Sorry, I thought he wanted a ‘Tree fade’ zone.
That’s not “Die Bush Die.” It’s German for “The Bush The.”
Well, anybody who speaks German can’t be all bad!
Free Trade is a good thing in any case and anything which moves in that direction is a good thing but that is not the comment I want to make here.
Some people are accused of finding fault in whatever the president does. I am looking at the other side: Those who said anything the EU did to favor the Palestinians was aiding terrorists and such and now when the USA does it it is a good thing which will lead to peace. Or are we going to see december condemning the USA for aiding the Palestinian terrorists?
No, he fired the umpire, because the umpire was fucking blind.
And hell yes, if the Middle East is transformed into a pan-EC/US/ME Free Trade Zone, regardless of who came up with the idea, that’ll be one hell of a day’s work. I’m all for it.
But will it be useful as a preserve for Invisible Pink Unicorns to frolic?
It would have been nice if you would present actual arguments rather than insults that demonstrate you neither understand the cite I presented nor the role of the UN.
So, once more, for people who take a bit longer:
The EU did not just PROPOSE a free trade zone. It WORKED towards one for almost 15 years. The introduction of a customs union at the beginning of this year was one result of those negotiations. As was the introduction of a round table for human rights. The EU, obviously, is working on a free trade area of the GCC with the EU. As such, Bush’s ‘great idea’ is nothing more than another effort to curb european influence in the Middle East, since a free trade area with the US would obviously not include the EU. It isn’t an idea to bring peace and prosperity to the region. If he thought a free trade area could achieve that, he could have simply supported the european negotiations which are already well underway, and suggested they be expanded to other nations. But introducing a free trade area in the middle east is obviously NOT his primary goal. The primary goal is that it is a free trade area WITH THE US. Given that the EU has far more trade with the region, the reasons for Bush’s suggestion are pretty obvious.
As for the UN stepping up to the plate, it did. It is not the role of the UN to cater to the interest of individual members. It is most importantly not its role to crawl up the posterior of the American president. It is its role to find a consensus between nations. Period. If the inspections were ‘never ending’, then the US is chief to blame for that due to its inundating the inspectors with false evidence.
No, I don’t call for Bush to die. I just call for people who are glad to be part of mindless cheering masses praising every word from his lips to start using the brain they were equipped with.
You know Oliver, you begin to annoy me, but let me seek clarity:
Could you clarify this, do you refer to the EU Med Basin initiative?
Nor do any of the EU initiatives include the US. further I might add, the EU Med Basin accords are riddled with disadvantageous clauses for the ‘Southern Rim’ fellows. Although fewer, and in many ways flawed, the US FTA’s are rather more advantageous in key areas.
No, that would have been incredibly stupid, and there are good reasons for no US Administration to try to piggy back on the EU Med Basin initiatives, riddled as they are with carve outs.
Supporting an aggressive position in the upcoming Doha round meetings on agriculture and other areas adv. to developing countries would be the best, second best might be to propose w/ EU some other mechanism, third to begin an overall framework for the region, fourth a set of bilaterals (FTAs) with the regional countries, fourth take part in the EU’s process.
THis is simply whinging on, frankly it would be good for them to diversify their exports, being captive to EU markets is not helpful. Further of course, EU resistance to bringing down key barriers is stronger even than the US – of course both are rather hypocritical insofar as we have forced TRIPS and other concessions w/o making signific. concessions on light mfg and agriculture, areas where these guys might compete.
I believe that I provided sufficient material to clarify this issue in this thread. The cites I provided are pretty unambiguous.
Irrelevant to the case in point.
See above.
It is simply demonstrating that the main goal of Bush in pursuing a free trade area in the Middle East is not peace and stability, but rather to gain more access to the markets there.
Well, guess what, I am not of the same opinion my fine Oliver, so what does your bloody statement actually refer to above? The GCC issue, Med Basin, both? Some degree of clarity is all that was asked. It should not be so very troublesome for you to clarify to which you were addressing your comments.
Which case in point? The overall issue of a regional trade initiative for the Middle East, the GCC boy you seem to be touting, what? Certainly for the issue of overall trade policy, the content and character of the EU agreements with the Med Basin countrie is important.
This is mere blather. I could assert, inter alia, the same bloody thing about the EU accords.
Instead of playing content free dodge-ball, let’s roll up the sleeves and ask ourselves where the content is – simply asserting Bush is out for more markets – an absurd assertion when one looks at the buying power of the region ex Gulf (and in general even in the Gulf the size of the market is not big) – does not cut it.
If never, ever, referring to the MedBasin with a single word or link is not cutting it for you, I don’t think I can clarify the issue to your satisfaction. I am sorry if your opinion differs, but I don’t see how there could be less ambiguity about my statements.
