America Abroad

Look at the US from the rest of the world's perspective.

In the next few days, I intend on showing Americans what the rest of the world thinks of us, and the legitimate reasons for these perceptions.

The US goes to war, with disastrous consequences for others, more than any other nation in modern history. It maintains brutal arsenals of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons capable of destroying our fragile planet many times over, and adds to them with distressing regularity. It has participated knowingly in genocide and mass criminality and dictatorship. It is the only nation which has indulged in using the most powerful weapons available to mankind including nukes and the innocuous-sounding 'daisy cutters'.

But one would assume that such hegemony breeds security. The answer is no for the US (particularly Americans abroad) just as military superiority has not created security for Israel.

This is a great country, but it acts very stupidly overseas and it has foolishly moved to breed very ignorant citizens in an apparently-calculated decision to go with ignorance over information.

We all pay the price as Americans, as we did on 9/11.

Discuss.

3. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 11:18:17 AM

In light of 9/11, let's highlight one glaring stupidity of America Abroad.

It financed the global jihadis to the hilt during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, it funnelled huge funds to the most radical, most extremist groups, including possibly Bin Laden's Al Qaeda. Certainly, there has been contact over the years between Bin laden and the hapless Yank spooks.

These are the exact same people that the US is now "waging war" against, a group that it helped to grow from a tiny and impotent minority into a much-hyped Global Threat.

4. bubbaette - 6/11/2002 11:21:04 AM

But we MEANT well!

5. judithathome - 6/11/2002 11:22:05 AM

Yeah, we were fighting the Evil Empire, after all.

6. jexster - 6/11/2002 11:23:27 AM

Congrats Margie from the BumbleFucks R US Fan CLub...now where is Concerned?

7. thoughtful - 6/11/2002 11:25:22 AM

Well, it seemed like the thing to do at the time....

8. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:28:52 AM

While Europe contiues to idly sit by the wayside without any capabilities of their own... seeing fit to let America play bad cop, while they play good cop...

we will always be forced into positions that are not ideal for our image.

But we know from WW2 that isolationism just means someone will bring the fight to you.

9. judithathome - 6/11/2002 11:28:56 AM

It always seems like the thing to do...back the Shah, back Marcos, back Noriega. I guess we don't have any psych profilers in the State Department who might clue us in that these types are not exactly "good guy" material.

10. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 11:31:28 AM

I would argue that there is hardly an "evil one" in the world which the US has not backed to the hilt upto a point when it became necessary to exhibit the capabilities of the military-industrial complex against. Judith lists some who fit, certainly the Jihadis are another example.

When will the foolishness end?

11. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:32:04 AM

In addition this thread title seems to completely disregard the whole cold war. Much of what we've done in the past were direct countermeasures to what the USSR was doing. Just because we won the cold war, and we happen have more public disclosure, doesn't negate the fact that we were effectivly at war with Russia for political influence in many regions of the world.

12. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:36:08 AM

Read a history book... the foolishness never ends. In 2000 years when has there been a significant period of peace?

Someone is always going to come along and try to take advantage of weaker people.

The Jihadists are no better than us, and if they were in our position they would show no hesitation in burying infidels.

13. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:36:36 AM

it is human nature... the US is hardly unique.

14. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 11:37:25 AM

There was no Cold War. The American public was frightened into believing there was one just as it now it is partly being cowed, though resisting (God bless America), that Muslims are a problem for the world.

No, it is amoral, irreligious, hard tack that fuels resentment, rage, and war on our planet.

Absent a few dumb and dumber American policies and I would not have had to watch the WTC towers crumble in front of me as I held my frightened toddler in my arms.

15. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 11:38:37 AM

The Jihadists are no better than us.

True, very true, and so is the converse.

16. CalGal - 6/11/2002 11:39:04 AM

There was no Cold War.

Ha, ha, ha. That's pathetic.

17. ivan osokin - 6/11/2002 11:41:18 AM

marj:

i just wanted to pop in and congratulate you on your honesty and willingness to title the thread as you did :)

perhaps it will be ignored by the calgal-ites, the "americanists"...the blindly loyal pseudo-intellectual patriots who think they know what's going on because they read the analyses of, as pellenilsson said, second-rate academics (i wouldn't even consider them academics...i'd say propagandists).

18. CalGal - 6/11/2002 11:41:48 AM

True, very true, and so is the converse.

Really? And yet, last I saw, the majority of people in the West support freedom of religion, speech, and employment. They support civil rights. Islamists do not. And by Islamists, I mean those who actively seek to enforce Islam as a political ideology, not Muslims.

I think our political system is infinitely superior to the one they want to force upon the world.

19. CalGal - 6/11/2002 11:43:50 AM

BTW, I see nothing wrong with the thread title. Except it really should have a question mark. I suppose this means I can remove mine.

I'm just wondering how banks is going to explain away the Cold War.

20. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:45:36 AM

With the likes of MB

We are damned if we do something
Damned if we don't do something

So we might as well do what we think is best... because we'll never please them.

21. judithathome - 6/11/2002 11:46:11 AM

And by Islamists, I mean those who actively seek to enforce Islam as a political ideology, not Muslims.

I think if you have to explain your term over and over, it might be time to consider one which is more clearly defined.

22. ivan osokin - 6/11/2002 11:46:45 AM

On a related topic:

The Economist, May 25th issue, has a book review of "The World We're In", by Will Hutton. The book criticizes america (foreign policy, domestic situations, etc.)but of course the review was decidedly "americanist". the review had a caption: "America has become a danger to us all, according to a British bestseller. Can such a view honestly be sustained?"

yet, in the same issue, there's an article about europe's perception of bush. only in italy was there a higher number of supporters than detractors. in most countries, there was a majority (some cases overwhelming) of anti-bush sentiment. also, when asked "against whom was the 9/11 attack directed", the 5 eurpoean nations surveyed (britian, italy, france, germany, and spain) ALL overwhelmingly decided it was the US, not "the western world."

so the reviewer may think the view won't hold, but it obviously is there and, if they had included a few dozen other large countries from around the world in the poll, they wouldn't find much difference either.

continued

23. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 11:46:51 AM

Calwhore, it has been conclusively demonstrated through archival research that the Cold War was concocted by multinational corporations and their imperialist stooges in your gummit, in order to sustain the military-industrial-educational complex.

24. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 11:48:41 AM

Numero Uno:

There is a risible claim being made - "I think our political system is infinitely superior to the one they want to force upon the world."

Utter rubbish. If this political system were superior it would not have to go to war every three-four years. It would not visit the worst kind of military savagery on the Third World on a regular basis, there would be instead an acceptance of unique and superior values.

The US has, instead, delved into the troughs and fought dirtier than anyone else to unconviningly make its argument that its values bear scrutiny.

For shame!

25. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:48:53 AM

Whatever

26. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 11:50:18 AM

Without the Cold War, the Yankistani public would never have come to know the existence of Korea, Vietnam, Cuber, Iran, Iraq, or Israel. The Cold War was fought for cartographico-pedogogic reasons.

27. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:50:28 AM

You claim we fight dirtier, but do we? Do we compare to communist nations extermination of the educated?

Please...

28. sakonige - 6/11/2002 11:52:25 AM

You are sounding nearly as unamerican as me there, marjoribanks.

29. CalGal - 6/11/2002 11:54:10 AM

PE: so the Soviets weren't spying, buying military and industrial secrets, competing with us in space, arms, and land grabs. Nope. They were just bopping along, minding their own business, and were shocked....shocked, I say! to discover that we'd created this bogeyman out of them. Cuba? They were on vacation, dammit!

Right.

Nonsense. I'm quite sure that there was all sorts of self-interest involved. But it was on both sides, and both sides kept it going. Thus it certainly did exist.

30. ivan osokin - 6/11/2002 11:54:16 AM

In the review, an attempt was made to show how exagerrated the prose was...how far off the mark the author was. The paragraph quoted was so basic and so obvious, it would take a truly blinded fundamental americanist to find fault.

The reviewer comments on Hutton's support for europe, as opposed to the US. Here's a quote that made me laugh hysterically:
"...if Europe is so fond, as Mr. Hutton argues, of "social solidarity", why do its workers spend so much time on strike or in demonstrations while American ones seem to be more contented with their lot?"

WHAT????
1) social solidarity IS reflected by the cohesion of collective labor and unions.
2) its workers spend so much time on strike becuase they are trying to fight the influence of corporate greed (read: Americanism) over society and its campaign to destroy collective labor bargaining.
3) and this is why americans seem more contented...it's because they have no collective voice. divide and conquer. the american worker takes its lumps, gets less benefits and shuts up because they are afraid to lose their jobs.

anyway. i'll have to check out this book. i suspect it won't have any surprising conclusions, but it's nice to read a lone voice in an otherwise dominant mob world.

31. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 11:55:15 AM

The US tried to be Neutral... not only in WW1, but WW2

...but Europe and Asia were the ones who erupted both World Wars... Europe and Asia were the militant ones that set all the gears in motion that have brought us to this point.

If the US is a monster, it's their monster... we've just grown bigger than them and it upsets them.

32. CalGal - 6/11/2002 11:55:36 AM

Banks,

So you think that our existing political system is inferior to the one that the Islamists want to impose?

Have you told your wife? She might not be thrilled about the burqa business.

33. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2002 11:55:39 AM

it has been conclusively demonstrated through archival research that the Cold War was concocted by multinational corporations and their imperialist stooges in your gummit, in order to sustain the military-industrial-educational complex.

Somebody has been taking classes at the Learning Annex again.

34. ivan osokin - 6/11/2002 11:57:38 AM

cal...nice jab.

and you're not anti-islam, are you? nooooo...

35. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 11:58:45 AM

No one, ib2b, is upset by America acting idiotically on the global stage. It confirms what the world knows. That is all.

Trying to be neutral? What a laugh.

36. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 12:00:32 PM

I would prefer, honestly, that CalGal not only be burqa'ed but also beaten and buggered ritually by her husband/owner.

It is my considered opinion that such treatment would benefit humanity.

37. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2002 12:00:46 PM

ivan

The "bigot" jab is really the easiest of the moves in the ring.

38. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/11/2002 12:01:27 PM

Congrats, marj--you go guy!

The end of liberty

Shortly before the twin tower disaster, Vanity Fair commissioned a piece from their favourite author, Gore Vidal. It was returned with a kill fee sometime after 11 September for 'market reasons'. It had, however, already been published in a collection of Vidal's essays by Fazi Editore in Italy under the title La fine della libertà: verso una nuova totalitarianismo.

39. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2002 12:02:20 PM

marj

I might honestly regret having come in your wife's mouth, but I'm not sure it is relevant to Dumb and Dumber: America Abroad.

40. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 12:02:55 PM

Message # 35 we were trying to be as neutral as possible prior to WW2.

After WW2 that was the cold war...

41. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 12:03:29 PM

Calwhore, Uncle Joe Stalin wanted world peace, world harmony, and world prosperity, but those fascist-imperialist pigs of the military-educational complex in your gummit insisted on educating your public through a "cold war". Amerikkka only goes to war to provide geography lessons to the ruling classes.

Daniel Sickles, this was the subject of my doctoral dissertation at International Florida Union University of Fort Lauderdale.

42. rubberducky - 6/11/2002 12:05:05 PM

sheesh

well, banks, so much for my concern this would end up like the much over-hyped International thread.

enjoy your idiotic thread but i do hope Abs will want her thread back as soon as she sees what you've concocted -honestly, you'd make Rosetta Jesus look like a good thread host.

43. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2002 12:08:00 PM

Post 41 -

ha ha ha ha ha. Good stuff.

44. jexster - 6/11/2002 12:13:49 PM

Marj...posted a link either Int or AP thread to Pew Research poll...most Americans don't follow foreign policy issues even after 9-1-1 because they find it too confusing...

and then of course there are those who DO follow International issues and are just as confused....



Buenos dias Daniel.

45. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 12:18:58 PM

I kind of liked the Vidal list of American interventions since 1945 in ivan osokin's link.

46. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/11/2002 12:22:11 PM

". . . ivan osokin's link."

I'm crushed!

47. marjoribanks - 6/11/2002 12:25:30 PM

Sorry!

Wizard, I hope you'll make this your home thread as much as you can.

I'm going to have to disengage for a bit, starting now. However, I may return to re-name the thread in a more relevant but still-provocative manner in order to engender debate.

