精华区文章阅读

发信人: pippen (大国放火是点灯), 信区: English
标题: 英国前下议院议长Robin Cook 辞职后在英国议会的发言
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Sun Mar 23 12:56:02 2003) , 转信

发信人: pippen (大国放火是点灯), 信区: WarofIRAQ
标题: 英国前下议院议长Robin Cook 辞职后在英国议会的发言
发信站: 哈工大紫丁香 (Sun Mar 23 01:03:13 2003) , 转信

http://209.101.125.119/TextBody/164333.asp

Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against ter

rorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possibl

e. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so qu

ickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. The US can afford to g

o it alone, but Britain is not a superpower. OUR INTERESTS ARE BEST PROTECTED

NOT BY UNILATERAL ACTION BUT BY MULTILATERAL AGREEMENT AND A WORLD ORDER GOVER

NED BY RULES. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us

are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalem

ate. Those are heavy casualties of a war in which a shot has yet to be fired.

Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood se

nse of the term—namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a

strategic city target. It probably still has biological toxins and battlefiel

d chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies so

ld Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and

munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military act

ion to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which

we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Sad

dam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of

UN inspectors?

Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security Council that the key r

emaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months. I have heard it s

aid that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament

, and that our patience is exhausted. Yet it is more than 30 years since resol

ution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. We do no

t express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply.

I welcome the strong personal commitment that the Prime Minister has given to

middle east peace, but Britain's positive role in the middle east does not re

dress the strong sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world at what it see

s as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule for the rest.

--

※ 来源:．哈工大紫丁香 http://bbs.hit.edu.cn [FROM: 218.8.124.252]

English 版 (精华区)