anti-protest humor with a lot of good quotes (MP3)

[MrsSkywalker]

And the idea Bush has that diplomacy is "do this or else all out war" is not the kind of diplomacy Im interested in seeing much of on the international stage.

Brace yourself, pax...we are dangerously close to agreeing on something!

I think that if we have a lot of support from other nations, nations whose intelligence bureaes have given them info that indicates that rogue nations have something serious going on that needs to be stopped ASAP, then Bush being the mouthpiece that will actually say the "do this or else all out war" isn't bad. However, if the US were acting alone, with no one else's support, no outside sources saying there is substantial cause...well, then it's time to count Bush's marbles and see if he lost any. This applies to any nation and their leader. We had a lot of support in this one, and not just from countries no one has ever heard of

And, while I'm at it, I might as well agree with you on another point. Bush is a horrible diplomat in a lot of ways. However, on a person to person, mano a mano fashion, he's one of the best. Look how good his talks with Putin were when he took Putin on a tour around his ranch in his Chevy. Put him in a formal setting and he looks like a baffoon. Get it down to the "just a couple of guys hashing things out" level, and he's pretty damn good. You simply can't break down everything to that basic level, though. Wish Jimmy Carter were still in his prime. Oh, he made a horrible president, and sent our country into a massive recession, but he is one impressive diplomat. And a truly good and honest person.

Out of idle curiosity, how does the rest of the world view Colin Powell? Is he a good diplomat? Is there anyone from the US that the rest of the world views as a good diplomat? Not starting a fight, and I don't want a debate, I just don't know how the rest of the world feels about this.

 

[pax]

Colin had a lot of people in the international scene impressed by his diplomatic skill. He's lost a bit of that however when turned from his opposition to an Iraq campaign to toeing the administration line. Many simply wonder why that happened. Id like to see him explain his turnaround... he still garners a lot of respect for a lot of what he says when speaking to an international audience. He seems to keenly want anything done on the international scene to have a genuine coalition and UN involvement.

We probably agree on a lot. I think most left wingers and right wingers are actually pretty close to a centrist position. But in newsgroups we can only expect to see pretty much what we disagree on to be argued.

 

[fbg1]

and there was no such change in the balance.

You can't flippantly discount the Cuban Missile Crisis as not affecting the balance of power. For the first time ever, there were nuclear missiles that could hit the continental US. If there had been no change in the balance of power, the US would not have responded in such a freaked out manner.

The same threat was even worse a couple years later with nuke subs...

"a couple years later" is moot. The US had to deal with the nukes in Cuba now.

Forceful diplomacy couldve been had in stages and even involved military engagements tho not all or nothing invasion that was actually done.

You mean staged military engagements like Vietnam and Somalia? Yes, very effective indeed.

The idea all out war can be called diplomacy makes no sense to me.

It has made perfect sense to multitudes of political and military philosophers throughout the ages:

War is merely a continuation of politics by other means. - Karl von Clausewitz, On War (1833)
...
"All diplomacy is a continuation of war by other means" - Chou En Lai Saturday Evening Post, March 27, 1954

Want more?

Did Iraq keep on playing games before the war? Yeah but outright obstruction wasnt the case...

I see you didn't read any of the links I posted above.

"do this or else all out war" is not the kind of diplomacy Im interested in seeing much of on the international stage.

We agree on that point. I hope we don't see it again for a long time too. I hope this once was enough to give UN non-proliferation the teeth it needs to effectively and thoroughly stop the spread of WMD. I hope it will prevent future wars from occuring, especially since my own first cousin is one of the Marines in Iraq right now.

 

[fbg1]

Many simply wonder why that happened.

He's no fool, he's just more patient than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Perle. But he probably finally became fed up with Saddam's manipulations and deceits, which led to him changing his position. He also probably became fed up with the French, who believe the US "hyperpower" is more of a threat to the world than a psychotic tyrant with nukes. They say you should pick your battles, and I'm not sure the French picked the right one in this case. Surely there are better opportunities to cut the US down to size than when we try to stop WMD proliferation.

