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

To: TimF who wrote (142967)	2/27/2002 4:43:35 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574129

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. You can't have it both ways.......you want the Europeans help when trying to track down the terrorists living in their countries but then you blow them off when you want to expand the war...how long would you as an individual put up with that kind of treatment. Most people would be pssed. We are taking a fairly unpopular stance in the world and we look like a big bully. Why would you alienate your friends at at time like that? Doesn't seem smart to me. 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. Why does it matter whether the Taliban were the gov't of Afghanistan or not? We are talking about prisoners of war. Our allies were asking us to follow the provisions in the Geneva Convention for treating POWs as one of the Convention's signatories. For a while there, we were refusing. Wouldn't you be suspicious of a partner who signed a partnership agreement with you but then decided that for a while, he/she would not follow certain provisions of that agreement? I would. 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. Maybe from where you are sitting the shift hasn't been very strong but from where I am sitting it has....and that's true for the Europeans as well. What issues are your European friends concerned about? Internal American issues? Both external and internal........things like the kyoto agreement and environmental issues in general; our military positioning and becoming an aggressor nation; the rise in nationalism; renewed talk of star wars and the development of other military systems; Ashcroft's attempts to intervene in OR's right to death law........it runs the gamut but aside from that, its the face we present to the world in general. Some of it we had no choice...like are bombing of Afghanistan but a lot of it reflects the tone of the Bush administration. Unless we start acting like the Nazi's or Pol Pot, its not really their problem even if we are doing something wrong.* I didn't say they saw it as a problem.....they are just surprised at the swift change. Whenever someone changes significantly, even nations, it takes a while for others to get used to the change. 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. Just the nature of your attitude in the paragraph above reflects the new conservatism.......fukk you if you don't like what we want, its us against the world. Doesn't work well in social groups and its the same for 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. Yes but one of his main points was that the current European criticism is motivated by envy. I don't think that's a fair statement. Do you? I could 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. I think the only thing that will cause some separation is the EU. As the EU becomes the US's equal economically, we will perceive them as more of a threat to our economic well being. I then can see us becoming more economically tied to Mexico and Canada because of certain synergies.......but not S. America, because of their stability issues. ted