Bush le simplet

[mimil]

Originally posted by Johnny Yuma
Britain is powerful and a friend. Britain is powerful but not really needed by the United States; but they're not an enemy of the United States.

What was your point?

Johnny please look further than words.
Britain is not needed? Mr. Blair put his career on the line to back the US in recent events. A providential Portuguese president was needed to add up to the lonely duo in the Azores. With all US might and influence a list of 35 countries only could find to support the war in Iraq. Something was amiss in these events and you say that Britain was not needed. I don't even know why I am arguing with you; you'll probably find something to say about my post, probably some lack of eloquence or pin point precision in my facts. I am not merely condemning everything for the simple sake of doing so. If Islam is the mighty evil, and if destruction shall be thrown on more than one billion of them, the issue concerns not Israel alone nor the US alone but an awful lot of us. And if the easy amalgam of Islam and terrorism is to be made, they might well end up being a real threat and enemy. We, as westerners, have a lot more to do with this quarrel than we would like to admit. And instead of taking our responsibilities, we slowly diabolize Islam.

[mimil]

Elke,

I more than agree with on most of your development. However, don’t you find sad the assessment that to the level of individuals we are to behave in the same way? Are our relations simply meant to be business like? Isn’t that due a distortion provoked by the overuse of capitalism?

Moreover, isn’t it the failure of a system to have to strive for college money, healthcare, car, bigger house, holidays and whatever else to the expense of our relatives and relations? Specially when this system is the most wealthy of them all.

To go back closer to the issue of discussion, don’t you find that Afghanistan was a providential target and a welcomed scapegoat to bare the responsibility for 9/11. The Country had been at war and devastated for over 20 years with little wide coverage of the events, suddenly it was in front page of all newspaper.

Moreover the US has a huge war machine ready 24/7. The CIA is the biggest such like organization. Some of the hot shot there have mighty power, a power which is worthless without an enemy. How could the budget of the CIA and the US army be justified if all was at peace?

The US decided not to demobilized after WWII, and to gain public agreement, they need to feel threaten, they need to be on alert, they need to galvanize patriotism and sad to say but they need some kind of enemy.

And hopefully, you could do more than prove me wrong, you could convince me that I am.

[Mil]

Posted by Mimil:

The US decided not to demobilized after WWII, and to gain public agreement, they need to feel threaten, they need to be on alert, they need to galvanize patriotism and sad to say but they need some kind of enemy.


Little history do we know. Follow WWI US actually completely demobilized where by the beggining of WWII in 1939 it had only around 400 tanks. After WWII the US administration has understood that demobilizing and isolating again would be a mistake hence they would be dragged in into yet another war. As it happened they were right. There was the Cold War and all those post-colonial conflicts.

[mimil]

Originally posted by Mil
Posted by Mimil:

Little history do we know. Follow WWI US actually completely demobilized where by the beggining of WWII in 1939 it had only around 400 tanks. After WWII the US administration has understood that demobilizing and isolating again would be a mistake hence they would be dragged in into yet another war.

True enough, but out of point.

[Mil]

Posted by Mimil:

True enough, but out of point.


Not really. US has contained and protected the free world since WWI on all the fronts including political, economic and of course military. In the Middle East for example the United States since the 1950s or post the Sinai crisis, and especially post 1970 or the complete British withdrawal from Arabia, was and still is the main guaranteer of Status Quo in the region in political and especially in military terms.

Following the War in the Balkans, Northern Ireland Peace Process and the fall of the Soviet Union, as it turned out, US is also the main political and military guaranteer of Europe post Cold War. During the Cold War it was the main guaranteer of European political, military, and economic security.


Following Korea and Vietnam US was the political and military guaranteer in Asia. It was the United States that made Japan as it exists right now - an economic superpower. It was the United States that was the main fascilitator of China's entrance into the world stage as an economic power.

United States has being a guaranteer of Latin American political and military security since 1820s or since the Monroe Doctrine. US is still the main guaranteer of Latin America on political, economic and military stage.

