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> > > If Russia, Chaina and the EU really wanted to, they could
> > > use conventional weapons and force the US to at least
> > > retreat from trying to rule the world.
James A. Donald:
> > This supposes the US is trying to rule the world, which is
> > not apparent -- at least not to the US.
Tim May
> What is "to the US" referring to? To the Bush Administration,
> to a majority of Congress, what?
>
> To _this_ American, namely, me, it is apparent that Pax
> Americana is the goal.
They believe their aim, Pax Americana, is a world of
independent, moderately capitalist, democratic countries -- to
do to the whole world what was done to Germany, Japan, and
Napoleonic France.
Now I suspect, and doubtless many of the reluctant recipients
of this generosity suspect, that this good intention will not
lead to a good outcome -- that a bourgeois democracy cannot be
created merely by force, that the actual outcome will merely be
the imposition of a tyrant supposedly less dangerous to US
interests -- imperialism. Of course, the US ability to pick
tyrants less dangerous to US interests is none too good.
However because the administration is certain in its own
righteousness, a certainty not entirly implausible, mere
outside force is unlikely to change the administration's
program. If the outside world should apply sterner measures,
this is more likely to convince the administration, and a
majority of Americans, that regime change in Paris is
advisable, than to convince them that regime change in Baghdad
is inadvisable.
> But they certainly want pliable governments that will not be
> _too_ democratic (as we don't want Islamists elected) and
> that will be cooperative with oil interests, military basing
> requests, etc.
It seems probable that the majority of each Iraqi religious and
racial group wil vote for the expulsion or liquidation of all
the other groups, unless of course they all unite on the issue
of war with Israel, in which case the US will wind up turning a
blind eye to the suppression of democracy, as it has done in
Kurdish areas. But again, it is not obvious that genuine
democracy will produce an outcome unacceptable to the US. The
Islamicist Iranian government could not win a fair and free
election. The US government and people's faith in the
righteousness and feasibility of their program is not provably
misplaced. They do not think they are imperialists, and their
sincerity is not obviously delusive.
> It is economic imperialism, pure and simple. Not the kind
> that the lefties used to complain about, the so-called
> economic imperialism of McDonald's and Hollywood and Nike.
> No, this is the real kind of economic imperialism, where
> gunboats and bombers are used to implement "regime change"
> when there has been no demonstrated clear and present danger
> from a foreign state.
Indeed its imperialism -- but I doubt it is economic. This war
is ideological.
The Baathist program is a combination of communism and nazism.
The racial element of their program is to unite all arabic
speaking people by force under a single supposedly charismatic
leadership, so as to restore the rightful place of arabs in the
world, subduing its non arab neighbors under arab rule -- a
secular and socialist version of Bin Laden's program.
I suspect that had the US let nature take its course, the true
horror of this program would have became apparent, and the
united arab regime would eventually collapse in flames, after
several decades of inflicting enormous horror on arabs and
their immediate neighbors, and that during this period they
would pump oil like mad to finance enormous war expenditure.
The flaw in the administration's program is not that it is
driven by evil oil companies seeking to steal oil, or evil Jews
seeking to steal land, but that it is driven by a dangerously
great faith in democracy, a failure to realise that democracy
does not work in general, that it has worked in some countries,
some of the time, by a fortunate historical accident that
arguably no longer applies even in those countries.
Now it may well turn out, probably will turn out, that when
these idealistic ideas do not work out, the US government all
too easily proceed to give the Israeli lobby what it wants,
contrary to US interests, but they do not think of themselves
as tools of the Zionist occupation forces.
> I see nothing in the United States Constitution that supports
> this interventionist, imperial policy.
Everything the Federal government does except the post office,
the patent office, and defence against imminent foreign threats
is unconstitutional, and the post office and the patent office
are bad ideas also. Why should its activites in Iraq be
different?
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James A. Donald
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