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

To: tejek who wrote (142963)	2/27/2002 3:49:11 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574109

Tim, first off we seem to be playing the current war scenario whichever way works for us with little input from Europe. Oh yeah, at the beginning, we asked for Europe's support and affirmation but then when it became clear that Europe did not want it to go any further than Afghanistan, we stopped asking. How much input do you think we should have to have from Europe before we act in cases like this? Esp. when they disagree with some of what we plan on doing. Consulting with them is a good idea, but the decision was and is and should be ours because its our operation. Secondly, one minute this whole thing is a war and therefore secret military tribunals are justified, then in the next minute, this is not a war and we do not have to house the prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Convention. If I were a European leader, I would be a little surprised that the US which claims to be God's chosen, the super power with a heart, twists the laws to suit its own purposes. No twisting involved. Al-Qaeda is not a country and its armed members are terrorists, more a kin to pirates and spies under international law and tradition not soliders. The Taliban had a better claim under the Geneva convention but they where not recognized as the government of Afghanistan by more then a couple of countries, and they never signed the Geneva convention. For both groups will pretty much followed the Geneva convention anyway while denying any obligation to do so. Later we agreed to commit to follow the Geneva convention for the captured Taliban members. Thirdly, the US's strong shift to the right has caught most of Europe off guard. The US has not made a strong or sudden shift to the right. Yes Bush is to the right of Clinton but he is following the pattern of Reagan and Bush Sr. What issues are your European friends concerned about? Internal American issues? Unless we start acting like the Nazi's or Pol Pot, its not really their problem even if we are doing something wrong. Missile defense? Thats a matter of protecting our cities and our soldiers from attack. Its defensive not offensive and if they don't like the idea they don't have to impliment it in thier countries. Why would Europe be envious?There lifestyle is generally better than us...yes, we might have a bigger GDP or whatever but the average Western European lives well with less people living on skid row. It might arguably be true that the richest West European countries live better, but even that involves a lot of subjective decisions about what is living well or living better. Compared to Western Europe as a whole, or even the richer countries in Western Europe, we have lower unemployment, bigger houses, more cars and computers per person, higher per capita GDP and higher disposable income. In any case I don't think "we are wealthier then Europe" was the author's main point. It certainly is not mine. I could go on but its ridiculous to think that South America will replace Europe as our allies any time in the next 50 years. S. America, after centuries of turmoil, has just begun to realize some political and economic stability.....and that stability is very tenuous at best. I don't think the point is a near term thing. It might be more then 50 years. It might never happen. The author's point is that there seems to be a bit of divergence between the interests and the opinions of Europeans and Americans. Obviously we won't always think the same thing about many issues, but the divergence seems to be increasing. Of course the tiest between the US and Euope go beyond the issues we agree on, their are cultural, historical, and treaty ties. However the cultural and historical ties might weaken as a bigger and bigger percentage of our population has its roots in Latin America instead of Europe. Im not saying (and I don't think the author was saying) that the US and Europe are destined to drift apart just that they have move a little apart and there are some forces that could cause them to drift apart more. Tim