The only continent that was overlooked is the continental Africa, outside of the Arab world. However, the United States is slowly getting there.

[Johnny Yuma]

Originally posted by mimil
Johnny please look further than words.
Britain is not needed? Mr. Blair put his career on the line to back the US in recent events. A providential Portuguese president was needed to add up to the lonely duo in the Azores. With all US might and influence a list of 35 countries only could find to support the war in Iraq. Something was amiss in these events and you say that Britain was not needed. I don't even know why I am arguing with you; you'll probably find something to say about my post, probably some lack of eloquence or pin point precision in my facts. I am not merely condemning everything for the simple sake of doing so. If Islam is the mighty evil, and if destruction shall be thrown on more than one billion of them, the issue concerns not Israel alone nor the US alone but an awful lot of us. And if the easy amalgam of Islam and terrorism is to be made, they might well end up being a real threat and enemy. We, as westerners, have a lot more to do with this quarrel than we would like to admit. And instead of taking our responsibilities, we slowly diabolize Islam.

I still don't see any Mormons straping bombs to themselves and detonating in cafes, buses, and discotheques. For that matter, I don't see any other religous sect doing such things. Why would reasonable people not make a connection between Islam and terrorist acts. Twern't Seventh Day Adventists flying those jets into the World Trade Center; nor Amish, nor Buddhists, nor Zoroastrians, nor Santeria practioners, nor Rhastafarians, nor Taoists, nor Wiccans, no.... It's not the parishioners of Saint Alfonso dressing their babies up like suicide bombers and driving them down to Sears to have their portraits taken. They were friggin' Muslims, Mimil.... stub out the fattie....

[elke]

The reason this capitalist system is the wealthiest, is precisely the fact that the relationships are business-like. It is wealthier because it is more productive, because it has harnessed the natural tendencies of human beings, and is using them to create the wealth.

There are real, tangible improvements to the condition of individuals who are not as adept at creating such wealth: for example, universal primary education is now prevalent in the Western world, with resounding success! The literacy rates have been steadily rising, and are now approaching 100%. What that does, in turn, is improve the society's capacity to produce wealth, as well as share it more equitably among its producers.

On the social front, in the US, there are healthcare programs now for otherwise uninsured, that weren't available before; there are welfare programs that help overcome temporary difficulties of single mothers with children; there are social security programs, that help out the elderly...

Are there still major problems? Of corse, there are! But it doesn't look hopeless, in the longrun: it is indeed "getting better all the time."

Now to the topic at hand: US and its foreign policies. Americans tend to be intraverted, not extraverted. What I mean, is that Americans tend to look inward: their work or family woes, local scandals, economic development in the country, taxation, civil rights issues, etc. The summer before 9/11, for example, most of the news headlines - and street conversations one heard - had to do with Gary Condit and his hapless affair with a young woman who was missing, presumed dead. Americans turn outwards, to the foreign policy, when they feel threatened, when they feel that they cannot freely pursue their primary interests, such as mentioned above. In order to confront that threat, they are willing to pay to maintain the military and the CIA; and in times when they feel an imminent danger emanating from the outside, foreign policy becomes an important political topic.

Unlike in much of the world, one cannot freely separate "the people" from "the government" in the US, simply because the government does represent the wishes of the majority. Of the majority that votes. However, it's the best that can be done: if someone doesn't care enough about his/her favorite issues to vote, then that vote will not be heard; - but then, they must be satisfied, even while grumbling possibly, with the way things are going: otherwise, they'd have voted! Therefore, the government of the US has the same primary interests at heart: the economy, the taxes, the healthcare, and education. All internal issues. It's the dictatorships that can create and use an enemy to justify their existence. True Democracies and Republics cannot! Because with that First Amendment - Freedom of Speech and Press - any hanky-panky would come out faster than the speed of light! It's one of those - seemingly negative - interrelationships between humans in the free world: the pitting of the Press against the Establishment - which is actually one of the primary factors in preventing anyone from acquiring absolute power, and especially the power over the minds of the population.