The road not taken
White, Robert E.
many Catholic schools in New York will have to close. Supporting those schools is in everyone's interest, was Flanigan's point. Amen. THE GULF WAR THE ROAD NOT TAKEN THE MEANS OVERWHELM THE...
...To the Iraqi leader this was a direct message that the U. S. would not object if he forced Kuwait to yield the disputed Rumalia oil fields and the two uninhabited islands of Babiyan and Wasan necessary to the security of the deep-water canal Iraq intends to build to the inland port of Basra...
...Even my heart was pounding...
...So far our approach to the Persian Gulf war is an appeal to reason or to radical faith...
...Before you chalk it up to small-town narrowmindedness, keep two things in mind...
...By resorting to war the U.S...
...has inflamed Arab nationalism, and made it unlikely that the United Nations will ever again unite effectively against an aggressor under U.S...
...President Bush compared Saddam Hussein with Hitler and talked of the moral imperatives that govern the struggle between "good and evil, fight and wrong...
...His popularity threatens the stability of several Arab governments that have supported the United States...
...If Saddam Hussein were to accept a version of the BakerBe.ssmertnykh peace proposal, he would present the Bush administration with a stark choice...
...Instead of accepting this significant concession, Saddam Hussein gambled that he could get away with a takeover of the entire country of Kuwait...
...Thus, it was only a matter of time before he would have had to find a face-saving exit...
...I know what convinced me to give my life to the peace movement...
...cluster bomb...
...your border disagreement with Kuwait...
...Egypt and Syria sent troops in significant numbers to help convince the world that this was not Western imperialism on the march...
...leadership...
...Am I missing something here...
...The half-time extravaganza at the Super Bowl gives us a clue...
...Someone did an excellent job of marketing patriotism, of making millions feel pride in their country and support for the war...
...Or if enough pacifists shout "love your enemies" loud and long enough, the crowds will convert...
...Someone, in other words, knows more than the church or the peace movement...
...the Benedictine Sisters because we've spoken and acted against the Gulf war...
...troop strength has grown, the administration's rhetoric became more warlike...
...The contest was a cliff-hanger, but the Benedictine Sisters squeaked out a victory...
...Saddam Hussein because he's Hitler's clone and the target of our Tomahawk missiles...
...I sobbed when 22 Februaly 1991:119...
...ROBERT E. WHITE Robert E. White, U.S...
...No linkage...
...First, major companies consider Erie one of the top cities in the nation for testing new products...
...a beautiful blond-haired boy sang a special song to the soldiers...
...Dissecting fine points on what constitutes indiscriminate bombing is meaningless rhetoric to a five-year-old Iraq girl blown apart by a U.S...
...Why such passion for patriotism and such disdain and misunderstanding toward those who want to rid the world of war...
...Turkey cut the two pipelines that carried over 80 percent of Iraq's oil to world markets...
...With the United States discreetly in the lead, the Security Council voted to condemn the invasion and imposed a near-total trade embargo on Iraq...
...Today, hardliners in the administration seem almost desperat6 to head off diplomatic initiatives that could stop the war...
...Saddam Hussein's gamble would have failed had the U. S. not given in to rash militarism...
...Promoters flew in hundreds of children of servicemen and women to parade around the football field holding flags...
...As if getting enough Catholics to memorize and apply the just war theory will set them afire for peace...
...Indeed, it is more plausible to argue that as late as July 25 of last year, the Bush administration was trying to mend its relations with Iraq at the expense of Kuwait...
...He has inflicted missile damage on Tel Aviv, has sent his tanks into Saudi Arabia to kill American soldiers, and has shot down U.S...
...Therefore, the next few weeks may see him ready to accept a version of the joint U.S.-Soviet statement that calls for an end to the war if Iraq agrees to leave Kuwait...
...The two contestants were Saddam Hussein and the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania...
...To prolong the war will only insure the further destruction "It's all right, he's from CNN...
...Is the church...
...The embargo had cut off Saddam Hussein's lifeline to the world...
...What an awakening...
...It was reading All Quiet on the Western Front...
...Dismiss out of hand those conspiracy theories which contend that the United States lured Saddam Hussein into invading Kuwait, thereby providing the Bush administration with a pretext for crushing him...
...When Saddam Hussein spoke angrily about Kuwait because it was keeping oil prices artificially low, Ambassador April Glaspie said that the United States recognized the need for increased revenues to rebuild Iraq's war-torn economy and stated, "We have no opinion on...
