preemptive attack on Iraq.

trespassers will

Quote:

au1929 wrote:
Reconsider the US success rate before forcing democracy again
This seems like arguing that if most battered women return to their batterers we should reconsider intervening when they are being beaten. What's the point, right? We won't change anything

The article was only pointing out that the US has been eminently unsuccessful nation building in the third world. Particularly when we try to sell our form of democratic government. The truth is still the truth no matter how much you attempt to deride it. Rolling Eyes

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We don't just try to sell our democratic government, we try to sell capitalism and as I have said in other places in these forums, we have lousy sales personnel in our government. We even have lousy sales personnel in our free enterprise system who, it appears, are more likely to establish sweat shops than instigate the entrepreneurship amongst the local populace. Sure, there's a boss involved in each of these sweat shops but in the case of communist China. that takes on a different bent. I realize that the Pacific coastal cities of China have been testing grounds for a form of free capitalism for years but that is due to the Chinese government's own experiments. Now they have Hong Kong -- now how much more enigmatic can those Chinese get?

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http://www.takebackthemedia.com/pentagoon2.html

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Lightwizard
The fact remains whatever we are trying to sell we are not finding many willing buyers. Embarrassed

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BillW,

Slick link, but not all veterans will agree with the reasoning, nor the conclusion. Rumsfeld's remarks are out of context. The man is tough, but he isn't nearly the war-crazed maniac that he is painted by the peace-at-any-price party.

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Or then again, isn't he? I certainly put him in that category and believe he only needs the past two years as evidence. He is for War , any War just give him War - and the hell with the people!

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au: That's because we haven't done what all good salespeople do (when you walk into an art gallery, for instance). They qualify you.
They find out if you are receptive to their product, if can you afford it, if you're ready to buy, etc. Our retailers do a demographic on where they should be located, what merchandise will do well in the area, etc. Our government's idea of doing a demographic of a country is to become confrontational, relies on MacDonalds to plop down another heart attack bad food store, gives money, and I don't really have to go on. How would you respond to a salesperson who uses the tactics of our government to sell you something? I love the give money part and stores use that with sales, loss leaders, rebates, etc. This is an incentive to buy. Our government has been failing in approaching cash incentives as a sales technique.

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Lightwizard wrote:

We don't just try to sell our democratic government, we try to sell capitalism and as I have said in other places in these forums, we have lousy sales personnel in our government. We even have lousy sales personnel in our free enterprise system who, it appears, are more likely to establish sweat shops than instigate the entrepreneurship amongst the local populace. Sure, there's a boss involved in each of these sweat shops but in the case of communist China. that takes on a different bent. I realize that the Pacific coastal cities of China have been testing grounds for a form of free capitalism for years but that is due to the Chinese government's own experiments. Now they have Hong Kong -- now how much more enigmatic can those Chinese get?

LW - Excellent comments. I think you are right about selling capitalism first, though I suspect it works best when implemented within a free society with a democratically elected government.

I don't think we can hold our government to account for the fact that other governments allow sweatshops to flourish, though perhaps we could find ways to push them towards more enlightened policies through trade barriers.

And of course, I think the fact that China enjoys most-favored nation trade status despite selling us goods made in prisons, makes it hard for us to have any credibility when asking other countries to improve their labor laws.

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We buy products made in our prisons and, as a matter of fact, it was revealed that some telemarketers are actually in prison. Good idea not to give them your credit card or social security number!

I am dismayed at the lighting products I get from suppliers who don't stick to factories in Japan, Taiwan and Korea, the three best as far as QC. The market is being flooded with light bulbs from China and Indonesia which aren't even meeting Federal standards and the government just looks the other way. I am satisfied that I stick to one source and the lamps are make in Japan and Germany by old established factories.

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au1929 wrote:

The fact remains whatever we are trying to sell we are not finding many willing buyers.

Too true, though it is hardly surprising that repressive governments who have a choke hold on their countries aren't interested in "buying" their own ticket out of power. I suspect we would find a lot of interested buyers among the people they are oppressing, but then their governments aren't exactly interested in allowing them to make the purchase, either.

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au1929 wrote:

trespassers will

Quote:
au1929 wrote:
Reconsider the US success rate before forcing democracy again
This seems like arguing that if most battered women return to their batterers we should reconsider intervening when they are being beaten. What's the point, right? We won't change anything

The article was only pointing out that the US has been eminently unsuccessful nation building in the third world. Particularly when we try to sell our form of democratic government. The truth is still the truth no matter how much you attempt to deride it.

I did not mean to deride your position. I was merely trying to indicate something I considered to be a flaw in the basic premise. If my chosen analogy seemed intended to make you or your statement look bad, please believe that it was not intended that way.

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They wouldn't have to buy a ticket out of power if we could convince them but with third world countries who have oppressive, authoritarian and/or dictatorial governments, I think we have a bad problem of not being able to get through to the populace. So we should invade them to get through? They certainly are informed of that intent quite quickly. Unfortunately that is a side effect of our bad publicity in advocating pre-emtive strikes to the dismay of even the free world. Tony Blair and Company are slowing backing away -- pressure from their populace who we haven't sold because we are lousy salespeople. Can you imagine going into a store and the salesperson uses a technique of, "Oh, you're not going to buy, eh," and proceeds to push you to the floor, puts their foot on your neck, extracts your wallet, takes out your credit card...whoops, and they realizes this is not going to work 'cause you have to sign the receipt. Can't force you to sign a receipt? Well then, the salesperson pulls out a gun and forces you to sign the receipt and you walk out the door with your near little package of democracy.