48. Wombat - 6/11/2002 12:49:11 PM

Dumb and Dumber...this thread.

49. CalGal - 6/11/2002 12:51:31 PM

PE--So what? It doesn't mean that the Cold War didn't exist. It just means that the motives weren't pure. Imagine, if you will, my astonishment.

50. Wombat - 6/11/2002 12:53:44 PM

Anyone who quotes Gore Vidal as an authority on anything other than superb novels and life in Italy is in serious need of a shrink. Noam Chomsky is sure to make an appearance as well.

51. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 12:54:15 PM

Calwhore, you're such a credulous idiot.

52. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 12:54:48 PM

I'm amazed even Wombat has fallen for it.

53. CalGal - 6/11/2002 12:56:56 PM

PE--Actually, I did wonder. But you called me Calwhore, which is usually a sign that you're serious.

54. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 12:57:06 PM

This thread is obviously meant to keep certain posters and certain kinds of postings out of the International thread, through deliberately provocative remarks which would bait the credulous. Just look at Calwhore and how seriously she took Marjoribanks's (obviously insincere) statement that the Cold War never existed. I'm just surprised Wombat got caught up.

55. pseudoerasmus - 6/11/2002 12:58:10 PM

But Wombat does have his nationalist auto-pilot side.

56. CalGal - 6/11/2002 12:59:13 PM

Just look at Calwhore and how seriously she took Marjoribanks's (obviously insincere) statement that the Cold War never existed.

It was obvious? Seriously? It's just the sort of asinine remark Banks makes as a matter of course.

57. thoughtful - 6/11/2002 1:00:49 PM

PseuE,

gummit is an exclamation, a euphamism as in Dad Gummit!

gummint is the red neck word for government

58. Daniel Sickles - 6/11/2002 1:01:43 PM

I have to concur with Cal there - marj, uncoated, can come off much as pseudo in gag mode. But I was hoping this thread could become more devoted to sexual sadism.

Which, frankly, might be of benefit to the International Thread as well.

59. Wombat - 6/11/2002 1:04:23 PM

PE:

I knew you were joking! If Marj was being deliberately provocative, then the scariest thing was that people were sincerely agreeing with him.

My main critique of US foreign policy has usually been of the lack of follow-through in its recent interventions: "There, we've knocked down your opressive regime, etc., now put yourself back together!"

60. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 1:12:16 PM

That's a good point Wombat...

Why don't we follow through do you think? I'm not particularly old, but from what I've seen in my 15 years of political consciousness is that public or world opinion makes us back off to soon.

Iraq is a great example... we should have buried Saddam while we still had a clear mandate. But we didn't want to offend our Arab alies I guess. Sure looks like we kept their respect eh?

61. Wombat - 6/11/2002 1:25:31 PM

iiibbb:

There is a lack of political consensus on the merits of following through, which is often reflected in a failure to commit resources afterwards. This is called "nation building," and our current President and his party have explicitly stated that they do not believe in that.

As to Iraq...the first Bush Administration was less concerned about offending our allies in the region than with a divided and weakened Iraq coming under Iran's sway.

Since there was no consensus on the obvious next step after kicking out Saddam (IMO occupying it, rebuilding it and introducing a form of federalized democracy--that pesky nation-building thing again), it didn't happen.

62. thoughtful - 6/11/2002 1:30:01 PM

well, it was fun while it lasted.

63. concerned - 6/11/2002 1:33:58 PM

This has to be the most idiotic thread yet in the Mote. Marjoribanks outdoes himself.

64. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 1:38:07 PM

deliberately provocative remarks which would bait the credulous.

I'm baited hooked and flopping on the beach with my pink lips quivering in the wind.

I agree there was no cold war, or rather I would put it that the cold war was a figment of the British and American Right wings imagination.

Also they convinced the rest of the west that the mirage was real. I do not think there was ever a worldwide planned communist conspiracy aiming itself at world domination.

Only the same old rivalry between the Russian Empire and the British empire you can read about in Kipling Novels. We were drawn in by Churchill casting Russia in the role of the red menace to get America help with that Imperial struggle since the US right had been prone to red scares since the 1930s.

65. thoughtful - 6/11/2002 1:38:27 PM

actually...given #63, it was well worth it!

66. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 1:38:48 PM

This is the United States Foreign Policy thread we asked for?

67. concerned - 6/11/2002 1:41:45 PM

I guess so. At least 'thoughtful' appears satisfied.

68. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 1:43:43 PM

I agree there was no cold war, or rather I would put it that the cold war was a figment of the British and American Right wings imagination.

So... when Kennedy took us to the brink of WW3 with the cuban missle crisis... we were just dreaming that?

69. concerned - 6/11/2002 1:45:18 PM

It'll be amusing to watch the 'trash America' crowd make fools of themselves in this monkey cage, however.

70. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 1:48:08 PM

Actually... by not accepting that the cold war existed makes debating pointless. Our conceptual universes are mutually exclusive

71. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 1:50:12 PM

The Bush Regime is making the same mistake in this new cold war. They are fighting the old British East of Suez wars to insure the oil that lights the lamps of London will flow.

Put instead of being honest like a 19th century politcian[they used to be statesmen] the right wing casts the fight as some great holy crudsade, not against us godless communists this time, but against fanatical arabs out to destroy christianity, economic creationism and capitalism.

Clinton was more practical. He said "it is the economy stupid"

Today one might say "It is the oil stupid" A rational power would fight for the oil, or not fight for it facing reality.

Instead we are thrown into a demon haunted world of terrorists and jihads that produces all sorts of undesirable side effects, the first of which is the persecution of American Moslems and Black Muslims. I have already heard a Republican spokesman talking about going after Farakhand like he had something to do with the 9/11 bombing.

72. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 1:56:21 PM

Are we making this a cold war thread? Or a USFP in the present thread?I.B. says,"In addition this thread title seems to completely disregard the whole cold war. Much of what we've done in the past were direct countermeasures to what the USSR was doing."

If you look at it objectively everthing the Russian did was a countermeasure to our moves. Consider the Russian mind set. The Russian had lived next to a modern capitalistic democracy, Germany. The Germans had an economic colapse that really fit Marx's theories. They elected a mad man, Hitler. Dispite all efforts by Molotov to amke peace and non aggression pacts with Hitler, he attacked them and killed 20 million Russians. It is hard to comprehend what losing 20 million people is like, but compare it to how we are acting after losing 3000.

73. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 2:06:48 PM

Now after that traumatic experience the Russian leadership see another power rising in Western Europe. A capitalistic democracy. There Marxist philosophy tell them the America economy will eventaully colapse. We put troops on their borders and announce an anti-Russian policy of containment of any spread of socialism.

They react by creating buffer states the satelite countries between our Armies and their border.

We then develope long range bombers that can deliver atomic boms on their capital. we put the bombers in West Germany and Turkey.

Russia responds by developing thier own atomic bombs and long range Bombers as a deterent.

We then develope the Nike anti-aircraft Rocket to neutralize their deterent. Russia develops ICBMs to create a new deterent. By now we are flying strategic air command bombers carrying atomic bombs to the Russian border every day.

We develope ICBMs, and the Polaris SLBM, remember the missile gap, as a deterent to their deterent.

we start the overkill race to build so many missiles they cannot knock them all out. They respond. We develop Multiple Warhead, the so calle MIRV missiles like the Minuteman three and trident SLBM. I response Russian develope their own SLBMs and MIRVS. In each case they responded to our threat.

74. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 2:19:04 PM

1976 a pause for sanity. Jimmy Carter starts the Salt Talks. Russians quickly agree to reduce strategic forces and abandon their new MIRV missile and do not deploy it.

CIA send muslim fanatics into Afghanistan, Carter is not told. The war in afghanistan is used by the right to blunt the peace initiatives.

Sanity ends back to the evil empire 1980

Reagan tells the Russians to shove it at Iceland peace conference and walks out and repeats the Nike mistake by saying he will neutralize the Russian deterent with a star wars system.

Arms race resumes for eight more years.

1989, once evil empire Ronnie Rayguns is history the Russians take the unprecidented step of supporting German reunification and unilaterlly withdraw from Eastern Europe. George H.W. "Poppy" Bush takes all the credit, the right wing gives Reagan the credit??? for Gorbachev's bold action.

Clinton takes office disarmament accelerates, peace divident balances the Budget for the first time since Nixon.

in 2000 son of a Bush seizes power. W. Bush starts new cold war with Islam.

That is my short history of the cold war. We were always provocative, Russia was reacting.

75. Wombat - 6/11/2002 2:27:18 PM

Back to dumb and dumber, I see.

76. rubberducky - 6/11/2002 2:34:44 PM

check

77. PelleNilsson - 6/11/2002 2:42:25 PM

I think this "Dumb, dumber" stuff has gone on long enough. The forum wanted a thread on American Foreign Policy and that was the thread I created. I don't think hosts should change the subject of a thread without prior discussion with forum members. I have changed the thread title.

78. zojak quafeth - 6/11/2002 2:55:15 PM

hmmm. perhaps we should compare and contrast Us foreign policy with the obviously much wiser foreign policy of our peers out there.

Oh wait. We have no peers b/c we're the only superpower left and can do whatever we want.

OK, let's compare ourselves with those who think are our peers.

During WWII, we should have adopted the French approach to diplomacy and war. I'd much rather be living in Vichy U.S after all.

OK, maybe that's a bad example.

How about all our lovely arabic neighbors in the Middle East. Maybe we should adopt their approach. Let's try to kill off Israel, but be so bass ackwards that we muff it every time.

Hmmm. ok. Maybe not.

How bout them Soviets? They got it right. Let's ask them.

Wait, there are no longer any Soviets?

Shit. Someone get e-mail Fidel in Cuba. Maybe he'll participate as a guest moderator and tell us how to run foreign policy.

79. transient1a - 6/11/2002 3:01:35 PM

pseudoeramus,

Message # 23

UNFORTUNATELY

Your archival research is flawed.

BECAUSE

It neglects the move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation bringing the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marking a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

80. PelleNilsson - 6/11/2002 3:15:35 PM

How refreshing to see a funny, inane post from transient. He's otherwise always so deadly serious.

81. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 3:21:47 PM

68. iiibbb - 6/11/02 6:43:43 PM

Clif says, "I agree there was no cold war, or rather I would put it that the cold war was a figment of the British and American Right wings imagination."

So... when Kennedy took us to the brink of WW3 with the cuban missle crisis... we were just dreaming that?

Ah yes, the missiles of October.

The United States had begun deploying an IRBM[intermediate range ballistic missile] call the Jupiter-C in Europe and Turkey in 1959. The milles in turkey could reach Moscow and most of Russia ICBM based in less than 15 minutes, another threat to the Russain Nuclear deterent.At the Kennedy-Kruschev summit meeting Kennedy had made a deal. He would remove the Jupiter-C missiles from Europe if Russia agreed not to deploy IRBMs in the western hemisphere[meaning Cuba].

Dean Rusk at the state department was given the job of negotiating the missile pullout. Europe was cooperative but Turkey balked. They said nuclear missiles made them feel safe. I guess Turks think like Republicans. Rusk ever the diplomat entered into interminable negotiations with Turkey.

Kruschev assumed Kennedy had broken his promiss and started to deploy Russian IRBMs in Cuba. It is reported Kennedy was very angry at Rusk when he found out all the Russians wanted was for Kennedy to live up to his bargain to pull the IRBMs out of Turkey. Rusk had dropped the ball and almost ended the world.

Again the Russians were only reacting to The USAs aggressive and provcative stance in deploying IRBMs in Turkey for no good reason.

82. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 3:22:04 PM

It did get the Hotline put in from Washington to Moscow direct.

A funny aside, when the hotline was first brought up cold war paranoia was high. The hotline was not a red teephone like the movies, it was an ASR33 teletype. A test technician typed in "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

The Russians responded "What does this mean, who are you calling lazy dogs!!!"

It was explained and ironed out. After that they typed ABCDEFG...etc. for testing.

83. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 3:30:23 PM

Message # 71

Godless you are a riot. Stalin was a monster... he killed hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen.

The USSR was not innocently "creating buffer states the satelite countries between our Armies and their border".

I'm sure when the USSR invaded Finland in 1939-40 it was merely in anticipation of conflicts with the West. A jump-start on buffers. Those Russians are very smart you know.

84. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 3:44:02 PM

Stalin had designs on Eastern Europe well before the US posed a significant threat to them. They had the largest army... so how is what they were doing reactionary to the US?

The cold war begins

85. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 3:44:53 PM

Temp Louis Althusser is not my cup of tea. I remember reading that when Jack Kerouac was asked if he was a zen buddist and he replied "No, I am an old fashioned Mahayana Buddist."

I feel the same way about Marxism. I think it is a philosophy, not a science. I am not a Scientific Socialist.

I am an old fashioned Utopian Socialist who's philosophy draws more from Robert Owen that it does from Marx.

The people however do need to take power back from bourgeouise oppressors by using democratic institutions.

86. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/11/2002 3:52:00 PM

"Anyone who quotes Gore Vidal as an authority on anything other than superb novels and life in Italy is in serious need of a shrink. Noam Chomsky is sure to make an appearance as well.

Sure wombat, what are your credentials?--I'm glad to see you're not letting your education get in the way of your callowness.


I just love the self-pleased denials of all the counterfeit masters-of-the-universe around here.

America has a maniacal stalker and the gangsters who run the place are more adept than ever at exploiting the situation by convincing hordes of paranoid dupes (indeed, dittoheads & dittoheadettes), that they can once and for all rid the world of those "Un'Murrican God-haters!"

Wheither you deny it or buy it, the fact is that 85 % of the world hates or deeply resents America's foreign polices. The thinking they can destroy its "enemies," Gang Bush will only fuel the flames of terror and mayhem--in the same way Israel and Sharon's thugs are doing.





A window in London (Hampstead) . . .

87. Wombat - 6/11/2002 4:06:54 PM

Gore Vidal thinks the main problem with American society and its policies is that is has fallen into the hands of pushy immigrants (read Jews) and parvenues who are busy corrupting it morally, politically, and internationally. There is not a dippy conspiracy theory that he hasn't hooked onto (even if disproven) from how Roosevelt is responsible for Pearl Harbor to US complicity in the WTC attacks.

I claim no expertise in fictional writing other than enjoying reading it in the form of a novel rather than in the form of political and diplomatic analysis, which are areas that I have some expertise.

iiibbb: Stalin killed millions of Soviet citizens, not hundreds of thousands.

88. godlessclif - 6/11/2002 4:16:15 PM

Oh to have the power to change the thread title. I would call it Bush foreign policy blunders, gaffs and insults to foreign dignitaries.

Like when he called Jacque Chirac, Amigo. In fact the ambassador Bush appointed to France does not speak French. You can do that to Lichenstein but the French don't take kindly to it.

You can see how Bush went ballistic when a reporter asked him a question in English and he took his ears off, then the reporter asked the follow up question to the french prime minister in French. I think it was a Canadian Reporter who was used to bilingualism. Bush freaked.

89. iiibbb - 6/11/2002 4:19:56 PM

The people however do need to take power back from bourgeouise oppressors by using democratic institutions.

That's why it was so important to invade Finland... a hotbead of bourgeouise subsistance animal herders, foresters, and fisherman.

90. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/11/2002 4:49:02 PM

Wombat- Please direct me to where, in the links I supplied, Vidal takes up his/your "American society . . . policies" by pushy immigrant/Jews & parvenues (Condi Rice?).

Have you read Vidal's book . . . have you read the links?

Your partiality allows you to discount much--there are a great many cogent points that easily refute your "dippy conspiracy theory." Compelling, it's not!

91. Renie - 6/11/2002 6:20:01 PM

Being new and far less educated I don't want to get involved in the debate. It is a fascinating read for one less versed in these matters. So far I agree with everyone on one point or another. Perhaps I am one of those who really is in the middle. Then again, perhaps I am too stupid to make up my mind!

I do want to thank TheWizardOfWhimsy for the Vidal link. He's been a favorite of mine since my early teens. (Which some days feel as though they indeed were the early teens.)

92. Renie - 6/11/2002 6:21:26 PM

I have no idea where that post just fell. I'm still reading posts numbered in the 40's. Sorry! My reference was to post #38.

93. concerned - 6/12/2002 1:35:23 AM

Re. 77 -

Pelle -

I hope marjoribanks will forgive you for doing so:)

94. concerned - 6/12/2002 1:41:47 AM

godless -

You really ought to post in the International thread more, and up the quality there.

95. concerned - 6/12/2002 2:05:37 AM

That is my short history of the cold war. We were always provocative, Russia was reacting.

Boy. You could knock me over with a feather.

96. concerned - 6/12/2002 2:07:35 AM

It's clear the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan as a reaction to the oppressive foreign policies of the Jimmuh Cahtuh regime.

97. pseudoerasmus - 6/12/2002 2:11:11 AM

Concerned and Godlesscliff are mirror images of each other.

98. concerned - 6/12/2002 2:22:55 AM

Re. 97 -

True. We both post in ways which cause revelations and epiphanies in others. However, mine apply to this reality - his to others.

99. pseudoerasmus - 6/12/2002 2:39:06 AM

It's pathetic, concerned, to have to constantly puff yourself up just because no one will confer upon you the plaudits that you desperately crave.

Neither Concerned nor Godlesscliff ever says anything particularly novel or illuminating. Both typically spew platitudinous formulaic partisan hack matter, GC's being left-wing and Concerned's right-wing.

At this point I would ordinarily end with the caveat that at least GC was amusing, but I think he's not even that anymore. Godlesscliff is really only amusing when he's talking in his half-stoned manner about Christians.

100. concerned - 6/12/2002 2:47:26 AM

Perhaps an arrangement could be made where, for one day each month, a different UN member nation would be handed nominal control of US foreign policy.

That should have some effect on international disapprobation of US policy, eh?

Actually, on second thought, not quite enough time to get the authorization to hit the launch button would be safer than a day.

101. concerned - 6/12/2002 2:56:07 AM

Neither Concerned nor Godlesscliff ever says anything particularly novel or illuminating.

Puhleeze. For just a few examples, I suggested in the Mote, on 9/11, almost the precise response that the US wound up pursuing in Afghanistan. I proposed a multi-stage anti ballistic missile defense years ago in the Fray before anybody else was talking about it. What I posted regarding family structure and social stability in the Fray years ago is generally accepted now.

Only a charlatan or fool would throw away their credibility by suggesting I 'don't have anything to contribute'.

PE, why don't you be a good boy and work to your strong points by filling us in on Allah's three daughters and the 360 deity pagan pantheon from which Muhammad extracted this graven symbol. What's up with Muslims slaughtering livestock and worshiping some fucking rock in Mecca, anyway? Pagans.

102. concerned - 6/12/2002 3:02:26 AM

:)

103. concerned - 6/12/2002 3:08:05 AM

Ok, you got me, PE. I'm a formulaic RW hack. Just scroll right past my posts.

104. concerned - 6/12/2002 3:41:32 AM

If I made stuff like I posted in the last paragraph in 101 public in many, if not most Muslim countries, I would be liable to be sentenced to death. Freedom of speech is truly a great thing. Everyone should be allowed it.

105. concerned - 6/12/2002 3:53:18 AM

Even though it isn't even true I can call Jesus a child fucking murderer and thief anywhere in the world and worry about nothing worse than getting in a fist fight.

106. concerned - 6/12/2002 3:59:07 AM

When I can kick back in Mecca with a girl on my knee and a brewski in my hand and discuss with the locals the possibility that Muhammad porked his momma while eating chitlins, that's when world peace will be getting somewhere.

107. concerned - 6/12/2002 4:05:55 AM

But I was hoping this thread could become more devoted to sexual sadism.

Which, frankly, might be of benefit to the International Thread as well.

Dead goats don't tell.

108. concerned - 6/12/2002 4:07:17 AM

I have to concur with Cal there - marj, uncoated, can come off much as pseudo in gag mode.

Different kind of gag in marjoribanks case.

109. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 5:17:49 AM

You nicely derailed the American Foreign Policy thread with anti-muslim bigotry!

Doug Goddard[Alias Concerned Christian]. Good job of destroying the debate. If you try you may become a major troll of Rosie Jesus/POJ's stripe and cause "The Big Flush" of a whole forum someday.

110. Wombat - 6/12/2002 8:59:40 AM

WoW:

I suggest you read Vidal's American history novels that are chronologically set after 1876 to get an idea of what he feels went wrong with the United States and who is responsible. It provides a useful background to his political essays.

111. iiibbb - 6/12/2002 9:02:39 AM

I sure hope that's not his real name because that is decidely against the rules of engagement.

112. iiibbb - 6/12/2002 9:03:04 AM

msg 109 that is.

113. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 9:21:27 AM

Wombat- I agree, Vidal is prone to exaggeration and wild leaps of fancy--a David McCullough or Edmund Morris he is not, nevertheless, you evade my point conspicuously. In the links provided, there are many specific details that are difficult to ignore and/or refute.

114. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 9:34:43 AM

That is the name Concerned Christian used on The Atlantic Monthly Forum. If he objects to me using it I will stop just as I no longer use POJ real name because he objected to anyone knowing it.

Meanwhile Wombt and WofW have posted useful on topic comments ans tried to get the thread back on track.

Mark Twain was prone to exageration as well but his stories gave more insight into the real nature of Antebellum Missouri and what was wrong with slavery than any historian of the time I can think of. I admire Vidal for his honesty.

I have read David Willis McCullough's "Tales of Irish kings"

Is that the same guy they keep ahving on talk shows and C-Span, who keeps plugging the book about ten presidents FDR to Poppy Bush? He writes well but is no Tom Clancy.

115. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 9:35:52 AM

That is the name Concerned Christian used on The Atlantic Monthly Forum. If he objects to me using it I will stop just as I no longer use POJ real name because he objected to anyone knowing it.

Meanwhile Wombt and WofW have posted useful on topic comments ans tried to get the thread back on track.

Mark Twain was prone to exageration as well but his stories gave more insight into the real nature of Antebellum Missouri and what was wrong with slavery than any historian of the time I can think of. I admire Vidal for his honesty.

I have read David Willis McCullough's "Tales of Irish kings"

Is that the same guy they keep ahving on talk shows and C-Span, who keeps plugging the book about ten presidents FDR to Poppy Bush? He writes well but is no Tom Clancy.

116. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 9:41:11 AM

Awe shit I double posted

117. Wombat - 6/12/2002 9:50:58 AM

Look, WoW:

If you approach foreign policy from a non-isolationist, non-America-first (in the 1940s meaning) it is very easy to discount almost everything that Vidal writes in the piece that you link to. For example, Roosevelt did not provoke the attack on Pearl Harbor any more than Bush senior provoked Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Vidal believes that the United States' "original sin" was getting involved with the world, and ultimately attempting to dominate it. I don't.

His list of "interventions" by US forces is ridiculous and dishonest: it includes joint military exercises with other countries' armed forces, it breaks down US intervention in Kosovo and Bosnia into specific operations, as it does in Vietnam, presumably to give the impression that the US has intervened more often in recent years. Imagine breaking down the Korean War or World War II by particular campaign or operation.

The other question to ask, since the implication is that US intervention is a "bad" thing (according to Vidal and the Cato Institute--a fine pair of bedfellows), is whether or not parts of the world are better off for it? Would the world have been a better place had the US not "intervened" in WWs 1 and 2? Would the Korean peninsula be a better place to live had the US not pushed the UN into intervening? Would Kuwait be better off as an Iraqi province? Would the states that once made up Yugoslavia be better off with Milosevic still in power?

Not all interventions were successful or well-intentioned, and few led to results that were exactly as planned if planned at all, but that could be said about most government actions.

118. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 9:55:28 AM

Wombat says:Roosevelt did not provoke the attack on Pearl Harbor any more than Bush senior provoked Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.Some of us beleive both those accusations are true.

119. Wombat - 6/12/2002 9:58:41 AM

Then you should attempt to prove them using something other than assertions by reactionary whackos (Roosevelt), and Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, and their ilk (Iraq).

120. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 10:01:24 AM

I am sure in 100 years historians will refer to it as the Yugoslavian break-up, The Serbian war, Milosovitch's war or some such name. It is silly to think of the Croatian-Serbian war, the Serbian-Bosnian war, The Serbian-Kosovo war, the Serbian-American war and the Serbian revolution as five different wars.

121. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 10:20:20 AM

Wombat, all your points are cogent and well argued, but considering the primary thesis of Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace -- How We Got To Be So Hated, Vidal's view is still worthy of consideration (if not respect) and not the out of hand condemnation you ascribe.

Isn't he addressing how America is perceived and the blatantly arrogant ignorance in decades of American "leadership?"

Do you really think America can "intervene" when it is hated and resented so vehemently by so much of the world.

It's like a wife-beater saying his intentions are honorable and filled with love even though his actions are perceived otherwise.

I just balked at your refusal to accept any point of Vidal's and I still think it's a mistake, but i very much appreciate your take and response.

122. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 10:27:30 AM

I don't think Bush Senior "provoked" Iraq, but I do think his lack of a clear message to Saddam contributed to the invasion of Kuwait.

And I also think the "reactionary whackos" of the left are desperately needed to balance the "reactionary whackos" of the right; IMHO, you make a grave mistake in your (Wombat) closed-mindedness.

123. Wombat - 6/12/2002 10:34:47 AM

WoW:

I think a better subtitle for his piece would be "...and How I Came to Hate It."

I would also suggest that the United States is not hated to the extent that you and Vidal seem to think it is (and possibly wish it to be). There is certainly resentment and envy, even from our allies; but when it comes down to actually doing something, there is literally no other country that is capable intervening the way the United States can.

In the case of Bosnia, a good deal of the resentment was due to the fact that the US was not doing enough: our allies had troops on the ground, and the US was refusing to get involved, other than through inflammatory rhetoric. I would argue, and have, that if the US had intervened militarily in Rwanda, as the Hutu genocide was taking place, it would have brought it to a speedy end.

Should the US refuse to intervene in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict because we are "hated?" All sides desperately want the US to do so. How can you call for an end to Israeli occupation of the West Bank and criticize US intervention at the same time?

124. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 10:37:23 AM

It is a good question to ask.

How many US interventions in global affairs (lets select ourselves to military ones) have been unequivocally for the better.

I see one big one and only one big one - WWII.

And then there have been actual crimes committed in interventions abroad, witness the most disgusting international intervention in recent memory - Poppy Bush's Panama misadventure.

125. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 10:39:42 AM

If the US bungs itself into the Middle East and forcibly separates the protagonists in the Holy Land conflict - then that will be another.

But I'm not holding my breath as long as mini-Bush continues to run his foreign policy apparently on the basis of winning votes in one state - Florida.

126. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 10:41:28 AM

Korea was certainly better for the South Koreans. Iraq was better for Kuwait, and ultimately the region. Panama, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Somalia - none were pristine, but all were probably better for the indigenous populations. Afghanistan will be a plus.

Haiti was probably a wash.

Our failures are Cuba and Vietnam, and the failures were in the failing, not necessarily the intervention.

127. Wombat - 6/12/2002 10:41:31 AM

I think the world would be a better place without reactionary whackos of any political stripe. If that upsets you, I am sorry.

In re Iraq: Had Saddam seized the oil fields that were allegedly the proximate cause for his dispute with Kuwait, and not the whole country, I am sure that the US would have accepted the fait accompli (after a ritual condemnation). Our main miscalculation was that Saddam miscalculated what he could get away with.

128. Wombat - 6/12/2002 10:44:25 AM

Which Dominican intervention? The 1965 one? (bad) or in the 1970s? (good).

129. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 10:45:15 AM

I would also suggest that the United States is not hated to the extent that you and Vidal seem to think it is (and possibly wish it to be).

Really--I want the world to hate us? Well thanks for the insult and the objectivity. I wonder if the families who still have body parts in NY, PA, DC and all over the globe think America is loved or (even respected) by most of the world.

Your denial and your arrogance are telling and empirical proof of my point.

130. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 10:47:34 AM

Sorry! Italics and quotes in that first sentence, post 129.

131. Wombat - 6/12/2002 10:48:10 AM

Marj:

The Grenadan government had been toppled by a coup led by people to the left of Maurice Bishop, who then executed him. That was a "bad" intervention?

Panama: Noriega had just quashed an election that would have driven him from power. That was a "bad" intervention?

132. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 10:48:55 AM

Wombat

The 1965 intervention was messy, but even then, we got a coalition government by September 1965. Less than a year later, elections and political stability.

The alternative might well have been a massacre and protracted civil strife.

133. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 10:49:23 AM

Sickles,

Perhaps you should look up the word 'unequivocally'. Let's just say that it means something like 'unimpeachably'.

"Korea was better for the South Koreans", etc. don't qualify.

I think Haiti is acceptable as unimpeachably for the better.

134. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 10:51:36 AM

X?tB?failures are Cuba and Vietnam, and the failures were in the failing, not necessarily the intervention.

Utterly ridiculous--especially in light of our present relationship to Cuba, Vietnam and China. "The Red Scare" dies hard with paranoids.

135. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 10:52:13 AM

marj

In the worlds of foreign affairs, and adult conversation, unequivocally has little place. Take it to Lollipop Lane.

Any jackass can impeach. But, on balance, every one of the interventions I cited were for the good.

136. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 10:53:20 AM

"X?tB?" What's going on here?

137. Wombat - 6/12/2002 10:53:25 AM

WoW:

The insult was gratuitous (in your case) and I apologize. Vidal has stated on numerous occasions that he hates what the United States has become, and consideres himself an "exile."

I suspect most of the 9/11 victims' families may wonder why Bin Laden hates us, but at the same time can take comfort in the sincere expressions of sorrow and sympathy from all over the world, including from countries that according to you must "hate" us.

138. concerned - 6/12/2002 10:53:42 AM

Re. 115 -

godless=liar

I objected because I have never posted in the Atlantic forum under any moniker. I have indicated how you can prove that to your own satisfaction, yet you are afraid to do so. That makes you a coward, also.

139. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 10:54:37 AM

X?tB?

Don't curse at me.

140. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 10:54:42 AM

Panama was and is a glaring example of mass state-sponsored terror inflicted on a whole national populace to pursue limited goals which were irrelevant and undesired by the locals.

In fact, since the US helped create (and massively supported) Noriega in the first place, and then burned entire Panamanian neighborhoods in pursuing him - I submit the Panama example provides us a useful template in Dumb and Dumber US foreign policy activities - enriching and benefitting no one, cyclically destructive, meaningless but terribly destructive nonetheless.

141. Wombat - 6/12/2002 11:01:09 AM

Oops! Back to "dumb and dumber."

So the US should not rectify its errors because they made them in the first place? Or because times/situations change? As I recall, one neighborhood in Panama City was burned in the course of the initial fighting.

Let me know when "dumb and dumber" is gone from the thread title. Then I will participate in this thread again.

142. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 11:02:19 AM

Wombat- Thanks. "Must" is your word and your exaggeration, but I do think hatred and resentment has grown to the point of terrorist actions as a daily occurrence throughout the globe . . . and any refutation of that fact is denial and nothing else.

[Your poseur persona always brings out the worst in me, Daniel.]

143. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/12/2002 11:03:39 AM

Doctor's appointment--ciao.

144. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:06:53 AM

Wombat,

I have no idea why you would want to leave a provocatively titled thread where your presence is both desired and valued.

Reconsider. Why is US foreign policy, according to you, not easily qualified as error compounded on error, short-term thinking devalued by the long-term picture, etc.

How many times has the US first supplied and supported an entity which it has then spent billions destroying abroad? Look at the global jihadis as the most pertinent example - and please tell us what you would do to correct this destructive cycle.

145. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 11:15:00 AM

marj

Your submission is rejected. In fact, it is borderline ignorant. By most measures, from political expression, to economic indicators, to security for the Canal, to tourism, to exports, to imports, to deaths at the hands of the government, post-Noriega Panama is better for both the United States and Panama than Panama under Noriega. Yet, you focus on El Chorrillo.

Perhaps we can agree on a list that would measure the health of Panama, and then compare Panama under Noriega and Panama now?

146. Absensia - 6/12/2002 11:20:59 AM

Marj,
Congratulations on how you are handling this thread. You and others are engaging in thought provocing discussions and it's withinin the scope I imagined, when I backed the idea of having such a thread. The title is so appropos...it says what many countries and their citizens feel, and have for a long time. You address the issue of why American seems so hated by many many countries, and scorned by yet others.

147. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:21:20 AM

I might consider that, Sickles.

I also consider any number of sets of evidence about the misguided and wrong-headed destruction of vast swathes of Panama conducted to detain a man who until almost that point had been on the US payroll.

A pointless, destructive, exercise. That's what Panama was in my thesis, one which could have been avoided by not paying and propping up Pineapple-Face in the first place.

148. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:21:57 AM

Absensia,

Please elaborate, preferably with specific examples.

149. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 11:30:36 AM

marj

Your unsupported presumptions on Panama are probably enough for a cocktail party, but you'd better re-fill your drink quick.

I suggest you find a way to gracefully withdraw from defending your statements on Panama, and I assume I might consider that, Sickles is your first move.

Well done.

150. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:32:03 AM

Sickles,

Let's see your evidence, buddy.

151. pseudoerasmus - 6/12/2002 11:35:45 AM

Message # 101

"Puhleeze. For just a few examples, I suggested in the Mote, on 9/11, almost the precise response that the US wound up pursuing in Afghanistan. I proposed a multi-stage anti ballistic missile defense years ago in the Fray before anybody else was talking about it. What I posted regarding family structure and social stability in the Fray years ago is generally accepted now."

See what I mean ? Concerned must constantly trumpet himself, his prophetic visions and his analytical grandeur, in the never-ending attempt to remind the world of his worth, because no one else does and no one else ever will.... He even thinks he upstaged Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

"Only a charlatan or fool would throw away their credibility by suggesting I 'don't have anything to contribute'."

Concerned has absolutely nothing to contribute. In fact, Concernd could commit suicide right now and no one would notice the least difference.

Shit, I've lost all credibility.

152. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 11:36:11 AM

marj

Let's agree on the measuring criteria, pal.

How about we measure the following, 1989 and 1999.

1) Political stability
2) Crime
3) Employment
4) Investment
5) Export
6) Import
7) Foreign Aid received
8) Freedom of the Press
9) Civil Rights
10) Utilization of Democracy

153. pseudoerasmus - 6/12/2002 11:39:22 AM

Message # 106: "When I can kick back in Mecca with a girl on my knee and a brewski in my hand and discuss with the locals the possibility that Muhammad porked his momma while eating chitlins, that's when world peace will be getting somewhere."

Concerned is projecting his experiences as a child-sex-tourist in Southeast Asia. Concerned in Bali:

154. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:39:26 AM

Is this a set-up Sickles? What do you take me for?

Is this frigging Amateur Hour all over The Mote.

Table your evidence, and let's go from there.

--

Pseuder,

What do you have to say about Panama, you who have traditionally been a fervent apologist of US interventions abroad?

155. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:40:41 AM

I have to admit I lauged hard at the trusim in ----because no one else does and no one else ever will....

156. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 11:44:41 AM

marj

The set-up was by your own doing. Feel free to add to the criteria (to subtract would be desperate, but I don't put it past you, especially after your doleful plea to pseudo to save your bacon).

You made ill-advised, ignorant and sweeping statements based on little knowledge but loads of outrage over prior U.S. support for Noriega and an article you probably skimmed in The New Yorker about how the U.S. military wrecked a slum in 1989.

Remember, the point is to come to an informed conclusion, not to save your ass from stupid statements.

157. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 11:53:35 AM

Blah. Blah. Sickles, where is your detailed evidence?

I'm willing to see it, I'm willing to evaluate it, bust it out.

158. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 11:59:26 AM

marj

Sorry, pal. You've shown that you speak out of your ass. Neither I (or pseud) should be tasked with educating you or cleaning up your intellectual feces. When you can speak with some authority to back up your ridiculous claims, I'll be happy to correct you.

But since you can't, you won't, and you'll further seal your reputation as a well-spoken lightweight.

159. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 12:00:04 PM

Marj's Lament

There was no Holocaust. Prove me Wrong!

160. marjoribanks - 6/12/2002 12:09:40 PM

Such piffle, from a man purporting to carry evidence.

Sickles, you gave us an embarrasingly long list of criteria to consider with regard to Panama. I'm open to new evidence, even better analyzed evidence. Give it to us, man.

Where is it?

161. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 12:17:34 PM

marj

When you make even a minimal deposit in the good faith intellect bank to support your asinine statements, I will be happy to educate you further.

