[yshavurah] Fwd: FW: Different Man, Different Moment
- From: Clevineys@xxxxxxx
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- Date: Thu, 13 Feb 2003 04:37:13 -0500
Didn't look this up for verification, but it is an interesting article.
-c
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Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 16:44:48 -0800 (PST)
From: Andrea Herman <ozonern@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Fwd: FW: Different Man, Different Moment
To: Nancy Abramson <nabramson@xxxxxxxx>
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February 7, 2003
Different Man, Different Moment
By ADLAI E. STEVENSON III
HICAGO ? Pundits and officials in Washington have dubbed Secretary of State
Colin Powell's attempt to make a case for war against Iraq in the United
Nations Security Council an "Adlai Stevenson moment."
I couldn't disagree more. My father was Adlai Stevenson, who in 1962, as
President Kennedy's representative to the United Nations, presented the
Security Council with incontrovertible proof that the Soviet Union, a nuclear
superpower, was installing missiles in Cuba and threatening to upset the
world's "balance of terror."
That "moment" had an obvious purpose: containing the Soviet Union and
maintaining peace. It worked, and eventually the Soviet Union collapsed under
its own weight. This moment has a different purpose: war. The Bush
administration clearly rejects the idea of containing Iraq through committed
monitoring by the United Nations, even though this course is the better option.
With so much comparison between Secretary Powell and my father, I've been
trying to think back to the days leading up to my father's famous moment. While
his appearance became the stuff of historical legend, he rarely talked about it
with his family. One weekend, he merely announced that he had to go to
Washington because something important had come up. (President Kennedy, we
learned later, was giving him his marching orders.) There was no visible worry
or excitement. Maybe he was saving up for his moment.
After all, his entire adult life had been defined by seeing to it that the
Soviet threat was contained ? preventing it from erupting into war. My father,
President Kennedy and others remembered the lessons learned from the
assassination of the Austro-Hungarian archduke and his wife in 1914. Serbian
nationalists behind the killings expected a reaction. But they did not expect
to bring down the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Politically motivated terrorists are
fanatics, not fools. Yet the empire delivered an ultimatum to Serbia, bringing
on World War I and its own demise.
My father visited the military cemeteries in Europe as a young man. France lost
a quarter of its men between the ages of 18 and 30 during World War I. He
remembered Woodrow Wilson's efforts to create a world order that preserved the
peace, and the hopes destroyed by the old guard in the Senate, which defeated
that League of Nations.
Veterans of World War II, men like my father and Presidents Eisenhower and
Kennedy, went on to pick up where Wilson had failed. The old guard was
defeated. The United Nations was established. A new world order contained the
Soviet Union, controlled the strategic arms race and preserved peace. America
was a real superpower then, its embassies the outposts of hope and security.
Clearly, we live in a different world now. But would going to war truly make it
a safer one? A contained Saddam Hussein would remain a pariah in the Middle
East. A Saddam Hussein under attack would win sympathy on behalf of his
long-suffering people and perhaps the support of terrorists inflamed by the
mighty reach of the United States. A war could also set back Iraq's oil
production and destabilize other oil-producing states. The economic
consequences of war and reconstruction are incalculable; the federal budget is
already plunging into deficit from surplus at the fastest rate in history,
without even provision for war.
Why, then, the enthusiasm for war? Even top officials at the Central
Intelligence Agency have acknowledged that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction are only a threat if Iraq is attacked. And Iraq's government, after
all, is the same Baathist regime aided by the Reagan administration when
Baghdad used chemical weapons in its bloody war against Iran. If anything, Iraq
was stronger and more dangerous then. (I first became acquainted with this
regime in 1976 when its minions tore toenails from the feet of my driver, a
Kurd, in Baghdad ? apparently for having been insufficiently forthcoming during
a periodic interrogation).
Many curious explanations are circulating for suddenly making this infamous
regime a unilateral casus belli of the United States while North Korea ? which
may take advantage of the administration's preoccupation with Iraq to develop
more nuclear weapons ? is an object of relative indifference. Maybe the most
plausible is Iraq's purported link to terrorism.
In 1978, I led the first in-depth Congressional study into the growing threat
of terrorism and how to combat it. Such a threat reaches far back into history,
beyond the label of terrorism. In 1962, President Kennedy read Barbara
Tuchman's book "The Guns of August," a history of the unintended chain of
consequences that led to the devastation of World War I. He wanted to avoid
similar missteps.
