I see. So it’s ok to steal other people’s stuff?
Oh come on sailor, you’re talking like the last 50 years didn’t happen. There are enough people – and you’re not one of them as best I know – who think this empire just kinda happened and US foreign policy has always been apple-pie, good-vibe licious. Anyone with any grasp at all knows that’s not what the US has done or does now. It plays hard ball, real hard ball and there’s been zero ethics or morality in policy any time between, say, the self-serving Marshall Plan and Kosovo.
And you know what, that makes the US just like every other nation except in one crucial area; it had (coming out of WW2) many fold more economic power than it’s first world contemporaries. That’s the only difference. It could play hard ball harder and uglier.
But now you’re arguing for a moral foreign policy – you don’t get be numero uno by being moral; ‘moral’ doesn’t get you oil at just over a $+ a gallon and to control the supply of oil, the IMF, the World Bank, the terms of international trade agreements, etc, etc, et-fucting-cetera. Of course you steal the fucking oil.
I’m no great fan of this empire but, please, lets understand the nature of the capitalist beast, every nation would do approximately what the world’s only 800lb gorilla is doing now – it is, after all, protecting the very life-blood of the empire. And that’s a thrice mixed metaphor, using the same mammal twice - go figure!
Fact is, we might say we want it different. But the way we vote says otherwise, as in Cha-ching!
- and Brutus, where’d you get that ‘life-blood’ analogy from
I heartily agree with the “getting tiresome” part – however, we’re here to fight ignorance, right? So as long as the Bushit keeps streaming, combat we must.
That said, the “Iraqi people” want you the hell out of their country – not that they asked you to come in in the first place --, WMDs, well, we all know about those by now, don’t we? So much for the ‘nukular’ ones as well. And there’s still no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda. Much less 9/11 or The War on Terror – whatever the fuck that means.
So what are you left with? What do you know, what we’ve been saying all along and you finally corroborated prior to this latest backpedal. To wit:
**
Don’t change a thing. Sadly, that’s the fuckin’ perfect summation.
Yes, London Calling - begrudingly the cynic in me must agree. The humour of course is that the internal news media of the USA has so many Americans convinced that nothing could be further from the truth.
I’m sure, in a moment of honest self appraisal, that if Australia was blessed nation wide with the same degree of astonishing resources that the continental United States is blessed with, and that further, if 250 million people had emigrated HERE in the last 200 years instead of the USA - I’m sure that Australia would have behaved much the same way too actually.
But that being said, it still doesn’t excuse the USA’s obscene squanderous waste of fossil fuels - it’s a wholly inappropriate way of sustaining one’s economy in my opinion.
L_C, whilst you post does make interesting and provoking reading, it’s also a little shallow. It kinda projects the nineties as having been the situation all the way back to WWII.
That’s not how it really was. China and the USSR thwarted the U.S.'s global ambitions at every step. Vietnam? East Berlin? Cuba?
The military spending the U.S. was forced into was a less productive than similar non-military spending would have been.
And what about manufacturing? Cars? Consumer electronics? Japan carved into that market quite handily, and Japan in the process of losing it to other countries.
Raw materials? Remember the oil shock of the seventies?
The nineties was an unprecedented time. Peace dividend from the unwinding of hostilities with the USSR. Tech boom. Good times forever.
Bush and co no doubt looked forward to the creation of an entirely new world order.
Except the tech boom didn’t last, and it’s starting to look like it doesn’t need a superpower to thwart the U.S.'s imperialism.
This is just another in a long line of “holy shit” moments, when people come to realise that the bullshit they convinced themselves of just isn’t true.
Credit to where credit is due! The analogy came from you. But it is so damned apt, I had to use it!
That is what it getting tiresome. I would use a smiley here, but don’t want to violate my self-imposed smiley restrictions.
I am not backpedaling. I would like to think that I am being rather up-front with my views. I am just trying to point out, that even if you vehemently disagree with my reasons for supporting the war, there are many positive/potentially positive outcomes to war; Pick one (or two or three), and there is your casus belli.
America has been an expansionist power since day one. Ask the Indians. Ask the Spanish. The various ‘Banana Republics’ probably could weigh in. Etc and so forth. I don’t think that pure morality has ever played too important a role in American foreign policy. And rightfully so. As a uncle used to say, “Morality is a good thing, but don’t let it run your life”. Not in English, of course.
