For the rest of the world, its business as usual.
And maybe THAT'S the problem.
The US equates to 33% of the world's business and unless they think we're going to totally ignore the fact that many of these economies are heavily dependent upon US markets, maybe they'd better figure out what side their bread is buttered on.
Oh of course they're not true democracies. But they're stil vulnerable to public opinion.....
And never will be at the rate most of these middle eastern nations are progressing. What are they thinking... that suddenly things will miraculously get better on their own without their having to deal with the corruption and grievous injustice existing in their societies??
Part of me just wants to get this over with now by having these unstable governments fall to their fanatics, so we sort out the white hats from the black hats.
Part of the problem is that, in developing much of the rest of the world and providing them access to our markets, we have have had the moxy to use that economic leverage. Thus, our toleration for the nonsense from some of these illegitimate regimes has become ridiculous and undermined are true interests.
Bush needs to do is hire a few third world, non aligned people to advise him of the customs and culture of the East...
You know something KG... 200 million chinese aren't studying English for nothing. And there aren't hundreds of millions of Americans selling themselves into servitude to organized criminals just to escapt their plight. And THEY have a trade surplus with US, not the other way around. Which means they have more to lose than we do. They NEED to do business here in the US, not the other way around (though it certainly would be nice)..
So pardon me if I'm not overly sympathetic to those who argue that we need to "understand" Asia, or how we need to understand the concept of "losing face". Or how they do business using verbal contracts based upon the "honor" of each participant and we need to just accept that.
I'm all for learning the traditions of other nations. But I'm all for THEIR learning OUR traditions as well and creating a atmosphere of mutual respect.
I can see how it would have pissed off a whole nation.....and you don't want them any madder than they already are...
At this particular moment, I could care less how mad they are. They are NO WHERE NEAR AS ANGRY AS THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
We didn't give a crap about those anti-Nazi Germans, or anti-Fascist Italians when we engaged in around the clock bombing raids on their civilian and industrial centers. What makes you think we'd give a crap about taking out ANY Arab or muslim WHO DARED to claim that it's our fault that a bunch of fanatics targeted 50,000 innocent civilians, and killed 5,000 of them.
Maybe Al-Wahleed will think twice before opening his big trap and causing AMERICA to lose "face". I just wonder if the 'ol boy is big enough to apologize?
Doubt it..
Hawk |
