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

To: tekboy who wrote (123014)	1/11/2004 4:39:28 AM
From: Sig	Respond to of 281500

<<< The Iraq war, in conjunction with a lot of other things the administration has done, has convinced most of the rest of the world that America's unprecedented and unmatchable power can and will be relatively capriciously deployed in situations where almost nobody else thinks it should be. That plays right into the hands of those who want to paint the US as the real threat (as opposed to the bad guys out there), and has complicated the task of future world leadership.>>>> Each Nations leader considers himself to be in the right in nearly all matters. He considers that things are uniguely different in his country and so it is necessary to handle disidents in a certain manner , like kill them, or to buy them off,or whatever In regard to thinking of world leadership and the New UN or NUN, IMO the NUN is not going to improve things a great deal. Religions are so diverse, and growing new strands all the time, that no consensus can be obtained and the world will remain a contentious place. Thou shalt not kill is such a strong rule in Western Nations that many have given up on capital punishment. Muslim nations sometimes interpret their religion to require them go out and kill everyone , especially the Jews, and even some of their own faith. Bottoms up world leadership (one person, one vote) is not going to work either, more than 2 billion Indians and Chinese might decide to divide up the rest of our property and share the profits, or implement their own ideas on how companies should be run which would be a disaster. The problem as I see it is this: The US is the food basket and technology leader of the world ( yes, the Europeans have capabilities too). Many people would starve without our foodstuffs or with a reduction of the minimal freebees we hand out. Many people would die, without our newly invented medicines and medical procedures. We do not threaten the entire Muslim world by saying we are going to stop providing those things.We do use sanctions from time to time, but not on civilian needs Does this action for the good overcome whatever bad we may be accused of? Apparently not. But Saddam was intending to, did in fact, cut off his oil supplies to the West as a means of blackmail despite the fact it would hurt all developed nations. IMO governments must continue to respond to situations and threats as they arise, come to the surface, demand action. That could be global warming, deforestation, species extinction, auto pollution, epidemics, nuclear armament. At this point I am beginning to hope we do not have a a World Rulership, because specific actions taken and enforced can be so drastically wrong in the long term. We are not going to war with Brazil for cutting down their forests and eliminating 100 different life forms with each acre that is cut. We do not have enough data yet, we do not know tomorrows inventions (fusion power plants, pollution free transportation) etc The only assured way I see of getting a World consensus is an invasion from outer space or a meteor on course for earth And even then , 30 to 50% of the people would say the scientists are wrong, aint gonna happen, or Allah will protect us. Sig

To: tekboy who wrote (123014)	1/11/2004 1:03:29 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The Iraq war, in conjunction with a lot of other things the administration has done, has convinced most of the rest of the world that America's unprecedented and unmatchable power can and will be relatively capriciously deployed in situations where almost nobody else thinks it should be. To some extent, this was inevitable, once America began to do anything in the new, Post-Cold War world. It was made much worse by the rift at the UN, for which Saddam Hussein and his protectors France and Russia also deserve full credit. It takes two to tango. You know, nobody better, how corrupt this international system that everybody pays such lip service to. The UN is bizarro world. Libya heads the Human Rights Committee. Syria sits on the UNSC. A UN anti-racism conference turns into an anti-Semitic hatefest, with full UN approval. The EU wages a proxy battle against the US by supporting Palestinian suicide bombers and putting its imprimatur on textbooks that call for a Jew-free Middle East.

To: tekboy who wrote (123014)	1/11/2004 6:13:34 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Tekuboi-san, the equation is simple [stopping bad guys versus frightening the rest of us]. The USA constitution is about circumscribing the megalomaniacs who always infest political, legal and military systems in search of money, power and girls. The rest of the world sees an unbounded megalomaniac USA intent on Total World Control with Homeland Security and Total Information Control or whatever the totalitarian idea was, together with the disbanded Office of Disinformation which lies about everything including Weapons of Mass Destruction. Scott Ritter and Saddam were telling the truth and Bush's administration was lying - it was so funny when the guy, I forget his name, asked [about a year ago] who you'd believe, Saddam or him and I thought Saddam was more credible, or at least less slimy, being an outright, honest megalomaniac who kills to get his way. The USA purports to be in favour of democracy, freedom, free trade, human rights, and blah blah blah. Which totalitarianly fails the laugh test. Taiwanese democracy is persona non grata but Hu Jintao is considered a good bloke. Free trade is okay, but not for steel and sheep. Human rights are fine but only in their place [China and elsewhere though we don't hear so much about that lately since 'terrorists' and 'enemy aliens' are held without trial, habeas corpus or those other boring legalistic details]. Freedom is a diminishing commodity even in the USA, though there is ever-increasing freedom to comply with a vast panoply of suffocating regulations 'for your own good' of course. <The Iraq war, in conjunction with a lot of other things the administration has done, has convinced most of the rest of the world that America's unprecedented and unmatchable power can and will be relatively capriciously deployed in situations where almost nobody else thinks it should be. > Since somebody is going to be the boss [megalomaniacs never leave a niche of power unfilled], my preference remains to have the USA in charge rather than anyone else and I'm voting for that with my money. But that doesn't mean I love Big Brother, PNAC, the other power-crazed freaks and a cyberspace-powered total control system. That just means the USA is the least bad of a bad bunch of choices. What I prefer to a rabid and rampant USA is a NUN with a constitution which far more circumscribes power than does the USA's, where the constitution is often ignored and freedom is a glib cliche. Read Thomas Sowell, FredonEverything and others. Because there are a lot of dead Americans coming out of Iraq, Bush and co are starting to see things my way regarding the merits of international political action. It would have been so much better for the families of the dead and maimed, not to mention the victims themselves, if Bush and co had gone along with what I said in the first place. If they had listened to their own sloganeering cant about democracy, freedom, human rights etc, they'd have listened to We the Sheople rather than telling us to get stuffed. There has been no NUN constitutional conference. Meanwhile, dead Americans are being sent home from the well-heads, human sacrifice in honor of Big Oil, the PNAC, SUV Soccer Moms, and the glories of Empire and a greater co-prosperity sphere. Happy New Year. Plus ca change, Mqurice PS: Re the 'surprise' that there weren't any weapons of mass destruction programmes let alone actual weapons, Scott Ritter told us that long ago. It was also obvious that the CIA would be using UNSCOM as a Trojan Horse and of course Saddam didn't want them spying on everything and getting targeting ready so obstructed the spies on the basis of national sovereignty. The only surprise was that people were surprised that no weapons were found. Osama says that Iraq is just the first in a giant oil grab by the USA. It does look as though he might be right. For the repressed oil states' own good of course and to bring freedom, democracy, human rights and nigga rap to Mecca. lyricsdepot.com A PNAC is going to need a LOT of oil to power all those SUVs. Roll on the Crusades. The USA has far better real idols than the false idols of Islam, as pointed out by General whatsisname [in charge of intelligence, snicker, dedicated to finding Osama].