Understanding America and the Bush administration

Well..... OK.

I hope I was not the cause of your pique - that certainly was not my intent, despite my perhaps too direct comments.

And yet the unfolding of events in history often provides reason to reassess and occasionally alter our interpretation of the actions of its players. Fixed ideas are not necessarily a virtue.

We were discussing both the reasons and the motives for international criticism of the U.S. actions. I believe there are some interesting and generally unanswered questions there.

To cite a recent example -- Even despite the recent declaration by China that it has authorized war against Taiwan in the event that the Taiwanese government or people make any declaration of independence, and its certainly equally "Orwellian" and longstanding pattern of rationalizations of preemptive arrest and imprisionment, Europe still not only fails to condemn these actions, but has expressed the intent to sell China modern weapons -- even as it threatens Taiwan and continues to rationalize the large-scale imprisionment of political dissenters. Why new initiatives to cooperate with China, while condemning this country? I think this is an interesting and provocative question, which merits (but does not compel) some discussion.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

Quote, "If the danger is grave enough, waiting for 100% proof is merely stupid. It may come in the form of a plague killing millions." This is true, and nobody argues with this point....

Actually, people dispute this point all over the board, but I am glad to see that you have the intelligence not to.

cicerone imposter wrote:

The issue is how reliable the information is that is used to determine the inevitable action of the enemy. In the case of our preemptive attack on Iraq, this administration refused to listen to the intel people that the informatin was not independently confirmed, and got most of our info from expatriates of Iraq.

I would think that even the widely known historical aspects of the situation produced a probability high enough to justify invasion against a murderous dictator. He had had the weapons, and programs to make them more lethal, and then had been continuously evasive and dishonest for years when inspected. What you have here is a reasonably high probability of an immensely grave consequence.

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georgeob1 wrote:

Illegal? What "law" was violated? What court will pass judgement? The fact is our intervention was duly authorized by the U.S. Congress in accordance with the Constitution. The action was entirely legal. Some of you may condem the action - that is your right. However it was most certainly not illegal.

The benefits to the Iraqi people and to the Arab world in general are already becoming evident. The verdict of history will be known in a few decades. So far things look very good in that area.

As far as I know WWII was authorized by the German "congress" as well.... in accordance with the "constitution"....

That's one of the reasons why you have international laws. Of course nobody will hold the US responsible. It was, legally, an act of aggression, a unilateral attack, an invasion of a country that didn't represent any danger to the US.

But there's nobody to hold the US accountable.

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old europe wrote:

georgeob1 wrote:
Illegal? What "law" was violated? What court will pass judgement? The fact is our intervention was duly authorized by the U.S. Congress in accordance with the Constitution. The action was entirely legal. Some of you may condem the action - that is your right. However it was most certainly not illegal.

The benefits to the Iraqi people and to the Arab world in general are already becoming evident. The verdict of history will be known in a few decades. So far things look very good in that area.
...a unilateral attack, an invasion of a country that didn't represent any danger to the US....

We thought that weapons one of which can wipe out a city did represent kind of a danger. We had been playing cat and mouse with the well known liar and murderer Saddam Hussein for years, and needed to resolve the issue. The idea that the chance of doomsday weapons in the hands of a hideous dictator would be no danger is absurd.

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georgeob1 wrote:

I hope I was not the cause of your pique - that certainly was not my intent, despite my perhaps too direct comments.

Don't worry, George -- I'm not piqued, and your comments were fine. I just observe that from time to time, participants drop out of discussions for no apparent reason. Whenever this happens I usually find it irritating; so I thought I'd try being explicit about it when I'm doing it myself.

georgeob1 wrote:

To cite a recent example -- Even despite the recent declaration by China that it has authorized war against Taiwan in the event that the Taiwanese government or people make any declaration of independence, and its certainly equally "Orwellian" and longstanding pattern of rationalizations of preemptive arrest and imprisionment, Europe still not only fails to condemn these actions, but has expressed the intent to sell China modern weapons -- even as it threatens Taiwan and continues to rationalize the large-scale imprisionment of political dissenters.

