Understanding America and the Bush administration

Did you read it and do you judge from hearsay?

Walther

Do you consider an Excerpt from the book hearsay? Maybe hearsay has a new meaning.

I know and mostly, generally, share blatham's opinions and views

And I certainly would rely on his expertises.

So you might be right.


(Your opinion about blatham must be excellent as well, when you use his expertises to tell someone that there's no reason to read the book besides this abstract!)

Yep......no sarcasm there........only humour!

The US does not have the lagest military in the world, that would be reserved for China. We do have the most advanced military in the world, but not the largest.

I took a look and did find that we have the largest active military in the world but it isn't by much.

This is listed by thousands and only includes active military.
US 1400
China 1300
India 1100

I haven't been able to find military strength with active and reserves in combination but I would guess that CHina with it's population would have a very large reserve force.

Here's the link to the info I found.

Source
Source

The US certainly spends more on its military than any other country. Depends how you define "big" I suppose. I will concede China is a bigger country than USA, with more people. But its not yet a world superpower.

The U.S. economy is, by a large measure the biggest in the world. We likely spend more on everything than any other country - food, clothing, entertainment, defense. It is true that our military expenditure is large, even with that in mind. However that has been the fate of all dominant powers throughout history. I certainly don't know of any that escaped it.

Walter earlier mentioned that most Germans find nationalism "disguisting". Perhaps we imply different things by the word, hoerver I don't regard strong feelings about one's own country and people as a bad thing, and certainly not disguisting. All good things can be carried to excess, and we all know of the many examples of excess nationalism or Chauvanism (named, by the way, for a Frenchman) that history provides. They are not all confined to Germany - indeed for most of its history Germans were likely among the least nationalistic of the European peoples. These are excesses that can, and have, infected most countries. Still there is very much to admire in German, French, British, and even American culture and history.

I don't think that humanity has yet developed a political structure able to replace a largely democratic nation state, and I am reluctant to see the advocates of regional political oranizations such as the EU, or even the UN, or, for that matter, the rapidly proliferating NGOs claiming that these new structures are able to replace sovereign nation states - or even their principal functions. In the first place these new organizations are generally less democratic and more in the control of narrow elites than are the nation states they increasingly claim to replace. Moreover we have yet to learn if they can truly fulfill the promises they so lavishly put forward. Certainly the UN in its actions and internal workings is not nearly up to the standards of its principal member states - even France.

Many advocates of expanded 'international law' fail to recognize that the mechanisms for the production and establishment of the proliferating sources of supposed new international law are not democratic at all. They are the creations of bureaucracies and authoritarian structures that are far more distant from and beyond the control of the people whose lives they increasingly seek to govern. This may well create the illusion of improvement for some unfortunate person living in Zimbabwe, but it is not for most of us, and we should recognize that fact. Finally, international law will not even be a solution for the problems in Zimbabwe and other like places as recent events have amply demonstrated.

Bush has shown his utter contempt for the UN by appointing John Bolton as US ambassador. This is a man who wants to destroy the UN, and as a prelude he advocates the Security Council be reduced to one member, the USA.

Similarly Paul Wolfowitz's appointment (yet to be ratified) to the World Bank shows US disdain of international bodies.

It always seems the same story with the US. Anything "international" which might constrain US unilateralism is to be rejected

Kyoto protocols
Bio warfare treaties
International Criminal Court
UN
IPCC

I'm sure this is not a comprehensive list, but its indicative of American attitudes and its very disappointing.

On the contrary, the UN bureaucracy and its administrator, Kofi Anan, have shown utter contempt for the principles of its founding nations in their criminal venality and corruption.

The young boy in Hans Chrisian Andersen's tale about the Emperor's new clothes was not being "unilateralist" in pointing out the Emperor's nakedness, he was pointing out a fact. The point of the tale is that he better served the Emperor than did his fawning advisors who praised the imaginary garments.

Bolton will emphasize a few equivalent facts to the UN.

The U.S. contention is that the treaties in Steve's list were bad ideas that would do no net good, even serious harm. If we are correct in this judgement, the "unilateralist" label is a sham. I do indeed believe we are correct in each case. It certainly is the right of the American people to elect their own government, and the right of that government to reject stupid ideas that other nations attempt to inflict on us. This is called freedom. What does Steve have against that?

A final note - the total population of the nations that rejected the Kyoto treaty is much larger than the total population of those that accepted it - same goes for total economic output. Who here is being unilateralist?

Steve wrote:

<Bush has shown his utter contempt for the UN by appointing John Bolton as US ambassador. This is a man who wants to destroy the UN, and as a prelude he advocates the Security Council be reduced to one member, the USA.>

Would you please tell me why Bush and the American People should have anything but contempt for the UN. Look what has happened on Kofi Annan's watch:
1. The oil for food corruption
2. Genocide in Ruwanda, Kosovo, and now in the Sudan and these are massive killings
3. Recent allegations of UN troops raping the victims in the Sudan
4. Initial failure to support the Coalition at the start of the war in Iraq which has suddenly been reversed in an effort to get back into the good graces of the American people.
5. I, and most Americans have utter contempt for UN and I applaud the appointment of Bolton to the UN to be our representative there, just as I applaud the appointment of Rice as Sec of State.

I'm certain George can list another 100 or so examples of UN incompetence and failure. Almost every action the UN has taken prior to the election in Iraq, has resulted in a direct insult on the values of the American people and it's representatives. Why should we have anything but contempt for such an organization?

