Oh, boy, another windmill...
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
Just two details:
Article 2.4 of U.N. Charter defines international law...
I again ask you who is the enforcement agency for that 'law?'
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Nobody should attempt to tell me that the present German government is Bush-friendly. It's not.
Agreed.
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- "Europeans are pussies" (which is an embarrassing misunderstanding of facts. The mere idea that the Europeans wouldn't have been powerful enough in the past years is a joke. Several European countries could have crushed Yugoslavia on their own.)
True -- but they did not due to lack of political will. Then got annoyed at the US for having the will.
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- some ignorance about realities, using interpretations which are solely accepted in the U.S. and irrelevant in 95% of the world.
Perhaps on the part of some, for myself and many others it's not ignorance but a total lack of concern for what the rest of the world thinks. The world has broadly been anti-American for many years, certainly all my lifetime and I first went overseas in 1947 and have spent over 12 years in one part of the world or another. The feeling is not as intense now as it was at the heighth of Viet Nam. Now we're just disliked, then there was almost hatred in some place. That stuff comes and goes.
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That's quite disappointing, but it's also typical for military-related U.S.-dominated environments.
May annoy you but it seems like a quite logical reaction considering the environment, I'm unsure what else you would expect.
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It's quite easily possible to discuss such matters much more fruitful in other arenas, even with Americans.
Fruitful in that you get more agreement with your opinions elsewhere?
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This topic is really one that doesn't need much discussion. Most people easily agree. Just centre/right Americans have problems to understand it, as it collides with their fancy understanding of the USA.
I'll give you my favorite quote from Ms. Christy Blatchford, a Canadian newspaper Columnist; "...most Americans don't give a rat's ass what the rest of the world thinks."
And no, Marc, I will not quote McQuaig to him... :D
From BBC...seemed germaine
to the discussion. Full story is here, but this quoted snippet was an interesting summation/comparison. I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but Frei makes some interesting points and observations.
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The world needs to come down to reality and experience the cold turkey of American electoral politics.
Despite the lofty dreams ringing in campaign ears this remains the 50-50 nation.
American elections tend to be decided by a whisker-thin majority in the swing county of one swing state.
Obama may be a global citizen but to voters in West Virginia or parts of Ohio that sounds as pretentious as a double decaf Venti latte.
But before the German politician who wrote that Obama was a cross between John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King gets too sniffy about those hillbillies in America, just remember this:
Germany has a minority of four million Turks, but has elected only a handful of ethnic Turks to the Bundestag.
An ethnic Pakistani Prime Minister taking up residence at Number 10 Downing Street is even less likely than England winning the World Cup.
In Beijing, the overt racism shown to African students brought over under the bygone days of international Communism is truly shocking.
Even if America is not ready to elect a black president, the rest of the world has no right to point the finger.
And there is always the possibility that Obama failed not because he was black, not because he was too global, but simply because his vision of America's future did not add up.
Probably a good thing, Ken
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Originally Posted by
Ken White
I'll give you my favorite quote from Ms. Christy Blatchford, a Canadian newspaper Columnist; "...most Americans don't give a rat's ass what the rest of the world thinks."
And no, Marc, I will not quote McQuaig to him... :D
.........
I tend to agree with most of the posts in this thread, pro and con.
To include Fuchs' (but not snapperhead who has contributed nothing other than pseudointellectual bon mots). Though I have to admit most of you take the issue more seriously than do I. We have been on the nasty list for most of the world for most of our existence. Rarely, we are if not loved, either accepted or respected -- but mostly we're slammed. I've seen so much of it here and there I don't pay much attention to it. It goes in cycles. That's why I think this is sort of important:
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Originally Posted by Steve Blair:
There's also a segment, I think, that likes the idea of having the US "handy"...in other words sitting quietly on the sidelines yet willing to come when called (with money and/or military force if needed) to deal with things that others don't want to deal with directly. The fact that from time to time we don't want to play in that role makes them nervous. The roots of much of this are quite deep, and there's enough of it to go around.
To which Marc responded:
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I'm honestly not sure if it's that or not .
I submit that Steve is correct.