 

[pax]

I did read the links... You however cant make the diff between a 5 min nuke from a sub 200 miles east off shore to one 100 miles to the south. And in any case its all moot as nukes on ballistic missiles make little strategic diff at 30 min or 5... Unless you subscribe to the absurd notion tha first strike means no retaliation which was never the case... Technologically impossible to do. And it still is. Not to mention the insanity of such an all out nuclear assault...

Forceful diplomacy is more than staged military engagements. There was littel diplomacy involved in Vietnam except near the end. That issue was approached virtually all militarily from the start. Not an apt comparison for so many reasons... neither was somalia.

I could quote others who could counter the reasoning behind the madness of all out war especially when these people you quote never had to deal with wmds. Diplomacy is war of a sort however. Too bad it was misshandled this time. Thank God we got lucky. Do you know how many generals in and out of uniform had missgivings about this war?...

The only teeth the UN has is the one given to it by its member nations. When its not given such means it cant wield them thus shouldnt be blamed for not having teeth in the first place...

Ive read a lot of French editorials and none said the US was more of menace than tin pots with wmds. The issue is not the US was dangerous. It was that the US would provoque a dangerous response from a dangerous tyrant... The French didnt want to cut down anyone in size. That crap was never said by any french columnist Ive read. Only opinion pieces in US media gave us that tripe... They simply didnt want ww3 to again step on the front door. Europe borders the muslim world not to mention very large muslim minorities inhabit almost all of Europe now...

 

[Gollum]

Out of idle curiosity, how does the rest of the world view Colin Powell?

Can only speak for me and a couple of people I have talked to here in Germany of course, but he's probably one of the most well respected members of the current Bush administration over here at the moment. I jokingly said to a friend last week that Powell should join the Democrats and become their Presidential candidate for 2004, they can't seem to find a decent one within their own ranks and with the differences between the two parties becomiong ever less noticable...

 

[fbg1]

I did read the links...

Then you must have read this:

Even as Iraq was agreeing, under the terms of Resolution 687, to disclose its nuclear program and bring it to an end, it was developing a broad strategy for hiding evidence of the program and misleading U.N. inspectors about it.

Immediately after the Gulf War ended in April 1991, Iraq began salvaging equipment from damaged buildings and returning hidden items to the facilities where they had been before the war. But soon it was hiding equipment again. Materials that might reveal the extent of the nuclear program were boxed up and concealed underground and at military sites—even in private homes. One group of key documents was transferred to an ordinary railway freight car, its doors welded shut. The car was sent off to travel continuously between Mosul in northern Iraq and Basra in the south. The car traveled unguarded; few knew of its existence.

In 1998, many believe that Iraq’s nuclear program has been dismantled and most if not all of the materials and equipment that were used in that program have been found and destroyed. But in a seven-year-plus effort, U.N. inspectors from the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Action Team have had to work through so many layers of deception, and have received so many different “full, final, and complete declarationsâ€￾ from the Iraqis, that they have no doubt Iraq is still hiding important information. Inspectors believe they may never know the full story.

And theirs is not idle curiosity. The stakes are high. Inspectors believe that Iraq could reconstitute its nuclear weapons program quickly, once sanctions are lifted. Although Iraq might need several years to recreate its enriched-uranium or plutonium programs, it might be able to acquire fissile material on the black market. In that case, it has already learned enough to be able to build a nuclear weapon in less than a year. As a result, Iraq’s nuclear potential must be carefully scrutinized by international inspectors for some time to come.

and this:

Finally, the summer of 1992 comes around, and we happen to get some very quality intelligence information about the location of an archive of documentation that the Iraqis are using to build the foundation for reconstitution of their weapons programs. Millions of pages of documents. It turns out, the intelligence was absolutely correct. These documents, some were later found at the ... chicken farm when Hussein Kamel defected.