OOps got to take the wife shopping but I will be back to defend my words.

Yeap, we didn't do the UN bashing for two days or so.

Rayban wrote

"Would you please tell me why Bush and the American People should have anything but contempt for the UN."

Because the US is a founder member of the UN, has a permanent seat on the Security Council and hosts the General Assembly building in New York.

How can you have contempt for a body in which you are a senior member? You just make yourself look foolish. If there is corruption, stamp it out. If the system needs reform, reform it. If you can't do either and you think its a lost cause, then leave. But don't sit there with your arms folded saying this place stinks when you were instrumental in setting it up.

All good points, Steve.

I agree with Steve's last post & point. One of the central elements of Roosevelt's policy during WWII was to establish a UN at the end of that war and promote both the end of colonialism and the beginning of new cooperation among the nations of the world. In this his ambition was much like that of an earlier American president, Woodrow Wilson, with respect to the ill-fated League of Nations. Perhaps the second application of this idea was just as naive as the first.

I also suggest that the United States has indeed been working assiduously to reform the UN for a good many years, mostly without success, primarily because of the opposition of the other founding members. The Appointment of Ambassador Bolton is further evidence of our seriousness in forcing some reform of that sadly ineffectual organization.

Unfortunately, the possibility of our abandoning the UN is probably not nearly as remote as Steve implies. The American public is rather thoroughly disenchanted with the institution. I predict we will strongly resist any expansion of the Security Council, and eventually insist that at some point in its growing development and assertiveness, the EU be represented by a single vote.

Chancellor Schroeder may also find, as he pursues a purely European structure in NATO, and as the EU increasingly pursues international policies (as for example with respect to China) that are contrary to ours, that the US may lose interest in NATO as well.

Both of these are questions that simply didn't arise in American political discorse and in the continuing discussions of government officials, outside 'experts', and interested parties as recently as ten years ago. They are openly discussed now.

The UN has not kept up with history; and the original Security Council does not work well in the current world politics. The weakness of the UN is its inability to adjust its mandate with the times.

Steve wrote:

<How can you have contempt for a body in which you are a senior member? You just make yourself look foolish. If there is corruption, stamp it out. If the system needs reform, reform it. If you can't do either and you think its a lost cause, then leave. But don't sit there with your arms folded saying this place stinks when you were instrumental in setting it up.>

I will concede the validity of some of what you say and I strongly favor reform of the UN. Unfortunately most of the thugs and despots who rule a majority of the UN membership favor the status quo and since Kofi Annan is at best a very ineffective leader then meaningful reform is pie in the sky.
The current charter allows one vote for each country, large or small which virtually assures paralysis.

This is why Bush nominated what he hopes will be a strong and effective representative similar in style and substance to Kirkpatrick and Moynihan.
Of course it remains to be seen if he wil be effective.

We can't give up on the UN but in it's current form it is useless. However, making it meaningful creates a superhuman challenge and most of our supposed allies don't appear to have much interest in helping to make it a useful organization.

rayban, It is not quite completely useless. The UN still does some important work with all the inefficiencies built into it. We were part and parcel in building the monster, so we must also take some responsibility to make changes to meet the needs of current and future times.

C.I.

I would continue this track about the UN but it would merely take this thread further off course. I would like to continue the discussion about the premise the author makes that Americans are nationalistic and therefore dangerous to the global community. He further suggests that Europe has progressed beyond Nationalism into Regionalism and therefore have risen to a higher level of sophistication than "ignorant" Americans. I personally find the propositions of the author and Blatham offensive but intriguing enough to want to explore the subject with further discussion.

Since I don't know Blatham, I don't want to prejudice my opinion of him by speculating on whether or not he has an overly critical political agenda. I would like to hear more from him on this subject but he seems to be absent. I don't at this point know whether he merely wants to propose a thought provoking discussion or if he really wants to persuade all participants that American motives are evil because we are Nationalistic. At this point, I believe his motives should be examined, not those of Americans. While I certainly can be sympathetic to those on this forum who want to discuss the dynamics of American culture because of our global influence, I don't understand Blathams easy acceptance of an author who has obviously started writing a book with a predetermined conclusion, and then gathered any evidence that would support his thesis.

I could be wrong and actually hope that I am. I will at this point continue on to Amazon.com to read the reviews of those who have read the book and then return to hopefully continue the discussion.

Europeans invented nationalism and spent centuries since the 15th century of continued slaughter and exploitation perfecting it. They have now gone on to the perfection of the same thing, but on a much larger scale, with the EU. The 'shared sovereignty' concept behind the EU structure has certainly been a good thing within Europe in terms of erasing or at least suppressing old rivalries that caused so much destruction. However the implicit assumption of many Europeans that the whole world should now adopt their bureaucratic and legalistic methods in the surrender of national identity and freedom is an absurd application of a remedy in search of a disease. Meanwhile the EU attempts to bully the whole world in a manner strangely reminiscent of the behavior of the behavior of the great European powers of the last century. "The more things change, the less ....'

It has now become fashionable to paint American nationalism as something even worse than the European version, which has presumably been suppressed, but actually only transformed into a much larger playing field. This is a favorite topic of Blatham's and of many other commentators as well. They all miss the truly significant, and until recently, uniqe aspects of American nationalism, and that arises from the fact that anyone from any culture can become an American simply by coming here and deciding to to become one. American nationalism was created as an alternative to the European version by Europeans who came here to escape its ill effects. We don't have their disease and we don't need their supposed cure. This, of course, is a concept that they simply cannot tolerate.