At the ripe old age of 14, I was in China (B.M. - Before Mao) and a British Officer pointed to a "Yankee go home" graffiti on a wall. I told him I was from Kentucky, so that didn't apply to me and he was totally uncomprehending. That was the beginning of a revelation. Very few people in the rest of the world can understand the US (many in the US don't understand it...), Canadians probably come closer than anyone but even they think we're beyond tacky and really rather weird (both truths). Surprisingly, I think Asians understand us a little better than do Europeans. So too do South Americans, many of whom harbor some earned resentment toward us -- but they all still want to come here. We totally baffle most Europeans I've met..
Given the fact that we contributed to the defeat of Germany in two wars, Japan in one; we effectively forced the British and French out of the Colonial business and messed up Suez for them and have managed to annoy most nations in the world at one time or another in pursuit of US interests and you have plenty of reasons for us to be on many a nasty list. Add to that a really ignorant and pathetic media face to the world which tends to emphasize our clownish side coupled with the fact that we're big and over prone to try to throw our weight around when it is to our benefit and ignore those issues that are note seen as beneficial (always with an eye to domestic politics) and we're seen an inconsistent and somewhat hypocritical pain in the tail too many. That is unlikely to change.
So are we.
In the immortal words of J Wolfsberger:
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...I think we'd make the attempt. Having done so, when it didn't work out, we'd lurch way to far in the other direction.
Just to add to the confusion.
Yep... :D
Some thoughts for your consideration.
Agree with your first two paragraphs.
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Originally Posted by
Sargent
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3. The Pearl Harbor attack was based upon the mistaken assumption that the US lacked the will to fight in response.* I doubt anyone would make a similar mistake any time soon.
That may be correct but I would suggest that based on history we not bet the farm on it.
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And to preempt the inevitable question, no, I don't think that Al Qaeda believed the attack would make US pack up and leave the Middle East. In fact, if I were forced to guess at what they wanted to happen, I would say they wanted the US to lash out, because eventually this would cause the sympathetic tide to turn against the US.
Agree -- but think they expected the target to be solely Afghanistan and they were prepared for that. They also thought, I believe, that an attack by us in Afghanistan would offer all the advantages you cite plus the added advantage of not disrupting the ME as the 'Stan is not in or of the ME. Our attack in Iraq caught them off balance (they recovered rapidly, they're far more agile than big bureaucratic behemoth us) but not as far off balance as it might have had not Bush delayed (IMO at Blair's request) to go back to the UN.
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They knew full well the terms of American operational doctrine -- collateral damage would become a problem. They further could probably have deduced that the US would have a hard time adapting to insurgent warfare, with a fair amount of pain to civilians occurring during the lag time -- it would have required that they read one or two books on the Vietnam War.
Possibly. I suspect they realized that our ability to go heavy in Afghanistan was limited and therefor trounceable. Note that in Iraq, they (AQ et.al.) had almost as much trouble and took almost as much time getting militarily organized as we did. Saddams loyalists and the local crimianl gangs were better prepapred but were not a part of "them" (AQ et.al.). The different approach than they expected also took a toll on them in Afghanistan and I suggest that it took them longer to get organized there than it took us. As I said, they are more agile and flexible than us; therefor I think their slowness in adaptation in both theaters is a sign of some weakness. Saddam's folks just got worn down and were running low on money.
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A lesson we ought to have considered prior to OIF: don't go to war based on the best case scenario of your initiating actions. And don't forget the corrollary: no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
We draw far different conclusions from the same data. One should not go to war based on any preconception of what may occur; such a decision should be based solely on a need to go to war. We did have a need -- induced by the failure of four prior Presidents to properly respond to 22 years of provocations from the ME (NOT Afghanistan, the ME, a critical distinction) -- and we went. The hopes of some politicians are broadly and certainly militarily irrelevant IMO.
The old saw that no plan survives first contact with the enemy is incorrect. It should be "Only a good plan will survive the first contact." Because that is true; the other is not.
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There's also my favorite, which hasn't quite made it to aphorism: in the modern era, the side that initiates military action hasn't fared well. ("Don't cross the line of departure first," would be its pithy iteration.)
Given the fact that the initiating North got a draw out of Korea; the other initiating North effectively got a default win out of Viet Nam and that we got nominal wins after initiating the Dominican Republic, Grenada and Panama incursions, I'm not sure that's correct. I'd also posit a point and then ask a question re: Afghanistan and Iraq. Point; We haven't had the proverbial cake walk but it seems we're some distance from not faring well in either place.
The question; In both current cases, who crossed the LD first?
Oh, mildly off thread but could someone
check this (LINK) and remind me again why the UN deserves respect...