...The UN Security Council has authorized the use of force only to drive Iraq from Kuwait...
...When the final note sounded, you couldn't find a dry eye in the stadium or in TV rooms around the country...
...This ill-considered move put the world inexorably on the path to war...
...there was inspiring martial music, an all-American Mickey Mouse, flags and fireworks galore...
...Instead the Bush administration raised the troop levels in Saudi Arabia from a trip-wire force of under thirty thousand to a huge army of four hundred thousand...
...Second, Erie is about 65 percent Catholic...
...With the world united against Iraq, the United States had only to ratchet up the diplomatic pressures while the economic blockade-97 percent effective according to the CIA----did its work...
...The United States will almost surely pay a huge price for abandoning the sanctions policy that offered the best hope of bringing down Saddam Hussein and insuring that a moderate government would take over...
...aircraft...
...Secretary of State Baker will insist that to reject the peace plan would divide the coalition, divide the United States from its allies, and give substance to the charge that the United States regards the United Nations only as a tool to advance its own interests...
...To the frustrated, angry, and impoverished peoples of the Middle East, Saddam Hussein is the new champion who has challenged the West...
...Someone knew that to move the masses you must touch the heart...
...In the days following the invasion of Kuwait, the world witnessed a blend of subtle and elegant diplomacy missing from the conduct of American foreign affairs since Dean Acheson was secretary of state...
...Test it in Erie and you'll have a good read of the tempo of the country...
...War, however, will fail because the Bush administration has changed its objectives and thereby handed Saddam Hussein a trump card that he can play the moment he judges he has squeezed every drop of political advantage out of the conflict...
...The "enemy" had a family, best friends, favorite foods, loved reading, wrote poems...the "enemy" was just like me...
...The plan is all the more attractive to Iraq because it links this withdrawal to a promise to deal with the "cause of instability and the sources of conflict, including the Arab-Israeli conflict...
...To be taken seriously in the Persian Gulf debate by the military, political, and academic communities, the church and the peace movement seem to be sacrificing legitimate appeals to the heart: symbols and stories that put a human face on war...
...Secretary of State James Baker appears to be the only major figure in the administration who stands for limiting the war to its original objective...
...ambassador to El Salvador during the Carter administration, is president of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C...
...THE GULF WAR THE ROAD NOT TAKEN THE MEANS OVERWHELM THE ENDS p resident George Bush violated the logic of his own diplomacy when he prematurely abandoned sanctions and launched into war...
...Erich Remarque made me feel deeply for Paul, a young German soldier in World War I, an "enemy" of my country...
...Sanctions did not fail...
...Is the Catholic peace movement...
...It wasn't attending a seminar on Catholic social teaching...
...By the momentum of its own policy, the Bush administration has told the world that it intends not only to evict Iraq from Kuwait but also to overthrow President Saddam Hussein...
...And it's that child's story we must tell...
...This confusion of means and ends gives President Hussein the opportunity to orchestrate a peace initiative that would force the United States either to accept him as leader of a still-intact Iraqi nation and idol of most of the Arab peoples or to carry on the war, thereby fracturing the coalition of forces and imperiling United Nations sponsorship...
...Points and counterpoints on whether or not a war is just will never touch people's hearts like yellow ribbons on trees and flags on car hoods...
...t'' 118: Commonweal of Iraq and will do little to add to the impressive political stature that Saddam Hussein has already achieved...
...With so many diplomatic options available to both sides, why did war come about...
...Will Little Caesar's pizza sell better with two layers of mozzarella or three...
...No partial withdrawal...
...Yet as U.S...
...Hard-liners led by Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney will argue that it would be folly to stop the war with victory so close...
...They will point out that if Saddam Hussein survives he wins and that now is the time to crush a ruthless tyrant before he becomes the premier leader of the Arab world...
...When Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Aleksandr Bessmertnykh signed a joint statement that peace would be possible if Iraq would make an unequivocal commitment to withdraw from Kuwait, the White House greeted this diplomatic move with stunned disbelief and tried to bury the story...
...The bombing may have done grave damage to Iraq, but the war has done great things for Saddam Hussein...
...THE GULF WAR FIRST HEARTS, THEN MINDS TACTICS FOR PEACEMAKERS radio station in my hometown ran a poll for "Bad Guy of the Day...
Vol. 118 • February 1991 • No. 4
