Quote:However if you could just for a moment reign in your vindictiveness toward the US per se, and lend your energy to solving the world crisis of the proliferation of illegal country take-overs, I'm certain we could solve this issue in just a few months.
What is to be gained by continuing to ignore recognition of the problem?
Suppose for a moment that we acknowledge all past mistakes and lump them together under the category of a "learning experience". There is nothing to be gained from constantly "dredging up" past mistakes except furthering the already out hand polarization caused by extreme opinions.
George
My 'vindictiveness' (wrong word, but I'll leave it there) is targeted. Hubris, self-delusion and absolutism gain my arrows. Chuck that stuff overboard, and then you are in the running for greatest civilization ever. But those elements make the US a grave danger.
As to 'ignoring the problem'...that is the issue. What, precisely, is the problem? (though clearly we ought to speak in the plural...problems)
We have not worked out a satisfactory structure for international values or international cooperative action. That is, we haven't got this stuff perfect. But we've got lots done in this direction. Presently, among the western nations, it is the US who is most guilty of declining invitations to internationalism, and of revoking previous agreements of this nature. In each case, justification is forwarded - the ICC, Iraq, Kyoto, etc etc.
After a while, one begins to see not individual cases, but pattern. It becomes a bit like a wife who's been beat by her husband for decades hanging on the hope that this time he means it.
And there is the issue of honesty. How can we - how can YOU - continue to accept profited rationales and claims from an entity which has been this deceitful and this unforthcoming?
A year ago, I argued that the amount of manpower, brainpower, money, military activity, administration activity, etc that was being put towards the war on Iraq could achieve miracles if it was instead put towards working out effective internationalism. We know now that Blix was mainly correct, that Iraq was NOT a threat. So, the question presents itself, 'what factors about the US led them down the path they took?'