Strong majorities now want to withdraw, either gradually or right away, and six in 10 believe the U.S. can leave without making itself more vulnerable to terrorism. But six in 10 also say the U.S. has a moral obligation to the Iraqi people, suggesting the public doesn't believe we should withdraw without considering what that will mean for the Iraqis.

Time and time again nuke proliferation begins with unreflective people.. Vladimir Putin on new nuke deployment in europe again david is right issuing warnings on agressive nuke proliferation.

 

I don't know if any people received this article ( from David) but I dont feel confident about US intentions, honesty are pacifist in the GUlf.. In my opinion the US is already at war with Iran, its just that it did not declare it..

 

( * Friends: Can't help but wonder how small the circle of people has become -- at least among the more enlightened states of The West -- who are still capable of recognizing the fact that the USS Stennis, USS Nimitz, and USS Eisenhower aircraft carriers which Washington moves in and out of the waters of the Persian Gulf at will are nuclear-powered warships, whose very existence -- not to mention uses -- places Washington squarely in the camp of the violators of every atoms-for-peace-type treaty ever adopted by humankind over the past 62 years? Keep this in mind, as you're bombarded with news about Iran's "defiance" (etc.) of Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran not develop an indigenous nuclear enrichment program even for peaceful purposes.)

Agence France Presse -- English
May 23, 2007 Wednesday 12:15 PM GMT
HEADLINE: Two US aircraft carriers reach Gulf waters
DATELINE: MANAMA, May 23 2007

The USS John C. Stennis and USS Nimitz aircraft carriers and their strike groups entered Gulf waters on Wednesday to support troops in Iraq and conduct training exercises, the US Navy said.

"The carriers and amphibious strike groups and their associated forces will conduct missions in direct support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and will also perform Expeditionary Strike Force training," the Bahrain-based US Fifth Fleet said.

In January, Washington said it planned to keep two carrier battle groups in the Gulf for months -- the first such deployment since 2003.

Tension is high over Iran's controversial atomic energy programme. Washington suspects Iran is secretly trying to develop a nucLear weapon, a charge Tehran strongly denies.

The navy said the training exercises planned for the strike groups were not related to the Iran standoff.

"We are conducting this training in order to gain valuable experience across a wide spectrum of naval disciplines," the statement said.

"The timing of this exercise is determined by the availability of forces, and is not connected to events in the region. This exercise is not directed against any nation."

The Nimitz is replacing the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

But Mustafa Alani, a senior analyst with the UAE-based Gulf Research Centre, said it was no coincidence the US ships arrived on the same day the UN nuclear watchdog was due to issue a report expected to show Iran continuing to defy UN demands that it stop enriching uranium.

"The aim of this step, which coincides entirely with the end of the UN deadline, is to send a clear message to Iran that a military option is available to Washington," Alani told AFP by telephone.

Alani said he doubted the United States is planning an all-out war with Iran, but is rather gathering its forces in the Gulf in the event of a sudden outbreak of conflict.

"The Americans are convinced they must assemble a certain amount of power to deal with a suprise conflict, even though in my view a decision to go to war has not been taken," he said.

A sudden, unexpected outbreak of hostilities between the United States and Iran could be triggered by events in Iraq, where both states have competing interests, Alani added.

Non-p roliferation expert Gary Samore said from New York that "obviously the bottom line is that they haven't accepted a suspension of enrichment. That's all the Security Council needs to take further sanctions."

Yep the serial killers appear to be the nicests.. Benney, Most of the help is military, the very best example is the weapons it provide to Israel, weapons that are being used to route out Palestinians out their homes and help bomb Lebanese kids.. Helen, sorry to offend you but Israel right to exist should be revisioned by an impartial panel, since Israel refuse to negotiate ..may be new boudaries should be redesigned.

 

below is a good representation " of the State of Israel" as recognized by the UN
Israel look like a heartless hellish beast doesn't?

