We, the European Second Division, support Bush

Can we make it a rule that we have to enforce the security council resolutions in the order they were voted upon, i.e. can we please deal with Israeli Apartheid before we do anything else.

I did contemplate titling this thread 'Who in this bitch has tried fisting?' just to get the ILXoR massive to read it.

I may comment on this once I've left work and have time to read and digest it (but I'm guessing I will spend the time snuggling with my wife in front of the TV instead).

Wait for Powell's SC presentation, then we'll see the results.

You make it sound like they're selecting a team for stickball.

But instead of all of us agreeing that what the U.S. is doing is shameful (well, at least some of us agreeing) what should we be doing to head off this horror?

I, for one, feel pretty damn impotent (though that may only reflect current personal circumstances). And while I've done the letter writing and phone calls to the leaders approach, I don't think that my voice of dissent is being paid much heed, if it is noticed at all. And because I can't get out in the streets and march and educate and scream my head off in frustration and I can't emmigrate at the moment, I feel pretty damn - well - impotent seems to be the only appropriate word that comes to mind.

I do believe that educating the masses (to use a regrettable phrase) will help to fix things, but it seems that our mass media ("our" being both U.S.-based and many of the European-based media groups) has already decided that there will be a war and are eagerly anticipating the chance to send reporters to the battlefield and get some shots of dead Iraqis, and so is feeding into the argument that invasion is the only possible outcome of the current situation. So I resert to the Internet and to talking to friends and just hoping that maybe I can help someone to at least think more logially and concretely about why such an invasion is even being contemplated, whether or not it is morally or ethically acceptable to invade another country as a prevenitive measure (to say nothing of the legalities of such a proposal), what are the costs in terms of human lives and the environment, and what are the potential outcomes and who is going to get Iraq back on its feet once the U.S. and other have destroyed its infrastructure?
I guess that the one question that I have at this point is "Why now?" What is going on that makes "Now" the only time that the Bush cadre is willing to consider - why not a year from now? Why not after the inspectors finish their work? Why, why, why?

It just doesn't make sense to me - I can look at the basic arguments (human-rights violations, environmental contamination, the whole "protect the oil fields" load of garbage, the preemptive strike crap, the "gotta avenge the smudge on Bushie Sr.'s reputation" thing, and so forth) and while I can almost see the logic behind each, they all strike me as being fairly ludicrous (with the noted exception of civil-rights violations, though I don't see why it is that we're suddenly concerned NOW with the fate of the Iraqi people) and I fail to see the need for something to be done *now*. Is Bush just a puppet in the hands of Cheney and Rumsfeld? Or is he doing this of his own volition? And why is Powell now sounding more and more like a Hawk, when he was originally counseling patience and working within the framework of the U.N. I just plain do not get this. And I bet that I am not the only person scratching their head over the topic.

While I tend to believe that diplomacy is the best way to settle international issues, I do acknowledge that sometimes more extreme measures are called for. But in this situation I do not see that all of the diplomatic options have been utilized (primarily because I don't see exactly what it is that the U.S. wants the Iraqis to admit to/ to do to make the U.S. happy - even if they rise and throw-out Saddam, will not one of his followers step into his place? Would Bush be satisfied then? Is Bush just looking for an excuse? I think that the "oil" excuse is too easy - it doesn't make enough sense. There must be something deeper going on here [and if there isn't, then I'm REALLY afraid] to explain all of this haste and unwillingness to listen to logic).

You're Mr '800-missiles-sounds-about-right' Millar, aren't you?

It's not 'now'. It's forever. These people want unending warfare. Simply because it's the right wing thing to do, just like it's right wing to make welfare voluntary, to outlaw abortion, to destroy the environment. It makes no social or economic sense, it's just their dogma, their religion, pure ideology.

It's blowback, payback. It's happening because these people were embittered outsiders during the Clinton years and are now getting their revenge by imposing as much senseless atavistic rightist mayhem on the world as they can. If only they were just good old fashioned business-minded capitalists intent on globalising American business! (If they were that, there wouldn't be recession, and the stock market wouldn't be plummeting.) If only they were tender sentimental old heartland conservatives like Ronnie Reagan! But they're fucking scorpions and pythons. They're getting revenge for the 60s and the 90s, all that booming economy liberal society stuff they hate so much. They're dressing everybody up in khaki and blood. We just have to wait until it passes, then get back to trying to 'progress' with whatever world they leave us.

