Sachs, Chirac and Scowcroft,

["John Gelles" <indexed-savings@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Opposition to America's response to the terrorist
victories of September 11th, 2001, which includes
President Bush's decision to remove the sadist
dictator, Sadam Hussein, and his fascist Bath party,
from power in Iraq and among America haters, is
offered by many millions of people, including Arabs
and Muslims but also millions not Arab or Muslim,
including scholars and politicians.

Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at
Columbia University, is one of the most articulate.

Opposition to doing what America has done is
headed, among our allies, by Jack Chirac, President
of France.

Opposition to the activist nature of what we've
done was expressed before we did it on behalf
of a Republican political elite by Brent Scowcroft,
national security adviser under Presidents Gerald
Ford and George H.W. Bush, who is the founder
and president of the Forum for International Policy.

This assortment of opponents proves to me where
there's smoke there's fire.

Sachs spoke on the Charlie Rose show for those
who see where we are as caught in a trap of our
own making: Military basing in Iraq to ensure that
the whole Middle East will respect our strategic
interests is what Sachs says is our goal. It is a goal
we will be denied, he believes, because Iraq, like
Vietnam before it, will again be sovereign and
will not grant us such basing rights.

A next-best goal of America may be to leave
Iraq a democratic legacy that may make return to
fascism or change to an Iranian model impossible.

Sachs does not bless this goal, but believes only
UN political stewardship can offer hope for a
positive outcome. Such stewardship should be
sought now -- as we promise not to base our
military in Iraq for longer than necessary,
acceding to Sachs.

Most proponents of Bush's policy to date will
say that we never had any intention to base our
military in Iraq longer than necessary. They will
insist that we went to war in order to prevent a
worse war later and worse acts of terrorism in
decades to come than if we had proved to be a
paper tiger.

What none of the critics above discuss is the
role of jobs, prosperity and human rights in our
response to terror and proliferation of WMD's.

Would progress in Iraq to date have been easier
if we had moved a lot of money and civilian
relief and rehabilitation into Iraq at a faster rate?

Would the potential for political failure at home
and abroad have been less if the Bush team had
asked why totalitarian regimes feed on middle
class fear and anxiety?  Such anxiety may not
destroy democracy in America or Britain, but
it does have that power in many other places.
And it can change the party in power here and
in Western democracies.

Not that Islamic fundamentalism will yield to
middle class systems -- but they may. And we
appear to have no clue how to export prosperity
along with democracy -- or, for that matter --
how to import techniques for prosperity from
our own past or the few welfare states that
survive.

Tony Blair spoke yesterday about another major
terrorist move that threatens all nations. As bad
as that would be, worse will be failure of the
continental powers to reform the security system
the UN security council is supposed to provide.

How can it possibly be that North America,
Europe, Japan, Russia and China are individually
and collectively too poor to buy respect for peace
and progress? Do none of them understand money?

John Gelles