On this point, you won't get any argument from me. And I believe that as far as Europeans are concerned, you would see as much organized outrage from them against EU policies as you see from Americans against George Bush. The reason why you don't is because America's bad policies can be -- fairly or not -- attributed to the natural person who happens to run the White House. The European Union, by contrast, is a faceless monster. And even if its policies are every bit as cynical and Orwellian as the American government's, these policies are harder to oppose in practice because there is no one obvious target to direct your opposition at. In this regard, Americans have it better than Europeans do.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

old europe wrote:
It's illegal. There hasn't been proof to justify the war. Neither before, nor after the invasion. Therefore illegal, by international law.

The situation just on its face was enough to indicate that there was a good chance he had not destroyed his WMD and development programs. As for it being illegal, it would be a grave error for the US to give any foreign body a veto on its right to deal with dangers to its people's lives.

old europe wrote:
Imagine, Albania would say "We are afraid the US wants to attack us. They have WMD." This would be a valid reason for Albania to attack the US, following your logic.

Not at all. We are not saying that no one may possess WMD, only that a handful of people of the character of a Hitler or Hussein or bin Laden may not.

Nobody is talking about a foreign body having the right to veto the United States' right for preemptive attacks. I'm not talking about preemptive strikes, though, but about preventive attacks which are illegal.

And, if distinctive character traits are a reason to attack a souvereign nation - what laws would that possibly be based on?

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old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
old europe wrote:
It's illegal. There hasn't been proof to justify the war. Neither before, nor after the invasion. Therefore illegal, by international law.

The situation just on its face was enough to indicate that there was a good chance he had not destroyed his WMD and development programs. As for it being illegal, it would be a grave error for the US to give any foreign body a veto on its right to deal with dangers to its people's lives.

old europe wrote:
Imagine, Albania would say "We are afraid the US wants to attack us. They have WMD." This would be a valid reason for Albania to attack the US, following your logic.

Not at all. We are not saying that no one may possess WMD, only that a handful of people of the character of a Hitler or Hussein or bin Laden may not.

Nobody is talking about a foreign body having the right to veto the United States' right for preemptive attacks. I'm not talking about preemptive strikes, though, but about preventive attacks which are illegal.

Since we do not admit the right of any foreign body to veto the military actions we feel necessary, the term "illegal" can have no meaning in this case. It cannot be illegal if we do not regard other nations as having the right to decide what our military actions may be. Furthermore, people have made war for thousands and thousands of years without any legality involved except their internal laws.

old europe wrote:

And, if distinctive character traits are a reason to attack a souvereign nation - what laws would that possibly be based on?

First of all, the use of the word sovereign in this case is idiotic. The reason why it is usually regarded as unethical to invade a sovereign nation is that it interferes with the inhabitants right to control what goes on in their own country, but the people of Iraq had no such rights to begin with. The country was being ruled by thugs who severely punished the slightest dissent by citizens.

Secondly, we did not invade Iraq because of Hussein's personality traits, we invaded because of our concern over WMD in the hands of someone with his bad personality traits (murderer, annexing his neighbors, friend to terrorists, etc.).

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physgrad wrote:

2. Even if you squeeze through my objection in point 1 and choose to apply the individual justice to nation states, you run into another untrue assumption, a level playing field. That is you assume that other potentially threatening countries subscribe to the same version of individual justice that you do. Simply put, no-one will attempt a pre-emptive strike against you, if you do nothing. Again, september 11th and the very existence of terrorism, which by the way are cold hard facts, completely contradict the assumption of a level playing field. This I believe is what georgeob and others meant when they asked if you would wait for an attack instead? This seems to be a perfectly valid objection.

The problem many people have (me, too) is that the US attacked a country, claiming it was a preemptive strike. Well, it was not. There was no military provocation in sense that the US would have been threatened by Iraq.
There was not even an imminent danger that Iraq would attack in the future. The war was fought because the US said that Iraq might have WMD (actually, they said "Iraq has WMD. We know where they are." Which turned out to be wrong. Some say it was a lie.) and claimed Iraq would harbor terrorists, which wasn't proved neither.

Now, it seems to be reasonable to be afraid of the US. Nobody wants to suffer a unilateral attack from a military superpower.

You might say that "we" European countries don't have a reason to fear an attack. Well, right.

