Bush's visit to Britain

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Originally posted by DanS
Interesting poll numbers...

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/...087545,00.html

They certainly are. It raises three key points-

1- As I've said all along, support for the Iraq action is very far from being a Left v Right issue.

2- Those claiming that the majority oppose Bush's visit don't have a lot to back that claim up.

3- It's The Guardian that's saying it. Not Fox News, CNN or anything tainted by Murdoch. The Guardian. Routinely denounced as part of the great leftist conspiracy by people who don't read it.

[MikeH]

It also counters The Viceroy's point that only a "tiny minority" don't want Bush to visit which is what I mainly took issue with.

Doesn't change the fact that asking whether a country is a "force for good" or a "force for evil" is a retarded question.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
There is a common "understanding" among all our European and Canadian friends here that Iraq is not going well and that Bush should have listened to Chirac and Shroeder. All this shows is that the media distortion of the facts concerning Iraq is pervasive in Europe and Canada.

Oddly enough, a leaked CIA memo agrees with them and not our lying President.

[MikeH]

Apparently the US media doesn't distort facts.

[Ned]

Che, I agree, the CIA memo and the MSNBC report seem to be at odds.

Are you saying you NOW believe the CIA?

[Ned]

HO, the problem about a fixed date for a US withdrawal is obvious: the war is not over.

So long as the government of Iraq wants us to help in that war, we should provide support.

[Jamski]

The government of Iraq is still on the run somewhere. The US haven't done very well finding Saddam heve they

-Jam

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by Ned
So long as the government of Iraq wants us to help in that war, we should provide support.

Viceroy Bremer: Hey, you want us to stay?
Viceroy Bremer: Sure, please, my home is your home...

[HershOstropoler]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Oddly enough, a leaked CIA memo agrees with them and not our lying President.

The CIA is part of the vast leftwing conspiracy known under the codename "reality". But don't be afraid, the forces of lalaland are on the march....

[HershOstropoler]

Adam Smith:

"Iraq is a recent example of complete failure of existing diplomatic framework."

And an unfolding example of complete failure of delusional grandman willy waving.

"My point, again, is that I don't see exsiting alternatives working well."

What are you looking for? There is no perfect solution. There are solutions that suck, such that suck badly, and such that are desastrous. Take your pick.

"Flawed in what way?"

Flawed on the premise. Hidden motives usually comes around to bite you in the ass in politics.

"Examples? This appears to suffer from the basic group action problem."

So we should try to get our act together on working as a group.

"May also apply to Mugabe in Paris, in violation of EU travel ban, though who knows what the French interest was in permitting such a trip."

That one was odd, but Chirac is even worse a turd burglar than Blair.

"You seem to have forgotten that I began my initial post by saying that I am not at all pleased by US foreign policy."

And you asked for alternatives. I described an alternative where the chance for success might have been 10 or 20 %, rather than 1 %.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Che, I agree, the CIA memo and the MSNBC report seem to be at odds.

Are you saying you NOW believe the CIA?

When did I say I didn't? The CIA's been agreeing with me ever since Bush started his war mongering about Iraq. As an information gathering and analysis organization, the Agency is very good. It's the Black Ops that I don't like, since they tend to view anyone not cozying up to Hitler as a commie and worthy only of death and saw KGB agents behind every expression of a desire for freedom throughout the 3rd World.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
So long as the government of Iraq wants us to help in that war, we should provide support.

There is no government of Iraq. Jezus, Ned. Do you even think for yourself, or do you just regurgitate what the right-wing talk radio tells you?

[DanS]

Doesn't change the fact that asking whether a country is a "force for good" or a "force for evil" is a retarded question.

It is much less retarded than the Mayor of London thinking that Bush is "the greatest threat to life on the planet that we've most probably ever seen."

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/pol...p?story=464783

OK, OK. He's radical left-of-center and shouldn't be listened to.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


There is no government of Iraq. Jezus, Ned. Do you even think for yourself, or do you just regurgitate what the right-wing talk radio tells you?

I was primarily referring to the elected government that is to take full charge and end the "Authority's" jurisdiction next summer. We can stay only if they ask us to stay.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DanS
OK, OK. He's radical left-of-center and shouldn't be listened to.

Hey!!!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
I was primarily referring to the elected government that is to take full charge and end the "Authority's" jurisdiction next summer. We can stay only if they ask us to stay.

