Wednesday, June 01

World

Newsweek, The Other Bit

This is some of what I didn't beat into a pulp the previous time around. The subject today: Foreign Policy.
U.S. leaders have long believed military power and the American Dream went hand in hand.
They have?

I'm not saying you're wrong; after all, America was born out of a war against the British colonial administration. But I would like to see something more than a bald statement.

World War II was fought not just to defeat the Axis powers, but to make the world safe for the United Nations, the precursor to the World Trade Organization, the European Union and other international institutions that would strengthen weaker countries.
No it wasn't. Newsflash: The United Nations was formed after the war. The United Nations had nothing whatsoever to do with the war, and the war had nothing to do with the United Nations.

The war was fought to defeat the Axis powers.

NATO and the Marshall Plan were the twin pillars upon which today's Europe were built.
Um, yes. True.
Today, Americans make the same presumption, confusing military might with right.
What?

If they're making the same presumption, are you saying that they were wrong to remove the Taliban and the Ba'athists? And the Nazis, and the Fascists in Italy, and the military rulers of Japan?

Following European criticisms of the Iraq war, the French became "surrender monkeys."
Say what? The line referring to the French as "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" comes from a Simpsons episode of 1995. This opinion of the French dates to at least the Second World War, if not earlier.
The Germans were opportunistic ingrates.
They were?
The British (and the Poles) were America's lone allies.
And the Australians. And the Spanish, and the Dutch, and the Danes, and the Japanese, and the Koreans, and the Italians. But hardly more than a dozen other countries apart from those.
Unsurprisingly, many of those listening to Bush's Inaugural pledge last week to stand with those defying tyranny saw the glimmerings of an argument for invading Iran:
Well that makes sense, because the current rulers of Iran are certainly tyrants.
Washington has thus far shown more of an appetite for spreading ideals with the barrel of a gun than for namby-pamby hearts-and-minds campaigns.
Washington was all about namby-pamby hearts-and-minds campaigns, from the end of the Vietnam War right up until some time in 2001.
A former French minister muses that the United States is the last "Bismarckian power"—the last country to believe that the pinpoint application of military power is the critical instrument of foreign policy.
Which is sheer nonsense.

America has been for the most part isolationist. It would, by and large, prefer to ignore the world. When the world insists on gaining its attention, however, the results are fairly predictable.

Contrast that to the European Union—pioneering an approach based on civilian instruments like trade, foreign aid, peacekeeping, international monitoring and international law
Notable for its achievements in... Achievements in... Uh, wait, I'll get it...
or even China, whose economic clout has become its most effective diplomatic weapon.
Yes, because China is such a positive influence in the world.
The strongest tool for both is access to huge markets.
Because heaven forbid they should ever allow free trade.
No single policy has contributed as much to Western peace and security as the admission of 10 new countries—to be followed by a half-dozen more—to the European Union.
Well, except for the whole opposing the Communists so they wouldn't take over the rest of Europe bit. I mean, without that there wouldn't be 16 "new" countries to admit to the European Union, but let's conveniently ignore that and imagine that Poland and Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics and all those places just suddenly showed up on the map one day.
In country after country, authoritarian nationalists were beaten back by democratic coalitions held together by the promise of joining Europe.
Um, what? You don't think the democratic coalitions might have been motivated by not wanting another five decades of oppression and economic ruin? No?
in the past month European leaders have taken a courageous decision to contemplate the membership of Turkey
A courageous decision to contemplate the membership of Turkey. That's one heck of a dictionary you have there.
where the prospect of EU membership is helping to create the most stable democratic system in the Islamic world.
Out of what? Three? No, hang on, there are two new ones now, aren't there. I wonder how that happened.
When historians look back, they may see this policy as being the truly epochal event of our time, dwarfing in effectiveness the crude power of America.
Or, y'know, not.
The United States can take some satisfaction in this. After all, it is in large part the success of the mid-century American Dream—spreading democracy, free markets, social mobility and multilateral cooperation—that has made possible the diversity of models we see today.
Translation: Thank the Americans that you're not all speaking German, Japanese or Russian.
This was enlightened statecraft of unparalleled generosity.
No it wasn't. It was a horrific war followed by a decades-long standoff.
But where does it leave us? Americans still invoke democratic idealism. We heard it in Bush's address, with his apocalyptic proclamation that "the survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands."
Apocalyptic proclamation? Are you completely insane? What he said was that no country stands alone, and that our freedom is under threat while others suffer oppression. You have a problem with that?
But fewer and fewer people have the patience to listen.
And are impoverished thereby.
Headlines in the British press were almost contemptuous: DEFIANT BUSH DOES NOT MENTION THE WAR, HAVE I GOT NUKES FOR YOU and HIS SECOND-TERM MISSION: TO END TYRANNY ON EARTH.
"Almost" contemptuous? How about openly contemptuous. I mean, ending tyranny on Earth, what a moron.
Has this administration learned nothing from Iraq, they asked?
What would you have us learn? That the French and the Russians cannot be trusted? Hey, we knew that.
The failure of the American Dream has only been highlighted by the country's foreign-policy failures, not caused by them.
Failure of the American Dream?