But other countries have a different past, and different relationships with the US. I mean, explain to somebody in El Salvador whose family was killed by US trained "death squads", armed with US guns, that the president of the United States only wants to "protect US civilians". Yeah, sure.
Explain it to people in Chile, were a democratically elected president was toppled by the CIA in order to replace him with a dictator.
Explain it to people in Nicaragua. Explain it what it means when US officials say about a dictator who starves his own people to death: "Sure he is a son of a bitch. But at least he's our son of a bitch!"

None of these things is the responsibility of GW. It happened, well, some time ago. But we witnessed a unilateral attack without reason. Because "we are afraid" is no reason. The scale of destruction a WMD can cause has nothing to do with this, because there was no proof for it, neither before the beginning of the war nor afterwards.

I'm not saying consequences have to be bad, and I hope they are not. In history, many illegal actions took place. Talk about the centuries of colonisation. But the positive effects can still be seen today. Uhm.. example? What about Hongkong?

The United States - as the only superpower - have responsibilities, if they don't want to act like a Neo-Empire. If the US where really based on democratic principles, on Roman Law and the ideals in their constitution, they should act accordingly.

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So OE, you believe the results in Iraq and subsequently the middle east will be bad?

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old europe wrote:

I'm not saying consequences have to be bad

McGentrix wrote:

So OE, you believe the results in Iraq and subsequently the middle east will be bad?

???????

Huh?

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old europe wrote:

That's one of the reasons why you have international laws. Of course nobody will hold the US responsible. It was, legally, an act of aggression, a unilateral attack, an invasion of a country that didn't represent any danger to the US.
.

To exactly what element of "international; law" do you refer? After all international law is merely what sovereign nations agree to. There are many claims out there that assert this or that under "international law" which other nations reject categorically. For example Indonesia claims the Lomboc Straits connecting the China Sea and the South Pacific as national waters and asserts their right to restrict passage. The United Styates, Britain and most maritime nations counter with the claim that this is an international strait under traditional maratime law open to the innocent passage of all nations - and routinely ignore and defy the Indonesian claim.

Perhaps you will claim that we violated the UN Charter in launching an "aggressive war". However the fact of the matter is that the U.S. position is and always has beeen that we were acting, among other things to enforce binding agreements into which Saddam had entered attendent to the conclusion of the Gulf War. Moreover numerous Security Council resolutions had threatened him with reprisal if he continued to defy the UN. Even before the intervention our government made the claim that we would act in accordance with these Security Council resolutions. Other members of the Security Council (notably France and Russia) disputed our interpretation, however the point is afrguable. Finally, nothing in International law precludes a sovereign nation from acting in its self defense - even if (dreaded phrase) an element of preemption is present.

Kofi Anan is not the President of the World and the UN is not a World Government. Anan is instead the chief administrative officer of an international bureaucracy that itself is the creature of the sovereign nations that created it and which retain the option to reject or eliminate it.

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old europe wrote:

old europe wrote:
I'm not saying consequences have to be bad

McGentrix wrote:
So OE, you believe the results in Iraq and subsequently the middle east will be bad?

???????

Huh?

Well, by the way you go on about it, I can hardly believe that you think the consequences will be beneficial.

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georgeob1 wrote:

To exactly what element of "international; law" do you refer?

Well, there is, for example, the International Law Commission, established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1947. Those ideas were born, after all, out of the experience of WWII.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Jackson helped negotiate guidelines for the proceedings that substituted the public trials for the summary justice and executions of Nazi leaders. Jackson "insisted on the rule of law -- rather than the rule of the mob". Jackson insisted that Nazi leaders face international justice.

Most nations, including the US, wanted to have means of dealing with nations that were in violation of certain laws, even if it would be within their own territory.

Because otherwise, what sort of guarantee would there be apart from a state's natural inclination to uphold certain norms? The force of international law has always come from the pressure that states put upon one another to behave consistently and to honor their obligations.

But especially this consistent behaviour is in doubt concerning the US. Just a few points of the top of my head.