You are assuming there will be one. Right now it appears as if the Supreme Council can't get it's **** together to pull that off.

If it was me, I'd just ask all the local councils in Iraq to send someone to form a Constituant Assembly and let the Suprememe Council act as a provisional government until a new government is elected.

I read an article a few weeks back about Shi'ites wanting to kill US soldiers. Things have really been fubared over there. I feel bad for whatever Democratic President's gonna inherit this mess.

[Ned]

They just ran a piece comparing Clinton's visit to England with Bush's. In the video clip, Clinton is working the specators who are smiling and cheering. Clinton stops at one little blond-haired girl who hands him a flower. He smiles, bends over and carresses the girl.

But, as I have often said, this is not so much about Bush but about Republicans. The left stages riotous demonstrations whenever a Republican president travels to Europe. Eisenhower was hugely popular in Europe until he became the Republican president of the United States. After that, whereever he went he was met with massive demonstrations from the left.

It is not hard to understand why the left does not like Republicans.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
After that, whereever he went he was met with massive demonstrations from the left.

You're thinking of Nixon and his "welcome" by the people of South America.

[Ned]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


You are assuming there will be one. Right now it appears as if the Supreme Council can't get it's **** together to pull that off.

If it was me, I'd just ask all the local councils in Iraq to send someone to form a Constituant Assembly and let the Suprememe Council act as a provisional government until a new government is elected.

I read an article a few weeks back about Shi'ites wanting to kill US soldiers. Things have really been fubared over there. I feel bad for whatever Democratic President's gonna inherit this mess.

Even if the Council were totally incompetent, we have to go through them. How would it look for the US or the UN, for that matter, to simply shove them aside at this point and begin to operate as if they did not exist?

[Solly]

A plane crashed into the hordes of protesters would prove their point that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq haven't helped reduce the threat of terrorism.

No-one ever claimed that the probability of a successful threat would be reduced to 0%.

In fact, I'd love it to happen. It'd get rid of a fair few of the whinging cowards on our great island.

[Ned]

Che, you are right. There were anti-American riots in South America even before Nixon went. There was talk of calling off his trip. Ike toured South Asia and was welcomed as a hero.

""A Great Awakening." He had long wanted to visit India. Now he decided that on the way to Paris he would go not only to India but would also sweep the southern tiers of Asia and Europe, where ancient civilizations stood alike with infant nations in constant, poverty-torn struggle to improve their lot.

From Rome to Ankara to Karachi to Kabul journeyed the President of the U.S., and to Tehran, Athens, Tunis and Casablanca. And everywhere, he carried his message, understandable to all and backed by unbroken U.S. performance: "We want to live in peace and friendship--in freedom." More than that: "We want to help other peoples to raise their standards, to be as content with their lot as humans can be." To India's Parliament, he spoke of "a great awakening" in which the world's peoples have come to recognize "that only under a rule of moral law can all of us realize our deepest and noblest aspirations." Without mentioning Communism by name, he defined it as the dead hand of tyranny, pointed to a free-world future based on economic order and law. At Delhi University, he said: "A reliable framework of law, grounded in the general principles recognized by civilized nations, is of crucial importance in all plans for rapid economic development...Law is not a concrete pillbox in which the status quo is armed and entrenched. On the contrary, a single role of law, the sanctity of contract, has been the vehicle of more explosive and extensive economic change in the world than any other factor."

A High Presence. On foot, by car and by camel-back, on bicycles and in bullock carts, millions crowded into the cities along his route to see Eisenhower, and their reply to his message came in a torrential outpour. "We love you, Ike," cried the Turks, tough fighters on the cold-war frontier. "Take back our love, Ike," cried Pakistani throngs. In India, the reception burst the chains of imagination, crowds surged and seethed around Ike, and in front of village huts appeared brass vessels, festooned with mango leaves in recognition of a high presence.

The moment of profoundest meaning came at an outdoor "civic reception" in New Delhi. When Ike, with Nehru, stepped up to the speaker's stand, he blinked and shook his head in astonishment; the crowd reached farther than eye could see. In neutralist India, Eisenhower invoked the memory of India's saint, impled that Gandhi himself would today favor the dynamics of strength: "America's right, our obligations, for that matter, to maintain a respectable establishment for defense--our duty to join in company with like-thinking peoples for mutual self- defence--would, I am sure, be recognized and upheld by the most saintly men...In a democracy, people should not act like sheep but jealously guard liberty of action." At his words, countless thousands of Gandhi's disciples broke into cheers.

