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

To: aladin who wrote (74886)	2/17/2003 2:20:43 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<Polls were heavily against entering WW2 and only changed with Pearl Harbor> That's an interesting bit of history, a study in how a leader of a democratic country maneuvers public opinion to go where he wants to go. Clearly, FDR was a lot more hawkish than U.S. public opinion. The Depression was the main problem people wanted fixed, and most Americans remembered WWI as a futile bloodbath. So, FDR orchestrated an economic embargo against Japan. Japan is a small overcrowded island, without most of the natural resources needed to feed their people and run their economy. Oil, in particular, was something they needed to run their warships, and had to buy from foreigners. Oil has been coming up, as a reason for war, for a long time. The U.S. public didn't realize where this was heading, so FDR could do it. So, Japan had a choice: go to war to seize oil fields, or bow to U.S. demands that Japan withdraw from China and give up all ideas of Empire. And if they were going to go to war, they had to do it quickly, before existing oil stocks ran out. So they did, and we were in the war, and FDR had what he wanted. Our nation believed we had been subject to an unprovoked attack, and was outraged, and fully supported the war. Very cleverly done.

To: aladin who wrote (74886)	2/17/2003 4:41:31 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Greetings, John. As to your first point, that one can debate the "dangerous" reputation in global public opinion of the Bush administration, you counter that leaders such as Blair offer support. That's, of course, why it's not debatable. Public opinion in Britain, Spain, and Italy, is sufficiently strongly against the Bush administration that each government is in danger. That is not a view of the left. The various and sundry articles on the European demonstrations noted how widespread the sources of participation are and the levels of public opinion polls are such that it's clearly not whatever you wish to mean by the "left." The left's McCarthyism of today is based on the word 'unilateral'. 16 to 18 Nato countries support the basic US position. 1 to 3 (depending on when you look) oppose. Looks a lot more like France is unilateral from a absolute definition standpoint. I don't know who dropped the McCarthyism term in here. Don't recall using it in my original post, nor using anything that would tend to pull it up. So, I'll just ignore it. But your point about unilateralism misses my point. We need not argue the morality or the preferences at the moment. The Bush folk, and this was my point, have to find some sort of cloak of legitimacy in order to tamper down the public opinion problem. Less it swamp US opinion as well. They've gone the UNSC route and so are stuck with it. Polls - lets get to them - sometimes Government is just that and should not be led by or managed through opinion polls. These polls were against involvement in Bosnia, Kosovo and Somolia - the 3 you choose to say were noble causes. I don't recall those European polls. If you wish to argue this, you would need to find some evidence, John. However, it is clear there was nothing like the Saturday demonstrations then, nor the deep dislike of the Clinton administration. In fact, I seem to recall that Clinton left office as something of a favorite of the Europeans. Probably even more so now. Polls were heavily against entering WW2 and only changed with Pearl Harbor. Some evidence would help here. Also some notion of just how well crafted national polls were in the late 30s and early 40s as compared to today. I seem to recall the infamous poll that had FDR defeated in 36 and Truman defeated in 48. Your turn.