- torture
- human rights
- development of WMD
- violation of UN resolutions

Of course all international law is merely what sovereign nations agree to. But it's the inconsistency I criticize most with the U.S.
For example, you say that Iraq violated UN resolutions. Now, what about Israel (which is in violation of, uhm, 60 to 70 resolutions)? On the other hand, if the US would honor UN resolutions, why did they go to war in spite of the Security Council not issuing a mandate to attack Iraq?

You are totally right that nothing in International law precludes a sovereign nation from acting in its self defense. Not even if it is preemptive self defense.
But there was absolutely no danger that Iraq (as a nation) would have attacked the US (as a nation). Maybe you think so, but I don't. If you don't think so - why was Iraq attacked?

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McGentrix wrote:

Well, by the way you go on about it, I can hardly believe that you think the consequences will be beneficial.

I hope there will be beneficial consequences. Already too many non-beneficial consequences, so there better be.

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old europe wrote:

physgrad wrote:
2. Even if you squeeze through my objection in point 1 and choose to apply the individual justice to nation states, you run into another untrue assumption, a level playing field. That is you assume that other potentially threatening countries subscribe to the same version of individual justice that you do. Simply put, no-one will attempt a pre-emptive strike against you, if you do nothing. Again, september 11th and the very existence of terrorism, which by the way are cold hard facts, completely contradict the assumption of a level playing field. This I believe is what georgeob and others meant when they asked if you would wait for an attack instead? This seems to be a perfectly valid objection.

The problem many people have (me, too) is that the US attacked a country, claiming it was a preemptive strike. Well, it was not. There was no military provocation in sense that the US would have been threatened by Iraq.
There was not even an imminent danger that Iraq would attack in the future. The war was fought because the US said that Iraq might have WMD (actually, they said "Iraq has WMD. We know where they are." Which turned out to be wrong. Some say it was a lie.) and claimed Iraq would harbor terrorists, which wasn't proved neither.

Now, it seems to be reasonable to be afraid of the US. Nobody wants to suffer a unilateral attack from a military superpower.

You might say that "we" European countries don't have a reason to fear an attack. Well, right.

But other countries have a different past, and different relationships with the US. I mean, explain to somebody in El Salvador whose family was killed by US trained "death squads", armed with US guns, that the president of the United States only wants to "protect US civilians". Yeah, sure.
Explain it to people in Chile, were a democratically elected president was toppled by the CIA in order to replace him with a dictator.
Explain it to people in Nicaragua. Explain it what it means when US officials say about a dictator who starves his own people to death: "Sure he is a son of a bitch. But at least he's our son of a bitch!"

None of these things is the responsibility of GW. It happened, well, some time ago. But we witnessed a unilateral attack without reason. Because "we are afraid" is no reason. The scale of destruction a WMD can cause has nothing to do with this, because there was no proof for it, neither before the beginning of the war nor afterwards.

I'm not saying consequences have to be bad, and I hope they are not. In history, many illegal actions took place. Talk about the centuries of colonisation. But the positive effects can still be seen today. Uhm.. example? What about Hongkong?

The United States - as the only superpower - have responsibilities, if they don't want to act like a Neo-Empire. If the US where really based on democratic principles, on Roman Law and the ideals in their constitution, they should act accordingly.

You make the point that European's don't necessarily need to fear attack by the US, but that other, weaker countries have been "attacked" or manipulated by the US.
And you conclude that "in history, many illeagal actions took place."
Which totally negates the main thread of your post, which is what the US has done "some time ago."
Yes, well, old Europe has done some very nasty things, not so very long ago. Besides the obvious WWII and colonial analogies, there is the tacit support for murdering civilians, whether they be Israelis, Italians, Japanese, Bosnian, Russian, or any other ethnic or national group. "Old" Europe's unifying premise appears to be "can't we all just get along?"
President Bush is the first American president since Kennedy who has taken a moral position that it is necessary to take pre-emptive action to eliminate those who deliberately murder and torture innocents, no matter what the political cause.
Now, the fact is, he can afford to do this because the Cold War is over.
And, you can argue endlessly that this is not why we invaded Iraq or Afghanistan.
But, your argument is that Europeans have a right to "fear" the power of the US because the US "appears" to be acting like a "neo-empire."
My counter argument is, that under the Bush administration, if you are not invading another country to loot it; if you are not developing WMD's with the express purpose of using them on another people; if you are not engaged in wholesale slaughter and murder-by-proxy; or any other similiar destable moral practices, then why should you fear the US - whose stated goal, under President Bush, is to establish freedom and democracy?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't Europe rather legislate, adjudicate, negotiate, abritrate, conciliate, compromise, dialogue, etcetera when dealing with ugly, rather inhuman situations such as those in Spain, Bosnia, France, Holland, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Syria, etcetera?
Isn't that the ideal, rather than the Indiana Jones method of simply whipping out a pistol and shooting the bastard that is about to cut off your head?
I believe a "motto" for the US under President Bush might be "Don't try and cut off people's heads and we won't shoot you."

