maxsdadeo wrote:I apologize in advance for appearing dense, but, how is it significant what Holland, Europe, or anyone else in the world "feels" about the steps America or any other nation takes to stamp out real and certain threats against their country and people.
It concerns us, too. It will impact our lives, our societies, on many different levels. The war Bush Jr is proposing to start will impact the degree of stability and security in the world, to a much greater degree, it seems at the moment, than Iraq now could. Partly that's simply because, you know, "high trees catch a lot of wind" - if you are as powerrful as the US, you cannot do anything without impacting everybody's lives. Partly it's because of the USs self-professed leading role in the world - Bush is on a mission. In a way he is very idealist, more idealistic even than his opponents, who insist on following the procedures and rules of international law, respecting some kind of balance of powers, practicing compromise etc. He does not just present the war against Iraq as a matter of national security - he presents it as if he's saving the world from evil. What if "the world" doesnt see it? What if the world doesnt want to be saved - not in this way - considers the saving more dangerous than that which they are to be saved from?
Lenin once wanted to save the world and its populations from iminent doom by starting war (revolution) - to hell with practical objections or 'small-scale' suffering - the goal justifies the means - and he was going to 'save' the proletariat even if it didnt want to be, and didnt see the need to be, and refused to vote to be. I feel like Lenins proletariat a bit now - somebody is endangering my world, my habitat and that of those I love, out of some grand vision of good and evil that he cant actually find (m)any of those involved (the neighbouring countries, many of the Iraqi exiles, the populations of the allies who are to send their soldiers in) to subscribe to.
Hussein doesnt want war right now (though I'm sure he will want to later) -
this war is not coming at
his instigation. As for the threats the US are claiming to act against, to speak with Joschka Fischer: I am not convinced. And neither are the actual officials assigned to research it, it seems. Blix himself said that no ties with AL-Qaeda were apparent. The "proofs" presented by Powell c.s. - on this and on the WMD - are purely circumstantial, even according to his own collaborators ("there is no smoking gun"). Blix himself said that thus far, there are no indications that Iraq
has WMD to "give up". It might have 'em - but for now, no proof, no lead even. It speaks volumes that Powell c.s. are trumpeting 'proof' like rockets that can reach just a few miles further than the limited range accorded by the US-led coalition earlier, or pipes that
could be used for building WMD, or pictures of the Iraqi's "hiding" things from the UN observers that Blix later brushed aside saying they could equally show routine manoeuvres - nothing proven, no believers, not the UN inspectors, not many of the US's traditional allies, not the Nobleprize-winning scientists who collectively called on Bush not to attack on the basis of this circumstantial proof ...
So we are supposed to create - condone and partake in - war and with it, havoc in the region, mass hoistility among Muslims worldwide and a global economic crisis, on the basis of mere assumptions - we're simply to trust Bush on them. The anti-war sentiment is pointed towards the United States because at this moment, the US are the only country steering for a war.
I'm glad it's you who's writing so I can relativate a bit what I feel when I read when you're writing, b/c to ask how it is "significant" what "anyone else in the world" thinks or feels about the wars and follow-up risks the US are going to launch in their backyard, seems staggeringly - arrogant.
I mean - significant? If, in some hazy future, the EU would decide to start a risky and all-out war against a Mexico or Cuba it has decided poses an imminent threat to the world - when neither you nor your country's government would be convinced by their arguments - when it would set off an intense resentment of all things Western, and possibly a new inflow into anti-Western terrorist movements that would make no distinction between EU and US, across Latin-America - would you want your and your country's "feelings" to be considered "significant"??
