Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (190171)	6/26/2006 10:08:18 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

And Congress has no role? Are you trying to tell me that Bush can carry out his FP, beyond his permissions under the War Powers Act, without approval of the Congress?? There is foreign policy beyond war. The checks and balances of the Congress have been subverted in the lust for power. Bush's signing statements exclude the Administration from adhering to the law. Those who oppose the Administration are labelled as traitors or supporting the terrorists. An honest debate is subverted with the rhetoric of "cut and run". Notification to a handful of selected members of Congress on legally questionable acts of the Administration is a calculated tactic to subvert the role of Congress. The Framers intended that POTUS would be the weakest branch of Government [See James Madison's address to Congress when submitting the Bill of Rights.] not the strongest. I'm a strong proponent of using our economic and political power to "encourage" political reform in the Mid-East. But I'm not opposed to "nation-building" The question was: "So you were a strong proponent of nation building before Dubya came into office?" The only conservative on these threads that I can recall suggested in one instance that nation building was desirable was Neocon and that was for Bosnia only. Conservatives flipped like a freshly caught fish on a dry dock once Bush wanted to form the mid-east into a democratic model for the mid-east. Iraq was a special case since Saddam's regime was under UN sanctions due to its invasion of Kuwait. There was international authority to "use all necesssary means" to force Saddam to comply, including overthrowing his regime and occupying Iraq. After all, this is what should have happened in 1991. That wasn't the deal that Bush Sr. made with other mid-east countries. Nor is it clear that would have made any difference. This mess we're in would have been started ten years earlier isn't a great justification. I can start earlier than Desert Storm for the should haves. When Iraq approached the US Ambassador to Iraq and suggested that military action with Kuwait was on the horizon, the US Ambassador should have said: "If you do that, we'll kick what's left of your ass when we're done back to Baghdad." Rather than ~That's between you and Kuwait. We never should have fostered a decade long war between Iraq and Iran. We never should have supplied Iraq with bio-materials and dual use chemicals for the manufacture of WMD. We never should have supported the regime of Saddam to begin with. Carter correctly put Iraq and Saddam on the shit list. Reagan took Iraq off. It sure wasn't to support democratic reform in Iraq. I'm a strong proponent of using our economic and political power to "encourage" political reform in the Mid-East. Presumably that would include other regimes around the world. Easy to say, but what's the reality? I gave you a short list of regimes that we're quite happy with because it's in our "national interests". "National interests", another one of those As American as applie pie. phrases. that conservatives refuse to examine. Democratic reform isn't possible without ecnomic stability and to be secure in your home. Looking at the regimes we support around the world, and the democratic activity that we object to [Palestinian elections and Venezuela], it's pretty clear to me and many others around the world that our goal of democratic reform is an empty phrase. But a phrase that conservatives are quite happy to repeat. It does sound better, then we're invading Iraq to lock up a second source of the major oil fields in Iraq. The history of Iraq, which we helped create, isn't politically ready for democracy. What they need is something that approaches a benevolent dictator? Once the country achieve some sense of economic and political stability they'll evolve into a democracy. That's pretty much the history of democracy. The comparison that conservatives offer between the US and Iraq as democracies is utterly absurd. When the colonies broke off from Britain, economic and political life in the colonies was pretty good. Being "secure" in colonial homes was pretty darn good. Perhaps even better than it is today. 60% unemployment in Iraq with the reasonable and daily threat of being murdered or kidnapped. Hardly "secure". A severe malnutrition rate among young Iraqi children that's more than double what it was just before the Iraq war. How important is a Constitution and a purple finger, when you get two hours of electricy a day, no potable water, no job, the constant fear of murder and kidnapping and your child is starving? You'll take any government leader you can get to fix it. If that means "electing" Pol Pot, you'll take it and democracy is down the toilet. Well, apparently there are millions of muslims living in the US who have no problem with democracy. That isn't a response to the question I asked. It was: "You think the leaders and people of the mid-east are sitting there yearning for the model of democracy that Iraq offers?" If you'd asked the British King in 1787 whether that new country known as the US would survive as a nation/state, most of them would have laughed at you in derision. Pretty silly. The colonies were already operating independently with very little influence from the Crown. So why is that, 200 years later, we've surived as a democratic republic, and been the inspiration for democratic change in so many other parts of the world? Like in Somalia where they carried the signs "To hell with democracy."? How about reading this article six or seven times, maybe 10% of it will sink in. Message 22572635 jttmab