Re: an arteest

Well, the problem as I see it is that our foreign diplomacy and policies
are controlled mostly by the Pentagon.
Let's say your neighbor's music was too loud and keeping you up. Would you
walk over, knock on the door and ask him to turn it down while lifting your
shirt to show him the 9mm tucked in your belt? Do this sort of thing
enough and the whole block will despise you. Then when the same neighbor
is beating his kid, and you try to get everyone together and do what's
necessary to stop him, they have turned their backs on you. Now you have
to "Go it alone" you seeker of justice.
Violence should be the last resort, but it plainly isn't for the US. And
it's starting to catch up with us. All it will take is some sort of large
dispute and the EU will become a world super power militarily. (Think of
how the US's civil war turned our federal government into a military
power). It may be a hundred years from now, but it will happen. And then
we won't be the biggest kid on the block. How do we want to be perceived
when that day arrives?

JPB

                                                                                                                     
                    James Rovira
                    <jrovira@drew.edu> To: bananafish@roughdraft.org
                    Sent by: cc:
                    owner-bananafish@roug Subject: Re: an arteest
                    hdraft.org
                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                     
                    04/10/03 10:40 AM
                    Please respond to
                    bananafish
                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                     

Nah, Scottie, as I said before, I really have no problem with Hussein
being overthrown. It needed to happen a long time ago. It needed to
happen in 1991, but world opinion then as now was against it. It
doesn't bother me that we and the Brits and a few others are kicking out
this monster militarily.

It does bother me that we virtually ignored diplomacy from the very
start. Not diplomacy to avoid the war, but diplomacy to sell the war to
our allies. Bush Sr. worked hard to get international support for the
first Gulf War. The need was clear, of course -- it was much easier to
sell at the time because Hussein invaded Kuwait. But the effort was
also clearly made. It wasn't this time. Bush started out thinking in
unilateral terms and brought in the UN as an afterthought. That was a
stupid, unnecessary approach that alienated people from the start.

Now, I'm not kidding myself about the level of self interest involved on
the part of France, Germany, and Russia to maintain the status quo.
 Whatever we sold Hussein in the 80s, these three -- especially France
and Russia -- were always much closer trading partners with Hussein. I
suspect there's more innocent Iraqi blood on their hands than even on
ours after this invasion. It's quite likely the diplomacy I wanted to
see would have been completely ineffective.

However, I still wanted to see it.

And, I'm sorry, but when the US firebombed a large cross section of
Panama City, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, I find it hard to
believe we were doing something that was "necessary." Noriega, like
Hussein, was another bad guy we supported who then made the mistake of
thinking he was actually in charge of his own country. Of course we had
to kick him out before the Panama Canal returned to Panamanian control.
 Did we have to murder innocents to do it? Is it really impossible to
keep the commies out expect through totalitarian dictatorships?

And what's our excuse now that international communism has largely
collapsed?

Jim

Scottie Bowman wrote:

> How I hate to see Americans - who no doubt regard
> themselves as sophisticated liberals - chipping away
> endlessly, like whining babies in a supermarket, at the exertions
> of their own country. OF COURSE no government
> is run like a Sunday school. OF COURSE in this hard
> world each country must try to serve the interests of its
> own citizens. OF COURSE consistency & morality
> are irrelevant after the 6th grade debating society.
>
> Grow up.
>
> At least you're that significant, teeny-teeny-teeny bit kinder,
> better-intentioned, than the rest. Almost as good, in fact,
> as my own people before we withdrew to play the role
> of Greece to your Rome.
>
> It will be revealed soon, I'm sure, that it was nothing more
> than the CNN Rentacrowd who thronged, laughing & clapping
> last night round those young Americans in their APCs as
> they prepared to haul Sadam off his plinth. They were bloody
> good actors.
>
> Just for a moment, though - just maybe these next 48 hours -
> could you stop the cribbing & express some gratitude to those
> simple-hearted, bone-headed, probably sadistic militarists
> who have brought about a rather fundamental, perhaps even
> welcome, change in the lives of a whole lot of Iraqis?
>
> Scottie B.
>
>
>
>
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Received on Thu Apr 10 11:12:40 2003