And to what end? It wasn’t the EU who just made a statement boasting about how they are going to bring peace and prosperity to the Middle East by opening a free trade zone. As such, your assertion would hardly contribute anything meaningful to the discussion.
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Look, your impression that I am playing content-free dodge-ball is likely founded in the fact that you quite obviously are neither reading my posts nor my cites, as evidenced by your bringing the MedBasin into the fray without it ever being mentioned by me and then complaining about lack of clarity. The economic yield of market access is but one factor in many. Others are the curbing of European influence (which, by the way, I mentioned earlier, but since you didn’t read it, repeat again here), thwarting the EU profiting from over a decade of work, while profiting from some of the political and economic infrastructure created not the least as a consequence of the EU negotiations, such as the customs union, and ensuring the countries in question keep focusing on the Dollar rather than the Euro. All in all a big and blatant attempt to slap the EU on its fingers while declaring oneself to be the bringer of peace and prosperity.
Yes, indeed, you do annoy me now, w/o ambiguity.
Well, for a start we could try to achieve some degree of comprehension of the subject matter, then by making clear references.
There could be less ambiguity if you had a clear idea of (a) what the region is – the Middle East (b) what agreements cover what © what Bush’ initiative supposedly covers (d) making the antecedants of your hand waving statements clear.
Insofar as the GCC issue is a mere subset of the Middle East - North Africa region, and insofar as the EU policy of most relevance to the Bush admin item that Sam raised is the Med Basin initiatives, it is reasonable for me to conclude that you are speaking to this, as well as the rather irrel GCC initiative, if you are pretending to rebutt and/or contrast and compare the Bush admin MENA trade initiative with EU initiatives. I would presume that if you are actually attempting to rebut Bush, you would try to do so off of the actually more relevant initiatives, which if you are pretending to some knowledge in the area, you should be well aware of. Else the GCC side show is nothing but an interesting but largely irrel aside insofar as the GCC economies and political regimes are utterly different from those of the rest of the region, where the real problems are found.
Well, very nice my dear Oliver, but the EU does indeed issues statements regarding helping bring peace and prosperity to the region.
For example, the Barcelona agr. has objectives as follows:
Of this dates back to 1995 or so, but then we can go dig up Clinton dec’s of similar content.
There is nothing particularly evil in Bush’ declaration, per se, although it is certainly more advantageous to pursue this in the WTO framework in the Doha round than to run willy nilly off through a bunch of bilaterals. Indeed the lack of great success on the very part of the EU initiatives in this areas rather suggest this mini-laterals initiatives made up of multiple bilateral treaties are both trade diverting and more expensive and time consuming to obtain.
In a sense, the EU Med Basin (and GCC in many respects) initiatives highlight by experience why the Bush admin would be wrong to walk down the same route.
No my dear fellow, my impression that you are playing content free dodge ball is based on (a) your prior posting habits (b) your apparent lack of understanding of actual comparable policies and what is actually relevant to the discussion © your evident inability to substantively address the issue, prefering to hide behind a single quotation.
Thwarting the EU? Curbing EU influence? There was no reason to repeat it insofar as it is on one hand rather childish rubbish at one level, and in terms of economic diversification, a good thing for the countries in question, even if certain Euro companies might squeel like stuck little piggies about increased competition, but that’s their bloody problem.
Primo, there is no profit from any bloody political or economic infrastructure in re any of the US FTAs – they are seperately negotiated documents with rather different structures. Administration and rules differ, requirements differ – other than the common increase in over technical capacity of relevant miniistries, but then that’s a benefit (if and when it appears) common to all – and we might as well include USAID work in this area as well. I find it amusing that you believe there is a piggy backing on EU institutions.
As for the dollar versus Euro item, that again is illiterate nonesense. First, market forces are going to decide this, not some pitiful little FTA or free trade zone. If dollar stability blows, or it is more advantageous to price in Euros, people will switch. Second, it is actually advantageous for the Euro Zone to have some support for the dollar insofar as the pricing of Euro goods outside the Euro zone is under pressure – US goods are looking cheaper. And to forestall an illiterate response, this effect exists entirely seperate from whether international trade goods are priced in dollars or not.
In short there is nothing blatent about this in ‘slapping’ the EU on the fingers - it rather looks like a rather parochially driven not terribly well concieved economically policy initiative to demonstrate concern for the region. Period. Your commentary is nothing but poorly supported paranoia.
