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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (244662)	10/11/2007 6:12:50 AM
From: Elroy	Respond to of 281500

You are deeply oonfused. Read this board for awhile and anyone gets pretty oonfused!

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (244662)	10/11/2007 6:40:45 AM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

US life, liberty and pursuit of happiness By Francis Matthew, Editor at Large Published: October 10, 2007, 23:51 gulfnews.com It is very easy to slip into the misunderstanding, particularly when coming from the Middle East, that everything that the United States of America does is for the worse. This is the country which has steadfastly supported Israel through decades of occupation and assault on the entire Palestinian people. It is the country which dreamt up the bizarre notion of pre-emptive regime change and invaded Iraq without a serious plan for what to do once it had won. The United States is the world's greatest superpower, which has misused its authority to emasculate the efforts of the world's nations to work together, by repeatedly ignoring and trying to reduce the efforts of the United Nations to empty words, and dismissing the vital effort to face global environmental disaster by refusing to sign the Kyoto agreement. Yet at the same time the United States is one of the most self-consciously liberal states, espousing values that all right - thinking people around the world should agree to. It rejoices in the glorious words of its Declaration of Independence, which say: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". This is the country which gave us the words of Bob Dylan and Jack Kerouac, and the music of the Grateful Dead and Stephen Sondheim, and the wonderful sculpture of Jacob Epstein, and the extraordinary buildings of Frank Lloyd Wright. Why is it that that country with such obvious virtues can produce such disastrous foreign policies which persist for decades? They are not passing fads of a particular administration but have remained there consistently, to the great destruction of both large parts of the Middle East, and also of America's own self-view since it is not possible for a liberal nation to continually support occupation and war without becoming damaged. The most obvious part of the answer is that the Israeli lobby in Washington and all across the United States has been very successful at getting its very narrow point of view accepted as the sole way to look at the Middle East. The Arab position has not had the same support from the Arab nations, and for many years this argument was allowed to go by default. The recent efforts to create an effective Arab lobby in the United States is an essential part of the effort to give the United States a more balanced view to consider, and should be supported as much as possible. But that it not the whole story. Another important part of the answer lies with the United States itself, which struggles to see itself as a world leader. There is so much happening within the borders of that vast country, that to many American citizens what is happening outside the borders is simply irrelevant. They do not have to think about it so they do not, and in that ignorance lies very great danger for both the United States but also the rest of the world The United States has to clarify within its own mind whether it is the United States of Woodrow Wilson at the Versailles Conference, which had the courage to force the concept of national self determination on the reluctant imperial nations of Europe, or is it the United States of Ronald Regan and the two Bushes, who see foreign affairs in much more apocalyptic terms, determined to force their policies on the world, untrammelled by their allies, and certainly not by the United Nations. The historic weakness of the United States is that it is not good at finding a balance between the ability to listen to the nations of the world while at the same time providing leadership through its obvious strength. President Wilson at Versailles in 1919, and President Truman at the founding of the United Nations in 1946, are very much the exception throughout the 200 year history of the White House. It is difficult, but the rest of the world has to recognise this as a serious challenge in which everyone has to take part. Automatic rejection of anything coming out of America is not the way forward. That will only force the Americans into further arrogance and narrow-minded thinking. Engagement is the answer, but it is hard to think like that when US-made jets are bombing you, when US-based troops are running through your streets, and when the US president embarks on a "crusade" instead of building plans with the people of the region for the future. There are many people all over the world and in the Middle East who share the core values of the United States, but totally reject the values bound up in its military adventures in the Middle East. The United States asks a lot of its friends, and it needs to make changes so that it can capitalise on the natural goodwill anyone has for a government which is supposed to offer all people "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness".