Bible Belt --indeed a hotbed of homegrown terrorists à la Timothy McVeigh... <
Yes, you have mentioned that but I have my doubts. And these doubts are not only intellectual (based on the theoretical impossibility of any enduring marriage of convenience between the Zionists and the Christian fundamentalists) but also based my own experience in South Africa, where I have observed how the right-wingers have virtually evaporated into thin air when the ANC Afro-Socialists took over. In fact, today, in South Africa, you will have to look very hard to find the vestige of any white Afrikaner, so effectively have they vanished. Indeed, their place on the right of SA politics has been taken by the handful of liberals who are, today, regarded as the right-wing, indeed the fascists and racists of SA politics, simply because they are "opposed" to the Afro-socialists.
Here is the Voortrekker monument -- the icon of the white Afrikaner republic:
voortrekkermon.org.za
This is the website of the "New" Nationalist party -- the creators of apartheid and the fatherland of White South Africa.
nnp.co.za
Not easy to find any whites, if one looks at the top photo on the left. And my question: if six blacks get into bed with one white, what will happen to the white?
And so can anyone be surprised that the white Afrikaner has all but "disappeared"?
And therefore, if this is what their brothers in SA have done, how effective can the white Southerners in the US be? |
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| To: philv who wrote (21314) | 7/7/2004 4:47:52 PM | | From: sea_urchin | | | | Phil > theme of interest to gold bugs who think debt actually matters
So I wonder what they would think about this?
anxietyculture.com
>>Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon misplaced $2.3 trillion. This money has disappeared – nobody knows where it's gone. Government officials have blamed the accounting systems – the US Department of Defense has failed to produce independently audited accounts since 1995.<<
Nice one! |
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| To: sea_urchin who wrote (21341) | 7/8/2004 3:40:00 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: If EU accepts Turkey, then Turkey owes that to the US and this gives the US another toe-hold in Europe
I'm not as sure as you about Turkey being just another US stooge in Europe --Turkey is not Britain... Contrariwise, I'd say that if Turkey became a full-fledged EU member, the US would LOSE a key partner in the Mideast/Central Asia. For that matter, just imagine how stronger the position of France and Germany would have been, back in March 2003 on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, if Turkey were a European member --would Rumsfeld have dared to put Turkey into "Ol'Europe"?! |
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| To: sea_urchin who wrote (21342) | 7/8/2004 4:08:39 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: ...the theoretical impossibility of any enduring marriage of convenience between the Zionists and the Christian fundamentalists...
It's indeed "theoretical"... After all, the marriage you are talking about dates back to the early 1980s --when then Israeli PM Itzhak Shamir struck a deal with Falwell and the Christian Zionists. That is, the "impossible marriage" you're pooh-poohing is already 20 years old!!
As regards Timothy McVeigh, the ominous truth is that, contrary to the official coverup, McVeigh was not a disgruntled loner who blew a fuse --the OKC bombing was no freak terrorism... McVeigh was actually part of a group, he belonged to the militia underground. So did the fugitive killer who assassinated abortion medics and was sheltered by the population.... (*)
Most outsiders failed to grasp the full extent of the far right in the US... Europeans, in particular, think of the far right as an organized political party --not as a way of life... Since there is no extreme-right party in the US --that is, apart from some fringe mavericks-- Europeans assume that the US far right is basically made up of KKK nostalgists and... Pat Buchanan!! They just don't see the Christian Right elephant in the middle of the Bible Belt....
Gus
(*) womensenews.org
A white supremacist and skilled woodsman, Mr. Rudolph became something of a local folk hero, a cheered-on phantom, as he eluded hundreds of F.B.I. agents who chased him with bloodhounds, helicopters and heat-seeking military equipment, but always came up empty.
Today, even after his capture, many people here still identified with him.
[...]
rickross.com |
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| To: sea_urchin who wrote (21344) | 7/8/2004 4:33:38 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: Looks like UK is the worst
Maybe... but Britain is not a EUR country. The countdown for the devaluation of the EUR currency has begun... I think there's currently a window of opportunity to buy USD --the window will stay open until November 2004 and the uncertainty on the US election is cleared up... After November, I'm afraid the Euro will be in for a dive...
