I really am interested in knowing how my fellow non-American dopers (Canadian here) feel about their respective governments’ rush to say they will back American actions in response to the terrorist attack they were victim of. Are our governments acting too hastily? Are they giving the U.S. government carte blanche?
I believe some action must be taken, but have posted elsewhere that I find the concept of “collective punishment” repellant. How do you feel? If the U.S. government’s final course of action is going to endanger civilians, if they are willing to accept “collateral damage” (i.e., killed and maimed innocents) will not our governments be endorsing this same crime if their support is unconditional?
The general view here in the UK (or perhaps what is portrayed as the general view - there’s no doubt a difference…) is that most people in Britain are willing to stand “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the US, and support Bush.
There are, however, lots of people who think that carpet bombing civilians in Afganistan and pretty much every other mid-east state (I actually read a letter by some retired colonel suggesting this!!) makes us pretty much the same as the terrorists.
To be honest, I’m not sure that we care all that much what the US does - but my impression is that we might draw the line at having our own troops sent into action (as part of NATO) and being killed.
It sounds harsh, but I got the feeling over the last week or so that part of the reason Britain has made such a fuss is that in some weird way we still hope that we are influential enough in the world to be “worthy” of counting as a target for terrorism (rather than just internal IRA stuff).
The fact is that most of these fruitloops wouldn’t bother with attacking Britain. We made a big show of closing off our airspace over London etc, but I bet e.g. the Belgians weren’t overly concerned with becoming vicitims to the same attacks. By stating that we are co-victims (and I know that lots of British subjects were killed in the attacks) it makes us look like we still have influence in the world - which aside from Man Utd and the Spice Girls we probably don’t.
By my reading of recent pronouncements, the Australian government gave the US administration a blank cheque even before they were asked. (Prime Minister John Howard was in Washington at the time).
This is bit of a worry, but given that an election is due to be called in the next couple of weeks, not surprising. Whenever the US has banged the drum, Australia has always answered the call. There is no debate about supporting the USA, just some unease about any open ended commitment.
To answer the OP, damned right we should, latest estimates put the number of Brits killed well over 100 and there is concern that it may well rise to over 300.
This may look a small number compared to US figures but it is one of the worst single terrorist events in UK history.
In Australia there’s been a bit of a stir-up in the media recently about a boatload of Afgans who turned up on our shores a couple of weeks ago. At the time most Australians wanted to get rid of them for various reasons. Now from listening to the radio (and on talkback right-wing reactionary views are usually way over-represented) it sounds as though people suspect that there were terrorists on board intent on trying the same thing here (we Australians tend to have a much bigger picture of ourselves in relation to other countries than we probably should - probably because we’re relatively economically important in our region with no actual borders to worry about). As a result most people seem to back the PMs offer to the US. Personally I don’t think we’ve really got that much international presteige to make us anything close to a target, but hey, who knows?
As woolly said, the blank cheque’s a worry. I just don’t want us to get involved in another vietnam, (although I’m not sure how likely that is) and the idea of “collective punishment” makes me sick. I’m sure that some innocents will die in the weeks and months to come, but we should take all efforts to keep that to a minimum.
The British government should support the US in all reasonable attempts to bring those responsible to justice. The idea of collective punishment, or acting without evidence, worries me greatly.
No, of course we should not give the US carte blanche, since what is in the interests of the US is not necessarily what is in the interests of the UK, or indeed anybody else. But in practice, will it matter what we say? I don’t think so.
A thought that has some currency here, and seems also to strike a reasonable balance between the various options, is that by supporting America AS PART OF NATO - the US having been extraordinarily quick off the mark in activating Article 5 - we may also be able to act as a brake on some of the wilder suggestions by pressing some of the other NATO articles requiring common consent to action and so on. I personally think this is a forlorn hope, in that it’s pretty clear that the US will do what it wants regardless of what we or NATO or anyone else says. But we have to take a position, and that is probably the least bad one available.
On the question of British casualties, the figure is indeed appallingly high. Does anyone have a figure for the total number of UK subjects killed by the IRA using American funds?
I’m not sure if it’s possible in the first instance to calculate the US donations to the republican cause, but even if it were, how could you decide with which funds weapons were purchased?
I seem to remember the total number of deaths in the troubles being in excess of three thousand.
I wasn’t expecting an exact figure, for the reasons you give, and the question was semi-rhetorical for that reason. The salient point is that a very large number of British people have died over the years at the hands of an organisation directly supported by American money, despite the best efforts of our government to make it clear why an organisation of that sort shd not be supported.
I was making this point in response to the OP and to Crusoe’s observation that we shd follow the US totally because of the high number of our own casualties. We are one of America’s oldest allies, and even we have reason, as above, to resent and distrust American involvement in our affairs. For that reason we would be very very foolish to think that now America will pay heed to anyone’s interests but its own and our best course, as I have said, is to try to make use of our position as a close US ally and member of NATO to exercise an influence for rationality, intelligence and common sense, to the extent to which that is possible.
I think there’s big difference here in that monies donated to the republican cause have come from American citizens of their own volition, not from the US government (AFAIK). And of course the very last people any republicans sympathisers are going to listen to, no matter how good their ‘best efforts’ were, is the British Government!