The nature of being ‘expansionist’ has changed somewhat since the 18th and 19th centuries, but not terribly much. Parallels can be drawn between Iraq '03 and the Spanish-American war.
Goose. You seem to have no reasoning faculties whatsoever. I made no argument about morality, nor anything pre WWII.
My argument was solely about capabilities, and the mismatch in perceptions about those capabilities vs reality.
Boo Boo Foo - You’re a similar age to me, aincha – there’s over 300 million of ‘em now
Fwiw, I’m not overly convinced by the apparently default frame of reference that says one is naïve, or cynical, or conservative, or whatever – pigeon-holing a view is, for me, like pigeon-holing music into genre; Okay, but so what if it’s salsa or cynical ? Question is, does it get yer girding.
Desmostylus - Wasn’t my intention to so project. The analogy is with business; you make the deals, you grease the palms, you set your business up, all to deal put yourself in the best possible position, as you see it, vis-a-vie your competitors. And, like any good business, you develop strategies (and maybe alliances) so as to outperform your competitors and satisfy your shareholders/electorate.
USA. Inc has been no different over the years, it just so happens that its Business Plan and model (capitalism) and its strategy eventually beat out the opposition.
Brutus – no worries.
By that “standard” should we invade Iran? Cuba? Do we need to “sex up” a groundless WMD claim first, or just wait the poll numbers to drop before picking a new country? Is being an international pariah an acceptable cost?
A “ruse” which cost Bush reelection (along with his hamfisted domestic agenda and poor economic policies- something that appears genetic). No it was classic political interference with the military which wanted to continue until Saddam’s armed forces were eliminated but were overruled. Then we actively encouraged the Shites and Kurds to openly rebel, then watched them get slaughtered without helping.
So its ok if Bush lied about WMD’s and Al Queda ties to Congress and the American people? Lying about sex bad, lying to go to war good?
Bush wants the UN invovled, not the UN. Why would the UN being invovled be bad? It would be an admission of failure for the boneheaded Cheney-Rumsfeld approach, but it may save American soldiers lives. Not everyone can talk tough while having dodged the war through their daddy’s political connections- real americans are dying out there while the chickenhawks play Army.
I see. So morality is out of it then. So, why is it ok for the USA to attack other countries and why is it not ok for other people to attack the USA? Especially when they are defending themselves from their attacks?
If morality has no bearing and only force counts, then 9/11 is not good or bad. It just happened.
Ahem. That’s precisely what I did in the post you’re responding to!
And the only one left is the powerplay you alluded to – a reason we both agree on. Where we differ is in the justifications, or lack thereof, for same. I say there are none other than greed and some really bad mojo to follow. You say that its been done throughout history for pragmatic reasons and that won’t change.
I say, evolve.
On a related note, anyone watching Powell’s address at George Washington University?
Now I just have to figure out which one of you is Powell incognito…
I’ve always wanted to do this: Link, please.
Google is your friend.
On reflection, I need to half-heartedly apologize to Brutus for the hissy fit I threw last night over his justification of the invasion and occupation of Iraq as follows:
While the justification/rational continues, in my judgment, to be an abhorrent excuse for war on a par with Japan’s felt necessity to control Southeast Asian oil and rubber in the late 30s and early 40s that lead to its war with the United States, our friends rational has the merit of being generally free of bullshit and candidly refreshing as we fight our way through an ever increasing pile of ever weaker excuses ranging from the threat of Iraqi A-bombs to Sadam was a bad man. Our friend, however, reduces it to a simple statement: Iraq has oil, America wants oil, America takes oil.
It sounds like Willy Sutton’s explanation of why he robbed banks. Because that’s where they keep the money.
One thing I forgot to add in… what, page one? is that the idea of the UN working under US command is totally counterproductive; since the idea is that the UN as a non-partisan element would be better suited to handle the Iraqi situation, but if UN forces would be commanded by the US the neutrality goes out of the window and anti-US sentiment among the Iraqi population and neighbour countries would permeate to the UN.
To sum up, the same hate for ocupation forces, just more targets and some have blue helmets.
This is sort of pointless. If there aren’t Iraqi cops and Iraqi troops keeping the peace in Iraq fairly soon all this fighting over the bones of Iraq will look pretty foolish. France and Germany want control over Iraq?
[sub]snicker[/sub]
OK. Sure. If they insist.