Stuart if our economy is dependant on fucking up the environment for the rest of the world then we are the terrorists and we should just go fuck ourselvs now. Seriously, though... resources are FINITE. Using them too quickly is BAD economic policy.

Stuart, maybe international small arms legislation is against the US constitution. But an international criminal court, is that really against the US constitution too? What about control on biological and chemical weapons? What about the rights of the child? What about emissions trading?

Some thoughts from an essay entitled US: Make The World Go Away':

'This casual treatment of international agreements and norms seems remarkably short-sighted. Treaties and the agencies created by them allow us to accomplish some of the most basic tasks of daily life. Sending letters abroad, avoiding collisions in shipping lanes and in air space, feeling safe from smallpox--all of these are the results of international agreements.

Possible consequences

Can we afford the loss of bargaining power that results from this behavior?

How can we protest extra-judicial killings, torture or prison conditions in Mexico when we execute a Mexican whose rights have been ignored? Why should China reform its human-rights policy at our request when we follow international norms only when it suits us?

How can we speak with any moral force about children's issues when we are one of two nations in the world that has not ratified the Convention on Rights of the Child? How can we demand facility inspections in Iraq and not allow them here? '

Stuart, the trouble is that in a global age the US has a double standard. You have one set of rights at home, and another abroad. US corporations do in Nigeria and Thailand what they could never do at home. US foreign policy infringes the rights of foreigners all the time. International legislation is a way of trying to level the playing field. See it as a way of internationalising the US constitution (although, certainly, improving on it here and there).

Aaron's point is a good one and I read an editorial in the WP today that made the same argument - this is a chance for the rest of EU to tell France & Germany to go shove it, and they are proudly doing so.

I'm rather disappointed that so many think this is a stain on Vaclav Havel's record instead of a chance to rethink their own stance. Chances are Mr. Havel may just know a little bit more about the situation than you do.

''Consider the irony: the U.S. threatens war against Iraq for so much as lying to a U.N. official, while Israel is allowed to kill U.N. officials with total U.S. approval''.

The U.S. approach to the United Nations is simple: any resolution on Iraq that the U.S. supports must be treated as holy scripture and upheld with war.

And any resolution that the U.S. opposes is proof of the ''irrelevance'' of the United Nations and is a license for the United States to disregard the U.N. charter and do as it pleases.

And also, fuck those French collaborators. They want to keep out because Sadaam owes them hundreds of millions of dollars.

I dunno much about UK politics, but I hear that BLair might be facing a real political crisis. How does it look to you Ukers?

Here's what's going on: You can reach most of Africa, Russia, India, China, and all of the Middle East and Europe from Iraq with a B-52 bomber. And there's lots of cheap fuel for planes and space for runways in Iraq - not just borrowed, but occupied. Not much flak around it, either.

Tempting, isn't it.

I'm actually really sorry that Blair has chosen to sacrifice his credibility with this 'war is peace' line rather than sticking around to put his undoubted talents to work on bringing the euro to the UK, ending third world debt, etc.

Funny how all the right-wing nuts thought that it was so "terrible" when the issue was whether or not to overthrow Slobodan Milosevic (who was just as murderous, region-destabilizing, and fond of funding terrorists as Saddam is) ...

toms and stuart. it seems to me that you are saying that if the un wont proceed then the us will have to go it alone. that makes it a singular was without international ratification. perhaps if the usa paid its fees to the us, perhaps if the us realised the un isnt a rubber stamp for its purposes things might be better. or, perhaps if i realised the un IS a rubber stamp for usa foreign policy then it might be better for me.

I find it absolutely sickening. Bascially the USA can do what it wants, and no one can stop it. But please, Tom, Stuart, dont get upset when the rest opf the world doesnt like! The UK population is overwhemingly against this war. But we'll stand shoulder to shouldr with you anyway, er (mouth to ass with you) because Blair will go ahead anyway. So we'll end up signed up for a war we dont even agree with and we're supposed to like that. Remind me, whats the UN actually for again. oh yea, to make us laugh,

kindly keep that in mind?

im also upset because im sicking of hearing people going "lets go in the etc ect" from their nice cozy armchairs (i believe you are actually in the military so are exempt from this criticism). but the people that go "oh bleeding heart liberals WE have to be strong" - WGO has to be strong, not them in their SUVs thats for sure, but some poor young guys who have to fight for poor foreign policy

if the west stopped installing tinpot dictators like saddam in the first place we might not be in this mess right now. the fact that this is going to create a whole bunch of new problems is awful, but if it helps divert focus from the domestic economy crisis then i guess its a price worth paying for bush

And what about everything *else* in the world? North Korea is shoved to the bottom of the headlines (though I think read something about Kim Jung Il refusing to show-up for a meeting with the South Koran Ambassador at the bottom of the Headline News ticker block of annoying text) - and what's going on in the Balkans? And on the entire African continent? I seem to recall some mass starvations in Ethiopia and some more genocide in the Ivory Coast - oh, and Australia is burning and the koala's are abandoning their babies ot move into the suburbs seeking water (though I am thinking that the two events are related through the drought and not directly, but I could be wrong - after all, I don't hear about any other international news stories these days).

