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| Re: Richard Perle: even more insane than previously thought by Senor Barborito 02/05/2003, 5:06pm PST | ||||
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laudablepuss wrote: Because right now we haven't proven their beliefs about us to the fence-sitters. An attack would sway a lot of people against us, while positioning most of America (a few hard-left such as myself excluded) for our current administration. The rest of the world isn't as ignorant of US politics as we are of theirs - they by and large recognize that this is quite arguably a play by the administration for reelection, whether or not you think there's oil involved (and I thought I did a rather nice job with showing how the numbers on oil work out). The 10 million dollar question nobody seems to be able to answer though, and the reason the rest of the world suspects this so is - why is this suddenly more of a problem than it was last year, or two years ago? Hint: it's not. Saddam hit the US with WMD? Not in his own lifetime. I'm surprised and saddened to hear that Mandella has lost his goddam mind. But when did the US "cow" other countries, especially our fucking allies? When were people being secretly shot or imprisoned for loudly proclaiming that we suck? It's like you think that we were somehow preventing people from disagreeing with us before. It's not the fact that these countries and individuals declaim our policies as bad, but that their arguments are wholly unconvincing and fly in the face of the facts and the agreements they themselves are a party to, particularly the UN resolutions that were passed concerning Iraq. With allies like these . . . When were people shot or imprisoned for proclaiming we suck? Chile had a goddamned elected president (Allende) assassinated outright directly because of our Henry Kissenger (in addition to his responsibility for the bombing of Cambodia, the slaughter of 200,000 East Timorese civilians - he can't leave the US without being arrested for war crimes for a reason, folks) in the 70s, for one. Keeping us in check is not an end, it's a means to an end. Perversely saying "no" every time we say "yes" is not a legitimate diplomatic strategy. If they have a disagreement, fine. But simply opposing us for the sake of opposing us is fucking insane. Also, the US derives its might from the fact that we have dozens of times the wealth of other countries, a huge population (relatively speaking), and fantastic natural resources, among other things. We've never relied on "unquestioning compliance". Give me one example of this supposed compliance. Ukraine, 2000. We threatened economic sanctions if they didn't implement fucking software piracy legislation (this diplomatic action bought & paid for by the RIAA/MPAA, duh). That said, opposing us for the sake of opposing us is fucking insane - France and Mandela and especially Germany are smarter than that. They all understand a few things: Saddam is about as likely to work with Al Quaeda as Bush is. Saddam will not be able to threaten the US in this decade. There are significant potential oil gains (I've highlighted these in one of the below threads) for the US. There are clear domestic political gains for our current unelected administration. Many of the more liberal Americans view our current administration's treatment of 9/11 as little more than a coup d'etat, and the lack of investigation as hinting at something more sinister. Oh wait, the current administration tried to get someone internationally deemed a war criminal and a man domestically known to represent government cover-ups to head a highly belated investigation. Europe in general is populated by persons of a more liberal mindset than America. The comparisons between Hitler and Bush that pop up aren't accidental - Hitler after an illegitmate power grab headed up a government wildly more right-wing than the other major governments in the rest of the world at the time, and one that eventually engaged in imperialism on the grandest scale possible with seemingly no trigger event. Likewise we in America reside in one of the most right-wing major governments in existence (although an argument could be made for Australia and Britain, our staunch allies), and our President (who obtained power through an arguably illegitimate power grab - spending several times more advertising/legal defense money post-election than Gore and ultimately being found the loser of the Florida election after all recounts came in) is launching an at least moderately imperialist war against a foreign nation with - in their view - no legitimate trigger event, just after we finished propping up a new US-friendly government in Afghanistan. What precisely the Hell is this supposed to look like from their vantage point? I'm not saying their view is 100% correct, that all of these points are carved in stone - but they have something resembling a case. What if the EU decided not to support us? Would our national interest in defending ourselves proactively from lunatics with powerful weapons suddenly go away? We'd have to take unilateral action in those cases. Anyway, who declared anyone an enemy? Perle merely said they aren't our ally. They are, in fact, our ally, and Perle can't change that all by himself no matter what he does. I tend to believe that he meant that they are not acting like allies, and in that respect he's correct. Personally neither Perle nor Mandela really interest me. The French are a little too inflammatory-hysterical liberal for me, but when Germany or Sweden or Canada speak up, I tend to listen. --SB |
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