I think there are several reasons why we will follow the lead of the US in the coming months and years. In no particular order
[ul]
[li]We are lapdogs.[/li][li]We want to curry favour with the Americans.[/li][li]We lost people too and would like to be seen to be doing something about it.[/li][li]Militarily we are too weak to fight unilaterally.[/li][li]We have to have to keep ‘in’ with the Americans in case someone in future picks a fight with us first (see previous).[/li][li]Political capital could be made, potentially.[/li][/ul]
Quote: “I think there’s big difference here in that monies donated to the republican cause have come from American citizens of their own volition, not from the US government (AFAIK)”
Well, I don’t remember the US government doing much to stop the IRA fund-raising over there, but never mind that now.
As to your main points, numbers 3-5 are surely just common sense. For the others, I take it that by “we” you mean the government of the would-be first leader of United Europe…
Your mileage may vary ie you might think differently:)
I’ve read this three times now and still can’t fathom what or who you mean. I must need to go home and sleep:)
By ‘we’ I meant Blair and the British government. Now, whether or not he/they are the governmentof the would-be first leader of United Europe…I afraid I have no idea.
I expect our UK politicians will react like all politicians always do - try anything that they think will get them re-elected. :rolleyes:
As a voting member of the UK public, I sincerely hope Tony Blair will not give ‘carte blanche’, since this would technically include actions such as nuking Aghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Libya. (These countries were all named as sponsors of terrorism by an American Government spokesman on BBC TV today. Sorry I can’t remember the guy’s name.)
Of course this was a heinous act of terrorism, and I’m certain our Government should (and will) give the US every support to gathering evidence, tracking down the perpetrators, arresting them and trying them (presumably a fair trial in the US would be difficult, given the natural disgust felt all over America, but the International Court at the Hague sounds fine.)
If it turns out to be Bin laden in Afghanistan, and the Taliban refuse to hand him over*, then feel free to impose sanctions, freeze bank accounts etc. Do not expect military action to be easy or productive.
*in an BBC interview today, the Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan said they would hand over Bin laden if the Afghan courts agreed the evidence was strong enough.
It’s comments like these that really make me think that people abroad really do not understand what it means to be an American.
I have never given money to the IRA and don’t intend to, I’d rather fight AIDS with my charitable contributions or feed somalian children or something like that, however our country does not limit who people give money to. Besides it would take quite a bit of nastiness on the part of the government invading our personal communications to figure out if we were giving to the IRA. I mean, do you honestly think these people put the money they gave to the IRA as a tax write-off? No, they probably gave it to their Irish friends and family in Ireland who have contact with the IRA.
I hate to tell you guys but if the US tried to get involved and stop people here from giving that money, there would be a coup as it flies in the face of all the rights that we put in place to keep from becoming, well, Britain.
I doubt that stopping donations to the IRA would trigger a coup. On the other hand, I cannot see any way to enforce such a rule.
Such donations are not publicly collected and announced to the world. For example, there are three large Irish or Irish-American festivals in Cleveland each summer, sponsored by three different groups. At each of these festivals (primarily devoted to good music and badly served beer), there are cultural exhibits (history, literature, art, and T-shirts) that include a lot of “26 + 6 = 1” rhetoric and a tiny bit of “Brits Out” rhetoric. However, all the fundraising that is done is ostensibly for efforts such as getting Catholic and Protestant kids out of the fighting neighborhoods and bringing them together (sometimes in the U.S.) to reduce the demonization of the other group. There has never been a collection earmarked for the IRA, or even for Sinn Fein.
I will not claim that no money has gone out to the IRA, but they make a point of not advertising it. Collections for the IRA tend to be quite a bit more furtive–and probably include a lot of private solicitations from people with money.
Even if it were outlawed, it would be very difficult to enforce a prohibition.
As to giving the U.S. government a blank check (or even a blanque cheque), I do not suggest the the citizens of the U.S. do that, so I hardly expect foreign nations to.
I favor cutting the U.S. government a lot of slack to get this going, but if it looks like they have chosen the wrong path or an unworkable path, I intend to stand up and tell them “NO” and I would expect that any nation should do the same.
I don’t have a problem at the moment for three reasons:
One - Blair was as quick as lightening to set up NATO involvement. That means anything has to go through the consultation framework so input in guaranteed and the degree of participation remains flexible.
Two – The so-called ‘Powell Doctrine’ has won the power struggle for the President’s ear in Washington thanks to the Bush Senior-Powell-Rice headlock. That means the response will be primarily considered, appropriate and measured.
Three – Bush badly wants moderate Muslim countries on board. The leaders of those countries aren’t going to be able to keep their public with them if Bush goes over the top in his reaction.
But I think I might have a problem with this:
I hope strenuously that Canada will not give the US carte blanche. Of course, the Chrétien government has pretty much rolled over on most issues, despite Bush’s fairly clear messages that Mexico is more important to him than Canada is. However, if the US decides to do something very ill-considered (and thank you, London, for giving me a bit of hope on that score) I hope we’ll have the wit to try to calm them down. Friends don’t let friends use nukes.