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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (12316)	9/27/2004 3:15:14 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (8) \| Respond to of 116555

Mish, As with most of Friedman's stuff, I agree with very little of it. He always tries to look even-handed when he is actually patting Bush on the back, even if the pat is delivered in a backhanded manner. <G> First, he misses the entire dynamic of The United Nations, as usual. In a world dominated by one aggressive super power, the existence of the UN as a place to express disagreement with that super power is vital. Bush has demeaned the UN, lied to its Security Council and General Assembly, and, then, basically told other coutries to play ball or suffer the consequences. He cut short the WMD inspectors' tours after pretending to allow them to do their jobs. He blamed Saddam for not revealing the WMD that did not exist. Other countries have figured out this is the way an imperialist nation excuses its aggression while Americans don't seem to have a clue. The main place where Kerry differs is that, as a veteran who has seen combat, he knows it is not all glory and wearing fake medals, as Dubya believes. First, it is expensive in the lives of Americans and innocent foreigners and you don't bear that expense without a damned good reason. Since the cost in lives doesn't hit Bush's crowd, and he won't attend a soldier's funeral or read a newspaper, it isn't happening at all. Foreigners can see this lack of empathy and compassion in our leader and are secretly hoping we get someone with a bit more humanity at his core. It is also expensive in monetary terms at the time the country is about to enter an economic crisis caused by Bush's tax cuts and unnecessary war. Bush's daddy went out of his way to prove the case against Saddam to Japan, Saudi Arabia and others and had them bear a lot of the monetary cost of the war. With Dubya, it is borrow and spend money we don't have. Many Europeans, especially, with their backgrounds in Austrian Economics, find this bizarre behavior. It is not old-fashioned to hold onto old alliances. It is cost effective. Bush, as a mental defective, doesn't get cost effectiveness. The other point is the psychological one. When a true alliance as Kerry and Bush 41 envisioned, albeit led by US troops and technology, invade a country, it can be awesome, but not as scary to the rest of the world. A third world country can say, Saddam ticked off everyone and he's paying the price. We're not going to do what Saddam did and Russia, Japan and Germany can restrain America's military hawkishness to protect our sovereignty. When we effectively go it alone, which Bush has done for all intents and purposes, we are Hercules unchained and a perceived threat to everyone. And when the reasons we gave for invading Iraq turn out to be lies, the other countries can feel a big shadow looming over them. So, the basic choice between Kerry and Bush is whether you have an effective, but logically derived response to terror or a bumbling, seat of the pants hitting out in all directions for no reason that scares the crap out of the rest of the world. East coast intellectuals are not the only ones who think that a super power that acts reasonably is a necessity to the rest of the world. I believe everyone thinks that except for foaming at the mouth neocons who want to fight small countries for fun.

To: mishedlo who wrote (12316)	9/27/2004 11:55:18 PM
From: ThirdEye	Respond to of 116555

First of all, Friedman doesn't exactly define the "International System." What one might remember in reading his stuff is that he's a spook at heart. His perspective derives from a CIA/DIA point of view. He is prone to overstating his case. And remember, he is also trying to sell subscriptions to Stratfor and keep his current subscribers. To suggest that there are foreign leaders who have, however reluctantly, hitched their wagons to George Bush's for the sake of their own political future, and that they might fall if Kerry is elected is simple balderdash. How they act toward Washington and what they say for local consumption can be and probably are two very different things. Second, to suggest that foreigners don't really understand the US is also myopic. Since we are the strongest economic power, we have managed to export our culture more effectively than perhaps any country ever. Friedman is straining to say that what we export is not really us. But it is us in the very real ways that foreigners are impacted by our policies and our products. In fact, foreigners do at times have a perspective about us that often has the very uncomfortable ring of truth. Third, Friedman completly ignores the role of the personal psychology of GWB and how it has shaped his response to 9/11. It is the personal aggression of Dubya that has shaped our foreign policy, his pre-emptive and unilateral approach. The part about ignoring what Germany thinks because the Cold War is over can probably be traced to the neocons in the DoD. Dubya doesn't have the foreign policy perspective or experience to dream that up himself. Electing Kerry would be a great relief to many politicians of the world, not to mention average people, but to suggest that Kerry represents a radical shift in foreign policy is Friedman's primary overstatement. Kerry does not represent withdrawal or isolationism. In fact, if Friedman actually asked any foreign leader what their alternative to Bush might look like in terms of policy, I doubt they would differ significantly with what we here would imagine from Kerry himself. Moreover, Friedman ignores the fact that the neocon/Bush view that US interests trump all existing relationships and international institutions is itself a form of isolationism, the consequences of which we can already see. Fourth, Friedman confuses the war in Iraq with the war on terror, just as Bush has, suggesting that Kerry's interest in alliances has something to do with fighting the Iraq war. Yeah, it might be a good idea in theory, but I doubt Kerry has any fantasies of a rainbow coalition. Rather than subverting US interests to the UN as Friedman implies Kerry might entertain, fostering political institutions based on common culture, politics and economics makes alot more sense in the long run.