But I find it bad policy to reward excited and ignorant utterances with learned attention.

162. Absensia - 6/12/2002 12:17:40 PM

Elaborate with specific examples....Marj, I shall...but going out the door right now. Can you think of any country that things the US is just "swell"?

163. judithathome - 6/12/2002 12:26:55 PM

America.

164. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 12:31:37 PM

The Sickles elite plays the holocost card. I would site the case Mermelstein vs The American Spotlight to prove the holocost happened Sickles. A USA court ruled correctly in that case.

Major I Banks never claimed anything about the holocost.

iiibbb played the same holocost card on me when made the simple statement that Israel seized the Golan Height from Syria to get the water rights to the mountain streams that feed the sea of Galilee.

The mildest critisizm of Israel seems to bring out this holocost card. Even if your critisizm of Israel has nothing to do with the holocost. This holocost paranoia will cost israel a lot of friends.

165. Rama - 6/12/2002 12:39:58 PM

Can you think of any country that things the US is just "swell"?

With the economy appearing to be the most important issue for the majority of the respondents, the US was seen as the most admired
country, twice as popular as second-place Japan.

I'm not sure how one judges if a country thinks another country is "swell".

166. zojak quafeth - 6/12/2002 12:41:20 PM

Daniel -

I must agree with marj. You should provide the support he seeks immediately.

Because 50 years from now, it might be helpful to have the support of an ignorant blowhard on your side in a completely different forum based on completely different paramneters and issues.

Don't make the same mistakes the US made Sickles.

167. Daniel Sickles - 6/12/2002 12:42:41 PM

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Very good.

168. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 12:42:47 PM

Now to an issue closer to the thread topic. Panama the movie.

There are those who beleive the media show and there are those who learn what really happenned in Panama. The "Operation Just Because" was one of the most media exposed and at the same time media restricted wars in history.

Marines landed on Panama beach only to see movie lights go up. It is a credit to Marine discipline that they did not kill the ABC camera crew.

But for real reporting of the mass graves and civilians killed in the war for Bush to get control of Pinochio Noriega, the American puppet who cut his strings, nothing was allowed to be reported.

The fact that the real purpose of the war was to void the Carter treaty that would have returned the canal to the people of Panama was never once mentioned on the Networks. They concentrated on Noriega's skin condition instead.

The fact that the CIA controled the drug trade in Panama until Noriega muscled in was not covered either.

169. Ms. No - 6/12/2002 1:08:20 PM

To All Hosts:

I regret to inform you that the privelege of changing thread titles at will is now revoked until further notice. Most of you this will not affect at all so I apologize for the interruption to your thread.

170. iiibbb - 6/12/2002 3:43:51 PM

My holocost remark was a sarcastic response to your previous unsubstatiated statement that it was about water. You did provide a link... however I read it... not only did it talk about water but it talked about the history of Syrian and Arab aggression toward Isreal.

Your dismissiveness of common knowledge and unwillingness to admit the Arabs have had any roll in how Isreal came to its posture is dishonest and lame.

Hence the sarcasm...

It's like saying there was no cold war. That the USSR was acting innocently. Ignoring Stalin... Ignoring the USSR's aggressive land grabs after WW2... Ignoring their military advantage as well as their aggression toward it's neighbors.

All of these things well before the US ever ammounted to a significant threat to them.

But you dismiss all that...

...never happened...

Your views are so off the wall, who can blame Sickles or I for responding in kind with all due sarcasm.

171. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 7:22:21 PM

Glad to hear it Mrs. No. I would rather have the priviledge of picking ignorant racist thread titles revolked, but it is a step in the right direction to not let people change the approved thread titles.

172. godlessclif - 6/12/2002 7:32:05 PM

iiibbb: "It was just a joke, I was being sarcastic."

Whenever anyone tells an ethnic joke, and calling someone an anti-semtic Nazi is equivalent to calling someone a commie, nigger or kyke, the defense is always "I was only joking"

I remember when Reagan Secretary of the interior was complaining about affirmative action in hiring in Washington and he made the famous statement "Because of affirmative action my staff consists of two jews, a nigger and a cripple" His first response when he knew he was in trouble was "It was just a joke"

In fact I have been guilty myself of calling people fascists because they are on the nutcase right. I am seriously thinking about stoping that behavior, just as I stopped calling libertarians, looneytarians a while ago.

Of course I will still have to call supporters of the homeland security department fascists, because in that case it is literally true. Maybe we can discus Bush bonehead foreign policy now.

Sickles is an elitist, all you ahve to do is go to his "21" closed chat where he only allows his "intelectual equals" like Cal Gal to post so he does not have to bother with pseudointellectual trash like me.

173. Max Macks - 6/12/2002 7:33:54 PM

first time to this thread which has appeared in the last year ..
godless. could not agree more with your post 168
I saw that documentary on PBS.

But I dont think it was seem by a large
segment of the USA.
Old Bush loved to make war ...I forget how
many . HIs last was in Somalia , creating
a mess that Clinton got blamed for in his
attempt to clean up the shit ole Bush made
The Bush Gang is once again in power.

174. Max Macks - 6/12/2002 7:35:14 PM

And last I heard Bush's buddy Noreiga
sits in jail ( safe from certain murder had
he remained in Panama) sitting in a General
uniform !!!

175. Max Macks - 6/12/2002 7:37:03 PM

What happend to my long reply to godlesscliff

I agreed with his post 168.

My computer has been disconneting for some
odd reason .
I said that I saw that documentary about
the Panama invasioin on PBS
but I dont think it was seen by majority
of Americans.

176. Max Macks - 6/12/2002 7:37:58 PM

oh , thats right Mote has posting window
in the middle of a thread.

177. iiibbb - 6/12/2002 10:52:20 PM

I didn't say it was a joke... I said I was being sarcastic...

...but your denial that the cold war happened in my mind is as ludicrous as saying the holocost didn't happen.

i.e. only a fool would believe neither or the other happened.

178. iiibbb - 6/12/2002 11:00:45 PM

Don't misconstrue my strongly worded response... it's part of debate after all. If you were completely unworthy (as you say)... I wouldn't bother with you at all.

And I already apologized for the holocost crack... a moment of weakness as I haven't been in the Mote for quite some time.

179. iiibbb - 6/12/2002 11:04:52 PM

You will note... sarcasm is not a tool of humor. It was used precisely as intended. You took it much like I took your crack that I was a republican.

I doubt that my views, taken as a package, would jibe with any party's platform.

180. godlessclif - 6/13/2002 8:39:34 AM

That unreconstructed bastard John Kassich(R-OHIO) is pushing the Bush neo-nazi homeland gestapo bill

I must mention again the case of Florida congressman Sam Gibbons(D-Fl) retired.

In 1996 Newt's new group included John Kassich was new to the power of congressional committee chairman.

Kassich was pushing an amendment to the tax bill that would allow millionaires who renounced their American citizenship betray America and pay no capital gains taxes.

Kassich did not want the amendment discussed before C-Span cameras because he was ashamed of the Kassich Amendment.

Thus he gagged Sam Gibbons and would not let him speak to the issue.

Gibbons asked for an exception for personal priviledge since he had spent 25 years as a florida congressman and thought he would be allowed to speak to the issue because of his seniority. Kassich refused Gibbons request to speak to the issue abusing his power as chairman.

Kassich is a mother fucking bastard.

Congressman Sam Gibbons said that he landed on Omaha Beach so people like Kassich would not be in charge. Sam has retired, we got rid of Newt, but that prick Kassich is still in the congress pushing the fascist agenda.

181. godlessclif - 6/13/2002 8:48:48 AM

The Campbell kid, heir to the Campbell soup fortune, is the best beneficiary or the Kassich Amendment.

Campbell sold almost two billion dollars in Campbell soup stock, renounced his American Citizenship and moved to Monaco. He avoided 300 million dollars in capital gains taxes because of Kassich. He gave John Kassich(Republican-Ohio) 2 million dollars in soft money campaign contributions

182. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2002 10:08:24 AM

"Because of affirmative action my staff consists of two jews, a nigger and a cripple" is what Godless heard.

"I have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple"
is what Watt said.

Who called anyone an "anti-semtic (sic) Nazi"? I used the Holocaust denial reference to underscore marj's making assured, unsubstantiated claims about Panama under Noriega and thereafter and then trolling for others to set him straight factually.

183. Indiana Jones - 6/13/2002 11:48:47 AM

But that prick Kassich is still in the congress pushing the fascist agenda.

No, he's not.

184. Raskolnikov - 6/13/2002 12:46:20 PM

"That unreconstructed bastard John Kassich(R-OHIO) is pushing the Bush neo-nazi homeland gestapo bill"

Huh? Indy is right. Kasich retired from Congress. He left just as Bush became President.

185. Daniel Sickles - 6/13/2002 12:50:07 PM

You right-wing fascists just have to insist on factual accuracy, don't you? Typical.

186. Indiana Jones - 6/14/2002 11:26:40 AM

Why is American Foreign Policy so inefficient, so basely hypocritical, and such an exhibition of compounded ignorance?

As far as "hypocritical" goes, that implies a pretense of being something that one isn't or, in common usage, espousing a principle one doesn't practice. Throughout most history and even today the true underlying first principle of foreign policy is national self-interest. Hence, if the US espouses a set of principles in its dealings with the rest of the world but says national self-interest is the highest ranked of those principles, then favoring self-interest when it conflicts with another isn't hypocrisy.

The US, of course, isn't always consistent even within the above parameter. Still, one can avoid charges of hypocrisy simply by being ruthless. So vulnerability to charges of hypocrisy isn't an entirely bad thing.

Whether American foreign policy is inefficient and an exhibition of compounded ignorance, I wonder if the host could list perhaps five nations that have historically demonstrated superior efficiency and intelligence in pursuing their foreign policy goals. I ask for five because for the US to be such a slipshod example of statesmanship would certainly imply less than a top five ranking.

187. Wombat - 6/14/2002 11:29:41 AM

A basis for comparison would be countries that have held a similar hegemonic position to that of the United States.

188. ronski - 6/14/2002 11:31:09 AM

Like Sweden a long time ago, not in the last century, and so on.

189. marjoribanks - 6/14/2002 11:32:06 AM

A recent editorial from the UK's Independent:

---

George Bush's presidency is shrinking. Having stepped up to the responsibilities of history in the days after 11 September, acting with restraint and speaking of patient justice, he strikes an increasingly desperate note as the campaign against terrorism runs into the sand.

For a while, the military campaign in Afghanistan lent a coherence to the American and international response to one of the most heinous acts of terrorism. That small war was a worthwhile venture, not least for the people of Afghanistan, although Mr Bush showed little understanding of how its conduct would feed Arab and Muslim resentment of American power.

But now, nine months after the collapse of New York's famous landmark, it is if anything less clear than ever who was behind it. Osama bin Laden may well be dead, but this week the Americans identified Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as possibly more directly responsible for organising the attacks. Mr Mohammed is believed to be a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani member of al-Qa'ida still at large on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

190. marjoribanks - 6/14/2002 11:33:27 AM

The fact that Mr Mohammed is said to be related to Ramzi Yousef, who tried to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993, returns the investigation to hypothesis number one. Within hours of the attack it was speculated that this was a piece of unfinished business. It is curious that it has taken the US authorities so long to arrive where their investigations first started.

Yet the measures announced by the Bush administration this week do little to inspire confidence that either the US or the world is safer than it was. Worse than that, the timing and the tone of them speak of a concern with presentation rather than efficacy. The announcement of the new department of Homeland Security came on the day that hearings opened into the failures of the FBI and the CIA to use and share information last year.

In one breath the President was complacent. "I do not believe anyone could have prevented the horror of 11 September," he said. It is true that if the various warnings had been taken more seriously it would have made little difference. But it is quite possible that if airport and aircraft security had been tightened, in ways that were proposed but successfully resisted by America's bankrupt airlines, more of the hijacks might have been foiled. Even now, remarkably little change has taken place, either on internal US flights or international ones.

In the next breath, his tone was one of paranoia, saying: "We now know that thousands of trained killers are plotting to attack us." From the leader of the most powerful nation on earth, this is almost comical. It betrays the basic confusion in American thinking between internal and external security. Physical, as opposed to ideological, threats have always been assumed to come from outside. Hence the impractical notion that the enemies of the state can be stopped at the ports and airports by taking their fingerprints.