It's like they always say when some serial killer is exposed: "Funny, he was the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet." T

Hello: It may be hard to dispute that US Foreign policy and diplomacy are not flawed sometimes, but we should all agree that US has the right to protect its interests around the world.  In trying to do so, it may step on many toes and offend. Besides stepping on toes, US also help hundreds of countries around the world in their economic, social and political development.  Most critics of US conveniently ignore this.  Ikey Benney  http://mscsrrr.com/elite-affiliate-program.htm

T-M:

You need to call this to the attention of the website administrators.  (See, e.g., the Report Bugs facility.) 

I myself never touched your (or anybody else's) post to this blog.

Might you have inadvertently done something wrong during the act of drafting and posting it? 

I strongly suggest that you try again.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

My reply to Walt K was not posted / removed.

The reason no one complains about US genocide, slavery, etc. is that this happened long ago and no one seriously believes that the US endorses any of these actions anymore. There is nothing to complain about, the people who committed these crimes are long dead. This is why Israel and Jews don't complain about Germany anymore. The Nazis are over, Germany has made clear that these were crimes of the past. So how US society was built is important for all people to understand and know, and agree never to let happen again. Most countries in the world today will have a dark history (especially those founded pre-1900) like the US. Sure, US society may be stratified along class, racist, sexist lines, etc. But, among the few most progressive and enlightened countries in all these elements. Few countries in the world, if any, can boast the equality (relative to others, yes the US can do better) that exists here, in the US. If you bring up examples like France or Japan or Australia, I can poke large holes in those arguments. Scandinavia? Perhaps, but easier when you talk about a very homogenous populations of under 10 million. Either way, only the most cynical would argue that freedom, equality and democracy does not exist in the US on a relative basis to rest of the world. This is how come no one is so concerned about raising these issues. Iran on the other hand...

As to the US action against Iran, many people would argue that they are the bigger threat to peace and it would be quite scary for an Iranian regime to have nukes. I think many (if not most) people would agree that a leader of Iran is more likely to do something fanatical with nukes (like destroying Israel) than a US leader. This is what scares people, and is getting countries like Russia and in the EU, who are normally more willing to support Iran, to act and vote for sanctions. I agree that the US launch of a war vs. Iraq was stupid from the beginning, I think Bush has always been wrong, but this is not a threat to the world like you make it sound. I think the US will leave soon, at the latest when Bush leaves office (thank heavens). I personally am afraid of Iran with Nukes. I am not afraid of China, France, Russia, UK, Israel, US, Pakistan, India (did I miss anyone) having nukes, I don't think any of these countries will start a nuclear war. Iran though, and we can argue this for a long time, scares me.

Cryano said that Israel is an occupation army, not a real country. I take it he meant Israel proper, not just the West Bank. Since when is defending your own country 'aggression"? No one told the Germans they had no right to exist and that they were only an "occupation army" in Germany.

Like it or not, Israel is a legal entity recognised by the UN.

I am all for negotiations, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that for most Israelis the existence of Israel is non negotiable. Cryano's hardline position is not helpful as it will only convince the Israeli that the only way to deal with the Arabs is might.

Helen K

I agree that PLO was never and existential threat, and Arafat was not Hitler (yes from intention, i.e. kill Jews and Israelis, never from a capability standpoint), but to dimiss PLO like Lux. to Russia is silly. Do you discount the dozens of terrorist attacks, suicide bombs, etc. that killed 100s of Israelis? How many Russians died of attacks by Lux? Israel is the only country in the world that has to take the terrorist attacks and then be "restrained and proportianate." The Russians leveled Chechnya, Muslim Chechnya, and it was not proportianal. No one in Israel thinks Hamas or Hezbollah are really existential threats, but through terrorism they can be pretty lethal (4,000 rockets fired randomly by Hezbollah). Only Iran and its possible nukes pose a real existential threat to Israel (though I would say the actual possibility of this is close to Nil, as Iran knows they would get pounded to oblivion right back -- Israel surely has nuclear subs (no real evidence) in my opinion.

Historically you get that right by shoving your fist down the throat of those who may question your right to exist until they accept your presence as a fact.

Helen, you might recall that in recent history (after WWII basically, when the principle of acquisition of territory by war was outlawed) not all aggressive annexations have succeeded (e.g. a major regional player like Indonesia had to give up East Timor and Iraq was ejected from Kuwait).

