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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (35125)	7/28/2002 9:04:13 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Queen's Navy Yeah, it was "Rule Victoria!" My male chauvinism coming through, I guess. I followed up on Tek's comments on various Political Science types who he believed are the best by googling and reading excerpts from them tonight. They are, of course, multilateralists to the bone. I don't advocate a "lone wolf" policy, but I think it was time for a change. I think Europe had got to used to playing "Greece" to our "Rome" in the cold war years. We have an intellectual history in this country of believing that European culture is superior to American Culture going back to right after the Civil War. Our top students went to Germany to study Science and Philosophy, and came back here to teach the superiority of the European Culture. When you read the articles by present American academics, the "Europhile" attitude comes through, IMO. The Europeans have not helped matters by making it clear that they consider Bush to be a stupid, ignorant, illiterate, cowboy. I sometimes think that the best way to describe the situation would be a cartoon that shows Uncle Sam driving a car full of his family, with a "Europe" Mother-in-law bitching in the back seat.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (35125)	7/28/2002 9:23:10 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The failure to resolve the Mideast mess, both Israel/Pal and Saddam's successful clinging to power, has cost the US political clout and 'awe' in the Mideast. Our perceived weakness, exacerbated by our failure to respond effectively to previous terrorist attacks on our forces, emboldened Al Qaeda and paved the way for Sept. 11th. Not only 9/11, but it caused the Gulf War, IMO. Every time you examine root causes, Reagans actions in Lebanon come up. Our pull out there after the Marine Bombing made us appear as a very weak sister to the Arab World. In the "Frontline" interview that I posted a URL on, Haass says that the major reason Saddam believed we would not put troops in to stop him was Lebanon. I have another quote from that interview that points out other good reasons for our actions then, and, IMO, they still hold true for now. It is posted at the end. BTW, I don't think that the WMD threat is a WWI "Belgium Baby" situation. Saddam really, really wants these weapons, with a delivery system. Even if he did not use them on a first strike basis, he would feel he had us checkmated in any attempt to get him out. To those of you who believe we should not invade, I ask you, what would you have us do after he shows that he has Atomic weapons? What would an invasion cost us then? Do you think we can set here and "contain" him like we did the Russians? Here is the Haass quote: Q: And why did this invasion matter? (Gulf War) Haass: The invasion mattered on a couple of levels, one was oil. If Saddam controlled Kuwait it wouldn't simply be the control over that chunk of the world's oil but no other country in the region could ever be independent again. They knew that if they ever crossed Saddam at the next OPEC meeting this could happen to them, he didn't have to invade Saudi Arabia or the other producers to have control over them. Big end to the peace process, Israel would never be free to even contemplate a trade of territory for peace with anybody . But beyond the region it would set in motion the worst conceivable trends that this was going to be the nature of the post cold war world there's essentially going to become a free for all. You don't get historical training points a lot, maybe I studied too much history, but this to me was one of those training points and I just had the sense that whatever he did and didn't do, whatever he said or didn't say, was going to have consequences beyond this crisis. Even though the crisis itself had enormous stakes. So I just thought this was one of those times in history when things counted. pbs.org