Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
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"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
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"There's no telling how many wars it will take by Marian Wilkinson, Aug. 7, 2002 Shortly before US President George Bush met his senior military commander, Tommy Franks, on Monday for an extensive update on Iraq, he made it clear his resolve to remove Saddam Hussein was not faltering. Speaking in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, close to where the fourth hijacked aircraft crashed on September 11, Mr Bush said: "We must not allow the world's worst leaders to blackmail the United States and our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons." In a message that rebuffed Iraq's offers to the United Nations and members of the US Congress to visit Baghdad for talks on the country's suspected weapons sites, Mr Bush told Americans to be prepared for a series of wars against terrorism. "There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland," he said. His words will dismay many allies who have warned the US not to launch a military campaign against Iraq while Afghanistan and the Middle East are in turmoil. Jordan's King Abdullah, in Washington last week, urged the US to step up its efforts to restore the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians rather than declaring war on Iraq. A member of the Kuwaiti royal family, quoted by The New York Times, put the concerns more bluntly: "Just open a map," he said. "Afghanistan is in turmoil, the Middle East is in flames and you want to open a third front in the region?" The split between the US and its allies over the Middle East comes after a wave of suicide bombers and gunmen have killed scores of Israelis in recent days. But while the daily toll mounts, the White House and the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, have maintained their focus on plans to topple Saddam Hussein and destroy his potential to produce weapons of mass destruction. The frustrations over the US policy in the Middle East are highlighted by a former Lieutenant-Colonel with the Israeli Defense Force, Gal Luft. Writing in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs, Colonel Luft says the recent terror campaign by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad has killed as many or more Israelis than Saddam Hussein's Scud missile attack on Israel during the Gulf War. Many more Palestinians have died in Israeli assaults and nearly 1 million have been living under military curfew which has led to widespread hardship and malnutrition as the economy collapses. The White House insists there is still no war plan for Iraq but Mr Bush has urged the Congress to pass the new defense funding bill, the largest increase in spending since Ronald Reagan's time. Sydney [Australia] Morning Herald
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1 : mentally disordered : exhibiting insanity 2 : used by, typical of, or intended for insane persons (an insane asylum) 3 : ABSURD (an insane scheme for making money) in·san·i·ty n. 1 a : a deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as schizophrenia) and usually excluding such states as mental retardation, psychoneurosis, and various character disorders b : a mental disorder 2 : such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility 3 a : extreme folly or unreasonableness b : something utterly foolish or unreasonable
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