U.S. Newspapers, Like Nation, Split Over War

[nitelite33]

U.S. Newspapers, Like Nation, Split Over War

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Like the nation itself, U.S. editorial writers were sharply divided on Tuesday over America's imminent war against Iraq with some papers calling the impending battle "just and necessary" while others deemed it a wrongheaded, dangerous and unnecessary exercise.

The New York Times said "diplomacy has been dismissed" and added that the United States now stands at a turning point in how "it means to define its role in the post-cold-war world."

"President Bush's father and then Bill Clinton worked hard to infuse that role with America's traditions of idealism, internationalism and multilateralism. Under George W. Bush, however, Washington has charted a very different course. Allies have been devalued and military force overvalued. Now that logic is playing out in a war waged without the compulsion of necessity, the endorsement of the United Nations or the company of traditional allies," the Times said.

The paper added that while it believes that Saddam Hussein should be disarmed, "Our problem is with the wrongheaded way this administration has gone about it."
But the Wall Street Journal supported the administration. "As President Bush reminded us last night, the imminent war to liberate the world from Saddam Hussein is both just and necessary."

The Journal added, "Of course, there are costs and dangers to removing Saddam now. The law of unintended consequences hasn't been repealed, no war goes precisely as planned and some Americans and civilians will die. The justification for these deaths is that they will save more lives in the long run."

The Chicago Tribune said: "(Bush's) speech was not an exercise in bravado. It was a straightforward address to a nation that, as at almost every other eve of war in its history, is deeply divided over the wisdom of that course."

'PARALYZED U.N.'
In comparing the current divide among western allies to the Cold War, the Tribune said: "The administration obviously hopes that the defeat of Saddam Hussein, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, will cause the nations of the world to rally under the American standard. It's an inviting scenario, but probably too optimistic," it said, adding that "countries will likely emulate the U.S. and go their own way in the future."

The rival Chicago Sun-Times said, "Our allies will howl, will say that this invasion disrupts the status quo. We must always remember what the status quo was: the mounting threat of terror, fed and nurtured by a handful of rogue states. A paralyzed United Nations deadlocked by those whose core belief seems to be that the United States must be thwarted at every turn. And a stable of onetime friends fiercely committed to inaction.
"Bush broke with them all Monday night, charting a new course, a dangerous course, but one that represents the will of the American people and its best hope for a future of security and freedom."
In an editorial, the conservative Dallas Morning News said that diplomacy was given every chance, but failed. The paper said President Bush was wise to drop attempts to receive an explicit authorization for war from the U.N. Security Council.

"It is better to justify any decision to go to war on the previous U.N. resolutions and on Iraq's flagrant violations of the cease-fire agreement. It is in Mr. Hussein's power to prevent war. May he go gently, but may the war to oust him proceed if he doesn't," the paper said.

The Salt Lake Tribune said, "In these dire circumstances with 250,000 American troops mustered for battle, the United States must go forward. To delay or withdraw now would call into question this nation's willingness to carry out its stated diplomatic and military objectives. Superpowers cannot afford to bluff on so grand a scale."

'ENORMOUS RISK'
The San Francisco Chronicle said, "This war of choice will be in defiance of the United Nations, as surely as if the votes were counted. In abandoning diplomacy, Bush is taking the enormous risk of redefining the world order that blossomed after the Cold War."

"It seemed from the start as if the administration, or at least some factions within it, were hell-bent for military confrontation. President Bush proved unwilling to wait. War is on the horizon, rest of the world be dammed."

The Los Angeles Times said that President Bush clearly wants Saddam Hussein out of power to make the world safer but "We fear that the world instead will become more dangerous" and warned that the United States, by acting with few allies, was heading into uncharted territory.

The Washington Post said the president was "right in insisting that Saddam Hussein face the serious consequences unanimously agreed upon by the United Nations Security Council in the event Iraq rejected a final opportunity to disarm ..."

But it added, "The Bush administration has raised the risks through its insistence on an accelerated timetable, its exaggerated rhetoric and its insensitive diplomacy; it has alienated potential allies and multiplied the number of protesters in foreign capitals. It also has refused to level with Americans about the human and financial costs of the coming war and the commitment the United States will have to make to postwar Iraq."

 

[The Plunger]

The Newspapers are liberal in nature, I use to work for one for many years. The public is not split, every poll indicates that a strong majority are now in favor of military action. The anti-war crowd is a solid minority now, though most newspapers would lead you to believe otherwise.

 

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