The Bush/Blair Bully Team

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by Guest, Feb 19, 2003.

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  1. Guest

    Guest Guest

    According to the French, Germans and Hollywood, The Bush/Blair Bully Team is bent on war with Iraq regardless of what the weapons inspectors find.

    Lets see, I guess they haven't thought about Saddam disarming, doing what he said he would do a decade ago, adhering to the UN resolution and how this would avert war.
     
  2. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Clinton's savant predicts fall of Paris-Berlin axis

    "OLD EUROPE'S LAST HURRAH"

    By DICK MORRIS
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    February 18, 2003 --
    THE objection of France and Germany to acting on the obvious necessity of disarming and dismantling Saddam Hussein's regime is not the first breath of a new age of peace but the last hurrah for fading powers seeking to throw around a weight they don't have.

    It is quite like the Suez Crisis of 1956, when Britain and France felt they could go it alone and, without even informing the United States until the last minute, launched a pre-emptive attack, allied with Israel, against Egypt. Their goal was to recover the Suez Canal, which the Egyptian dictator Gamal Nasser had seized.

    The two powers met initial military success - but soon found themselves isolated on the global stage as President Dwight Eisenhower, outraged, threw his lot in with the Soviet Union in demanding a cease-fire and pullback. The lesson, apparently lost on France, was that neither nation still had the clout to go it alone without U.S. backing.

    The two nations experienced decades of impotence after Suez. The same will be the legacy of France's and Germany's last stand against America's Iraq policy.

    The United States will invade Iraq in a matter of weeks and will win quickly. The diplomatic maneuvers of French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will be revealed as the bankrupt and powerless posturing of two has-been nations.

    [Snip!]

    f our troops find the labs, bio-bomb factories, chemical-weapon stockpiles and nuclear research programs... the voices of France, Germany and the U.S. left will be stilled for a long, long time to come.

    Why are the French and the Germans walking into this trap? For the same reason Britain and France did in Suez: Ego and an inability to perceive how the world had changed. Just as London and Paris in 1956 did not grasp that global politics had become bi-polar, Paris and Berlin today do not now grasp that it is uni-polar.

    In both cases, the powers of the old regime reflexively acted on past assumptions before their irrelevancy was brutally brought home to them.
    http://www.nypost.com/seven/02182003/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54641.htm
    ----------------------

    This has several implications.
    Perhaps the UN can be either reformed or superceeded by a "League of [classical] Liberal Nations?" Nominal democracies permitted only; no lunacies like Libya on "Human Rights" committees. Better quality of membership. But does the US have the moxy to push for it?

    The world wishes it were a multi-polar one--but it is not!
    And now the world must get used to the American tradition of foreign policy: alternating liberal (Clinton, Carter) containment and aggressive (Reagan, Bush) containment.
    THAT's why they're having a cow!

    Furthermore, the future of the EU hangs in the ballance. A new constitution is being written. It's big, centralized social-welfare states (France and Germany), versus freer trade, economically more nimble ones (Britain, The Netherlands, and others)!

    --Orson
     
  3. Tom Head

    Tom Head New Member

    Re: Clinton's savant predicts fall of Paris-Berlin axis

    ...because Lord knows when I'm looking for credible, hard-hitting, insightful commentary on foreign affairs, Dick Morris is a name I can trust.


    Cheers,
     
  4. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    Re: Clinton's savant predicts fall of Paris-Berlin axis

    My recollection is that initially the US backed the British and French then withdrew their support at the last moment.
     
  5. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Re: Re: Clinton's savant predicts fall of Paris-Berlin axis

    The guy has a pretty good last name (Morris), but his party affiliation needs a slight adjustment. ;)
     
  6. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Re: Re: Clinton's savant predicts fall of Paris-Berlin axis

    True enought, Tom. But tell me what's flawed about his historical analogy?

    We have passed a rubicon: a bi-polar world is now uni-polar....
    Until, and unless, it changes again (esp considering how many OTHER Clinton advisors have joined in for the ride against Islamic terrorism).

    --Orson
     
  7. telfax

    telfax New Member

    Moral dilema!

    Blair and Bush are now going down the 'moral dilema' route. Blair is stating here in the Uk that this is a 'moral' issue. Yesterday the new Archbishop of Canterbury (one of the most intellectual theologians of this generation) and the (relatively) new Roman Catholica Archbishop of Westminster (the most powerful RC in Britain) both published a rebuke against Blair (et al). Has this been on TV in the USA?!? Probably not! Here in the UK people are stating clerics should state out of politics! What hypocrisy! If government officials start ranting on about 'moral stances' religious leaders have every right to make a statement!

    Problem is, USA wants to get its own back for Sept 11 (understandably) but doesn;t know how to do it! War with Iraq is not the way. Getting rid of Saddam without a war is the way.

    Suddenly, degrees, accrediting asgencies and all this nonsense seem quite immaterial. Even more so when you hear on TV about the dreadful AIDS/HIV situation and deaths in South Africa.

    'telfax'
     
  8. Orson

    Orson New Member

    Re: Moral dilema!


    Dear 'telfax'--

    I agree with you wholeheartedly. And as an American I appreciate the fact that you understand the US' motive for re-engagement with the unresolved Iraqi problem.

    However, I doubt that Europeans, whether British or not, grasp how much changed perceptions--especially the perceptions of potential threats--are driving US policy makers.

