Pax Americana? or Pox Neocona?

Ken, the problem is that Babylon is a liability to everyone in the world. Rhetoric aside, one wonders if the President really believes that there can be any sort of democracy in an Arab country? I do not, but I am a mere common man.

As soon as we have military stability and some sort of Iraqi government, we are out of there forever. The whole orient has a reputation for despotic rule for thousands of years--especially the type of despotism wherein the ruler and the religion were tied together. Islam is too backward to be tied to any good government and too powerful to allow a secular government. The Turks have a system wherein if Islam threatens the government, then the army stages a coup--or so I have read.

The United States has done too much for Islam. Time to leave. We are only customers at the gas pump. We need to find another gas station where there is no trouble from the owners.

 

It had to be that way.

The group of people in the Administration who were pulling the strings on this invasion (Wolfowitz, Perle, Cheney and Rumsfield) not only needed the war for their foreign policy goals, but they had the military all revved up and ready to go. In addition, American business had just succeeded in getting exclusive contracts for rebuilding the country, and a promise that other countries would be excluded from the profits.

So these neo-cons in the Administration had no choice - they weren't about to call off a perfectly good war just because the other side surrendered unconditionally. How rude of the Iraqis to give us exactly what we had been asking for.

 

This sounds like a French, German and Belgium argument that the USA is seeking empire.

Let's talk about Babylon.

What nation will make a colony of Babylon? And when did colonies get to be profitable? Colonies are a liability. Iraq is like the Gaza Strip or the West Bank--a perpetual war. Iraq never offered to surrender and still has not in case you have not seen the news this week.

It looks as if the Democrats are going to nominate Dean. That should make 2004 a vote about the war in Iraq. Will the USA cut and run?

 

Who said anything about a colony or an empire? Have you gone over Niagara Falls, also? Or are you just another Don Quixote?

Tell me, guys, did you say anything about empire when Bill Clinton put troops in Bosnia--troops that were supposed to have been withdrawn years ago. Islamic countries are a mess. Maybe you are too anxious for Howard Dean to be President.

 

In my opinion, Libertarians never seem to care when the down and out are suffering. Libertarians are like the imperial British--you have yours. Your closeness to the Democrats can be seen in your refusal to call Bosnia a left-wing Democrat empire. You should be supportive of Dean since he wants to do what the Libertarians want to do: nothing worthwhile.

 

The US *is* seeking an empire - one where they can install sympathetic governments, and simply extract concessions for basing rights and natural resource contracts. We have done it before; in the Philippines, for example.

Babylon hasn't existed for several thousand years. Are you speaking metaphorically here?

Funny; big powers don't seem to think so. The Ottomans had Iraq as a colony for several hundred years. Then the British came in, and had Iraq as a colony for 40 or 50 years. Oh, and by the way - during that time, they were unable to create a Western style govt or economic system. So when George Bush tells the American people that we invaded Iraq to promote democracy and that we're going to have a Western govt - just remember that the British were there almost 50 years, and they failed at those same goals. In other words, Bush is lying.

Actually they did. If you'd take the time to read the article that started this thread, you wouldn't have made that mistake.

The news this week is irrelevant. The actions of a couple dozen or so individual fighters are not the same thing as the official govt of Saddam Hussein.

If we're smart, we will. Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, and everything to do with control of oil.

 

Big difference.

1. We weren't going in as occupiers - we went in to break up warring factions and preserve the Moslem minority from being "ethnically cleansed".

2. We had UN backing and European backing for the action, which meant that we were able to go to the UN and Europe and get money as well as troops to support us, so that the burden was equally spread around;

3. We weren't handing out contracts to big campaign donors and making the US taxpayer foot the bill.

4. Clinton didn't tell the American public that Bosnia was harboring weapons of mass destruction, in an attempt to enflame public opinion and get the population behind the Bosnian action

The two situations have almost *nothing* in common.

Note - it's alarming to think about all the people in the US who have the *nerve* to cast a vote, and yet have no clue about foreign policy or any memory of past events.

