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

To: Sam Citron who wrote (80189)	3/7/2003 3:14:16 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Challenging the Rush to War by John Nichols* The Nation Posted March 5, 2003 thenation.com <<...Considering the fact that the Bush Administration is the planet's primary proponent of war with Iraq, Nancy Lessin wants to know why the US Congress has failed to follow the example of parliaments around the world that are debating whether a war is necessary. "When we look at the world community, we see that they had a debate in the Parliament of Turkey. They had a debate in the Parliament of Great Britain. They are having serious debates in legislative bodies all over the world, and yet there is no debate in Congress," says Lessin, the mother of a 25-year-old Marine who has been dispatched to the Persian Gulf...>> <<...The willingness of some in Congress to demand a debate is reassuring to Nancy Lessin, who is frustrated by the failure of the White House and leaders in the House and Senate to take seriously the dictates of the Constitution. As the mother of a Marine who would fight the war and an activist with the group Military Families Speak Out, Lessin says she is certain that the best way to support the troops is to demand that Congress take seriously its constitutionally defined responsibility to debate whether the US should go to war. "The men and women who have already been assigned to the Persian Gulf are doing a job," Lessin says. "They do not write their job description. Their job description is written in Washington, DC. The decision on whether to go to war is a political decision. We see it as our duty to make sure that the job description does not involve invading Iraq. But even if members of Congress do not share that view, they have a duty to hold a debate and to vote on whether to declare war. They swear an oath to uphold the Constitution, and we are demanding that they obey that oath."...>> *John Nichols, The Nation's Washington correspondent, has covered progressive politics and activism in the United States and abroad for more than a decade. He is currently the editor of the editorial page of Madison, Wisconsin's Capital Times. Nichols is the author of It's the Media, Stupid

To: Sam Citron who wrote (80189)	3/7/2003 4:03:39 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Thoughtful post, Sam. <most such attempts at cultural imperialism are doomed to fail and that the most successful examples of reform are those that boil up from within the indigenous culture, instead of being imposed from without.> Force will not work. The War must contain some Force, but only as a minor component. Imperialism, yes, that is doomed to failure, which is why Bush's methods are going to lead to disaster. Did you read my analogy between the WarOnDrugs and the WarOnTerrorism? Message 18631996 But that doesn't mean all solutions are local. It doesn't mean nobody listens to anybody else. Actually, the opposite process is happening. The Global Village means everyone pays attention to everyone else's successes and failures. There are very very few original ideas. "I see far because I stand on the shoulders of Giants." King read Gandhi. And the million E. Germans who held a sitdown strike in the streets of E. Berlin, and faced down the Communist's tanks, they too read Gandhi. I think the ideals in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independance are Ideas that will eventually displace all competing Ideas. And Gandhi told us how the Astronauts With Grenades on Spaceship Earth should act and think. That's the thrust of history, and it will continue. But it will not happen by U.S. Generals doing Nation-Building, after ShockAndAwe with massed tanks advancing behind a barrage of cruise missiles. That's just not the right tool to use to spread the memes of Democracy and Freedom. Cultural change is done by persuasion, not force. The NeoCons say that Islamists (and N. Koreans, too) are sub-human savages, inherently violent and anti-democratic, and the only method to deal with them is to put them in a cage, take away all sharp objects, and bludgeon them whenever they try to get out of their cage. The NeoCons don't believe in persuasion, or talk of any kind. They Demonize the Other, which creates the intellectual justification for unlimited violence against the Other. In 1872, the Japanese had a Revolution, and then started a successful response to the West. The Japanese thoroughly studied the West, sending their sons to study in England and America and Germany. Then, they carefully chose some aspects of Western Culture to imitate. After picking and choosing, they deliberately replaced parts of their traditional culture. Other, actually most, of their pre-Western culture, was maintained and defended. The parts of the West they imitated, gave them the technological and economic advances to deal with the West. This is what the Muslim world has to do, to find their house in the Global Village. OBL wants to defend Islam by rejecting everything Western, and it won't work. An uncritical pan-imitation of the West, or Westernization imposed by Force, isn't going to work, either. There is nothing inherent in Muslim culture, that prevents this. In fact, from the founding of Islam through the 1600s, the Muslim world was closer to the Enlightenment ideals than the Christian world was.