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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (9185)	1/3/2001 8:54:47 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10042

European leaders keep complaining about Europe's overall low-profile on the diplomatic scene I, for one, am pleased to see Europe playing a more active role in the mid-east, especially if it's the french "dissing" Hezbollah. Between you, me, and the doorpost... I'm more worried about China than I am about an emerging Europe. Sure, China has a GDP 1/10th that of the US, but with an expected population of 1.7 Billion in 2015, they will fling a lot of weight around Asia just in terms of manpower. So I see the merit in letting Europe forms strong ties with Russia and Israel, while we work to form stronger ties with the Arabs. That takes some of the political risk off the US, and having more than one nation actively confronting Islamic extremism removes much of the rationale in referring to the US as pawns of the Zionist conspiracy. They way I look at it, Europe can do a better job of leading Russia to democracy than we can, if only because of proximity. The US should focus on Latin America and the acting as an additional diplomatic force in the mid-east where it would seem US and European interests dovetail. China, imo, is the greatest threat long-term to stability in the world. Their leadership makes little pretense about their disdain for democracy, and their desire to co-opt capitalist economics with no political freedom. The premise for my concerns is that it is normally very difficult for a democracy to go to way against another democracy. There must be extraordinary circumstances that will generate popular opinion behind such an action. And true democracies will reflect pressure to end a "bad war" that is not in the nation's interests. We've seen such a case happen with the US in Vietnam, and the SU/Russia in Afghanistan, where public opinion eventually drove the result. But I've yet to see such moderation on the part of China, and that really concerns me. Regards, Ron