Israeli might-is-right intransigence can only give second wind to sentiments such as these expressed by Bashar al-Assad, "Every new Arab generation hates Israel more than the previous one."

David, I remember reading a quote by Abba Eban a long time ago in which he said something to the effect that the danger posed by PLO to Israel was of the same order as that posed by Luxembourg to the Soviet Union. Such harsh realities were obviously for internal policymaker circles' use only. For the general public (esp. gullible foreign publics) strutting, foot in mouth personalities like Arafat were to be cast in Hitlerian proportions.

As Robert Fisk put it in this prescient column from 4 years ago:

The Israeli writer Uri Avnery once delivered a wickedly sharp open letter to Menachem Begin, the Israeli prime minister who sent his army to defeat in Lebanon. Enraged by Begin's constant evocation of the Second World War--likening Yasser Arafat in Beirut to Hitler in his Berlin bunker in 1945--Avnery entitled his letter: "Mr Prime Minister, Hitler is Dead."

Since its inception, Israel has made it blatantly obvious that they will not rest until they have all that they desire. You are ignoring Israeli rhetoric for destroying all that is non-Jewish in the Middle East. You are ignoring years of Israeli financial and material support for the explicit goal of destroying whatever and whoever stands in their way. You are hiding behind the truth about the horrendous nature of the Israeli regime. Until the United States stops supporting Zionist insanity, I fail to see why Iran or any other Mideast country should not stand against us and against Israel. To do otherwise would be to support their own destruction.

SK:

Thanks for the Jacques Chirac quote (e.g., "Chirac muses, and then retreats," Elaine Sciolino and Katrin Bennhold, International Herald Tribune, February 1, 2007).

Disgracefully, he also immediately retracted it -- no doubt under pressure to do so. 

But he was right the first time.

(Unfortunately, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has sequestered its invaluable Global Nuclear Stockpile series of reports behind the $$$$$ curtain.  Or else I'd share it with everyone.)

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

T-M:

I have no idea what you're talking about (i.e., "censorship" and "remov[ing] replies to other posts"). --

Why don't you try to explain this accusation to all of us?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

You are right. Israel doesn't have the right to exist. But neither does any other country in the world. Historically you get that right by shoving your fist down the throat of those who may question your right to exist until they accept your presence as a fact.

People like you only lend credence to the Israeli hawks.

 

Helen K

In this rambling interview, Jacques Chirac--a genuine booster of France's Force de Frappe and someone who's assuredly deeply versed in the theology of nuclear doctrine--let the cat out of the bag about Iran's supposed nuclear threat and how much of a danger they pose to Israel which has been building up its WMD stockpile for more than four decades:

Chirac explained that it would be an act of self-destruction for Iran to use a nuclear weapon against another country. "Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel?" Chirac asked. "It would not have gone off 200 meters into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed to the ground...it is obvious that this bomb, at the moment it was launched, obviously would be destroyed immediately," Chirac said. "We have the means, several countries have the means to destroy a bomb."

David Petersen,

Why the censorship? Why must you remove replies to other posts?

You are a dishonorable blogger and should not be allowed to have a voice here … that's assuming Z-Mag isn't a Ford Foundation set up!

Ironmount et al.:

Notice, however, that I'm talking about a potential crime against the peace (i.e., of a monumentally greater scale than even the terrorism and threats to the peace that the United States and its allies appear to be sponsoring inside Iran).

Why, therefore, am I going to worry about how Iran's clerical and political regimes and Iranian civil society carry out their domestic affairs?  It should be obvious that I have not said a single word about how people are living out their lives inside the United States -- whether, for example, U.S. society was built upon the genocide of the indigenous peoples, whether it was built upon the enslavement of the peoples of Africa and elsewhere, whether U.S. society today is stratified along class, racist, and sexist lines, and so on.

And yet no one has lodged a single complaint with me here for failing to raise these issues.

How come?

This is an important oversight in reverse, I believe.  Nor is its significance to be misunderstood. 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA 

Crymo - you seriously are not a very intelligent human. 

