Hayabusa Rider
Admin Emeritus & Elite Member
- Jan 26, 2000
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The reverse is also true. A great many people feel strongly about this, but cannot tell you why.
The reverse is also true. A great many people feel strongly about this, but cannot tell you why.
sandorski
No Lifer
- Oct 10, 1999
- 70,808
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Originally posted by: Carbonyl
Not surprising at all. Our currency is the only worth anything for international trade and we back it with military power and unlimited natural resources, so if they want dollars it's not politically wise to cut off the largest importer of their goods. Talk about depressions in whatever country chooses to do so, and we'll just buy it from somewere else while they "gang" up on usOther countries are like crack addicts for the dollar and can only get it by remaining our friends.
"unlimited natural resources" : That's so early 20th century. Oil ring a bell?
Not at all. Everyone is welcome to express their opinion and this was a well written article for the most part.
The title is incorrect as the US is not an Empire.
I am not sure what 5 treaties the writter is referring to either.
The top 3 that I can think of are:
ABM treaty, a treaty that has outlived it life. The US exited under the terms of the treaty.
Kyoto, voted down under the previous admin 97-0.
And lastly the landmine treaty. The US still uses landmines in Korea DMZ, and given the climate there right I am willing to be it would be hard to find people that think this is a bad idea right now.
Iternational Criminal Court- It was never ratified by the senate, so we could not have pulled out of it.
But that would not be an Empire. Please show me 1 modern country that does not participate in such activities.
"Everyone else is doing it, why can't we?"
Doesn't make it not an empire. Neocolonialism is just a more modern, more PC, less Rudyard Kipling version of colonialism.
sorry czar but as much as you oppose the war, i don't think you can make that statement and expect people to believe you. the Preeminence of the US of A has nothing to do with hatred. it's a fact and if there is any hatred it's on the part of the petty europeans who just can't accept that the US of A is the most dominant power in the history of the world.
The war in Iraq is inevitable and it is necessary. Unless Hussein surrenders unconditionally. it's OBVIOUS he has no intention of disarming.
with Respect to the article, It was extremely well written. I don't see how ANYONE can possibly say that it was ANTI american. IF anything the bias was Pro American tho it may have been Anti Bush.
Bush has made critical errors when dealing with allies. His foreign policy was lacking.
would you agree with my distinction tho?? I really did feel that the author was Pro America, especially a FDR america, he was anti Bush tho, so maybe you can call him a liberal, but i can't agree that it was anti american.
GroundedSailor
Platinum Member
- Feb 18, 2001
- 2,502
- 0
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I agree completely. The article is well thought out, well researched and points out where the USA - or rather the current administration policy - has failed as well as suggesting what needs to be done to rectify the situation. This is the attitude of someone who genuinely cares. (Don't we take the same approach with our loved ones?) It's called constructive criticism. Call the author a liberal if you wish but he has simply articulated what most of the intelligentsia is thinking.
Pointing out faults does not automatically make one anti american. Anyone who thinks that is taking a very narrow minded view.
In present day America, anything anti Bush, automatically becomes anti American.
Bush lickers want you to stoop to their level .. forgetting what a democracy is in the first place.
Sometimes MSNBC is very anti Bush cause Microsoft was penalized by replublicans a lot hence they have to give something back in return.
Bush lickers want you to stoop to their level .. forgetting what a democracy is in the first place.
Sometimes MSNBC is very anti Bush cause Microsoft was penalized by replublicans a lot hence they have to give something back in return.
GroundedSailor
Platinum Member
- Feb 18, 2001
- 2,502
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Somehow I thought Microsoft got away easy due to republicans.
Newsweek has been quite openly critical of the administration - their recent issue on Bush & God is worth reading. Here's the cover story:
Bush & God
Here is a gist of responses to that article:
Online Mail Call
The fundamental flaw that I see in the article, while well written and interesting if nothing else, is that while the author mentions the attack on the World Trade Center, he almost marginalizes it as being "more of the same". The administration, and rightly so in my opinion (not that I could say otherwise as I'm constrained by law), saw 9/11 as a seminal event which marked a new era in U.S. security.
The U.S. suffered the worst attack on its soil since the Civil War (think that's an accurate statement -- correct me if I'm wrong) and did so after decades and decades of international cooperation, engagement, and multilateral action. The author's opinion is therefore to continue as we did before? I do not follow the logic there, though I understand the sentiment he expresses.
To quote Toby from The West Wing, "They'll like us when we win." We have neither the time nor the safety to rely on the disinterested politics of foreign governments who have sizeable segments of their populations which actually enjoy seeing Americans die or who would like to see American resolve and power diminish to their benefit. The UNSC, for its part, has nearly always been a tool for political manuevering rather than an actual forum for international security. It's one notable success in Korea, though only a marginal success at best, only came to pass through the fortuitous absence of one of the voting countries! Recently, the UN is/has failing/failed miserably in Bosnia, Rwanda/Burundi, DROC, Kosovo, Chechnya, and numerous other conflicts around the world. The fallacy is that US action in defiance of the Security Council would erase the legitimacy of the UNSC -- the reality is that it never had any. Perhaps the fiction served its purpose, but the US cannot sit around and rely on a fiction to defend itself in a forum of state actors when non-state actors are the problem.
Ok, just an off the cuff assessment. While the article is better than the usual hysterical yellow journalism from Newsweek, I can't say that it's going to make me go out and buy an issue.
