Posted 11:40 AM by Blah blah

More War News

Funny columns in The Observer by Terry Jones of Monty Python fame, about the war, including: I'm losing patience with my neighbours, Mr Bush.

Good news, for a change.

Bush Sr warning over unilateral action (The Times of London):

"THE first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international unity. Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will of the United Nations. [Here's a transcript of his speech at Tufts University.]

He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges, advising his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France and Germany....

In an ominous warning for his son, Mr Bush Sr said that he would have been able to achieve nothing if he had jeopardised future relations by ignoring the UN. 'The Madrid conference would never have happened if the international coalition that fought together in Desert Storm had exceeded the UN mandate and gone on its own into Baghdad after Saddam and his forces.'

Also drawing on the lessons of 1991, he said that it was imperative to mend fences with allies immediately, rather than waiting until after a war. He had been infuriated with the decision of King Hussein of Jordan to side with Saddam rather than the US, but while criticising the Jordanian leader in public and freezing $41 million in US aid, he also passed word to King Hussein that he understood his domestic tensions.

Where This Bush Parts Ways with Dad (BusinessWeek): "[W]ith war perhaps days away, this President has at every point turned away from much of his father's foreign policy wisdom, and he has elevated the second showdown with Saddam to the largest of gambles."

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US public turns to Europe for news (dotJournalism):

"The threat of war in Iraq is driving increasing numbers of Americans to British and international news web sites in search of the broader picture.

According to the internet audience management and analysis company, Nielsen NetRatings, traffic to the UK's biggest news sites, BBC News Online and Guardian Unlimited, has increased dramatically over the past year. Many of these new users are from the US.... [The Guardian even keeps this blog and a special blog on Iraq (see their links).]

The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. Much of the US media's reaction to France and Germany's intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called 'respectable' press. Some reporting has verged on the hysterical...

Mr Dennis said: 'American visitors are telling us they are unable to find the breadth of opinion we have on our web site anywhere else because we report across the political spectrum rather than from just one perspective.' "