In his talks with the leaders of the nations he visited, the President aimed at no t-crossing, i-dotting agreements. None were needed. Reported New York Times-man Paul Grimes from New Delhi after Ike's departure: "It did not seem to matter much whether Mr. Nehru had actually requested or been given a guarantee that the U.S. would help India to meet further Chinese Communist aggression. What mattered was the obvious strengthening of Indian-American friendship to a point where no such guarantee was necessary."

In 1960, Dwight Eisenhower's last year in office, he may in a sense be the victim of his own success in 1959. Ahead lie his trip to the Soviet Union and a series of summit conferences--all carrying a special challenge, since the U.S. has become the home of so many hopes. For the same reason the U.S. will have less privacy and more urgency in facing 1960's other problems, old and new: the dangerous lag in space achievement; the delicate, perilous balance between fiscal responsibility and military strength; the integrity of NATO as a free-world shield; the unrest in the U.S.'s backyard as shown in 1959 by anti- American riots in Bolivia and Panama and by the bearded demagoguery of Cuba's Fidel Castro.

But the look on the faces turned toward Eisenhower in 1959 was the future's best portent. In Paris, during his trip, Ike rejected the view of a "dark and dreary future," classified himself as a "born optimist, and I suppose most soldiers are, because no soldier ever won a battle if he went into it pessimistically." He thinks of the future, said Ike, in terms of his grandchildren, and hopefully, someday, great- grandchildren, "and I am very concerned that they get a chance to have a better life than I had." The forces for freedom fired by 1959's Man of the Year would inevitably change the lives of millions of grandchildren and great-grandchildren in an epochal historic way. And men of hope might have new reason to believe that tomorrow's world had a better than even chance.

http://www.time.com/time/poy2000/archive/1959.html

[Ned]

Park Avenue, More likely any such plane would crash into Buckingham palace wiping out the Queen, Princes Charles and William, Blair and Bush.

I wonder if the protesters would cheer?

[Tripledoc]

Originally posted by Ned
Park Avenue, More likely any such plane would crash into Buckingham palace wiping out the Queen, Princes Charles and William, Blair and Bush.

I wonder if the protesters would cheer?

Wasn't there a publication by the MIT where they claimed they had invented a machine which somehow could calculate differentiations in worldwide brainwave activity. According to transcripts from that machine there was a definate anomality in the days prior to 9-11.

This would either suggest that Man is precogniscent or, that the changes in the material world is shaped by a collective psyche.

[DinoDoc]

Or that you are talking abunch of crap?

[Sandman]

Sandman, When I said the US wants democratic governments, etc., and that I hope you shared that goal, you called this a troll. I assume that you do want democratic governments. So the reason you said this was a troll is that you do not believe we have good intentions.

I called it a troll because it suggested that I was an 'Islamo-fascist', and anti-democratic. And, unlike you, I simply don't accept as a given that the US wants democratic governments (as I understand the meaning of the term).

He was also taking in 1919, before the Geneva Conventions, the Law of the Sea codification, etc. So perhaps he didn't mean more than those precepts.

The Geneva Conventions had begun before then, with the Red Cross, and bans on certain methods of warfare. And the League of Nations was supposed to do more than just regulate war, it was supposed to abolish it altogether through dialogue and disarmament.

Humanitarian law is encapsulated mainly by the 4 Geneva Conventions on Human Rights but also some other treaties.

Yes, once again in YOUR opinion a 'world of laws' means A. Doesn't mean that 'world of laws' must mean A.

A world with a law or two may be logically 'a world of laws' but it's clearly not in the spirit of it. And I'd like to see some evidence that Wilson favoured a minimalist approach as you seem to be suggesting.

So? Backing 'democracy' doesn't mean total democracy. There is a reason most Americans say that the US is a republic, not a democracy, because we don't like TOO much democracy.

Turkey isn't a total democracy. That much is obvious, since the Parliament almost granted the US military access, compared to the popular opinion in the country, which was strongly opposed.

Apparently democracy is fine until the point when it ends up being an obstacle to American interests, at which point it becomes 'too much' democracy. Your 'flexible' attitude to towards democracy is not much use in convincing me that the US is seriously interested in a democratic world.