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Insofar as the GCC issue is a mere subset of the Middle East - North Africa region, and insofar as the EU policy of most relevance to the Bush admin item that Sam raised is the Med Basin initiatives, it is reasonable for me to conclude that you are speaking to this, as well as the rather irrel GCC initiative, if you are pretending to rebutt and/or contrast and compare the Bush admin MENA trade initiative with EU initiatives. I would presume that if you are actually attempting to rebut Bush, you would try to do so off of the actually more relevant initiatives, which if you are pretending to some knowledge in the area, you should be well aware of. Else the GCC side show is nothing but an interesting but largely irrel aside insofar as the GCC economies and political regimes are utterly different from those of the rest of the region, where the real problems are found.
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Coincidentally, I stressed from the very beginning that the GCC is a subset of the Middle East.
But hey, you’d have to actually read what I wrote to realise that.
Is the meaning of the word ‘example’ part of your vocabulary? Focusing on one does by no means imply there aren’t others.
Gee, you don’t even read your own quotes. Otherwise you would have realised it says
"1. Establish a common Euro-Mediterranean area of peace and stability based on fundamental principles including respect for human rights and democracy (political and security partnership),
…
- Create an area of shared prosperity through the progressive establishment of a free-trade area between the EU and its Partners and among the Mediterranean Partners themselves, accompanied by substantial EU financial support for economic transition in the Partners and for the social and economic consequences of this reform process (economic and financial partnership), and
"
Not peace through free trade, but SHARED PROSPERITY through free trade and *peace and stability based on fundamental principles including respect for human rights and democracy *
Funny. If you had read my posts, you would have realised that I never mentioned the word ‘evil’, nor implied it anywhere.
Funny. So now the Gulf is irrelevant to the middle east, and providing a cite specifically referring to the links from there, and even quoting from one of them, in addition to the original cite, is ‘a single quotation’.
Collounsbury, I had a great deal of respect for you, but you’re damaging that considerably by a striking failure to pay attention to what is actually being said and basing counterarguments on points you simply invent. Dissenting for dissent’s sake while accusing someone else of the same isn’t particularly original, nor credible.
What I said is no more nor less that Bush’s idea is neither new nor credible in its stated goals. Period. You stated nothing refuting that in any way.
I suggest we end the discussion here, it is unlikely to be productive.
Sorry for the formatting mess up there… got some endtags too many in there
This is like a fun house mirror:
Indeed the example is and was noted, however insofar as there is the rather more relevant example – the one that addresses largely the same realm that the Bush initiative does – and insofar as that same is connected with the GCC initiatives as well, I presumed that you were including it by reference as well, insofar as perhaps, having given you too much credit, I thought you were aware of the more relevant initiative and were simply focusing on the GCC as it was more advantageous to your EU did it first and better whinging.
Indeed I do read my own quotes, but better yet I am fairly well versed in the overall initiative to understand that free trade – as anyone aware of the initiative would know – is a significant component, indeed rightly the center piece insofar as the blather about principals is just that, blather. Shared prosperity, blah blah blah. The substance of the policy ideas do not differ very much at all, for whatever excuses and quibbling you want to make.
That’s rich, insofar as it rather strikes me the underlying current of your commentary, poorly formed as it was, resolves largely to 'Bad Bush coming in and stealing EU thunder."
The Gulf is, in respect to economic policy outside the Gulf, largely irrelevant. The structure and forms of the GCC are deeply different from the MENA region in general, deeply. Both state and economic structures are more or less completely different. The GCC states are rich (relatively), oil-doped family-statelets - very little in way of comparables.
An initiative in the Gulf has little carry over value to the remainder of the region for these very reasons. ( I may add that the Inter-GCC customs union is not a EU idea, had genesis before EU, and the advancing of the Customs Union date was driven by WTO issues, not EU issues, for all that the EU and other actors have helped press the GCC, mostly the Saudis along on this issue. )
Regarding your cite: you provided a link to a single site – the overall EU POV is not a bunch of seperate cites, it’s a single body. For all that the EU site is informative and useful, it’s but a single source of infos on the topic, and somewhat skewed by its own purpose.
You’re accusing me of this? Well, amusing.
By the way, more to the point on reception of the initiative, MENAREPORT has this article on the same:
http://www.menareport.com/story/TheNews.php3?sid=249184&lang=e&dir=mena
However, I caution that while I like Menareport for its business reporting, it’s political coverage is often substandard.
Hoever in this case I would hazard the opinion that it is capturing a signif. reaction.
Other articles include this one by Arabnews (a somewhat officious source) via MENAFN, another decent source of regional business news.
http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=19354
(the ridiculous jibes at Israel and its economy are amusing if nothing else)
We may hope against hope that enough material prosperity will eventually make the IPU the only deity who finds fertile fields in the politics of the Middle East. We may hope the same thing for the politics of North America, although it appears that the whole “religion” meme is peskily difficult to be rid of.