So what else is being overlooked? And how many mouths could be fed and how many crops planted and tilled and reaped and children educated and injured healed and people educated about reproduction and AIDS and....shit, this is a downer....with all of the money going toward just moving forces to the Middle East? (And why is the U.S. sending the Coast Guard to the Persian Gulf, again? I seem to have forgotten that explanation.)

The argument on the UN not enforcing its Resolutions is just fatuous. Yes the US is important to the UN's enforcement of resolutions, I think none of us would want to see an UN army, but the US picks and chooses which resolutions to enforce. There are resolutions still outstanding from 1948 concerning Israel. The UN would be less dependent on the US for material support if it paid its bloody dues. Ted Turner has paid some of your arrears. The US ought to lose its voting rights until it pays its membership fees to the UN.

How have the ICC treaty and Kyoto treaty been unconstitutional? The US cannot expect to gain the support of the International community when it will not support the International community in its most laudable attempts at trying to fix some of the ills of this world. And quite frankly the US should look at revising a constitution drawn up in a pre-industrial agrarian society.

This war is all about control of oil. The US could free itself from dependence on this region by cutting consumption, looking for alternatives (Diesel vehicles can run on vegetable oil, for starters, and the US is not short of good agricultural land) and generaly behaving with the responsibility that their position as world super power demands.

You don't dominate the world by taking all its countries on one by one. You dominate by economic power, by growth, by ensuring mutual prosperity and security for all who trade with you. Just look at the financial section of the papers and you'll see the real story of what's going on in the world. The dollar is falling because investors don't want war and believe the terrorism it will provoke will 'damage consumer confidence' in the US. And meanwhile, in the world's only truly booming economy, China, a nation which has no interest in being the world's policeman or invading anybody, car sales are taking off in a big way.

China's GDP will overtake America's within ten years. Europe, counted as a single unit, already has a bigger GDP than the US. Yet still this perception of the US as 'the World's Only Superpower' lingers. I'd suggest there are a few superpowers around, but the ones who will dominate the next hundred years are those which keep pretty a low profile rather than swaggering around the world with armies and threats.

No. Because China is rational.

PC? Hell no, you won't catch me with that Chinese shit. I got a real computer, 'Merican as Apple pie!

But they won't though, will they?

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/277/wo/SN2qzKnWr8CW3po947H1PIhKqRH/2.3.0.3.27.8.3.11.13.0

It certainly puts an interesting spin on your world politics views, when the Aztecs have got Oil and you haven't.

Umm, which is pretty much what I was trying to say really, although put a bit more eloquently.

Now, the stupidity of the Bush regime is that they KNOW oil is a fast dwindling resource, but they think that somehow being the country that has the last scraps of oil means anything at all. When the rest of the world runs out, its true the US will be able to rule the world, but it will be a world of famine and chaos. Then in a few years when the US runs out, it will too succumb to famine and chaos.

The real solution to energy problems is a combined renewable/hydrogen/fuel cell system, about which I could go on indefinitely). However vegetable oils have there part to play as a chemical feedstock.

john

More later about what 'average' American thinks (ai yi yi). Am trying to work now.

1. The economic growth is being spurred by a plunge into debt which rivals ours. The people who are buying Volkswagens in China right now are taking on deals of the sort we usually associate with financing the purchase of a house. If the cars weren't being domestically produced, it's quite likely they'd be completely out of reach to Chinese consumers.

2. The rural farmer in China cannot make enough money to support himself and his family. Massive migration to the cities has already taken place, leaving no-one to tend the fields. This is not a good foundation for a growing economy.

3. The telecom boom in China is reaching a saturation point. The Chinese market is currently soaked with telecom infrastructure projects, few of which have been shown to be profitable. Competition between the big five carriers has on more than one occasion degenerated into street fights between technicians. The whole nation is barreling ahead into a modernization project which it can ill afford, much like the USSR's attempts to modernize its military during the Cold War.

