So you think President Bush is a warmongering imperialist bully?

R

Rearden Metal

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR

I keep hearing complaints from the French and the Germans — and sometimes from United Nations apparatchiks — that the United States is acting as a unilateralist (though we have the support of 18 European nations plus many non-European nations), imperialist (though we aren’t likely to claim Iraq as territory) bully (though the Security Council passed a resolution calling for Saddam Hussein to do exactly what we’re demanding that he do). But I’m tired of responding to these comments with facts that will fall on stony and unreceptive ground.

Instead, I want to perform a “thought experiment” by asking this question: “How would the United States be acting if it really were an imperialist bully?” The answer is, “very differently.”

An imperial nation, possessed of the kind of lopsided military power the United States has in today’s world, wouldn’t waste its time with inspectors and diplomacy. Nor would it limit its ambitions to Iraq.

An Imperial America would probably join with nascent superpower India to divide up and conquer the region. India could have Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran; we’d take Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Egypt.

What about the “Arab street?” The answer would be machine guns, labor camps, and bulldozed mosques.

For the entire, brilliant article:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/856672.asp
 
The Muslim world may be painting themselves into the proverbial corner someday. Like the bumber sticker I saw the other day: "God, protect me from your followers."
 
The author brings up a good point-- that if America is attacked on a wide scale with WMD's, we may engauge in previously unimagined behavior.

I was thinking about this the other day, and it's not pretty. I'm not even talking so much about the government as I am American people. I would hate to be an Arab Muslim if such an attack took place.

And just out of curiousity, if we are attacked with WMD's, whom is the American government supposed to retaliate against? After 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq were blamed, but their culpability was only indirect. If no nation state is directly behind a large scale attack, whom is there to attack? I fear that in this circumstance America just may start acting crazy like the article describes.
 
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN:`The Bush talk that we can fight this war with just a "coalition of the willing" — meaning Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — is dangerous nonsense. There is only one coalition that matters to the average American and average world citizen. It is one approved by the U.N. and NATO. We may not be able to garner it, but we need to be doing everything we can — everything — to try before we go to war.

Why? Because there is no war we can't win by ourselves, but there is no nation we can rebuild by ourselves — especially Iraq.´

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/12/opinion/12FRIE.html

Estonia http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/en.html

Latvia http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/lg.html

Lithuania http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/lh.html
 
>>but we need to be doing everything we can — everything — to try before we go to war.<<

So how patient should one really be ?

Remember how virtuously patient the UN was when there was a massacre in Burundi.

The world stood still , being most virtuously patient whilst people were getting slaughtered.

We have nations who want to lead the world yet think the best way to do it is to sit on one's hands.

People were getting slaughtered right in front of U.N. soldiers who carried weapons as ornaments only i.e. they weren't allowed to intervene and protect the innocents .

What a world we live in.

freealways
 
Quote from Corso482:

The author brings up a good point-- that if America is attacked on a wide scale with WMD's, we may engauge in previously unimagined behavior.

I was thinking about this the other day, and it's not pretty. I'm not even talking so much about the government as I am American people. I would hate to be an Arab Muslim if such an attack took place.

And just out of curiousity, if we are attacked with WMD's, whom is the American government supposed to retaliate against? After 9/11, Afghanistan and Iraq were blamed, but their culpability was only indirect. If no nation state is directly behind a large scale attack, whom is there to attack? I fear that in this circumstance America just may start acting crazy like the article describes.
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That's precisely the problem you cannot wage a war against terrorists. Europeans have lived for decades in fear of terrorism acts, Israel too, did we go bomb Algeria when the GIA bombed Paris? No. Did the UK carpet bomb Northern Ireland because of the IRA? No. Americans will have to recognize they are vulnerable and they can do very little about it. They are not insulated from the world even if they were or still are in their mind. Your government has done and can do pretty bad things and the American people may suffer retaliations because of this,so you 'd better realize that what Bush is doing now is only making things worse: he alienated Germany ,France,brought about a major diplomatic incident with North Korea which threatened to strike the US I mean this is unprecedented.
 
Quote from Madison:



the jist of this essay is "don't complain, because it could be worse"?
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No the gist is that the liberal press, our wimp allies, the MF's (Muslim Fundamentalists) and their supporters, are misusing the word "imperialists." See the following article in detail:

http://washingtontimes.com/commentary/20030212-2154696.htm

Excerpt:

"Why is this happening to America? Didn't we recently free a sizable portion of the world from the grip of communism? Are not thousands of our young men buried at Normandy and the names of others carved on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington for paying the highest price and bearing the ultimate burden in the service of other people's freedom and humanity? Have we not transferred trillions of dollars in aid and trade to other nations, and would do so to those in the Middle East if they would live in peace with us and their neighbors?

What other nation rebuilds and reconciles with its enemies like the United States? Radical Islamists claim the United States oppresses Muslims around the world, but this is a clever lie to divert the attention of the oppressed from their real oppressors — political and religious dictators who wish to remain in power and have access to life's goodies, while denying the same to others in order to keep them under their control. They add to their oppression a vision of an angry, vengeful God who needs corrupt human beings to impose his will by force and to murder anyone who can be labeled an "infidel," which is to say everyone — even Muslims — who do not subscribe to their doctrine of serial assassinations, terrorism and the dehumanizing of women."
 
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