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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim S who wrote (23199)	7/7/2006 2:14:01 PM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541457

The continuing sentiment that "the US can do nothing right, especially with Bush as Prez" is pretty annoying. And it certainly isn't the "View from the Center." That assertion was not made here. But in fact, a majority of Americans do not believe the country is headed in the right direction, and don't support hardly any of Bush's policies today, foreign or domestic. If you poll Bush among foreign publics and leaders, the numbers get lower. So whatever leadership was attempted in the wake of 9/11, very little was effective except for the Afghanistan occupation and some intelligence cooperation, due largely to the tone taken with anyone anywhere who didn't toe Bush's line. Today we see major emerging powers like Russia and China moving away from US "leadership". I consider that a factual situation, not a political judgment.

To: Jim S who wrote (23199)	7/7/2006 9:55:36 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541457

What he said was to the effect, "if you support or tolerate terrorism, we will consider you opposed to us." I thought he said "If you're not for us, you're against us" news.bbc.co.uk Which is admirably Manichean, if you admire such; but certainly has more of the sense of "if you don't like what we do, go swivel" than you make out. Indeed, it's even a threat - "if you don't do as we want, you're an enemy and we may attack you". And past US history makes this a real and potent threat. (in the recent past Grenada, Belize, Nicaragua, Panama to name a few). This doesn't win friends in the playground, never mind international politics. Indeed, sticking with a simple analogy for a simple view, this attitude in the playground it has a fairly short and simple name. So, would you tell your children to go and be friends with the big aggressive boy who's beaten plenty of little kids up in the past? Would you tell your daughter to spend time with him, or push your son into his company? But I don't think you've got this the right way around: "the US can do nothing right, especially with Bush as Prez" Re-order it: "with Bush as Prez the US can do nothing right" and I think you come closer. Put the blame where it belongs. On a more serious note: The fact that some nations, notably China, Russia and France, chose to ignore the call for help and even work against US interests, is indicative not of lack of the US trying to build a consensus against terrorism, but rather of those countries trying to benefit themselves to the detriment of the world community in general and the United States in particular. There is nothing new or surprising in countries trying to benefit themselves. That's what countries do. Viewing it as "working against US interests " (or anyone else's) is not necessarily helpful or correct. Few countries, including the US, will ever work to any great extent against their own interests in the cause of some greater good. Indeed, there are only a couple of notable such examples I can think of recently where countries agreed to harm their immediate selfish interests for the good of the world community. There's the Kyoto agreement... but wait, the US refused to ratify. And the International Criminal Court, to allow international and war criminals to be properly and fairly tried on neutral ground... but wait, the US refuses to sign up.