191. marjoribanks - 6/14/2002 11:34:13 AM

On the other hand, the focus on domestic intelligence in the new department is sensible: the trouble is that Mr Bush proposes no mechanism for ending the farcical competition between the CIA and FBI to prove that each provided the information that was most ignored.

More fundamentally, the President has failed to look forward to the nature of the threat over the coming years. He wants the new department to "imagine the worst", which is a useful intellectual exercise, but it is no substitute for trying to understand the motives of America's enemies. Nine months on, the President has done far too little to help his baffled fellow citizens understand where the threat is coming from.

192. marjoribanks - 6/14/2002 11:34:53 AM

Toys?

193. marjoribanks - 6/14/2002 11:41:46 AM

Okay,

Hence, if the US espouses a set of principles in its dealings with the rest of the world but says national self-interest is the highest ranked of those principles, then favoring self-interest when it conflicts with another isn't hypocrisy.

Sorry.

It hasn't even been national self-intest that one could point to with authority and say that is why the policies have been conducted.Look simply to the 9/11 events, where jihadis (America helped greatly in founding and abetting the global jihadi movement with hundreds of millions in cash) ultimately turned against the sponsor.

There are other very short-sighted, silly, measures underway in US FP. One that comes to mind immediately is the blanket support for the Sharonists .

I will be back to continue this.

194. ronski - 6/14/2002 11:54:07 AM

Blanket support is too strong a term. It is clear there is difference of opinion between Bush and Sharon (though perhaps not a great as the gulf between Bush and Powell).

195. Indiana Jones - 6/14/2002 12:03:34 PM

It hasn't even been national self-intest that one could point to with authority and say that is why the policies have been conducted.

Yes, I conceded that one couldn't blanket all examples with self-interest. But not knowing one's self-interest falls under the category of ignorance, rather than hypocrisy. What I'm addressing in the first part is the charge that America espouses principles and then doesn't practice them. And my points are 1) IMO it's better to at least espouse and attempt to practice principles in addition to self-interest, even if one is then left open to charges of hypocrisy--rather than being merely ruthless; and 2) although not all examples of possible hypocrisy are thus eliminated, many of them are, if one posits that the highest principle of all for a nation state in its conduct of foreign affairs is its self interest.

196. Indiana Jones - 6/14/2002 12:06:54 PM

A basis for comparison would be countries that have held a similar hegemonic position to that of the United States.

Well, I thought about that, but rising to a position of hegemony seems self-evident proof of at least some success in a nation's foreign policy.

197. Indiana Jones - 6/14/2002 12:16:35 PM

ronski: To which period of Sweden's history do you refer?

Given the circumstances he faced, I've always read that Bismarck did about as well as anyone in conducting a foreign policy, but he was ruthless and didn't have the domestic handicaps that a democracy does.

198. ronski - 6/14/2002 12:24:57 PM

I was thinking of the 17th c. expansion period.

199. Ms. No - 6/14/2002 12:24:59 PM

Look at the US from the rest of the world's perspective. Is America venal and hypocritical or noble and virtuous?

I think in part this depends on what country you're from and what your status is. In any case it's simplistic to think a single label describes the US. It's not a case of "good witch or bad witch". That's for the terminally naive.

200. Indiana Jones - 6/14/2002 1:13:45 PM

Sweden's great power century

The only part of this I was previously familiar with was Karl XII's reign, and that via Massey's biography of Peter the Great.

201. PelleNilsson - 6/14/2002 1:40:33 PM

Indiana

I'm devasted to learn that you haven't read my History of Sweden.

202. RustlerPike - 6/14/2002 1:46:27 PM

Indy:

Pelle's real name is Mike O'Leary (he doesn't mind people knowing). He adopted Pelle Nilsson as a nome de plume for his History of Sweden and it has stuck ever since.

If you already knew this - never mind.

203. RustlerPike - 6/14/2002 1:49:18 PM

Actually, Phil McNeil is a better name for someone who changes his name to Pelle Nilsson.

Yes, that was his name: Phil McNeil.

204. concerned - 6/16/2002 11:54:00 PM

So, what put a stop to marjoribank's thread titling idiocy? A frontal lobotomy?

205. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 6:56:09 AM

Just raw power Doug. They got Cal Gal to put a question mark on her "Islamists Global Threat?" which is what started it all and now only the grown-up can change thread names. I still object to using the word Islamists, it is right out of Orwelian double speak dictionary, it means arabs and has a bad connotation attached for propaganda, but then is defined as not an attack of the relgion of Islam, which it obviously is.

It is exactly like saying Mexicanists are the lazy, drug using webacks that sneak across the border, steal our jobs, all carry knives and refuse to learn English. and then say because it has "IST" on the end it is not a racial slur against Mexicans.

This is the stupidest linguistic thing Republicans have done since they refused to call the opposition party Democratic, and started calling it the ungrammatical "Democrat Party".

Using the word Islamists means you can hate arabs and not be called a bigot for hating them just because they are arabs. I am not buying it.

Just like they are calling this religious crusade against Islam Bush is running the "War on Terror" The Office of Strategery Information is alive and well.

Kill abroad lie at home and remember Arabs with money like the Saudi's who actually financed the attack on the Twin Tower and made up 90% of the Suicide Bombers [which OSI wants you to call Homocide Bombers BTW] are not Islamists for some reason. Because they do business with the Carlisle Group is most likely.

206. Wombat - 6/17/2002 8:49:38 AM

I had in mind Britain, for starters. For a microcosm on inconsistent decision-making, lack of planning, no long-term policy, expedient alliances that backfired, cultural insensitivity, etc. Britain's role in the Indian sub-continent from the 18th through the 20th Century will do fine.

207. Indiana Jones - 6/17/2002 8:55:53 AM

Wombat: Do nicely for what?

If you mean as a comparison to the Bush administration's policies, 200 years versus approximately nine months (or, at the outside, a year and a half) makes the comparison less than obvious.

Or do you mean US Middle East policy since [fill in the blank]?

208. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 9:02:29 AM

I did like the clever way the Brits got Pakistanis and Indians fighting over religious differences before they left India, as well as partitioning in such a way that fighting would ensue by dividing the Kasmiri/Sikh buffer state so neither nation could claim it as a province.

This meant India would have a lot of trouble emerging as a superpower because of perpetual wars with Pakistan.

Not as effective at the Iraq/Kuwait partiiion to insure there would be no new arabian superpower, but then there was no way they could landlock the Indian subcontinent. Creating Israel was an act of genius solving the jewish problem and leaving Egypt also with a perpetual enemy.

209. Wombat - 6/17/2002 9:09:35 AM

Indy:

For a hegemonic power's foreign policy over time.

Cliff:

Nothing happens accidentally in your world, does it? Despite facts to contrary, such as the Emir of Kuwait, then an Ottoman province, requesting the protection of the British in the mid-19th Century. Or the fact that Britain opposed the creation of the state of Israel.

210. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 9:16:16 AM

I thought some British Lord named Balfour came up witht he idea.

I am no historian however. Being Irish I see British Puppeteers everywhere. I know Brits started the Irish religious war by giving the Protestant minority special priviledges.

In fact 3wasn't putting Christian Ibo's and Moslem Youruba in Nigeria as one nation and giving the Ibo minortity special priviledges also an British idea?

What are we doing now to assert control in the Phillipines? Starting a religious war?

211. Indiana Jones - 6/17/2002 9:35:15 AM

Wombat: Okay, but I'm looking for examples of adroit foreign policy.

The Raj is not something I'm knowledgable about...but consider that Britain maintained its rule over India to one degree or another for basically centuries, despite the greater population and land mass of the latter and the distance between the two during a time of slow transportation and communication. Moreover, much of that time Britain was opposed by other continental powers and involved in several "life or death" struggles within Europe itself. So maybe Britain's long rule of India required some measure of competence, even if historical trends meant its inevitable longterm doom.

Again, it's not a subject I know much about in detail but am commenting on only in terms of the big picture and the impression that gives.

Tuchman's March of Folly uses the loss of the American colonies as another example of what you're describing, but I think that case is different in that it might have been possible not to alienate the "locals" given the demographic similarities and origins. India would have been much more difficult--I would think--to hang onto, no matter what sort of policy Britain pursued.

212. Wombat - 6/17/2002 9:49:01 AM

Indy:

I would suggest that all hegemonic powers, particularly those that are democratic, are prone to the sames problems that Marj criticizes, and that it is not possible--and probably not desireable--to live in Marj's world of a consistent, sensitive, altruistic, and adroit foreign policy by a hegemonic power.

Some of the United States' most successful, adroit and sensitive foreign policy decisions came as the result of a horrendous foreign policy failure several decades before. These decisions were expedient, contributed to ongoing problems, and could have been done better (in hindsight). They were also successful.

213. Wombat - 6/17/2002 10:00:40 AM

Clif:

Almost every country's rulers, hegemonic or not, is guilty of using divide and rule to a greater or lesser extent.

The British were very successful--and efficient--in cultivating elites in their colonies to run them. It certainly was superior to Spain's method of colonial domination (slaughter as many as possible, enslave the rest, and convert them to Catholicism), France's (coopt their culture, convert them into little bits of France).

214. Indiana Jones - 6/17/2002 10:02:12 AM

[I]t is not possible--and probably not desireable--to live in Marj's world of a consistent, sensitive, altruistic, and adroit foreign policy by a hegemonic power.

Agreed.

215. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 10:02:55 AM

Or as British Comedian Eddy Izzard said, "British took over India by clever us of flags"

British explorer sticks the British flag in the ground; "I claim this land for the Queen of England"

East Indian Native, "You can't do that, we live here and there a 500 million of us"

British Explorer "Yes, but do you have a flag?'

216. Wombat - 6/17/2002 10:09:23 AM

Oscar Wilde was quoted as claiming that Britain acquired its Indian possession in a fit of absent-mindedness.

217. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 10:16:35 AM

more toys

218. marjoribanks - 6/17/2002 10:28:28 AM

I would suggest that all hegemonic powers, particularly those that are democratic, are prone to the sames problems that Marj criticizes, and that it is not possible--and probably not desireable--to live in Marj's world of a consistent, sensitive, altruistic, and adroit foreign policy by a hegemonic power.

I would like to spend more time on this very question.

1) No one ever said (let alone me) that power play between states should have an element of altruism in it. Altruism does not belong in foreign affairs.

2) It seems to me that US policy, however, is exceptionally short-sighted and costly in certain key parts of the world. This country has repeatedly built up individuals and regimes only to then spend a great deal of our cash getting rid of them. Examples are myriad.

3) Consistency is the watchword I'd like to inject into that list of my presumed desirables. The lack of which is the number 1 cause of resentment and even hatred in the rest of the world towards the US.

Sigh. More later.

219. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 10:37:58 AM

Clinton's smartest policy was to stop setting up puppet dictators that we would end up overthrowing later. It worked well we fought fewer wars.

What are we doing now selling weapons to both sides in Pakistan and India. That is nuts. Clinton embargoed them both and he was right.

Even if the dictatorship is successful like Pinochet's in Chile it leaves us looking bad being associated with these war criminals. And for every Pinochet, Duvalier or Marcos there are a lot of Noriegas and Saddams that turn on us. Or Shah Palevis, No Dien Diems and Somosas that turn the country they rule against us by repression that inspires revolution.

220. Wombat - 6/17/2002 10:40:55 AM

I think it could be argued, going back to Rome, that consistency in a democracy's foreign policy is a virtual impossibility, given the political process. There may be some overarching agreement on broad issues, the Glory of Rome, Rule Britannia, the Red Menace, etc..., but how the broad aims are advanced is subject to considerable political jockeying and policy reversals.

As to its desirability...If the United States was to have a consistent policy of military intervention to rectify gross human rights violations among ethnic and/or political minorities by other states, we would currently be fighting Russia, China, Turkey, and most countries in the Middle East.

221. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 10:46:43 AM

What about Clinton's policy. He did not run off to Ruanda. He did not fight in Haiti But he did not overthrow democracies and put in puppet dictators. Clinton said he would stop genocide when it was in our interest, and at least no support it.

Who sold Ruanda all those machetes anyway?

222. Wombat - 6/17/2002 10:57:26 AM

Cliff:

Actually, the machetes came from China, if the Canadian in command of UN forces there is to be believed. Personally, I think it was a bad thing that the US did not intervene in Rwanda.

