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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (13735)	2/27/2003 5:02:03 PM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 25898

When empires become overconfident Jalal Al Mashta What the U.S. is doing today is merely a repetition of what has happened already several times in history, starting with Alexander the Great and ending with Adolph Hitler. When empires become overconfident and their power starts expanding, this expansion defuses their power and increases the number and intensity of enmity against them. This setback is not restricted to superpowers, but reaches anyone whose muscles expand to the point of seeing his brains shrink. Iraq suffered this illness when its leadership resorted to its muscles rather than its brains when dealing with its enemies. It fought two destructive wars instigated by the "disease of power." Men have tried to place moral and legal conditions to curb this "disease," and they are sometimes enforced effectively, and even excessively, as in the case of Iraq. On the other hand, these restraints are sometimes ignored, as is the case with Israel. However, the American "disease" is more serious, in that it is the patient and the doctor at the same time, and its intentions in Iraq will lead to removing all the international restrictions and heighten the disease of power to the extent that it will threaten the entire human body, including the U.S. The institutions on which American democracy rests should normally play their role in treating this disease; as for the elite, or the country's brains, they were supposed to curb the recklessness of muscles. But this never happened, or the efforts that were made were wasted. It could be argued that the Bush administration did not find a serious opposition to achieve aims, which the majority controlling Washington agrees on. But the way these aims are being pursued does not point to considerable intelligence. It split the world among those who support America and those who oppose it. Most probably, there is an inverted relationship between brains and power in the U.S. It is today the most powerful country in the world, and its military budget equals the combined budgets of the 20 countries that come after it; but its current president has nothing of Franklin Roosevelt or John Kennedy. He is even different from President George Bush 41. His Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld "succeeded" in driving the Europeans to intensify their opposition to the war, by using expressions that are close to insults. This situation is reflected in all sectors in the U.S., from business to popular culture. Enron, which burst like a soap bubble, is the rule and not the exception in a country that used to boast such giant companies, which were founded by men such as Ford, Morgan, Rockefeller and others. The U.S. used to excel in the games of political chess, yet today it wants to change the rules of the game so as to ensure its victory. America, which has an extensive nuclear arsenal and a developed economy and advanced technology, lacks the brains to put some sense into that power. (Al-Hayat) February 27, 2003 japantoday.com