Re: MANUFACTURING JOBS
As far as Britain is concerned, there isn't a UK manufacturing sector anymore... Britain sold out all of her industrial assets in the 1980s and 1990s: ICL to Fujitsu, Jaguar (car manufacturer) to Ford Motor, Rover/Morris to BMW, Rolls-Royce/Bentley to VW, Bass to Interbrew, etc. |
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| To: sea_urchin who wrote (21205) | 7/8/2004 4:56:31 AM | | From: GUSTAVE JAEGER | | | | Re: ...Or even resign, as Tenet did. There's no doubt that the longer Powell remains in the administration, the more "coffee" will fall on him.
Well, looks like all the coffee has spilled over in Tenet's lap....
CIA attacked for 'gross exaggeration' of Saddam's WMD threat in official US report
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
08 July 2004
The CIA was braced yesterday for a fiercely critical Congressional report expected to place primary blame on the agency for the pre-war intelligence debacle over Iraq's still-unfound weapons of mass destruction.
The preliminary report, by the Senate Committee on Intelligence, is to be published today or tomorrow. Its central charge is that the CIA grossly exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, ignoring the paucity of its own findings on Iraqi's WMD capabilities.
Indeed, knowledge that a public savaging was on the way may have been the final straw persuading George Tenet to resign last month after a seven-year stint as CIA director marked by as string of major intelligence failures, most notably the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks and to find Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapon programmes.
The Senate report is said to fault the CIA in three main areas: its disregard for claims by relatives of Iraqi scientists that Saddam had abandoned his WMD ambitions, a reliance on bogus information from defectors, and its insistence that aluminium tubes bound for Iraq and seized in 2001, were proof that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear programme.
The New York Times said relatives of the scientists repeatedly told the CIA that the WMD programmes had been scrapped, but the agency failed to report this to President George Bush as he travelled the country warning of the deadly threat posed by Baghdad.
How and where the CIA made contact with the relatives is unclear. But from 2000 on they are said to have told the agency the programmes had been dropped. The CIA did not believe them, a spokesman telling the paper "no useful information" had been collected.
Defectors also duped the CIA, which continued to believe one Iraqi claiming knowledge of Saddam's biological weapons, even after it had been warned by the Defence Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon that he was almost certainly peddling false information.
Other defectors were provided by Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress who is in disgrace with the Bush administration because the INC had fed false information that exaggerated the WMD threat. Finally, the CIA is portrayed as the main promoter of aluminium tubes as evidence. It said such pipes were intended for centrifuges to enrich uranium for use in Iraqi nuclear weapons.
In fact, experts at both the US atomic laboratories and in the State Department's own intelligence bureau were highly doubtful that the tubes were of sufficient quality for centrifuges. But the CIA prevailed.
Overruling his in-house specialists, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, went to the United Nations in February 2003 to make his now-infamous presentation about Saddam's presumed weapons, basing his nuclear programme case on the aluminium tubes.
The Senate report may, however, have one unexpected consequence: an early nomination by President Bush of a director to replace Mr Tenet. It had been assumed that the White House would delay its choice until after the election, to avoid confirmation hearings at which the WMD fiasco would be revisited at the height of the presidential election campaign.
But those fears seem to have receded, not least because the report largely exonerates the present White House of the charge that it hyped the Iraq threat, pinning the blame instead on an agency headed by a man who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1997.
Another argument gaining ground is that it would be dangerous to leave the CIA with a weakened leadership when US intelligence specialists are openly fearful of further terrorist attacks. John McLaughlin, the deputy director who takes over as a caretaker when Mr Tenet formally steps down at the weekend, is also seen as part of a discredited old guard. James Pavitt, the deputy director in charge of clandestine operations, is also retiring.
Mr Tenet's reputation also suffered a grievous blow with his pre-war assurance to President Bush, reported in Plan of Attack, the 2004 book by the journalist Bob Woodward, that the CIA had "slam-dunk" proof Saddam still possessed WMD.
The agency, and by extension Mr Tenet, are accused of doing a poor job of gathering evidence about Iraq's alleged illicit weapons, and of wrongly evaluating what little they did have.
The leading candidate for the job is probably Porter Goss, the Florida congressman who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, and served in the CIA's operations directorate from 1962 to 1971. Others include President Ronald Reagan's former navy secretary, John Lehman, and Richard Armitage, now Deputy Secretary of State.
news.independent.co.uk |
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