But, at the time, we had a good idea [they] were there, but we didn't know for sure, but it was really quality intelligence. So we ginned up another one of these inspections, got the Americans in, did the intelligence planning, brought in the British, built a team, and sent it in. And the first target we hit, agricultural ministry. Surround it, and the Iraqis say, 'You can't come in.' And we say, Well, you've got to let us in. I mean, we're the United Nations. We've been through this already. There was Resolution, 707--you remember, you tried this with the IEA, there was international crises? We don't want to go down that path again. Now, we want in, let us in. Oh, no. This is a ministry, this is a symbol of our national sovereignty.

And we said,' All right, you want to play that game? We're parking. We're surrounding it. Nobody's going in and out unless they run through our inspectors. 'The Iraqis went,' All right, we'll play that.'

And we said--'OK. Security Council, they're not letting us in.' Nothing. Day goes by--'Excuse me, gentlemen, we're parked out in front of the agriculture ministry. They're not letting us in. We want to do an inspection.' Silence. Nothing.

Now the situation starts to deteriorate, because the Iraqis are looking around and nothing's happening. All right. Let's jack up the pressure. Demonstrations started occurring. First, small demonstrations. Then, as each day goes by, the demonstrations get bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until we literally have thousands of Iraqis storming the agricultural ministry, egging our cars, stoning us, not stoning but throwing rotten vegetables at us, shaking the cars. And the Security Council's doing nothing. Zero.

And, ultimately, we got to a situation where the Iraqi security service brought in somebody who tried to stab an inspector, through a window, and at that point the lives of the inspectors were at risk and we had no other choice than to withdraw the team. The Security Council did nothing. It was fascinating.

And, of course, once we were through with the team the Iraqis were through with the archive. So, weeks later, when Rolf Ekeus, the security council and everybody came up with a compromise solution, and a team reappeared at the agriculture ministry, and were let in; of course they found nothing. They did find some rooms where nothing was there, but we found no documents. A very embarrassing situation, and a frustrating one.

There is a plethora of evidence in the public domain that shows Hussein's regime was obstructing UN inspections. Arguing against that fact is senseless.

You however cant make the diff between a 5 min nuke from a sub 200 miles east off shore to one 100 miles to the south. And in any case its all moot as nukes on ballistic missiles make little strategic diff at 30 min or 5...

Nuclear missile subs were in their naissance during that period and were not considered the threat that land-based missiles were. Further, the US was able to easily track the nosiy, clumsy Soviet Golf subs at that time. The fact is, land-based nuclear missiles in Cuba were a major threat and a significant event in the Cold War. You can criticize Kennedy's response, but you can't criticize the fact that it worked - it scared Kruschev into never putting nuclear missiles in the US's hemisphere again. (and yes, I know about Kennedy's deal to remove the US missiles in Turkey).

The only teeth the UN has is the one given to it by its member nations. When its not given such means it cant wield them thus shouldnt be blamed for not having teeth in the first place...

Yes, and the US just gave the UN teeth over the objections of France, Russia, and China. Now, when the UN tells regimes to disarm, perhaps they'll comply instead of playing "hide-and-seek" games.

Ive read a lot of French editorials and none said the US was more of menace than tin pots with wmds. ... Only opinion pieces in US media gave us that tripe...

True, one reason for France's resistance was the growing Muslim population in Europe. But France's distrust of US power played a large part. Google "France Hyperpower" and see what you come up with. France's political and intellectual elite believe that the US is a "hyperpower", (eg, an unopposed superpower) and represents a greater threat to the world than dictators such as Saddam.

France+Hyperpower

You might consider expanding your reading sources.

 

[pax]

Ive read plenty on the French position and never did any French gov official say because its a 'hyper power' the US is a threat. What you have popping up on google are the very opinion pieces I told you about. You cant take those seriously. Most of them are foreign...

