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Iraq: Helping the US

DanishDynamite

Penultimate Amazing
DanishDynamite
Joined
Aug 10, 2001
Messages
10,752
Yes, I was against the US invading Iraq (for untold reasons already discussed here).

Yes, the Bush Admisinstration is characterized by idiocy and extreme arrogance and they deserve to be deeply humiliated.

Etc, etc..

Still, it seems to me that a humiliation of the US on the order of the looming Iraq fiasco, is not in any democratic society's deepest interest.

So, I think it is time for all democracies worldwide to forgive and look at the greater perspective. Bury the war-hatchet with the US and help them out. Greater things than the current US Administration's idiocy and arrogance are at stake here, I think.

Of course, we are talking about politics here. So, would anyone know of a way to get the Bush Administration to make a (huge!) jesture of conciliation with Germany, France, Japan, Norway, etc, etc?
 
Sorry DD but this is too good to pass up!!! Everything the Bush BBuddies do is a JESTure!!!!!:D :D :D
 
Funny, Charles Krauthammer touched on this today:
Americans abroad have long been accused of such blinging arrogance and display. I find the charge generally unfair. Arrogance is incorrectly ascribed to what is really the cultural clumsiness of an insular (if continental) people less exposed to foreign ways and languages than most other people on Earth.

True, America as a nation is not very good at humility. But it would be completely unnatural for the dominant military, cultural and technological power on the planet to adopt the demeanor of, say, Liechtenstein. The ensuing criticism is particularly grating when it comes from the likes of the French, British, Spanish, Dutch (there are many others) who just yesterday claimed dominion over every land and people their Captain Cooks ever stumbled upon.

My beef with American arrogance is not that we act like a traditional great power, occasionally knocking off foreign bad guys who richly deserve it. My problem is that we don't know where to stop -- the trivial victories we insist on having in arenas that are quite superfluous. Like that women's hockey game in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Did the U.S. team really have to beat China 12-1? Can't we get the coaches -- there's gotta be some provision in the Patriot Act authorizing the CIA to engineer this -- to throw a game or two, or at least make it close? We're trying to contain China. Why, then, gratuitously crush them in something Americans don't even care about? Why not throw them a bone?

I say we keep the big ones for ourselves -- laser-guided munitions, Google, Warren Buffett -- and let the rest of the world have ice hockey, ballroom dancing and every Nobel Peace Prize. And throw in the Ryder Cup. I always root for the Europeans in that one. They lost entire empires, for God's sake; let them have golf supremacy for one weekend.
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FWIW, I don't see much help coming from anyone who hasn't stepped up yet, even if the U.S. were to put on the hairshirt and publicly wail over our transgressions. The Europeans don't seem to have the stomach for the fight against Islamism, and I think would find it much more satisfying to have their "toldyaso's."

My $0.02.
 
BPSCG said:
Funny, Charles Krauthammer touched on this today:
FWIW, I don't see much help coming from anyone who hasn't stepped up yet, even if the U.S. were to put on the hairshirt and publicly wail over our transgressions. The Europeans don't seem to have the stomach for the fight against Islamism, and I think would find it much more satisfying to have their "toldyaso's."

My $0.02.
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Jesus Christ.

Simply forget I asked.
 
pipelineaudio said:
yeah your damning with faint praise tactic really had me fooled for a second there
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I have no idea what you mean. But I see now that my view that the only good prospect for humanity's survival is extra-solar colonies, is well founded.
 
In what way are you thinking that those countries will be able to help? It's a problem that there's a rift between those countries and the US but it's more of a problem that there's no agreed on view of what the 'greater perspective' is, in the first place, everyone seems to have their own views.
 
latent aaaack said:
In what way are you thinking that those countries will be able to help? It's a problem that there's a rift between those countries and the US but it's more of a problem that there's no agreed on view of what the 'greater perspective' is, in the first place, everyone seems to have their own views.
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They would be able to help by doing at least what they did in Iraq1:

1) Substantially funding the effort
2) Lending a true "international society" moral flavor to the effort
3) Milking the diplomatic channels/connections for all they were wearth
 
DanishDynamite said:
They would be able to help by doing at least what they did in Iraq1:

1) Substantially funding the effort
2) Lending a true "international society" moral flavor to the effort
3) Milking the diplomatic channels/connections for all they were wearth
Click to expand...

Some countries have been helping. A number of other countries (noteably France and Germany) have no interest in helping, despite the fact that yes, at this point our success would be good for them and our failure would be bad for them. But there's two problems: first, France in particular has a willingness to cut off its nose to spite its face. And second, for both France and Germany, they don't actually seem to think that they do have anything on the line regarding our success in Iraq. They are mistaken on this count, but I know of no way to convince them otherwise.

And then, of course, there are countries like China and Russia. They are, if not quite our enemies, certainly our opponents. They may want us to succeed, but if they do, they also want any success we achieve to cost us dearly. Any help they provide would largely serve to reduce our costs, and they see no upside to that.
 
Ziggurat said:
Some countries have been helping. A number of other countries (noteably France and Germany) have no interest in helping, despite the fact that yes, at this point our success would be good for them and our failure would be bad for them. But there's two problems: first, France in particular has a willingness to cut off its nose to spite its face. And second, for both France and Germany, they don't actually seem to think that they do have anything on the line regarding our success in Iraq. They are mistaken on this count, but I know of no way to convince them otherwise.
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Your prejudices aside, are you seriously saying that nothing the Bush Administration could do would bring these countries around?
And then, of course, there are countries like China and Russia. They are, if not quite our enemies, certainly our opponents. They may want us to succeed, but if they do, they also want any success we achieve to cost us dearly. Any help they provide would largely serve to reduce our costs, and they see no upside to that.
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Which is as it should be. They aren't allies and even Russia is hardly even a democracy.
 
BPSCG said:
Funny, Charles Krauthammer touched on this today:
FWIW, I don't see much help coming from anyone who hasn't stepped up yet, even if the U.S. were to put on the hairshirt and publicly wail over our transgressions. The Europeans don't seem to have the stomach for the fight against Islamism, and I think would find it much more satisfying to have their "toldyaso's."

My $0.02.
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Quelle merde ....

Charlie (my humble opinion) Monoxide
 
BPSCG said:
Funny, Charles Krauthammer touched on this today:
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I'm trying to divine his opinion from the article and failing - I don't know the writer well enough to determine how deep the sarcasm goes. Would you say he was observing Americans are insular oafs and then aping the stereotype himself for our amusement, or is he simply spitting on the rest of the world?
 
aerosolben said:
I'm trying to divine his opinion from the article and failing - I don't know the writer well enough to determine how deep the sarcasm goes. Would you say he was observing Americans are insular oafs and then aping the stereotype himself for our amusement, or is he simply spitting on the rest of the world?
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The latter.
 
DanishDynamite said:
Your prejudices aside, are you seriously saying that nothing the Bush Administration could do would bring these countries around?
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Why tis easy as pie. Just wait 25 months, Bush gets out of office, and relations will improve immensely.
But I see now that my view that the only good prospect for humanity's survival is extra-solar colonies, is well founded.
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Er. Space travel requires smarts, quite a lot of smarts.
Most species go extinct when they reach that level.
They simply cannot handle the technology.
 
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