Again, I apologize for inserting factual information into your rhetorical flights.

Saddam was in no way a US creation (we can blame the Soviet Union and later the French for supporting his regime and propping him up during his mostly self-inflicted difficulties).

223. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 11:27:33 AM

"2) It seems to me that US policy, however, is exceptionally short-sighted and costly in certain key parts of the world. This country has repeatedly built up individuals and regimes only to then spend a great deal of our cash getting rid of them. Examples are myriad."

I think this is less of a settled question than you imply. Yes, the US had indeed sponsored despotic thugs only to be bitten on the ass by them. Examples included Saddam Hussein, Noriega, elements of the Mujahaddin, and Stalin. These are the most prominent examples usually mentioned, but let us look at them:

Saddam Hussein: US support was extremely meager (Iraq was primarily a Soviet client state for most of the cold war), done in the context of the Iran/Iraq war, and it is extremely hard to argue that this US support created the situation in 1990.

Noriega: More US support here, but getting rid of him wasn't a huge problem.

The Mujahaddin: Considering recent events, the choice of the specific groups supported here does look particularly blinkered.

Stalin: Lots of support in WWII, but I don't see how we had much choice, given the circumstances.

On top of this, consider US support for third world tinpot dictators where there the regime did not turn on us: South Korea, Taiwan, Chile, Philippines, El Salvador, Guatamala, Pakistan, etc.

Not that all of these choices were necessarily smart ones, but I think it is simplistic to imply that the occasional "own goal" scored by the US repudiates the general policy we had in the Cold War, where strong democratic allies simply were rarely available in the third world.

Given the end of the Cold War, expedient reasons for supporting dictators are less common, but they do arise. Simply pointing to a few foreign policy failures as evidence for refusing to dirty our hands might leave the with several worse foreign policy disasters on our hands.

224. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 11:44:09 AM

Also, I posed this question over at Guardian Talk, and had a lot of fun with it: "What is a morally acceptable way for the US to deal with oppressive regimes?" I argued that is impossible for the US to behave in a manner that would meet with the approval of the European left, as the US is criticized no matter how it behaves toward oppressive regimes. If we trade with them, we are enabling Human Rights abuses in places like China. But we get criticized if we try to use trade sanctions to leverage internal domestic changes (Cuba). If we leave them alone, we are negligent (Rwanda), but if we militarily intervene, we are imperialists (Iraq, Yugoslavia).

Not that US policy should be amoral (I disagree with Marj's curious claim here that "altruism does not belong in foreign affairs"), but that pragmatic considerations are unavoidable, and prevent any sort of real ideological consistency.

225. Wombat - 6/17/2002 11:47:41 AM

In Rask's "tinpots who didn't turn on us" collection, most of those countries now have democratically elected governments.

226. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 11:56:05 AM

I thought we were on Saddam's side in his war with Iran? That was why everyone was surprised when we found out Reagan sold missiles to the Ayatola.

227. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 11:56:20 AM

A hell of a lot of them certainly do. I remember reading an argument by Jeanne Kirkpatrick back in high school that one of the main reasons why US/USSR actions were not morally equivalent is that US sponsored dictatorships had a much greater tendency to convert to democratic regimes. I sneered at the argument at the time, but in retrospect I see she was right (at least in enough important cases to win the "moral equivalence" argument).

And what was the alternative? Few people condemn US support for Stalin during WWII, who was far more brutal than any right wing dictator supported by the US. Moral fastidiousness on the part of the US during WWII possibly could have led to a German victory. Same in the Cold War, only the result would have been more North Koreas, and fewer South Koreas.

228. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 12:00:00 PM

"I thought we were on Saddam's side in his war with Iran? That was why everyone was surprised when we found out Reagan sold missiles to the Ayatola."

The US saw Iran as a greater threat than Iraq, so there was some support given to Iraq during the Iran/Iraq War. But it wasn't substantial or decisive in the conflict, and it didn't "create" Saddam Hussein.

229. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:04:39 PM

They turnedinto democracies because of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. As I recall Clinton had to bitch slap the CIA for trying to keep Sidras in power in Haiti and spreading false rumors that Aristide, who got 80% of the vote was nuts.

230. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:06:41 PM

O.K. so Saddam just growed like Topsy. I guess it happens. The CIA has set up so many dictatorships it is hard to keep track.

231. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:12:23 PM

What was our vital interest in Rwanda?

Like Rask says, we get slammed both ways. Clinton gets blamed for losing in Somalia, event though Bush planned the war. Kennedy gets blamed for the bay of pigs even though it was planned before he was elected and the CIA did not tell him anything.

Now the Bush babies want to blame Clinton for 9/11 even though Bush had a one month warning to stop it. It is just partisan bashing.

They even critisize Clinton when he wins like in Kosovo with no casualties. Bush snatched defeat from the jaws of Victory in Iraq, but he is a god and the media kisses his butt.

232. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:15:20 PM

I guess China would be the cheapest place to get steel. Thye were shipped as agricultural tools. Not beheading swords. One article said the Hootoo killing rate perday was more than the Nazis, because they did not stop to burn the bodies. They just chopped up Tootsies[not correct spelling] and moved on.

233. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 12:17:05 PM

"They turnedinto democracies because of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. As I recall Clinton had to bitch slap the CIA for trying to keep Sidras in power in Haiti and spreading false rumors that Aristide, who got 80% of the vote was nuts."

This is a very simplistic view of how democracies arise. Just as simplistic as right wing claims that Reagan was responsible for the collapse of the USSR. It is also counterfactual, as many of these transitions occurred under the watch of GOP Presidents. Spain, Portugal, and Greece made the transition under Ford. The Philippines and South Korea transitioned under Reagan. Chile transitioned under Bush.

234. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:17:18 PM

Churchill said he would make a deal with the devil to beat Hitler and I guess he did.

235. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 12:21:18 PM

Not that Ford, Reagan, and Bush had any significant role in these transitions to democracies either. The point is that such transitions have a strong tendency to occur through internal domestic forces in the types of regimes supported by the US (where capitalist economies create sufficient economic growth to enable things like literacy, education, and a middle class that seem to be necessary precursors for a successful democracy).

236. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 12:22:05 PM

I think the quote went "If Hitler invaded hell, I would make at least one favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons".

237. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:33:41 PM

As simplisitc as saying Reagan was responsible for the collapse of the USSR.

Jesus I hope I am not that simplistic. The analogy I like to use when that comes us is to the American Revolution.

Saying King Louis XIV was solely responsible for the American Victory in the Revolution because he told George III to "tear down that cornWALLis"

I think that just as George Washington, Ethan Allen and Alexander Hamilton had something to do with the victory in America, Revolutionaries like Lech Wolensa and Vaclave Havel had just a little bit more to do with the fall of the Wall than Reagan did.

238. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:37:43 PM

Or when the dictator dies.

239. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 12:39:08 PM

I guess you could say Vietnam transitioned to democracy under Ford too. Transitioned is such a nice word. You get the no spin award for saying it that way.

240. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 12:44:02 PM

"I guess you could say Vietnam transitioned to democracy under Ford too."

No, you couldn't, as Vietnam wasn't (and isn't) a democracy. But I understand your broader point to be that such transitions can happen *in spite of* the US, rather than *because of* it. I agree. My point was not to give Ford credit, but to point out that you similarly can't give much credit to Clinton and Carter. They happened for reasons independent of who happened to President at the time.

241. Wombat - 6/17/2002 1:03:00 PM

That would be Louis XVI.

You could argue that French intervention in the US Revolution was decisive (and incredibly lucky). When Rochambeau's force landed in New England it was equal in number to the Continental forces, and better trained and equipped. The French also included a train of seige artillery, which the American forces also lacked. De Grasse's appearance at the mouth of the Chesapeake, and his avoidance of defeat at the sea battle off the Virginia Capes (the only time the Brits didn't defeat the French) was fortuitous, and sealed Cornwallis' fate. Had the French not intervened, the British may have eventually been defeated, but the circumstances and the peace settlement may have been more adverse.

242. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2002 1:09:30 PM

The more you read cliff, the more you lament the failures of public education coupled with the evils of Time magazine as a primary source of information.

He's a conventional wisdom, mutated bromide machine. He makes a factual misstatement every post, but they are the kinds of mistakes people can more readily accept because they are often repeated by a lot of fools, or they are in Oliver Stone movies.

And then there are the whoppers - Watt said "nigger", Kasich is in Congress, the CIA told Kennedy nothing about the Bay of Pigs. I'm attributing those to a delusion of how cliff remembers things.

243. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 1:10:42 PM

(the only time the Brits didn't defeat the French)

Dontcha mean the only time anyone at all didn't defeat the French?

Why limit it to the Brits?

244. Wombat - 6/17/2002 1:23:17 PM

Frankly, Daniel, in terms of disseminating conventional wisdom and bromides, you more than hold your own. I cannot speak for your educational background or your weekly news magazine choice.

Cliffie's howler quotient and general world view puts him in a league by himself.

245. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2002 1:30:12 PM

Wombat

Keep your beak out of this, mutton. Cliff has the value of being a creation, a parody.

You have no such excuse.

246. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 1:37:23 PM

Well that give Louis XVI more claims to winning the American Revolution than Reagan has on winning the cold war. Regan did not even send a Lafayette to Eastern Europe, much less an Admirals De Grass and De Bareass [I note Americans joked Bareass would be a more appropriate name for an American soldier.]

I don't beleive history books even since I read in third grade that we won the battle of Bunker Hill.

I think Vietnam is a free country and the people have the guy they want in charge. That is good enough for me.

Are you saying it is not a Democracy because there is only one party?

That is rapidly happening here if Bush has his way with voter registration. If not they will just buy enough Democrats for the VRWC to still run things.

We have an echo, not a choice in our elections.

247. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 1:48:11 PM

"I think Vietnam is a free country and the people have the guy they want in charge. That is good enough for me. Are you saying it is not a Democracy because there is only one party?"

It is not a democracy because it doesn't meet any definition of democracy that I have ever seen. Elections are not free in that only candidates approved by the Communist party are allowed. Criticism of the party or the government is not allowed, and dissidents are imprisoned or harassed.

As to your claim that the people have the government they want, it is pretty hard to confirm this in a country without free elections, but I would be happy to look at your evidence.

248. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 1:50:32 PM

Human Rights Watch's report on the lack of freedom in Vietnam:

http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/asia/vietnam.html

"The twenty-fifth anniversary of Vietnam's reunification saw the government maintaining tight control over freedom of expression and other basic rights. Highly publicized steps to liberalize the economy, including the signing of a landmark trade agreement with the United States and the establishment of the country's first stock exchange, were not accompanied by rights improvements. Authorities continued to take strong action against those who criticized the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) or spoke out in favor of democratic change."

249. ronski - 6/17/2002 1:52:09 PM

Can it be that cliff is Gerald Ford, who thought Poland free?

250. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2002 1:52:56 PM

Gentleman

You are being played by none other than Ace of Spades.

251. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 1:53:59 PM

No, Ace would have called me a fuckhead by now.

252. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 1:54:46 PM

Rask -

That's just propaganda from the republicans who want you to think there's sumpin screwy goin' on in 'Nam.

I'm with Clif. The Vietnamese are a free people. Cuba is rich. The problem with too much money is well, it's just too much damn money.

And if you're not sure Vietnam is free, let's just get rid of the the Vietnamese Grand Poobah (isn't that what they call him Clif?) by firebombing the whole country. Hell, it'll give McCain something to do.

253. ronski - 6/17/2002 1:56:08 PM

The worst Ace ever called me was a liberal. And he retracted that slur, eventually.

And he told me he loved me.

I miss him still.

254. Daniel Sickles - 6/17/2002 1:57:27 PM

Ronski, Rask

Ace is in shape. This is his return. It is both insidious and brilliant. Read cliff. each post.

Then tell me it is not Ace.

255. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 1:58:58 PM

Nike executives are raping the women who make sneakers too I know.

Bad stuff happens here too.

I just do not see socialist states as that toxic. It can't be a communist country is they have a capitalist economy.

A lot of these state you call free are one party states. Haiti is a one party state, 80% of the people support Aristide. You call that free.

You call the Phillipine free, but the Moros would disagree. In Vietnam where are the revolutionaries is they are oppressed. Where are the Buddist monk setting htemselves on fire. Let face it they got their shit together in Vietnam.

256. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2002 2:01:02 PM

Daniel

He is not writing well enough, and his spelling ...

257. joezan - 6/17/2002 2:02:04 PM

Clif is Clif, Sickles. He spells the same, get's excited about the same stuff...plus, there was that little test I gave him, which he passed with flying colors.

It's him, I tell you - our own beloved village idiot.

258. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 2:02:56 PM

That's right clif. 'Nam has it right. They walk around barefoot, because they ain't gonna wear no tenny shoos from no woman rapin' comp'ny like Nike.

Sheeaat. Nike's a greek word anyway. You know them Greeks. Can't trust 'em.

259. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 2:03:51 PM

Bomb NIKE!!! I'm sure we'll get that friggin' executive.

260. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 2:04:15 PM

It's the only moral thing to do.

261. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 2:06:14 PM

" I just do not see socialist states as that toxic."

Nowadays, since they have given up on exporting misery to their neighbors, they are only toxic to their own people, so I have less of a problem with them.

"It can't be a communist country is they have a capitalist economy."

I didn't call it a communist country. I just said it wasn't a democracy. Same with China. However, I find it funny that you are defending the freedom in a one party capitalist country.

"A lot of these state you call free are one party states. Haiti is a one party state, 80% of the people support Aristide. You call that free."

*You* called Haiti free, claiming it was free because of Clinton. I said nothing about it. (Although I find it weird that strong support for a President is a sign of a lack of freedom.)

262. PelleNilsson - 6/17/2002 2:09:24 PM

But if clif is clif how could he possibly have gained the attribute "legendary"? How could people here have longed for his return? I have but vague memories of him from the Fray but all I see now is a neo-Chomskyite hack.

263. Raskolnikov - 6/17/2002 2:12:43 PM

Daniel: But Ace is an impetuous, fast-writing, puppydog, so impatient in his debating style that he quickly constructs straw men in order to have someone to argue with while his opponents are framing their replies. He has never had the patience to play such games for longer than 15 minutes, before he would be overcome with the urge to claim proper credit for his trickery.

264. Wombat - 6/17/2002 2:18:48 PM

Pelle:

Clif was that all along. Perhaps absence made the heart grow fonder for some here.

265. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 2:21:20 PM

I am as confused a Cher is about why my fame comes and goes.

One day I am a god, next day a hack. Do you conspiracy theorists think I am spelling[actually it is bad typing], spelling wrong on purpose to imitate some legendary Clif of the past.

I had not explored Chomsky when I was on the Fray. Is that what is bothering you? Neo-Chomskyism? Or pseudochomskyism?

It could be worse, it could be Neo-Calvinism like Ashcroft.

Why not get back on topic. You can bash me on Inferno and I will drop in to read it.

I think the topic was Bush's moronic halting confused foreign policy and why everyone in the world hates the USA because of it?

266. CalGal - 6/17/2002 2:26:42 PM

I don't know if Cliff is that Cliff, but he is a better imitation than any other I've seen, if so. He almost certainly isn't Ace. Ace wasn't in the Fray before it went pay, which means he didn't know Cliff, and this strikes me as far too accurate to be a lucky guess. Also, in one of Ace's previous monikers he pretended to be a liberal for a week or so, and it was very different.

267. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 2:31:36 PM

Yo, everybody. Clif is right yet again. Let's get back on topic.

What were we talking about Clif?

Wasn't it how bin Laden lost his diplomatic immunity after the carpet bombing of Iraq because the leader of Free-Vietnam discovered that bin-Laden had invested in that evil woman raping corporation, Nike, thereby becoming a mini-failed-capitalist-non-country leader in and of himself?

268. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 2:32:47 PM

one "f" it is clifton not clifford.

269. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 2:33:57 PM

Clif -

Relax about the name, they're just "f"ing with you.

270. godlessclif - 6/17/2002 2:36:52 PM

That's why I though a trip to inferno is called for.

271. zojak quafeth - 6/17/2002 2:38:24 PM

Yep. You should burn them all Clif. You're bound to get the person who started all this that way. And it's much more moral than just gunning for one person.

272. pseudoerasmus - 6/18/2002 3:44:26 AM

Message # 261: "Same with China. However, I find it funny that you are defending the freedom in a one party capitalist country.
"

Over 80% of China's output is still produced in the public sector. Only about 5% is derived from a purely private sector in the western sense; and less than 15% is produced by joint ventures between public enterprises and foreign private enterprises.

The real story of China's economic explosion has taken place in the public sector --but with a twist. The fastest growing part of China's econony is not the central-government-owned state enterprises, but the enterprises owned collectively or communally by village & township governments.

273. godlessclif - 6/18/2002 4:17:06 AM

I am all for communally farmed land. We need more of it in the USA, however agribusinesses have driven everyone off the land.

So is it the private sector or the public sector of China that sold the Ruanda genocide forces all the machettes?

But that is off topic.

This Bush regime's policy toward China is schizophrenic. The Bush Regime loudly condemns them for being Godless Communists[ like me I guess].

He condemns China for suppressing mind control cult like Falun Gong. ???

The Bush regime has such provocative suveilance activity that one of our surveilance planes collides with a chinese airspace defense jet.

Bush says we will go to war to stop the return of Taiwan to China and threaten them with Nuclear anihilation. He refuses to support Tibetan independence.

The Bush regime supports most favored nation status for China. Open trade and investment. Bush put tarrifs on Japanese, Brazilian, and Turkish Steel all US allies. I see no steel tarrif on China.

Out of one side of his mouth he is about to go to war, and build a missile defense, if it ever works, to neutralize the Chinese deterent. Then he wants to play soccer with them and have their help fighting terrorism[ meaning fight islam]

Don't be fooled by the name change.

Normal trade relations is the new name out of the Bush's ministry of truth, but the legal language of that bill is identical to most favored nations status for China.

Bush should decide if China is an enemy or a friend, after all The Bush Regime policy is "If you are not with us you are against us." So we can't have any middle ground moderate foreign policy.

274. godlessclif - 6/18/2002 4:24:39 AM

The fastest growing part of China's econony is not the central-government-owned state enterprises, but the enterprises owned collectively or communally by village & township governments.

So are we calling farm Coops and Manufacturing coops communism because they freeze multinational corporate power out, like the rapist sweatshop managers at Nike.

Or are they free enterprise because they are not centrally planned. Maybe we could have a new thread to address this ideology discussion.

"The Ideology thread." Or "What is capitalism, what is communism , what is something completely different".

"Is globalization economic terrorism or are the Green party members the evil ones" is another possible topic.

275. jexster - 6/18/2002 10:06:56 PM

Why are villagers in the Aceh province of Indonesia worrying about contributions from Exxon Mobil to George W. Bush and the Republicans?

Judging from all The Texas Twang I Heard at the Jakarta Hilton -They've Good Reason - Guhd Buhdday

276. pseudoerasmus - 6/18/2002 10:27:11 PM

Godlesscliff is not intelligent enough to have a discussion on ideology.

For a brief summary on China's TVEs (township- and village-owned enterprises), see here.

277. godlessclif - 6/19/2002 7:13:32 AM

Pseudoerasmus: I know you regard me a greatly inferior to you in intelligence. I am the pinky to your brain,narf!

Doesn't that insulting post belong on inferno?

Why don't you list the I.Q.s of all the Moties and determine which are not intelligent enough to talk to you P.E..

You could have a Mensa thread in true Shocky Eugenics fashion and only discus things with your equals.

I might ask if you think I am intelligent to reproduce or do you feel people of my ideology should be sterilized like the charector played by Montgomery Clift in Judgement at Nuremberg?

278. vw - 6/19/2002 7:57:00 AM

Is there ever going to be a real discussion in this thread ... you know, the exchange of information that is then compared and contrasted with principles and tenets from various disciplines with the end result hopefully being a greater understanding or at least a clarification of opinion?

And before someone whines at me about just commenting rather than contributing; I don’t believe I have enough knowledge to have formulated a rational opinion yet and was hoping that listening to folks who had spent some time forming rational opinions might be worthy of my time. I know not chiming in with a half-assed comment is alien to some of you, but try to remember that some of us lurkers actually enjoy reading some of you knowledgeable folks when you’re NOT being insulting wankers.

279. pseudoerasmus - 6/19/2002 7:59:07 AM

Godlesscliff, in my universe, you would not be sterilised. I reserve eugenics for paedophile right-wingers like concerned. The Godlesscliffs of the world would be shot and buried in concrete walls.

280. Wombat - 6/19/2002 9:25:47 AM

VW:

A lack of knowledge on a subject hasn't stopped anyone from expressing their opinions on this thread. Take clifton...please.

Please chip in with whatever opinions and insights you might have. If they serve as a point of departure for an informative discussion, so much the better.

281. sakonige - 6/19/2002 9:27:55 AM

You know, you are cute when you are being an insufferable prick.

282. sakonige - 6/19/2002 9:28:36 AM

PE, that is, not Wombat.

283. sakonige - 6/19/2002 9:29:31 AM

I don't think Wombat is ever an insufferable prick, although he is a dick sometimes.

284. godlessclif - 6/19/2002 9:45:26 AM

Wombat is just in love with P.E. so he feels a need to slam anyone who confronts P.E. Like me.

285. godlessclif - 6/19/2002 9:54:21 AM

VW: Yes I was told the idea of the thread was an exchange of information, but since I was informed by P.E. that he knows everything and I know nothing

I am in the position of a starving Angolan asking a multibillion dollar american argibusiness to feed me when I have nothing to give in return.

Myths about the starving who have nothing to give

Fortunately he is a mercy killer and will shoot everyone to the left of Goldwater, like me, and bury them in the Berlin style wall Bush plans to build along the American border designed to keep the poor out.

286. Wombat - 6/19/2002 10:37:21 AM

Clifton:

I feel a need to slam you because you give what passes for the "left" on the Mote a bad name with your almost uniformly contrafactual ravings. You are Concerned's straw man "lefty" come to life.

287. marjoribanks - 6/19/2002 10:37:42 AM

Now, now.

Let's avoid silly personality-based arguments and stick to the thread topic.

I'd like to know, Godless, why you think the Clinton (or Democrat) foreign policy is any different from the other alternative.

As someone deeply involved and interested in one region of the world more than others - South Asia - I can say quite unequivocally that Clinton was no better and in many ways worse than the Republicans. Since Sept 11, particularly, Bush has been better than any president in history in his relationship with the region and specifically India. Clinton, by contrast, didn't even name an ambassador for well over a year.

288. vw - 6/19/2002 11:05:33 AM

Bush has been better than any president in history in his relationship with the region and specifically India.

If true, is this due to a more far-sighted policy or just simply that now more than ever we need everyone playing as nice and quiet as we can manage?

IOWs, if 9/11 hadn't happened do you believe that the current administration would have a policy significantly different from the previous administration's policy?

289. CalGal - 6/19/2002 11:11:25 AM

Exactly.

One area where Bush differs significantly from Clinton is in his readiness to impose tariffs, and it's not 9/11 driving that difference.

290. marjoribanks - 6/19/2002 11:24:00 AM

It is hard to tell, now, the way the Bushites would have gone without 9/11. They certainly showed their hand by avoiding international treaties like the Kyoto Protocols.

However, embedded in the Bush regime was Condoleeza Rice, who has openly espoused for years the idea that the US should have relations with strategically important countries (including India) and mostly ignore the rest.

The Republican Right has been on india's side for some time.

Summation: This would likely have been the most engaged and positive US administration wrt India in any case. The circumstances have made it more so.

291. marjoribanks - 6/19/2002 11:25:44 AM

The Republicans have in any case put professsionals on the job internationally as opposed to the Clintonian amateurs.

Hey, I voted for the guy twice, but it must be admitted that Clinton was mostly a forgettable disaster for most of the world.

292. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/19/2002 11:26:56 AM

. . .and it's not 9/11 driving that difference.

It's simple-minded zealotry and extremism everywhere, that's making this world so bleak.

The Hindu call to arms

293. marjoribanks - 6/19/2002 11:30:24 AM

Wiz,

That is a nonsensical little pamphlet which is ignored by the great majority of Indians.

294. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 6/19/2002 11:38:13 AM

If only we could ignore Bush in the same way marj. Now they have him reading War and Peace and de Tocqueville--regardless of Condi Rice, this git will decide