 

Anne Coulter (Who I actualy do like many her columns) but unfortuanately goes over board at times and repeats what I think many believe. She stated after 9/11

Personaly I think we should avoid the Lincoln/Grant scorched earth theory of War and is the USA supposed to be doing evangelism? or is that the business of the Church? I find linking convert them to Christianity and carpet bombing cities and war to be polar opposites. I do think there are some Conservatives who think we should go on military adventures to make countries into Republics. On the other hand Liberals seem to want to make the USA Military into a meals on wheels global cop (Bosnia is a good example of that)

 

Are we using the same definition of "empire"? My Webster's New World College Dictionary says an empire is "a state uniting many territories and peoples under a single sovereign power."

Colonies may be valuable to the French, who have a reputation for ripping off African nations, but most Europeans dislike their colonial past and warn against colonies. They are financial liabilities because they have needs that they cannot meet and the imperial nation is then faced with having to spend a lot of money on them.

Iraq is heavily in debt to France and Germany. Her oil revenues are not enough to pay for the modernization that is needed to improve sanitation and install utilities. Nor are her oil revenues enough to support her people in high-paying jobs. So Iraq would be a red-ink colony for anyone foolish enough to want it. Our interest is to quiet it, disarm it, put some kind of stable government in place, and leave as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, the pressure is on the Islamofascists. Look at the news. Sudan is talking about peace. Syria is quieting down. Iran looks over the border and sees a powerful American army. The Kurds are breathing a sigh of relief. The Turks can relax the high alerts.

As for those who say that I know nothing about foreign policy, I want to emphasize that I have eaten in several International House of Pancake restaurants. So I am acquainted with international pancakes, and once I bought a box of Swedish pancake mix.

 

Well, who are these people you are talking about, Ken? I myself despise the French Revolution, so I would not be interested in executing rich people and Catholic clergy. Catholic clergy are irrelevant. Nor do I want to do anything with Egypt. From what I understand it is a very filthy country. As for Syria and Iran, etc, the idea that Arabs can reconcile Islam with a republic is doubtful to me. It defies the thousands of years of oriental depotism (based upon tying religion up with the head of state) that predates even Islam. As long as they cooperate, it is in US interests to stay out of those countries that the liberals are mentioning.

What really is going on here is that the Libertarians and Liberal Democrats are trying to nominate Dean and make the war an issue.

What does it matter who the Democrats nominate, other than as a subject of curiosity? If the Democrats are a national party no more and the Libertarians are a national party never before, neither group is likely to be anything except also-rans. Can all this fancy rhetoric and name-calling really dent Bush a year before the election?

By the way, Democrats, I really have no idea what you are going to do and I think that you are should be free to make up your own minds. Personally, I doubt if Democrats try Dean because of the memory of McGovern, but it is for the Democrats to decide--I vote in the GOP primary.

As for the GOP, sure it is a blunt instrument. But the election is a year off so why does the GOP have to do much until the proper season?

So post on, Libertarians and Democrats! Don't mind if the GOP saves its ammunition for next fall.

 

It seems to me that this is a tempest in a pot of tea. All we are talking about here is a minor shift in US foreign policy as a result of Nine Eleven. To say that Bush really believes that an Arab state will become democratic is to push cynicism to its breaking point.

So we really need a list of names of who these terrible goblins are that haunt the dreams of the left-wing.

Bush is a politican, not an ideologue. The ideologues are the paranoid types who write these name-calling articles. It is laughable to even think that anyone in the Bush family has any ideology other than what is expressed openly. Having visions has never been a Bush trademark. President Bush 41 said that he did not have that "vision thing." Neither does Dubya.

Too erudite, Ken. Politics is too dirty for all that stuff that you are talking about. It is more elemental.

 

Which would be?

 

Bush says what he means. Remember the left first said that he was a moron. Now they are re-running the point of view that he has engaged in a conspiracy to build an empire out of the Arab middle east. It turns out that by empire the left does not mean the dictionary definition. They mean something like sphere of influence.

One of the names on the list for the last year or two is a minor journalist named Kristol--a hard-core McCain supporter during the 2000 primaries. How he got on that list is hard for me to understand.

This point of view is very popular with the left in both the USA and in France, Germany, and Belgium. If you believe in conspiracy theories, here is something for you. I guess Bill Bennett is the Las Vegas connection. Kirkpatrick must be getting payback for naming the San Francisco Democrats twenty years ago. Rumsfeld has shown his disorder; the assistant could not even get a secure hotel in Iraq. The Vice-President is sick, but his job is not worth a pitcher of warm spit.

What we really have is a war against terror.