Last time I checked, America was still there.

Foreign-policy failures? What? Where?

The true danger is that Americans do not realize this, lost in the reveries of greatness, speechifying about liberty and freedom.
You are completely insane.

Reveries of greatness? Reveries? America, who provided aid to tsunami victims by parking a spare carrier group off their shore, providing fresh water and medical care and flight facilities. That America?

You accuse America of "speechifying about liberty and freedom". America, that is right now this minute fighting to preserve freedom in Iraq and Afghanistan. America that still has troops defending Germany and Japan and South Korea.

Speechifying? No. That I'll leave to France and to the United Nations. President Bush doesn't speechify. He says what he is going to, and then he does it.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 03:18 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 The thing that really annoys me about all this is that you can bet your bottom dollar they are NOT going to consolidate their seats in the UN, WTO, or any other int'l body. Why should the EU get umpteen votes where the US gets one? They want the advantages of unity without the disadvantages.

Posted by: TallDave at Wednesday, June 01 2005 01:14 PM (9XE6n)

2 Ignore above, wrong thread. U.S. leaders have long believed military power and the American Dream went hand in hand. It's so easy to forget, as this person apparently has, that America really had no military to speak of when we were dragged into WW II. That's why Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany thought we would be easy to defeat: in their eyes we were a weak, decadent nation.

Posted by: TallDave at Wednesday, June 01 2005 01:24 PM (9XE6n)

3 This has got to be one of the best fiskings (is that right word?) I have ever read. This site is definately now a daily read. Skip Christy Lake Oswego, OR (USA)

Posted by: CNC at Wednesday, June 01 2005 01:31 PM (fpVgk)

4 The failure of the American Dream lost in the reveries of greatness Here's a useful link in combatting this kind of insanity. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html speechifying about liberty and freedom Now, what do all those countries in the top third or so have in common? They're rich and free because of America's commitment to liberty and freedom.

Posted by: TallDave at Wednesday, June 01 2005 01:34 PM (9XE6n)

5 Also interesting: Iraq led the world in GDP growth in 2004. Now, they did start from a very low level, but 50% is still amazing growth, esp for a period that the media keep describing as getting worse.
But the real underreported economic story of the last 5 years is Eastern Europe. It seems like every country is growing at around 5%. China gets all the headlines, but China is still much poorer per capita and has serious weaknesses in financial infrastructure.

Posted by: TallDave at Wednesday, June 01 2005 01:41 PM (9XE6n)

6 You know, it's funny about that "Namby-pamby hearts-and-minds stuff" As far back as i can remember, that comes from an old special forces slogan, "Grab 'em by the balls and their hearts and minds will follow." I wonder if that's the first etymology. Certainly the most straightforward (and via Occam, the correct) one.

Posted by: tommy at Wednesday, June 01 2005 09:27 PM (OJ+GI)

7 Heh. Maybe he meant "namby-pamby hearts-and-flowers". :)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 01 2005 09:58 PM (AIaDY)

8 It's so easy to forget, as this person apparently has, that America really had no military to speak of when we were dragged into WW II. America was deeply isolationist in the 1930's. I've touched on this in my latest post. The Axis still planned more on avoiding conflict with America than defeating it, and they certainly weren't planning on what actually happened.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Wednesday, June 01 2005 10:35 PM (AIaDY)

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