    Last night, US Public Television presented a documentary outlining the origins and evolution of the policymaking debate that's driving the US to "regime change" in Iraq.
    There are links to many published sources at their web-site supporting this accurate contemporary historical account.
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/

    One matter skipped over in it, however, is what was President Bush's revelation (Fall of 2001) that pushed him from Powell's casually diplomatic side over to the activist, preventive approach of the "Hawks:" The stark raving (possibly unrealistic) fear that the next "9/11" could be nuclear--or more likely, a radiological device, that could kill tens of thousands of American innocents.
    (The Economist has fairly well followed this evolving threat assessment.)

    Now, if Euros don't understand this, then, indeed, the US stance makes no sense, and "obviously" appears to be a scheme of national self-aggrandizement! But I believe this "shared" preception drives PM Tony Blair's intransigence, too!--NOT just that the UK cannot or should not 'go it alone.'

    So, perceptions do indeed drive today's political reality--or at least those entrusted to act on US national defense. The 2002 election results reinforced that consensus. (It's also a pro-war stance reinforced by Clintonites like Phillip Bobbett, and other notables fomrerly on the side of peace and more passive approaches to foreign affairs.)

    But just how realistic or unrealistic the ultimate fears are remain hidden and uncertain. A world of terrorism is a murky one and suddenly new to America's plate. This "sudden perception" is something not much shared in Europe, I fear--in either its recognition or shock--and that's what's reflected in polls, media, and marches there. Yet that's how it is in the US at the Top and among the unwashed masses here. (The interesting exceptions are elite smaller liberal towns and big inner-city areas with majority black populations.)

    --Orson

    P.S. I did note yesterday's theological developments in the UK. However, influential Catholic thinker on this side of the pond Michael Novak, and a large and wide-ranging group of intellectuals, left and right, headed by University of Chicago ethicist Jean Beth Elshtain (sp?), have weighed in on the side of Just War theory supporting military intervention in Iraq.
    (Last year the latter group had a dialog with a leftist group of anti-war German academics--mostly to the American's advantage.)

    I'm happy to share these online references with anyone who indicates an interest.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 22, 2003
  9. Orson

    Orson New Member

    More (I hope this isn't insufferably long)...

    It’s worth adding that the primer on “Bush Doctrine” I mention above, a one hour US television documentary, will be available as an online transcript next week to those who missed it or who reside outside of the States.
    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/etc/tapes.html
    “The War Behind Closed Doors” attempts to answer the questions “Is a US invasion of Iraq Justified? Should America attempt to project its power and values—as stated in the new [September 2002] foreign policy [National Security Strategy document]?”

    Furthermore, for those who do not know, “Frontlines,” the production company, is out of the San Francisco Bay area, and is famous (or infamous) for NOT being right-wing. On the contrary, many testy funding battles in Congress for American public broadcast funding stem from just such left-wing slanting as “Frontlines” often exhibits.

    A final caveat comes from a perceptive anonymous poster on the “Discussion” page on the above site, the top one (first? last?) in fact, and worth reproducing in full:

    “Dear FRONTLINE,

    “Thanks for the Frontline show on the neoconservatives and Iraq. It was quite fair and portrayed the views of Wolfowitz, Kristol, etc. quite accurately and without hysteria.

    One fault, however: by focusing on the invasion of Iraq as an idea produced by the neo-cons you give people the mistaken impression that they alone are the main proponents of invasion. Thus many of your viewers were left with the impression that a tiny cabal steers U.S. foreign policy. Sorry, but that's wrong.

    “Here in Washington DC there are thousands of people toiling away in various national security bureaucracies, think tanks, etc. Many of them believe that Iraq is an imminent threat, and they do not have any ideological agenda. It is also unfortunate that you fail to mention that many moderate figures - such as James Woolsey, John McCain, and Democratic members of Congress are supportive of war if necessary. In addition, the NSS is only a piece of paper until concrete policies are changed to back it up - this requires the cooperation of thousands of people and numerous, often competing bureaucracies.

    “In short, the impetus for war with Iraq is not just coming from the top, it is also bubbling up from the bureaucracies and other sources. Your narrow focus has the effect of supporting the views of conspiracy theorists and others of the view that the government has been highjacked, as evidenced by some of the other reader responses to your show. The neocons may be the most vocal proponents of war, but they are definitely not the only ones in this city.

    “washington, dc”
    ------------------------------

    From Dennis Ross’ 27 January 2003 interview (from the above): “9/11 came along, and 9/11 created a shift in focus, at least for the president. I think the president suddenly saw, as he said, the overriding mission of his presidency was the war on terror. And he and the vice president, almost from day one after 9/11, looked at 9/11 and said, ‘Can you imagine what would have happened if these terrorists had been armed with weapons of mass destruction? Then the number of dead would have been catastrophic, almost incomprehensible. That's a scenario, that's a contingency we have to ensure never takes place.’"

    This means that Hollywood action adventure thrillers of the 1990s such as “Executive Decision” (1996), and "The Peacemaker" (1997), went from the realm of safe fiction fantasy to plausible threats to these policy makers.

    Indeed, to witness and remember 9/11/01 and an American Airlines flight containing one Richard Reid on December 22th of that year, it nearly already has—minus the fantastic “only in Hollywood” happy-endings.

    In the US at least, the “unthinkable” became seriously thinkable after 9/11.

    --Orson
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 22, 2003
  10. Orson

    Orson New Member

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