The Bush administration would benefit by the same lesson. Sept. 11 was not all
that different from Sarajevo at the turn of the century. The 19 men armed with
box cutters did not expect to bring down all of America. Only America can do
that. They expected a reaction. The one they should get is to be treated as
criminals, hunted down and brought to justice. Bringing war only confirms
complaints that the United States is waging a war against Islam. It can also
give terrorists the reaction they seek.
Whether made by Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein, today's threats require a
multidimensional response, including efforts to address the widening gap
between the haves and the have nots, the horrible conditions in which most
people around the world struggle to survive. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
is a good place to begin. The United States loses credibility when perceived as
supporting terror in one part of the Mideast, while professing to fight it
elsewhere.
I like to think that if my father were in Secretary Powell's shoes, he would
have presented proof of an aggressive deployment of weapons of mass destruction
and evidence that Iraq was closer to obtaining nuclear arms ? a claim the
administration made not so long ago. The Bush administration would have
supported the United Nations, its inspectors and international containment of
Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Members of the Security Council and other nations
would not have to be cajoled into going along. The international community, for
which this administration still presumes to speak, would support the United
States, as it did in October, 1962, when America waged peace.
Adlai E. Stevenson III is a former United States senator from Illinois.
---------------------------------
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<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=Section1>
<P class=MsoNormal><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:date Year="2003" Day="7"
Month="2"><B><FONT face=Arial size=3><SPAN>February 7,
2003</SPAN></FONT></B></st1:date><FONT face=Arial><SPAN><BR><IMG
id=_x0000_i1025 height=40
src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/article/header/nytlogoleft_article.gif";
width=184 border=0><BR><IMG id=_x0000_i1026 height=40
src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/article/header/sect_opinion.gif";
width=400 border=0> <IMG id=_x0000_i1027 height=1
src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/misc/spacer.gif"; width=4
border=0><BR></SPAN></FONT><B><FONT face=Arial size=5><SPAN>Different Man,
Different Moment<BR><BR></SPAN></FONT></B><B><FONT face=Arial color=black
size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"><SPAN>By ADLAI E. STEVENSON
III</SPAN></FONT></B><FONT face=Arial color=black
FAMILY="SANSSERIF"><SPAN><BR><BR><IMG id=_x0000_i1028 height=34
src="http://graphics7.nytimes.com/images/dropcap/c.gif"; width=31
border=0>HICAGO ? Pundits and officials in Washington have dubbed Secretary of
State Colin Powell's attempt to make a case for war against Iraq in the United
Nations Security Council an "Adlai Stevenson moment." <BR><BR>I couldn't
disagree more. My father was Adlai Stevenson, who in 1962, as President
Kennedy's representative to the United Nations, presented the Security Council
with incontrovertible proof that the Soviet Union, a nuclear superpower, was
installing missiles in Cuba and threatening to upset the world's "balance of
terror."<BR><BR>That "moment" had an obvious purpose: containing the
</SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT face=Arial color=black><SPAN>Soviet
Union</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT face=Arial color=black><SPAN> and
maintaining peace. It worked, and eventually the </SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>Soviet Union</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> collapsed under its own weight. This moment has a
different purpose: war. The Bush administration clearly rejects the idea of
containing </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> through committed monitoring by the United
Nations, even though this course is the better option.<BR><BR>With so much
comparison between Secretary Powell and my father, I've been trying to think
back to the days leading up to my father's famous moment. While his appearance
became the stuff of historical legend, he rarely talked about it with his
family. One weekend, he merely announced that he had to go to
</SPAN></FONT><st1:State><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Washington</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:State><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> because something important had come up.
(President Kennedy, we learned later, was giving him his marching orders.)
There was no visible worry or excitement. Maybe he was saving up for his
moment. <BR><BR>After all, his entire adult life had been defined by seeing to
it that the Soviet threat was contained ? preventing it from erupting into war.
My father, President Kennedy and others remembered the lessons learned from the
assassination of the Austro-Hungarian archduke and his wife in 1914. Serbian
nationalists behind the killings expected a reaction. But they did not expect
to bring down the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Politically motivated terrorists are
fanatics, not fools. Yet the empire delivered an ultimatum to
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Serbia</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>, bringing on World War I and its own
demise.<BR><BR>My father visited the military cemeteries in
</SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Europe</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> as a young man.
