Keith, I finally sat down to read the
entire commentary by Sir Michael Howard you posted from FT.com (Smoke on the
horizon) and wondered if his comments on Europe and the UN are considered standard
in the UK or the exception? - Karen
“Europeans
may sneer at the analogies that rise so readily to American minds moulded by
sagas of the Western frontier in which heroic loners attempted to impose order
on a lawless world, cutting a few corners in the process, but are our own myths
any more relevant to the world as it is today? The European conceptual framework is that of a consortium of
mature and like-minded sovereign states in control of their own territory and
populations, guided by their perception of their own interests but functioning
within an accepted framework of international law that they have the capacity
and the will to enforce by mutual consent. In fact no such situation exists or has existed since 1914,
although we have been trying desperately to restore it ever since. Today the great majority of the members
of the UN are "states" only by courtesy, with as little control over
their domestic affairs as they have capacity or will to influence world
events. Many of their governments
are kleptocracies or clients of international mafias. The former communist states (and it is reasonable to include
the People's Republic of China in this category) are absorbed with the domestic
problems of belated modernisation.
The same problems keep the governments of Islamic states trembling on a
knife-edge of revolt. As for the
elite states of western Europe, apart from Britain and France, the negative
experience of the Balkans have make their electorates deeply cautious about
assuming broader global responsibilities.
Who is left to maintain order in the world, apart from the US and its
closest allies?”
Here is the
latest from Zakaria and a Dionne opinion from which I referenced earlier that
Bush is a month late in asking for Congressional support. Stop the Babel Over Babylon
The real target of Rumsfeld and Cheney is
not Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein; it’s really Colin Powell Fareed Zakaria @ http://www.msnbc.com/news/805160.asp NEWSWEEK Sept.
16 issue — President George W. Bush’s
speech to the United Nations could not come at a better time. He needs to sell his policy on Iraq to
the world. But first it needs to
be clear what that policy is. … A year ago
people around the world were holding candlelight vigils for the United
States. Today the easiest way to
get people cheering on the streets is to denounce U.S. policies. And often it is not America’s policies
but its highhandedness that upsets people. How else to explain that George Bush, who increased American
foreign aid by 50 percent, is the villain of the Johannesburg summit? Or that, despite being the first
president to call for a Palestinian state, he is seen as indifferent to the plight
of the Palestinians? Bush's Summer of
Dissension
By E.
J. Dionne Jr. Friday, September 6, 2002 @ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43710-2002Sep5.html “An Italian journalist
recently proffered a theory popular among his colleagues. They believe that the highly public
debate over Iraq within the Republican Party in the past few weeks was
contrived for political purposes. The goal was to shift
American press and public attention away from the economy and business scandals
(issues that might help Democrats) toward terrorism and foreign policy (issues
that favor Republicans). My naively American response was that this view was too Machiavellian,
that the differences among Republicans were real and principled. In any event, the ploy, if that's what
it was, backfired. Because of
divisions within his party and his administration, President Bush is on the
defensive in foreign affairs for the first time since Sept 11.” |
- Smoke on the horizon Keith Hudson
- Karen Watters Cole