4. China's leaders in industry and technology come to the US to study. Plus, practically everything manufactured in China is a cheap rendition of a product originally created in the US, Japan or elsewhere. China's most profitable exports are sold to struggling countries who can't afford anything else.

5. China is run by much bigger assholes than Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. The AIDS epidemic runs rampant in the western provinces and education is still extremely poor (see 4 above). While money is being dumped fist over bucket into infrastructure projects with dubitable lasting value, quality-of-life issues for the population and large remain at the bottom of the Party inbox gathering dust.

In the long run I think you'll see that China's currently booming economy is built on nothing so stable as the e-commerce bubble. A centralized government participating in insane amounts of nepotism is by far more fallible than a gaggle of greedy VCs, unbelievable as it may seem.

BTW, when this turn into a general purpose 'Shit on America' thread? Didn't we just put $15 billion dollars into fighting the AIDS epidemic in Africa and the Caribbean? Or is that some kind of under-the-table corrupto-matic greed scheme too?

Tell me about it, Vic. Can I come to Brazil? I'll bring along cute Bloco De Esquerda chix0rz!

I don't know that the thread has degenerated quite that badly, Millar, but I do agree that views of the U.S. are going downhill, at least as represented here.

In regards to the AIDS money - yes, it is a good thing, and yes, it needs to be done, and yes, it is likely that some good things will result from those funds. However, we should give A LOT more money, and we should have given more, sooner. And I personally blame people like Jesse Helms for holding back on the U.S. dues to the U.N. that would have gone toward funding birth control and AIDS prevention and education in the developing countries, because the programs would not advocate abstinence and because they funds might be used to perform abortions or to encourage/teach women about the medical option.

Overall, I think that we Americans should be ashamed of our "it's not our problem/responsibility" attitude, not only toward other countries, but toward our needy here at home.

However, that is getting a bit away from the theme of this thread, so I'll take-up this discussion at another place and at another time.

China, a nation which has no interest in being the world's policeman or invading anybody

that's pretty funny, I wonder what the people of Taiwan would say to that? Or the Tibetans? Or the Mongolians? Or even Japan? granted China has a legitimate reason to despise Japan but to make them out as a fluffy little tiger cub is stupid. The only reason they don't express their ambition is because they currently can not match the US military nor the Taiwanese army for that matter.

More oil guzzling cars is a good thing now? My Momus logic is all fuxored.

Wether you belive the figures or not China is growing, maybe not in the most sustainable way but it is inevitable that at some point the GDP of China, on any measure, will surpass that of the US some time in the not too distant future, GDP per capita will take some time to come. I agree that China is a brutal fascist regime but its slow movement from command economy to market economy has been the most successful in the former 'communist' world. One of the key ways they have done this is through state infrastructure projects. This is the surest way of stimulating growth, look at US new deal, look at BRitain in the 18th and 19th centuries. It pump primes the economy and provides it with the means to do business in such a large country. As for the Shanghai Maglew, its a brave step and I'm glad someone has done it and I do hope that the planned Shanghai-Beijing Maglev goes ahead. There is no way that China or the world could take the same kind of irresponsible use of private transport seen in Europe and the US in China.

As for farming in china, its experiencing the same upheavals that european farming experienced in the 17th, 18th and 19th century and to a certain extent are still going on now. Rest assured that people and corporate entities will step in and grasp the opportunity to make money from the land. China is at a disadvantage having killed off its rural middle class but rest assured that will right itself.

Maybe the Telecoms boom will bust, but thats the way market economies seem to go and competition bringing down prices is after all what its all about and is helping cut costs for other insudtries.

None of this means that I am pro china. Before china gains any degree of respect with me it will have to free Tibet and East Turkestan and move towards democratic freedoms whilst curbing the brutal repressions of it people. However I'm sure china will come up with a democracy that looks nothing like the European or US model.

As to wether China and India will be world policemen or not they will be among the most important nations of this century, through sheer weight of numbers and growing economic power.

Anyway back to topic.

Bush and Blair have said 6 weeks more for the weapons inspectors. This conveniently leapfrogs Germany's chairmanship of the Security council
and puts it smack in the middle of Guinea's chairmanship. guinea is a small muslim west african state with an ailing leader dependent on the US for financial and military aid......

I really wish the anti-war movement would pitch 'let's try containment' instead of the usual 'America/capitalism is evil' line they bring out for EVERY conflict. I'll also add I'd be alot more inclined to actually participate in a protest march if I didn't have to worry about finding myself marching beside a guy chanting anti-semitic chants or listening to a speaker defend Milosevic in passing.