What is hardest to agree with in your statements is not your criticisim of the US and/or Israel, its the fact that you will bend over backwards NOT to criticise Iran, not matter what their actions. Yes, you romanticise Iran. You think the US (I am sure Israel is on your list too) is the most oppressive because they are the biggest threat to world peace? Fine (I don't agree) but let's go with it. But at least agree that Iran has no freedom of religion (talk to the Bahai, Http://info.bahai.org/persecution_iran.html), no freedom of press, elections, during the war with Iraq they sent 1,000 of boys as cannon fodder (there is much evidence of this), funded terrorism worldwide (the Argentines are seeking govt. officials responsible for bombing a Jewish association building in Buenos Aires), oppression of Women (http://www.iran-e-azad.org/english/book_on_women.html) and more. Let's see a blog focusing on this please.

As for Iran threatening Israel, there are many istances, so why bend over backwards to make as if Iran has not threatened Israel. See http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/dec_2001/rafsanjani_nuke_threats_141201.htm, and I can show you more. This is not surprising. Arab nations have been threatening to annihilate Israel prior to the 1948 war, the 1967 war. Few historians dispute this as there is much evidence, from newspapers, to radio broadcasts.

And also, my main point of my response is that in your discussion, there is no need to drag in Israel. Just because they have plans in file to bomb Iran, so what. I am sure Russia, US, Iran, Israel, China and more have filed plans to bomb scores of countries. That is what a military does, they make plans for future contingencies, this means nothing.

Israel is not a country , its an occupation army. Walt K , even if the facts you said about the Iranian were true ( and they are not) , this does not give occupation(s) armie(s) the right to forcefully implant a country in the middle of palestinian lands and steal the land and deport its habitants.. the land as been called Palestine for ages. Since the Israeli dont want to negotiate in good faith, It should be considered that their actions toward the palestinian deny Israel the right for Israel to exist, a right which it never had.

David, you are ignoring 27 years of Iranian rhetoric for destroying Israel. You are ignoring 27 years of Iranian financial and material support for terrorist organizations that have in their charters the explicit goal of destroying Israel.

Why do you ignore this? 

Your inability to translate Farsi hardly matters.  You're using that to hide behind the truth about the horrendous nature of the Iranian regime.

In what pertains to the US and Israel they are the outlaws and pervasively the outlaws are making the rules.

Sironmount:

Thanks for your thoughtful remarks. -- I must add, however, that as best I can tell, the remark frequently attributed to Ahmadinejad to the effect that "Israel must be wiped off the map of the world...and God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism" (as reported by Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman, S/2005/681, Oct. 27, 2005) is either apocryphal or a fabrication outright.  I cannot translate Ahmadinejad's Farsi.  But it appears to me that Ahmadinejad quoted old remarks of Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that, like the passing of all other this-worldly powers, the passing or ending or vanishing of the Israeli occupation of Quds (i.e., Jerusalem) from the pages of time was destined to occur. (For one very careful examination of this incident, see "'Wiped Off the Map' -- The Rumor of the Century," Arash Norouzi, DemocracyRising.US, January 18, 2007.  And for a shorter analysis, "Lost in Translation," Jonathan Steele, The Guardian, June 14, 2006.)

Of course, an additional point is that both the U.S. and Israeli states have strategically leaked their so-called contingency plans to bomb scores of Iranian targets on numerous occasions.  Thus I can cite -- and therefore so can Tehran -- the different types of weapons and planning that members of the U.S. and Israeli states themselves have talked about for the past three years.  These include the Israeli acquisition of U.S.-manufactured "bunker buster" bombs under categories BLU-109 Penetrators and BLU-119 Crash Pad Bunker-Busters; the Israeli Air Force's announcement of long-range round-trip training missions to prepare for possible strikes on targets inside Iran; and even publication of a list of the most important targets -- the heavy-water nuclear research reactor at Arak, the nuclear power plant a Bushehr, multiple programs including a uranium-conversion facility at Isfahan, and the uranium enrichment program at Natanz.

One relevant difference is that whereas Tehran couldn't possibly wipe Israel off the map of the world, both the U.S. and Israel are quite capable of carrying out a multi-day bombing campaign against Iran.  Nor in such an event would the Security Council be capable of acting under Chapter VII to mount a defense of Iran or to restore the peace -- rest assured.