Perhaps, but it also seems you are unaware of the democratic peace theory, which at its loosest (to prevent pages long argument on DP Theory) says that democracies tend not to use force against each other, definetly compared to democracy-autocratic, or autocratic-autocratic dyads.

Who said anything about using force? Friendly/unfriendly is broader than that. And how does the DP theory explain Bush's obvious preference for friendly over democratic? Certainly seems to suggest that he's not too interested in democratising the Middle-East.

So SA throws some people in jail because the US put some pressure. It ignores the Saudi government basically ignored the Wabbhist threat for years and a vast majority of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi nationals.

They are fighting terrorism now, whilst they weren't before. Like America. And they're not democratic.

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I'm going to protest on Wednesday and Thursday in Parliament sq.

Protest extra hard for your friends in America who hate this tyrant as much as you do!

[Vesayen]

Originally posted by Ned


No Droque. The people of the United States will rally around their president if he is attacked by a British mob. All the attack will do is create a lot of hostility towards Britain in the US. But, again, I think that is exactly what the demonstrators want.

No I wont-I'll be glad the populace of ouor closest ally knows our current leader is a ####er.

[Imran Siddiqui]

And the League of Nations was supposed to do more than just regulate war, it was supposed to abolish it altogether through dialogue and disarmament.

Yes, never said Wilson realistically looked at the world. He followed the old Kellogg-Briand delusion.

A world with a law or two may be logically 'a world of laws' but it's clearly not in the spirit of it. And I'd like to see some evidence that Wilson favoured a minimalist approach as you seem to be suggesting.

A law or two? Simply because I gave you two examples doesn't mean there are only two. I mean, the general application of minimal laws in order to foster non-confrontational relations in international affairs, such as dealing with the laws of the high seas, economic laws, etc.

It doesn't mean that the UN is now going to pass social laws and economic laws overriding domestic law.

Apparently democracy is fine until the point when it ends up being an obstacle to American interests, at which point it becomes 'too much' democracy. Your 'flexible' attitude to towards democracy is not much use in convincing me that the US is seriously interested in a democratic world.

So I guess you'd say European countries are not interested in a democratic world, because it is not 'fine' when the American people decide they want the death penalty. That's a nice flexible attitude towards democracy there .

And how does the DP theory explain Bush's obvious preference for friendly over democratic? Certainly seems to suggest that he's not too interested in democratising the Middle-East.

Seeing as that is his main ultimate goal, I think democratising the ME is something he is definetly interested in. And, yes, he's gone for 'friendly' countries, but even with his allies he's PUSHED for democratic reforms. Musharraf still would not have come close to having Parliamentary elections if Bush didn't continue to push for it.

[Ned]

Sandman, The League of Nations failed not due to the absence of America, but due to the absence of any capability of enforcing its resolution. Nazi Germany simply shredded the WWI peace agreements and the League of Nations stood helplessly by, powerless to do anything at all to rectify the situation.

The whole point of the UN was to put teeth into those resolutions. One cannot simply call for a country to act or desist. One must provide dire consequence for failure to abide by the will of the world.

That was the message Bush brought to UN in September of last year. A UN, unwilling to enforce its resolutions, is as irrelevant as the League of Nations.

[Tripledoc]

The UN does not know how to enforce its own resolutions, so therefore it is up to the strongest power to make sure that resolutions pushed by that power in all actuality be pushed through, disregarding what other nations are trying to push through.

Only the strongest power can actually lay down a veto that has any relevance.

The weak must submit to that power. Not becasue they are cowards, but because they see the preservation of human life on this planet more important, than resisting despotism.

The strongest power will eventally, from lack of any real resitance and challange grow fat and complacent, and in the end the centre will not hold.

That has so far been the destiny of all empires. However since the discourse is capitalist/religious and it is subcounsciously believed by the Capitalst that there is a distinct possibility that he might go to Hell -the protestant ethic- it is therefopre of chief importance to get as much out of life and let others do the work for them.

This psychological anomality has been further comlicated and augmented by the fact that the present day capitalists are consistent drug abusers and sexual maniacs.

Thus self-feeding solipsism is then the basis of how the capitalist understands the economy. He needs, and he thinks that the way to solve national economies is to satisfy that need.