To what extent has Bush pulled an `Al Gore'?
As many have said, the 2000 election in the US was "Al Gore's to
lose". The economy was still good, the government was running a
surplus, and Al Gore himself had shown he could be a good Vice
President. Nonetheless, even though he ended up with more popular
votes than George W. Bush, he failed to gain enough electoral votes to
prevent the decision going to a group that he had not cultivated, and
he lost to a Supreme Court decision.
Bush had an equally strong beginning in his opposition to Saddam
Hussein. There is no doubt, Saddam Hussein is a bad guy. Everyone
who favors human rights should have come out favoring the idea that
the US would attack a repressive regime, rather than support it, as it
did with Pinochet in Chile, the generals in Greece, and elsewhere.
But that has not happened. Instead, the Bush administration has lost
vast amounts of potential support.
Or is that the wrong way to phrase the question? Is it more helpful
to say that the Bush administration has never gained support from
people who would neither vote for it nor give it money?
What about recent US diplomacy? Has that been a blunder?
During the US military build up in the Middle East, France has become
renowned as a counter to US power.
As a practical matter, a major power such as the US can expect
opposition to arise and organize itself around another center.
Various people have told me that for a major power, a goal of foreign
policy is to prevent such a cristalization of opposition, to persuade
all and sundry of the advantages of cooperation. From the point of
view of the great power, it is easier and in the long run, cheaper, to
gain its goals through cooperation than opposition.
Has the Bush administration blundered by letting an opposition arise?
Or is the Bush administration is thinking in terms of `sniffing out
the opposition'? Is it setting up the French government `for a fall',
believing that the French government thinks it has little to lose in
the short run if the Bush administration succeeds in its war and much
to gain if the Bush administration fails?
But that the French government misunderstands the Bush administration
and it will hurt the French for its overt opposition.
The questions here are about models of reality:
* Is the Bush administration is thinking in terms of `sniffing out
the opposition'?
* Are they trying to impose a simplification on reality, an aid to
thinking, by asking `you are with us or against us'?
* Put another way, are the Bush administration actions a form of
`reconnaissance in force' that will enable them to identify
hazards in their environment? Or,
* Are the Bush administration actions an inadvertent help to future
US enemies, by enabling them to organize?
* Is the Bush administration thinking too much in the short term,
and not considering US interests a generation hence? Will the US
be hurt in a generation or two by having an organized opposition?
--
Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
http://www.teak.cc [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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