Trying to make an opinion piece out of a policy doesnt always identify the motivations behind it. The french motivations werent what so many claimed they were: That they wanted to obstruct the US to showcase France's 'importance' or save trade with Iraq (puny next to trade with the US) or want to lead the EU (absurd notion when you consider the structure of the EU wont allow anyone country to lead it and in fact one loses a lot of sovereignty in joining the EU).

If you want to see France like the 'freedom fries' crowd through the opaque glasses of opinion piece writers. Go ahead. But when it comes to policy I get it from the horses mouth whether US or France or anyone else. The US admin and its supporters in the media did all they could to cloud the issue by trying to isolate France from the rest of the world that also opposed the war (in fact Russia theatened the veto FIRST) and simply chose an easy target for domestic consumption by showcasing one of the smaller countries in opposition to the conflict at the security council. The whole thing was quite a carnival.

Ive seen a few interviews some short but some quite in depth with de Villepin (best one was a 40 min with no commercials one on CBC) and they are quite the breath of fresh air from reading some of the local and US media at the time...

 

[MrsSkywalker]

Colin had a lot of people in the international scene impressed by his diplomatic skill. He's lost a bit of that however when turned from his opposition to an Iraq campaign to toeing the administration line. Many simply wonder why that happened.

Yeah, same feelings here. He used to seem like a force to be reckoned with, that he was there to do business, yet with both parties best interest in mind. To me, he kind of seems like he's flapping in the breeze, kind of wishy washy.

We probably agree on a lot.

True.

 

[fbg1]

Ive read plenty on the French position and never did any French gov official say because its a 'hyper power' the US is a threat. What you have popping up on google are the very opinion pieces I told you about. You cant take those seriously.

What I have popping up on Google is France's former Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine publicly characterizing the US as a "hyperpower", and that the US's military, economic, technological, and cultural dominance must be countered by the world.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/99us6.htm

For my part, I believe that since 1992 the word 'superpower' is no longer sufficient to describe the United States," Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine told the same audience on Wednesday. "that's why I use the term 'hyperpower,'

Here's an actual book, authored by Vedrine, explaining in detail what a "Hyperpower" is and why it applies to the US:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0815700075/104-5359870-5997517?vi=glance

Even Le Monde uses the term "Hyperpuissance" to describe the US:

http://www.lemonde.fr/recherche_res...de=1987&ordre=pertinence&G_NBARCHIVES=771+412

Hyperpower is nothing less than a French meme originated by M. Vedrine to describe the US. How you've missed it in all your so-called reading from the horses mouths is beyond me. In fact, every major claim you've made is disproved by mountains of public information quickly turned up by a simple web search. Are you sure you're not just making everything up as you go? Perhaps some links to these "horses mouths" you've referred to would restore some credibility. Otherwise, it's pointless to continue arguing.

 

[pax]

I didnt miss the term hyper power. Calling the US a hyper power isnt denigrating. Its just an observation of fact. Especially when put into context of 20-30 year ago of the superpower conflict and the technological advances since then. Villepain in fact mentionned the term hyper power in his CBC interview. I said France didnt object to the Iraq war for the reasons US media and gov say they did.

Again an opinion piece which is no more insulting than the one by ex cia director on ABC's Nightline who said if we waited till fall to get the UN onboard an invasion it was likely Saddam would get more wmds to attack us with... Thus insulting not only Tennets earlier statements and the crew behind the intelligence report filed to congress last fall but also the intelligence of the audience imho.

Your missing the context of what is meant. Countering US power is only meant in the context of risky military adventures or agressive economic policy in trade.... It isnt an assumption that US military and economic power is bad simply by its mere existence and sheer size only that it is dangerous in the consequences when such things as the Iraq campaign are proposed.

Again as well opinion pieces cant be assumed as being official gov policy.

 

[Sxotty]

Wish Jimmy Carter were still in his prime. Oh, he made a horrible president, and sent our country into a massive recession, but he is one impressive diplomat. And a truly good and honest person.

We need more honest people in politics.