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old europe wrote:

You are totally right that nothing in International law precludes a sovereign nation from acting in its self defense. Not even if it is preemptive self defense.
But there was absolutely no danger that Iraq (as a nation) would have attacked the US (as a nation). Maybe you think so, but I don't. If you don't think so - why was Iraq attacked?

The popular focus was for a while on the WMD matter. This was an unfortunate result of the Bush Adminisatration's concession to Britain (for thir domestic political situation) that it get specific Security Council approval before any intervention. Until then our claim was that we already had the needed rights under the agreedment ending the Gulf war and other already approved security Council resolutions. As you know the only argument France and Russia would tolerate was the WMD matter. This tended to trivialize our other, and far more fundamental reasons. I will leae it to you to judge the purity and altruism of their motives in this matter.

The fact is that one of the four or five chief threats to peace and stability in the world today is the distemper afoot throughout the Moslem world, and particularly among the states of the former Ottoman Empirew. ( This of course is a legacy of the perfidy and greed of Britain and France during the negotiations leading to the Versailles treaty of 1919 and afterwards.) This distemper presents a clear and immediate terror and even military threat to the West and particularly the United States, as was demonstrated on 9/11. A pervasive sense that they have been the victims of history infects that world and it has spawned the Islamist fanaticism that aspires to the recreation of the Dar el Islam, Sharia law, the Caliphate and terror war against their supposed oppressors. Given the general failure of Moslem countries to develop open societies and democratic governments there appears to be no alternate path for development and modernization for them. The only extant alternative to this religious rule are the relatively secular but authoritarian dictatorships such as that in Syria, and formerly Iraq. What is worse they directly worsen the situation, prevent modernization and aid & exploit the terrorists.

In this situation altering the trajeectory of political and economic development in the Moslem world appears to be the only reliable means of addressing the underlying security issue and, as well the economic and political bondage that oppresses the Moslem world. Iraq is central to that strategy, occupying the rich territory between Saudi Arabia and Iran, and given the historical enterprise and commercial spirit of the Iraqi people. The theory was that we could start a favorable chain reaction that would benefit both the West in the security matter and the people of that part of the world in their own lives. So dfar the evidence strongly suggests that , at leasty to a degree, this is indeed happening.

I believe that is the rationale that historians will apply and that it is also the central idea behind the strategy of the so called neo cons who framed it.

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I just, belatedly noticed Thomas' last post. Thanks.

These Germans here are so polite and gracious that it's quite impossible to get sore at them -- no matter how hard I try. Walter and Thomas have this advantage over the rest or us - perhaps me more than most.

Hats off to you both.

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Moishe3rd wrote:

You make the point that European's don't necessarily need to fear attack by the US, but that other, weaker countries have been "attacked" or manipulated by the US.
And you conclude that "in history, many illeagal actions took place."
Which totally negates the main thread of your post, which is what the US has done "some time ago."

Well, take El Salvador. We know how the US were involved in the murder of 70,000 civilians. The war ended in 1992. That's 13 years ago.

Moishe3rd wrote:

Yes, well, old Europe has done some very nasty things, not so very long ago. Besides the obvious WWII and colonial analogies, there is the tacit support for murdering civilians, whether they be Israelis, Italians, Japanese, Bosnian, Russian, or any other ethnic or national group.

I don't like the European position no matter what. But, anyway: "tacit support for murdering civilians whether they be Israelis, Italians, Japanese, Bosnian, Russian, or any other ethnic or national group"? That's interesting. Care to elaborate?