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I understand that there are going to be those who say it worked after World War II. In Germany, a democratic and capitalistic government was interupted by someone name Adolph Hitler -- he rose to power because capitalism had run into one of it's bad side effects -- inflation and a bad economy with a crippled industrial military machine. I believe (and would have to do some new historical searching - Setanta, where are you?) Japan was headed towards a capitalistic system. They are two examples of nations already primed to establish capitalistic systems. Russia was not and we failed there (didn't even hardly try) for over fifty years until they Russians spent themselves into bankruptcy.
Japan is still trying to figure out how our economy works, already experiencing many failures in making their capitalistic machine work (their effort to establish offices on Wall Street have been miserable failures as they don't understand our way of trading).
We do have to decide what product we are selling (the know your product dictum). I don't think we have a clue.

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Lightwizard wrote:

...but with third world countries who have oppressive, authoritarian and/or dictatorial governments, I think we have a bad problem of not being able to get through to the populace. So we should invade them to get through?

I have not seen a single post advocating that blanket solution as being appropriate for every nation with a repressive government.

In fact, our government isn't advocating it in any single case at this time either. There are additional elements involved in the Iraq equation. It is convenient to gloss over them and argue against simply choosing to go in for the sole reason that the regime is not to our liking, but that is obviously not the case. At issue is the belief of the current administration that the current government in Iraq can never be trusted to abandon its efforts to arm Iraq and thereby remain a threat to other nations.

Whether or not that is a valid reason to attack Iraq and work to bring about a change in the regime is a question that makes for a meaningful debate.

Maybe you know of a case that fits your "foot on the neck" hyperbole, but I don't. Care to share? It makes for a nice sound-bite, but it doesn't match reality in this case. (And again, I am open to being educated about another case if you can cite one... I know full well that we have done the wrong thing in some cases, historically.)

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We've done some wrong things that belie our humanitarian and benevolent nature (or at least what our government may feign as a humanitarian and benevolent nature). The foot-on-the-neck scenerio was in a humorous mode -- should have put a smiley behind it! If you didn't get anything out of it, I'm sorry.

You see, you're a tough sell -- you're not totally buying the pre-emptive strike as a written-in-stone foreign policy. If the matter with Iraq reaches the level that this is necessary because of a violation of disarmament, so be it. I hope you're completely assured by our government's intentions but that is what he debate is about. Nobody wants to believe their elected officials have hidden agendas and often they are never revealed. The Pentagon Papers was an instance where they were revealed to everyone's dismay.

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Lightwizard wrote:

We've done some wrong things that belie our humanitarian and benevolent nature (or at least what our government may feign as a humanitarian and benevolent nature). The foot-on-the-neck scenerio was in a humorous mode -- should have put a smiley behind it! If you didn't get anything out of it, I'm sorry.

I agree we have a mixed record on standing for anything internationally. I do appreciate your wit, but I felt compelled to challenge the accuracy of the humorous scene you painted. (I am not as humorless as most conservatives! :wink: )

Lightwizard wrote:

You see, you're a tough sell -- you're not totally buying the pre-emptive strike as a written-in-stone foreign policy. If the matter with Iraq reaches the level that this is necessary because of a violation of disarmament, so be it. I hope you're completely assured by our government's intentions but that is what he debate is about.

No, I am not completely sold on the notion that we have nothing but the best of intentions, but neither am I sold on the notion that we have nothing but the worst of intentions. Which perhaps puts you and me in violent agreement on the heart of this issue; we both think regime change might be necessary in Iraq, but want it to be done only if absolutely necessary, and only for the right reasons. (I hope I am not mis-stating your point of view.)

Lightwizard wrote:

Nobody wants to believe their elected officials have hidden agendas and often they are never revealed. The Pentagon Papers was an instance where they were revealed to everyone's dismay.

I assume that our elected officials have hidden agendas, I just don't pretend to know what those hidden agendas are. (This last is not something I am accusing you of, but just a comment regarding some people with whom I have discussed this and other issues.)

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You did not misinterpret what I believe and the result would be that it shouldn't be perceived as a preemptive strike or any notion that that is, in fact, our foreign policy. Things are now getting rather shaken up over the discovery of some empty warheads. It looks like they didn't even attempt to hide them and I'm curious as to whether they actually show up on the report submitted by the Iraqis. There's the usual overreaching as to the significance -- so far, it's hard to tell if this is a smoking gun.

And, no, I don't pretend to know what anyone's hidden agendas are but carefully watching their overt actions and what they say can certainly give a clue. Twice burned, thrice learned? That goes for Saddam, also, and in spades.

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LW - It's all good. Smile

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so are we all elated that we might find something we can call "material breach"?

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"material breech" in the eye of the beholder?

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preemptive attack on Iraq.

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