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Stardate 20011204.1845 (On Screen via long range sensors): I don't ordinarily make a post which consists primarily of quotation, but I'm going to make an exception in this case. Richard Perle is a former assistant Secretary of Defense. He says the following: An alliance today is really not essential, in my opinion. We don't need the bases, or at least we don't need much in the way of bases. And those bases that we do need are in places Where individual arrangements can be made -- with Uzbeks, who are interested in what we can do for Uzbekistan and there's a lot we can do and it isn't really very expensive. The term "alliance" confuses the phenomenon that's taking place there. It's good to have the Europeans supporting us to the degree they do, and the British have certainly been enthusiastic in our support, but the enthusiasm drops off substantially when you cross the channel and the price you end up paying for an alliance is collective judgment, collective decision-making. That was a disaster in Kosovo. We had lengthy negotiations over which targets could be struck -- the French had one view, the Germans had another - the military authorities and the civilians often disagreed, targets were struck from the lists, and you all remember the spectacle of President Chirac proudly proclaiming after Kosovo was over that he had personally spared any number of targets in Serbia. We don't need that in the war against terrorism. I think it is time for us to say to the world if necessary that we have been attacked, a war was initiated against us, and we are going to defend ourselves, and we're not going to let the decisions to do that, the manner in which we do it, the targets we select to be decided by a show of hands by countries whose interests cannot be identical to our own and who haven't suffered what we have suffered.
One of the sources of enthusiasm for the coalition I suspect is a strong desire on the part of those who are promoting the coalition to see the United States restrained -- to submit judgments about what we should do to a larger collective. I think we should reject that.
(discuss)
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