The U.S. suffered the worst attack on its soil since the Civil War (think that's an accurate statement -- correct me if I'm wrong) and did so after decades and decades of international cooperation, engagement, and multilateral action. The author's opinion is therefore to continue as we did before? I do not follow the logic there, though I understand the sentiment he expresses.
To quote Toby from The West Wing, "They'll like us when we win." We have neither the time nor the safety to rely on the disinterested politics of foreign governments who have sizeable segments of their populations which actually enjoy seeing Americans die or who would like to see American resolve and power diminish to their benefit. The UNSC, for its part, has nearly always been a tool for political manuevering rather than an actual forum for international security. It's one notable success in Korea, though only a marginal success at best, only came to pass through the fortuitous absence of one of the voting countries! Recently, the UN is/has failing/failed miserably in Bosnia, Rwanda/Burundi, DROC, Kosovo, Chechnya, and numerous other conflicts around the world. The fallacy is that US action in defiance of the Security Council would erase the legitimacy of the UNSC -- the reality is that it never had any. Perhaps the fiction served its purpose, but the US cannot sit around and rely on a fiction to defend itself in a forum of state actors when non-state actors are the problem.
Ok, just an off the cuff assessment. While the article is better than the usual hysterical yellow journalism from Newsweek, I can't say that it's going to make me go out and buy an issue.
what a terrible article. God, I'm spoiled. I only read british newspapers (with the sole exception being the New York Times) and they are so much better in writing, style, foundation, etc... I can't stand american writers anymore. They are too simplistic. They follow writing procedures that we first learned in junior high. If anyone is interested in professional journalism, I would highly recommend The Economist and Financial Times.
Pearl Harbor comes into mind. The average American is pretty much running their lives the same post 9-11 and pre 9-11.
The UNSC fails because 5 powers have veto. Image 5 presidents of the USA. Nothing could get done without someone veto'ing every law. Those 5 countries sitting at the UNSC veto's everything that does not serve their national interest. Russia with Chechnya, USA with Isreal, China with Taiwan and maybe Korea, Britain with Zimbabwe, ironically only France has no interest (besides Angola, but that passed away a few decades ago).
Everyone brings up Rwanda, Kosovo as failures of the UN. Technically, they arent failures because the UN charter states that the UN cannot intervene with internal strife (civil war, etc). This is due to the fact that the USSR didnt want the USA to topple weak communisms and the USA didnt want the USSR to topple weak democracies.
The world is changing, and its clear that the UN charter needs to be reworked.
Red Dawn
Elite Member
- Jun 4, 2001
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I tend to think the probelm we face with the lack of support from other countries is due to failed diplomacy on the part of the Bush Administration. To quote New Yorl Times Columnist Paul Krugman :
"Bush's inner circle seems amazed that the tactics that work so well on journalists and Democrats don't work on the rest of the world. They've made promises, oblivious to the fact that most countries don't trust their word. They've made threats. They've done the aura-of-inevitability thing ? how many times now have administration officials claimed to have lined up the necessary votes in the Security Council? They've warned other countries that if they oppose America's will they are objectively pro-terrorist. Yet still the world balks."
To me it seems that they totally misread the reaction of the World Community when they started to mass troops around Iraq thinking that the rest of the world, with the exception of the Middle Eastern Countries, would give us their full support. Now that our troops are stationed and positioned for an invasion we can't back off without hurting our credibility and that of World Organizations like the UN, the EU and NATO not to mention handing Hussien a major PR victory that would only cause to make him even more reluctant to comply to the UN Resolutions to Disarm.
What we are doing is what needs to be done. But there is more to conducting a preemptive strike/war to overthrow a World Threat and a Cruel Despot than just sending over the Military. That is the easy part, the hard part and the area where Bush and his group failed so miserably is the diplomatic arena. We will win the war but the cost is going to be much higher than the immediate Casualties and Costs of waging the war and rebuilding Iraq. The real cost is the hit we as a Nation are going to take in the future when we have to deal will our estranged allies regarding other world crises.
"Bush's inner circle seems amazed that the tactics that work so well on journalists and Democrats don't work on the rest of the world. They've made promises, oblivious to the fact that most countries don't trust their word. They've made threats. They've done the aura-of-inevitability thing ? how many times now have administration officials claimed to have lined up the necessary votes in the Security Council? They've warned other countries that if they oppose America's will they are objectively pro-terrorist. Yet still the world balks."
To me it seems that they totally misread the reaction of the World Community when they started to mass troops around Iraq thinking that the rest of the world, with the exception of the Middle Eastern Countries, would give us their full support. Now that our troops are stationed and positioned for an invasion we can't back off without hurting our credibility and that of World Organizations like the UN, the EU and NATO not to mention handing Hussien a major PR victory that would only cause to make him even more reluctant to comply to the UN Resolutions to Disarm.
What we are doing is what needs to be done. But there is more to conducting a preemptive strike/war to overthrow a World Threat and a Cruel Despot than just sending over the Military. That is the easy part, the hard part and the area where Bush and his group failed so miserably is the diplomatic arena. We will win the war but the cost is going to be much higher than the immediate Casualties and Costs of waging the war and rebuilding Iraq. The real cost is the hit we as a Nation are going to take in the future when we have to deal will our estranged allies regarding other world crises.
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