George Bush

finn I must have forgot, what was the security council vote again?

Why did Britain follow on this? That's a terribly interesting question, and there's one Brit on the board here who tosses up suppositions, and an old chum of mine has been in England for 30 years now and he has some ideas. And the Brit press has tried to figure this out, and everybody is really puzzled.

It has killed Blair in the polls, and in recent elections. The most promising career in god knows how long is done.

The thing is, there were a ton of people in government and out in both Britain and the US (and elsewhere) who yelled "Don't do this!" And they argued why Blair shouldn't..."what is imminent in this threat?"...."unilateral pre-emption is very dangerous, it's a dumb precedent!"..."look who is advising Bush, read what they've written, these guys are extreme!"...and "this will make the us safer????"

So why did Blair fall into this hole.

One rather compelling, if seldom discussed, notion has to do with another explicitly stated goal of the neoconservative fellas. Specifically, that goal is to actively prevent any other world power arising and approaching the power and wealth level of the US. The US, explicitly stated we'll recall, is to be dominant.

And what would happen if the expanding EU were to include Britain as full partner and ally?

And hell, while I'm at it, let's talk about Israel and what its interests might be in war with Iraq.

This really doesn't get discussed much. A few people have pointed out that most of the top neocons in the government are Jewish. Of course, that's an illegal statement. That's clearly anti-Semitic. It isn't, of course, but boy does that charge pop up immediately. So normally the conversation doesn't even get to the relationship between some of these individuals and Israel, particular Likud.

Would Israel have wanted the US with its monster resources to crush Sadaam? Five points for correct answer here. Would Israel be lobbying for this action? Yes. Would Mossad be acting as an agent to provide helpful intelligence? No kidding. Did anyone else have the thought when Chalabi's house got raided and the news came out that he was suspected of being sneaky with Iran that there was another country who might be expected to operate covertly so as to encourage the US to war?

And we might observe that the strategies for handling Arabs is pretty similar in both cases. Crush em.

I would have much more confidence in this Administration if I could believe that hamstringing the EU was truly an integral part of their motivation for doing whatever they did to get Blair on board.

Of course your statement isn't illegal, and it's probably not anti-Semetic unless you are insinuating that it is a particularly Semetic trait to commit treason. I don't think you are, but you do seem to want to continue down this neo-cons as the 21st century bogey men track.

The neo-cons who, on another of your postings, conceived the war in Iraq, at least in part, to prevent the EU from challenging US dominance, actually ignored the interests of the US in favor of those of Israel.

I guess if you throw enought shite on the wall, some of it will stick.

It appears you are further saying that not only do we need the support of "major powers," we need the support of "major powers" without ideological ties to us. Support from the UK doesn't get the Cyclo stamp of approval because it "is so tied to us ideologically."

Who are these top 8-10 major powers?

Your casual dismissal of nations like Italy and Uzbekistan seems awfully arrogant. Weren't you just counseling against such behavior?

I have a feeling you are reading my postings for tone rather than content anyway Cyclo so I am not too concerned about your perception either. This doesn't signify that I consider myself above you, simply unimpressed by you.

I'm saying that the admin. throws around the term 'multinational effort' as if it is a TRUE multinational effort.

The top 8-10 powers in the world would be (in no partitcular order) U.S., Russia, England, France, Germany, India, China, for sure. You can argue several others, but I guess the next tier would be Spain, Japan, Canada (I guess), etc.

Getting the support of one major country, and tacking on a bunch of pissant countries is TECHNICALLY a multinational effort, but REALISTICALLY a bunch of countries with no real involvement in major world politics are backing us. 'cept for England, our one big ally.

You see, I read for both content AND tone, as both are important to understanding the argument of the writer. For example: the above statements' content is rather neutral, but the tone is rather condescending. See?

BillW, c.i. -

I completely agree with both you. I just didn't want to go there, as the rain of arrows coming towards me would increase tenfold once I started bringing up how many lies are associated with the admin and I didn't want to derail the thread.

Cycloptichorn

(cue animated gif of a beaver sodomizing an eagle)

But the relationship has been, to those of us who've watched it closely, more than agreement. It really has been lockstep. The same PR moves, the identical wording in justifications, etc. And we know that Blair, before the war, said that partly he was working in tandem with the Bush administration so as to act as a tempering influence on what was (American unilateralism) not necessarily a healthy emergent political idea.

There are deep and undeniable historical bonds between Britain and the US, as there are between Britain and Canada or Australia. And old grudges and mistrust between Britain and Europe. So one can posit a compelling argument that Britain would most likely side with America when things get nitty gritty, and that America would have to get nuts indeed for that to change. Of course, many in Britain, even top people in his own government, said that situation exactly had arrived.

There has been a ton of analyses that see some bond between the two men in their religious faith (Howard fits here too). But who's to know?

And who is to know what goes on behind the scenes at this level of elite governance? What did Jim Baker say when he went around mustering up coalition signatories? What did he promise/threaten? God knows.

We are going to have to wait for documents and for the books written by folks who were there to really get a look at the gears in all this. But the thesis that the Bush administration may have had, as at least one of the motives here, the goal of limiting EU/Brit coherence (following the explicit doctrine of Wolfowitz et al) so as to solidify American dominance in the world is a thesis which finds more disagreement in mythology than in observations and real documents.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
You see, I read for both content AND tone, as both are important to understanding the argument of the writer. For example: the above statements' content is rather neutral, but the tone is rather condescending. See?


I find it hard to take seriously, your umbrage concerning my arrogance.

I assume then, you are not much of a fan of the United Nations and would prefer to see an organization called the United Major Powers.

Assuming Russia, France and Germany were with us on this one, but not the majority of the pissant countries who are currently with us, somehow I find it difficult to believe that you and your like minded confreres would be extoling the multinational effort rather than castigating Bush for joining with the old colonial powers and ignoring the opinions of the developing nations of the world.

Interior decorating by any other name would smell half as sweet.

There's an admitted danger to using concepts such as 'the neocons' or 'the neocon agenda' to think with. The crowd of people who have given themselves this title or descriptor are a varied lot. Bill Kristol and Paul Wolfowitz are different people with different minds. Still, if they define themselves in this self-inclusive manner, the term means something. And there are documents, from 1992 famously, which spell out a political philosophy which explicates each of the things I've said above that it does explicate.

As regards the lack of public conversation (and it is a curious lack) on the subject of Israel's interests, or perceived interests, in the US heading into Iraq and making real the 'vision' of democracy spreading like a happy virus, I just thought I ought to throw it into the mix here. But there is real resistance that arises immediately. Both David Brooks and Richard Perle have implied that any pointing to the Jewish ethnicity of the top neoconservatives is, ipso facto, anti-Semitic. So that makes it a bit difficult to even begin a conversation on the possibilities of Israeli or Likud involvement.

That the United States should act to remain the dominant power in the world is a neo-con concept. It is not, perforce, a sinister one.