Saturday, July 12, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Charles Krauthammer - Townhall.com Columnist The Altar of Soft Power
WASHINGTON -- On the day the Colombian military freed Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other long-held hostages, the Italian Parliament passed yet another resolution demanding her release. Europe had long ago adopted this French-Colombian politician as a cause celebre. France had made her an honorary citizen of Paris, passed numerous resolutions and held many vigils.
Unfortunately, karma does not easily cross the Atlantic. Betancourt languished for six years in cruel captivity until freed by a brilliant operation conducted by the Colombian military, intelligence agencies and special forces -- an operation so well executed that the captors were overpowered without a shot being fired.
This in foreign policy establishment circles is called "hard power." In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of "soft power"
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Wednesday, July 09, 2008
did you see this on CBS evening news?
"Hear about the 550 metric tons of yellowcake uranium found in Iraq? No? Why
should you? It doesn't fit the media's neat story line that Saddam Hussein's
Iraq posed no nuclear threat when we invaded in 2003. It's a little known
fact that, after invading Iraq in 2003, the U.S. found massive amounts of
uranium yellowcake, the stuff that can be refined into nuclear weapons or
nuclear fuel, at a facility in Tuwaitha outside of Baghdad. In recent weeks,
the U.S. secretly has helped the Iraqi government ship it all to Canada,
where it was bought by a Canadian company for further processing into nuclear
fuel---thus keeping it from potential use by terrorists or unsavory regimes
in the region. This has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Yet,
as the AP reported, this marks a 'significant step toward closing the books
on Saddam's nuclear legacy.' Seems to us this should be big news. After
all, much of the early opposition to the war in Iraq involved claims that
President Bush 'lied' about weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam
posed little if any nuclear threat to the U.S. This more or less proves
Saddam in 2003 had a program on hold for building WMD and that he planned
to boot it up again soon...Saddam acquired most of his uranium before 1991,
but still had it in 2003, when invading U.S. troops found the stuff... That
means Saddam held onto it for more than a decade. Why? He hoped to wait out
U.N. sanctions on Iraq and start his WMD program anew. This would seem to
vindicate Bush's decision to invade." ---Investor's Business Daily
should you? It doesn't fit the media's neat story line that Saddam Hussein's
Iraq posed no nuclear threat when we invaded in 2003. It's a little known
fact that, after invading Iraq in 2003, the U.S. found massive amounts of
uranium yellowcake, the stuff that can be refined into nuclear weapons or
nuclear fuel, at a facility in Tuwaitha outside of Baghdad. In recent weeks,
the U.S. secretly has helped the Iraqi government ship it all to Canada,
where it was bought by a Canadian company for further processing into nuclear
fuel---thus keeping it from potential use by terrorists or unsavory regimes
in the region. This has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Yet,
as the AP reported, this marks a 'significant step toward closing the books
on Saddam's nuclear legacy.' Seems to us this should be big news. After
all, much of the early opposition to the war in Iraq involved claims that
President Bush 'lied' about weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam
posed little if any nuclear threat to the U.S. This more or less proves
Saddam in 2003 had a program on hold for building WMD and that he planned
to boot it up again soon...Saddam acquired most of his uranium before 1991,
but still had it in 2003, when invading U.S. troops found the stuff... That
means Saddam held onto it for more than a decade. Why? He hoped to wait out
U.N. sanctions on Iraq and start his WMD program anew. This would seem to
vindicate Bush's decision to invade." ---Investor's Business Daily
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