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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scumbria who wrote (135276)	3/30/2001 9:59:27 PM
From: stribe30	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1580645

Sorry Scumb.. I forgot to include the Canadian perspective:) tho this is more on Bush and the Republicans in general. GEORGE BUSH can't claim a mandate to rock the geopolitical boat, much less capsize it. He barely got elected last fall. He lost the popular vote. And after 10 weeks his approval rating is sliding fast. Yet Bush has startled friends and foes alike with the sheer abrasiveness of his attitudes toward Russia, China and North Korea, and his indifference to world opinion on issues like global warming. Last week Bush discovered that the Russians have spies, and gave 50 of them the heave-ho. He's been cool to meeting Vladimir Putin to talk arms control. His officials call the Russians "a nation of proliferators;" they complain about Moscow selling Iran weapons; they meet Chechen separatists. Eyeing China, they talk about the need to "fight and win a nuclear war," with Asia as the likeliest battleground. They see China as a "competitor," not a strategic partner, and lambaste it for selling Iraq technology. They talk of selling Taiwan powerful anti-missile defences. Meanwhile, Bush has undercut South Korea's bid to get North Korea to shelve its missile program, as it has its nuclear program, in exchange for trade and aid. The Bush White House calls this "clarity, realism, decisiveness." Critics call it folly. As the wreckage piles up, Republican think tanks crank out alarmist studies to demonstrate that the continental United States is open to attack and intimidation. Has the world suddenly gone on a war footing? Hardly. But the Cold War era people around Bush - Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Don Rumsfeld, to name two - are truly ambitious patriots. They know that the U.S. is undefeatable, and has been for a decade or more. They dream of making it invulnerable as well. They don't want even to be threatened by pipsqueak powers. They are convinced that Ballistic Missile Defence can deliver that invulnerability. Ronald Reagan dreamed up Star Wars in 1983 as a hedge against Soviet attack. When the Soviets went away, Iraq became the new threat. Once Iraq was humbled, North Korea stood in as the villain. There's no prize for spotting a trend here. If the Bush administration doesn't play its cards carefully, North Korea will go cuddly and there won't be a half-credible enemy left to shield against. Most Americans support the idea of a Fortress North America. But as the U.S. economy slows and Bush has to trim his $1.6 trillion tax cut or slash federal health, education and social services, people may think twice about sinking $100 billion into a missile shield, absent a clear and present danger. However, if Washington can make a persuasive case that the U.S. is surrounded by hostile countries, Star Wars would be an easier sell. This has implications for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's government, indeed for all U.S. allies. We've been lobbied by Washington to keep an "open mind" about missile defence, at least until Bush rolls out his plans later this year. Meanwhile, U.S. officials are working overtime to persuade us that (1) missile defence can work; (2) that its deployment is both necessary and inevitable; and (3) that allies must sign on, or kiss off defence co-operation. Flawed though these premises are, the Chrétien government is choosing not to question them. It should. The Bush administration seems bent on creating sufficient friction to make the world a truly interesting place. Not one in which Canadians can feel safer. That's a stiff price to pay for Republican daydreams. Realistically, do the Americans face a potential threat? Yes. A small one. Though a regime would be crazy to lob a missile their way. But working with players like the Russians and Chinese, the U.S. could easily contain bad actors. However Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and friends would have to settle for America being the unbeatable nation, and not the invulnerable one. The question for Chrétien is this: Why should Canada be stampeded into supporting a go-alone U.S. program driven by a new global alarmism, and which will leave the world more dangerous than before? Rather than be cowed by Republican demagoguery, the Chrétien government should try to remember what the world looked like before all this began. Russia was a weak, struggling democracy, tilting West and trying to salvage a shred of dignity as a faded power. China just wanted to turn a buck. North Korea was a starving beggar, seeking to come in from the cold. Iran was struggling with its own internal demons. Iraq was a broken reed. Who, exactly, are we worried about? thestar.com