There is no simple peaceful solution to this problem. The main argument against a military solution is that manipulation of other countries generally causes many more problems for the world than it solves.

I really do not understand (in a literal sense, I mean -- not a moral sense), the reasons for the war. I do not believe the war is so much about the US wanting oil in Iraq in particular as about protecting the US economic model and globalization economics in general. The willingness to trade economic advantages for political issues (by "political" here I mean perhaps incaple of resolution) like religious freedom, human rights or women's rights goes both ways and seems the inevitable pattern of history when certain conditions exist but these economic advantages, too, are bound up in "cultures" like how important a culture regards something like modernization or medical science or class mobility. China is lousy on human rights by our standards, for sure, but the US embargo policy in Iraq is very cruel, too -- depriving a child of penicillin for what would be a basic medical problem in the US is no good. So I do agree that the war is about economics in a sense, but to reduce it to the US wanting Iraq's oil in particular is a stance that is too easy to attack -- I believe it is much more complex than this.

Somebody wanted to talk about Korea. My understanding is that the US has to negotiate with North Korea because the powers who have an interest in containing nuclear proliferation fell asleep at the wheel. North Korea stonewalled the UN inspectors long enough, survived the world economic boycott and now they can make plutonium. So North Korea is one of the "haves" in the club of nuclear-armed nations and there is really not much the US can do about it except North Korea does not, to my knowledge have a potential commodity like oil that the French and Swiss will trade for weapons, as I believe France has done with Iraq and certainly would do unless the US gets them on "their" side now, when teh world is paying attention. (Yes, I would say by collaborating witht he Axis in WWII France has acted very opposite to the UK historically.) Perhaps the US is hoping for the same result with North Korea as in the Cold War and in Central America -- North Korea will cave in to capitalism and try to race to catch up.

Perhaps this is why the US wants to take action now against Iraq -- the nuclear and economic haves and have-nots is an old, old story, and the reason Iraq poses a bigger potential threat is not so much that the West needs oil as that the oil money plus nuclear capability would really unbalance things for the West in a way that the Soviet Union, Cuba and Noth Korea did/do not. The WTC bombing is a silly pretext but it is a pretext, whereas there really was no pretext to act against North Korea, not even a silly one.

As for the future of a post-Saddam Iraq, I wonder if the Bush theory is to hope for what happened in Central America by putting puppet rulers in place long enough to encourage a Western model of capitalism -- basically the Monroe Doctrine (the making the Western hemisphere safe for democracy part, not the puppet ruler part). However, this didn't seem to work too well with Iran, if I recall. There are intractable conditions in the Middle East with Israel and Palestine that differ from Central America in ways that perhaps Millar or soemone else can explain.

Although I believe the war is ultimately motivated by a desire to preserve economic power, I do not understand the economic reasons for the war in that I do not believe that ousting Saddam will bring about a predictible economic result, if that is what Bush is thinking. The only rationale I can see from the US's point of view is an extremely cynical one, that is, to forestall the direct upheaval in the Middle East that may occur if Iraq gained nuclear capabilty.

I am not "for" the war but perhaps it will help explain why many in the US are apathetic to remember that in the US we have a volunteer army, itself largely tied up in our economic class system, unlike mandatory conscription which exists in Israel, South Korea and perhaps many countries in the Europe Second Divsion. The population's attitude might be very different if we had the draft, as in Vietnam, but those protests had a very real element of individual self-preservation. I do recognize that many sign up for the army for patriotic reasons. I am not saying it's good or bad but maybe I have the luxury of talking about this objectively because women were not drafted even when the US had the draft.

I am sorry if anyone has gone over any of this before or in other threads or if my history is wrong -- please correct me; I am trying to learn and decide what I believe (like all of us, I hope) and it's an invitiation to discussion. I do care about other things besides fashion and dogs and baseball.

why did bush snr stop short last time around in 91? i forgot

Felicty: the 'european second division' are the ones without conscript armies, Italy excepted. France and Germany still have conscript armies.. It doesn't really work int his situation as it would be the professional volunteer components of any european army that would be sent to war.

Portugal still has mandatory military service; also, Germany's "conscript" army ain't all that since you can choose whether you want to go to the army or do humanitarian work; in fact, I've heard that the only reason military service is still obligatory in Germany is because if it weren't the whole social services system would collapse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/opinion/02FRIE.html?8hpist