Last, how is that we can say that Iran is "one of the most oppressive regimes in the world on numerous levels"?  Compared with the Americans, for example, exactly what has Iran done to threaten the peace of the world?

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

Whatever you say about the US actions.... fine. But as for Israel, Iran has stated clearly (I can give you many quotes if you do not agree, they were publicly condemned by senior officials in France, Spain, Canada and many more) that it wants to wipe Israel off the map (or similar language, these statements are hardly disputed). Iran has engaged in blatant state sponsored holocaust denial and numerous other acts of active anti-semitism in its media and other venues. If you want to blame the US and UK for war mongering, fine, but you can't drag a country that has clearly been threatened for total destruction by a country with 68 million people vs. Israel with 6-7 million people. You can criticize the US and UK, but let's not romanticize Iran. It is one of the most oppressive regimes in the world on numerous levels.

"What is the point of having this superb military that we are always talking about, if we cannot use it?" [madelene albright]

 like when the great mountaineer who replied to the question why did he climb the himalaya, said "because its there"

 

David, I referred to "realism" in the sense that ideological mystifications in international relations have become the norm more so in modern times (possibly since the times of Grotius and others of his ilk, "irritating comforters" as Kant called them, who based their writings on "actually existing reality" which, not coincidentally, was very favorable to his fellow Dutch of the time) than in the era of classical Athens with its refreshing honesty.

Zizek's thoughts on "Homo Sacer" and the inability of modern humanitarians to deal with "Homo Politicus" are quite pertinent, imho. These worthies have no problem dealing with refugees and others reduced to "bare life" ("a human being 'in general'") or their diagonal opposite, the demonic agent of violence (yet another "other"), but they have little patience for political solutions ("apolitical--therefore extremely political", as Arundhati Roy described their outlook) which address needs of the affected population that fall somewhat higher on Maslow's hierarchy of needs than physiological ones. Camus, also had trouble taking realistically the yearning of North Africans for political independence (among whom he'd grown up) from their colonial masters, and could only look at the situation through the refractory prism of "victims or executioners".

btw, during the course of this very worthwhile documentary some of the characters also inadvertently betray a few of the nutty notions "that underpin Western perceptions of the 'Wild East' region of Europe" (e.g. one German soldier was afraid of Russians because "they were closer to the land than us civilized Germans").

SK:

Frankly, I never would have guessed that Slavoj Zizek had it in him to recognize the monumental projections in which the quote-unquote West engaged during the breakup of Yugoslavia.  Though one shouldn't need either Hegel or Freud to see it plainly enough.  

As for the "Western imaginary," take a look at:

"Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia," Milica Bakic-Hayden, Slavic Review, 1995 (as posted to ZNet) 
Imagining the Balkans, Maria Todorova (Oxford University Press, 1997)
Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination, Vesna Goldsworthy (Yale University Press, 1998) 

Even with the Balkans as a whole, that state and people which the West targeted wound up forced into playing the role of the other within the other.  (Pardon my jargon.) 

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

 

A couple of history lessons here and here (despite some partisan editorializing, and not much about Iran's bruising encounter with "the West" either) on why the Middle East might be so f'd up as you so eloquently put it. Europe, of course, would never be considered f'd up in your mind even though it caused more than a hundred million deaths over the last century and give the world mementos like Auschwitz and a witches' brew of toxic ideologies to remember it by.

Slavoj Zizek makes some zany comments (as usual) in this essay about another part of the world regarded as "troubled" in the Western imaginary:

Where, then, did the fundamentalist features—religious intolerance, ethnic violence, fixation upon historical trauma—which the West now associates with 'the Balkan', originate? Clearly, from the West itself. In a neat instance of Hegel's 'reflexive determination', what Western Europeans observe and deplore in the Balkans is what they themselves introduced there; what they combat is their own historical legacy run amok. Let us not forget that the two great ethnic crimes imputed to the Turks in the 20th century—the Armenian genocide and the persecution of the Kurds—were not committed by traditionalist Muslim political forces, but by the military modernizers who sought to cut Turkey loose from its old-world ballast and turn it into a European nation-state.