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>France</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> lost a quarter of its men between the ages of 18
and 30 during World War I. He remembered Woodrow Wilson's efforts to create a
world order that preserved the peace, and the hopes destroyed by the old guard
in the Senate, which defeated that </SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>League of Nations</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>.<BR><BR>Veterans of World War II, men like my father and
Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, went on to pick up where
</SPAN></FONT><st1:City><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Wilson</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:City><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> had failed. The old guard was defeated. The United Nations
was established. A new world order contained the </SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>Soviet Union</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>, controlled the strategic arms race and preserved
peace. </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>America</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> was a real superpower then, its embassies the
outposts of hope and security. <BR><BR>Clearly, we live in a different world
now. But would going to war truly make it a safer one? A contained Saddam
Hussein would remain a pariah in the </SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Middle East</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>. A Saddam Hussein under attack would win sympathy on behalf
of his long-suffering people and perhaps the support of terrorists inflamed by
the mighty reach of the </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>United
States</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>. A war could also set back
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>'s oil production and destabilize other
oil-producing states. The economic consequences of war and reconstruction are
incalculable; the federal budget is already plunging into deficit from surplus
at the fastest rate in history, without even provision for war.<BR><BR>Why,
then, the enthusiasm for war? Even top officials at the Central Intelligence
Agency have acknowledged that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction are
only a threat if </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> is attacked. And
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>'s government, after all, is the same Baathist
regime aided by the Reagan administration when
</SPAN></FONT><st1:City><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Baghdad</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:City><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> used chemical weapons in its bloody war against
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iran</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>. If anything,
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> was stronger and more dangerous then. (I first
became acquainted with this regime in 1976 when its minions tore toenails from
the feet of my driver, a Kurd, in Baghdad ? apparently for having been
insufficiently forthcoming during a periodic interrogation). <BR><BR>Many
curious explanations are circulating for suddenly making this infamous regime a
unilateral casus belli of the
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>United
States</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> while </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>North
Korea</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> ? which may take advantage of the administration's
preoccupation with </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT
face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> to develop more nuclear weapons ? is an object of
relative indifference. Maybe the most plausible is
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>'s purported link to terrorism.<BR><BR>In 1978, I
led the first in-depth Congressional study into the growing threat of terrorism
and how to combat it. Such a threat reaches far back into history, beyond the
label of terrorism. In 1962, President Kennedy read Barbara Tuchman's book "The
Guns of August," a history of the unintended chain of consequences that led to
the devastation of World War I. He wanted to avoid similar missteps.
<BR><BR>The Bush administration would benefit by the same lesson. Sept. 11 was
not all that different from </SPAN></FONT><st1:City><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Sarajevo</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:City><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> at the turn of the century. The 19 men armed with box
cutters did not expect to bring down all of
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>America</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN>. Only
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>America</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> can do that. They expected a reaction. The one
they should get is to be treated as criminals, hunted down and brought to
justice. Bringing war only confirms complaints that the
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>United
States</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> is waging a war against Islam. It can also give terrorists
the reaction they seek. <BR><BR>Whether made by Al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein,
today's threats require a multidimensional response, including efforts to
address the widening gap between the haves and the have nots, the horrible
conditions in which most people around the world struggle to survive. The
Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a good place to begin. The
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>United
States</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> loses credibility when perceived as supporting terror in one
part of the </SPAN></FONT><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Mideast</SPAN></FONT></st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>, while professing to fight it elsewhere.<BR><BR>I like to
think that if my father were in Secretary Powell's shoes, he would have
presented proof of an aggressive deployment of weapons of mass destruction and
evidence that </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> was closer to obtaining nuclear arms ? a claim
the administration made not so long ago. The Bush administration would have
supported the United Nations, its inspectors and international containment of
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Iraq</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> under Saddam Hussein. Members of the Security
Council and other nations would not have to be cajoled into going along. The
international community, for which this administration still presumes to speak,
would support the </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>United
States</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>, as it did in October, 1962, when
</SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>America</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT
face=Arial color=black><SPAN> waged peace.<BR><BR><BR>Adlai E. Stevenson III is
a former </SPAN></FONT><st1:country-region><st1:place><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>United
States</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:country-region><FONT face=Arial
color=black><SPAN> senator from </SPAN></FONT><st1:State><st1:place><FONT
face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>Illinois</SPAN></FONT></st1:place></st1:State><FONT
face=Arial
color=black><SPAN>.</SPAN></FONT><o:p></o:p></P></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><p><br><hr
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