Moishe3rd wrote:

"Old" Europe's unifying premise appears to be "can't we all just get along?"

yep.

Moishe3rd wrote:

President Bush is the first American president since Kennedy who has taken a moral position that it is necessary to take pre-emptive action to eliminate those who deliberately murder and torture innocents, no matter what the political cause.

And I thought his agenda was to fight terrorism? But anyway: in doing so, other people get tortured and killed? And that's a moral position? You'd think you would take extra special care to avoid the very crimes you accuse the enemy of, wouldn't you?

Moishe3rd wrote:

Now, the fact is, he can afford to do this because the Cold War is over.
And, you can argue endlessly that this is not why we invaded Iraq or Afghanistan.
But, your argument is that Europeans have a right to "fear" the power of the US because the US "appears" to be acting like a "neo-empire."

yep. Kind of, at least. But if you think I'm judging too harsh, talk to some Salvadoreños.

Moishe3rd wrote:

My counter argument is, that under the Bush administration, if you are not invading another country to loot it; if you are not developing WMD's with the express purpose of using them on another people; if you are not engaged in wholesale slaughter and murder-by-proxy; or any other similiar destable moral practices, then why should you fear the US - whose stated goal, under President Bush, is to establish freedom and democracy? Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't Europe rather legislate, adjudicate, negotiate, abritrate, conciliate, compromise, dialogue, etcetera when dealing with ugly, rather inhuman situations such as those in Spain, Bosnia, France, Holland, Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Syria, etcetera?

Yes. Nevertheless there were not too many objections to the measures taken (and deemed necessary) in Afghanistan.
I wonder what inhuman situations you are referring to... Spain, France, Holland? Palestine, Israel (wouldn't it be either or)? Syria?
Bosnia - a problem indeed! Iraq - a problem, too. But war as a solution?

Moishe3rd wrote:

Isn't that the ideal, rather than the Indiana Jones method of simply whipping out a pistol and shooting the bastard that is about to cut off your head?

Was Iraq about to invade the US? No. What was Iraq about to do? Without WMD. And without connections to al Qaeda.

Moishe3rd wrote:

I believe a "motto" for the US under President Bush might be "Don't try and cut off people's heads and we won't shoot you."

I doubt that. What do you mean by "cut off people's heads"?

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georgeob1 wrote:

The popular focus was for a while on the WMD matter. This was an unfortunate result of the Bush Adminisatration's concession to Britain (for thir domestic political situation)

Wait. You're saying that the whole WMD issue was caused by the Bush administration making a concession to Britain? I doubt that very much!

I agree that it wasn't the reason to go to war, but rather the whole "nationbuilding" concept.

georgeob1 wrote:

Given the general failure of Moslem countries to develop open societies and democratic governments there appears to be no alternate path for development and modernization for them.

Do you mean "alternate path" than being invaded?

georgeob1 wrote:

The only extant alternative to this religious rule are the relatively secular but authoritarian dictatorships such as that in Syria, and formerly Iraq.

You forgot Turkey.

georgeob1 wrote:

I believe that is the rationale that historians will apply and that it is also the central idea behind the strategy of the so called neo cons who framed it.

Well, I finally agree with you. It remains to be seen whether or not this strategy was a total failure or not. But I'm glad you admit it wasn't about WMD or alleged al Qaeda-Saddam connections.
I wonder if the whole nationbuilding concept is going to work while it seems to be necessary to abduct civilians, torture people and act outside the US law in order to enforce this concept.

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old europe wrote:

Well, take El Salvador. We know how the US were involved in the murder of 70,000 civilians. The war ended in 1992. That's 13 years ago.

That is a lie. The "revolution" in El Salvador ended suddenly when the Sandinista government in Nicaragua fell. That cut off the supply of weapons, money and instruction from Russia via Cuba and Nicaragua, for the paid terrorists who did the killing. I was involved personally in the analysis of our monitoring operations in the Gulf of Fonseca, which was the supply route used from Nicaragua to El Salvador. The whole thing was a Soviet/Cuban insoired attempt at forced revolution, and it collapsed on its own when their support was cut off.

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