You must have missed the Senator Gravel edition of the Pentagon Papers with additional commentary by Howard Zinn and Chomsky (it is hard to find). To put it succinctly, the answer to "why?" is that the elites are responding to the 'threat' of a different example of how the world could be. There are some other reasons but this is fundamental. It's just the way capitalism works - before the American Empire was the British Empire...

It is because Bush is a member of the ruling class. Read David Harvey The New Imperialism. Its about expanding markets.

Anonymous wrote:

"Why the U.S. is in the middle east? Look at how f'd up the middle east is and how those backwards theocrats and dictators are destabilizing the world with their export of terrorism and religious fundamentalism. It isn't hard to figure out. If the Middle East doesn't want to become part of the modern world, they will be forced into modern times. In the end, the world will be a better place."

But the U.S. presence in the ME only makes the theocrats stronger and more popular as they are given the opportunity to wrap themselves in the flag. Iraq was secular under Saddam now it is a theocracy probably with close tie to Iran courtesy to the U.S.

Bad policies from an imcompetent U.S. administration which, incidentally is also headed by a backward looking religious fundo.

 

 

Helen K

Why the U.S. is in the middle east? Look at how f'd up the middle east is and how those backwards theocrats and dictators are destabilizing the world with their export of terrorism and religious fundamentalism.  It isn't hard to figure out.  If the Middle East doesn't want to become part of the modern world, they will be forced into modern times.  In the end, the world will be a better place. 

Bob McDaniel

I do not disagree with David Peterson and I can certainly see the threats that the US is making and the very real and probable danger that the Bushies will , in fact, attack Iran.  What I cannot figure out is Why?

Why Vietnam?  Why Cambodia? Why Laos?  Why Indonesia? WhySomalia?  Why Iraq?  Why Nicaragua?  Why Columbia? Why blockade Cuba?  I have been reading Chomsky's books, spending a lot of time watching Link TV, reading many many books on the subject of American military policy for the past 50 years.  None of it makes any sense , nor, if the American people were aware of what our government has been really doing during tht time, would most Americans be in favor of what has been going on.  We have been slaughtering thousands of people and destroying countries and we have been essentially making those who survive worse off then slaves. 

WHY?  FOR GOD'S SAKE, WHY THE HELL ARE WE DOING THIS?  WHAT THE HELL DOES ANYBODY HAVE TO GAIN FROM ALL THIS MILITARY DIPOLOMACY?  I FEEL WELL ENLIGHTENED ABOUT WHAT WE HAVE BEEN DOING , I AM IN THE DARK AS TO WHY.  NOTHING, I REPEAT, N O T H I N G... I REPEAT NOTHING HAS BEEN GAINED SINCE THE KOREAN WAR BY THE USE OF FORCE BY THIS COUNTRY.

AT LEAST, IN KOREA, WE WERE STOPPING AN IMPERIALIST AGGRESSOR BACKED BY AN AGGRESSIVE IMPERIALIST COUNTRY- THE USSR.

IS IT BECAUSE BUSH IS A MEMBER OF THE SKULL AND BONES BROTHERHOOD?  THEY HOLD THAT MILITARY FORCE IS THE BASIS FOR ALL INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS.  IF SO, THEN LET US IMPEACH THE BASTARD FOR GOING AGAINST HIS OWN COUNTRYMEN IN FAVOR OF UPHOLDING THE DICTATES OF AN INTERNATIONAL BROTHERHOOD.

 

SK:

You're absolutely right: A classic expression ("The Melian Conference" in Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War) -- though less of the so-called "Realist" school, I think, than of the practices and habits of mind of the greater and lesser powers down through the ages. 

I know that I've used this exact same passage previously, in these very ZNet blogs for one.  Incredibly, in what would have been the best e-text of this document, at the Internet Classics Archive, it appears that Book Five, Ch. XVII never loaded into the archive correctly.

Check it out: You'll see what I mean.

David Peterson
Chicago, USA

An excellent summation of the Realist way of foreign policy (the "ism" that's never been a "wasm", all the way down millennia):

Athenians: For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences--either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us--and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying...that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.