MacHamish wrote:

[snip a lot of interesting stuff about the US's role in the two wars]

> Communism really is a horrid system, don't you think?

The aims of communism are not horrible. Unfortunately, communism is not
well-suited to humans, so its aims become corrupted and the result is a
travesty of what Marx envisioned.

If you want to put it like that, though, you could look at a society where
millions of people do not have access to health care, where young black
people (the descendants of slaves) are today more likely to be in prison
than in university, where 4% of the world's population produces 25% of the
world's pollution, etc., etc., and say that *that* is a horrid system.

> I apologize for misreading your intent in posting that timeline.

OK.

> However, there was something in your tone that struck
> me as demeaning
[snip]
> Of course, you're entitled to your opinion, but my opinion is
> that its dangerously wrong to make a moral equivalence out
> of attitudes like FreddyN's and the strident claims of militant
> Islam.  The former is relatively harmless bravado when
>considered in light of the current actions of Islamic fundamentalists.

I disagree. US attitudes are backed by tremendous military might, and can
never be dismissed as "harmless bravado". It's a bit like saying hornets are
dangerous, but those who go around stirring up hornets' nests are harmless.
The US is stirring up a hornets' nest, and the legacy of that will be with
us for many years to come.

BTW, are you familiar with the article in the Lancet, which estimates that
as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives as a result of the
US invasion/occupation of their country
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3962969.stm)?

It is too simplistic to say that FreddyN isn't beheading anyone (not that
you did say that, but I infer something of the kind from your words). The
point is that his government has authorised the military occupation of
another country, his country's army is engaged in manoeuvres that involve
substantial civilian casualties, and the ill-feeling this has generated will
poison world relations for years.

> I wasn't trying to discourage you from posting your timeline.
> I think that was the best part of your post.  Nor was I trying
> to suppress truth for "propaganda purposes".  That accusation
> *is* demeaning, condescending, and wrong.

OK, my turn to apologise!

> FreddyN represents the thesis;  you represent the anti-thesis.
> The truth does indeed lie somewhere in between.  I don't
> think you'd have had any problem with FreddyN if he had
>simply said that the US *helped* to save China and Britain.

I take your point.

> >You would perhaps do better to point out that critics of the US
> >seem to want both to have their cake and eat it; they criticise
> >US involvement in world affairs on the one hand and its isolationism
> >on the other.
>
> Exactly.  We're damned if we do, and damned if we don't.  I have
> pointed out this catch-22 before, only to be howled at incoherently
> by the Chomsky clones out there.

Well, I must admit to stringing you along a bit there, as I do have a point
to make. My point is that many of the catch-22 anomalies can be resolved if
you look at the matter from a slightly different angle. If you stop thinking
about it as involvement vs. isolationism and instead think about it along
the axis of multilateralism vs. unilateralism you will see that the US is
not (or not necessarily) in quite the "damned if we do, and damned if we
don't" predicament that you suggest.

The US's perceived problem of being criticised whatever it does basically
raises its head when it ignores international opinion. When the US acts in
accordance with a broad international agreement there is no significant
problem. There was no massive outcry about the legitimacy of the *first*
Gulf War, which had a clear mandate from the United Nations and a
broad-based coalition. Even neighbouring Islamic countries accepted the
necessity of taking action and gave qualified support. Of course, there will
always be a few who will criticise the US whatever it does, but the answer
to that is for the US to endeavour, wherever possible, to have the tide of
world opinion on its side before acting. The US can get involved without
fear of undue recrimination when the rest of the world feels it *should* get
involved.

The US is ill-advised to get involved in wars that give rise to widespread
international protest at a popular and political level, and with only one or
two "poodles" giving support. It would have helped if Kofi Annan had said at
the time that the second Gulf War was illegal, but the fact that he said it
at all is significant. If the US wants to take a proactive role and gain the
world's support as a world player it should never get itself into a
situation like that.

On another tack, the US accounts for 4% of the world's population, produces
25% of the world's pollution and 35% of its wealth, manages to find some $1
billion a day to feed its military operations and yet only gives around 0.1%
of GDP (about a seventh of the amount recommended by the Development
Assistance Committee, to which the US belongs) to overseas development aid
(and much of what it does give goes to propping up Israel).

Let's just look at the pollution aspect. Suppose the rest of the world was
producing greenhouse gases on the same scale as the US. That would lead to a
massive 525% increase in greenhouse gases. Now, even the biggest sceptics
about global warming would be hard put to deny that this would be
catastrophic. To put it bluntly, if the rest of the world set out to produce
greenhouse gas emissions on the same scale as the US, life on this planet
would almost certainly be wiped out long before the target was reached.

Perhaps science will come up with a simple solution to the greenhouse
effect, but that is a long shot. Barring major breakthroughs, the current
pollutant behaviour of the US will doubtless be bitterly condemned by future
generations. The fact that it then adds insult to injury by refusing to go
along with even the very modest requirements of the Kyoto Protocol is
defying both common sense and the consensus of those whom it would like to
consider its friends.

Do you see a pattern here? If the US thinks about it purely in terms of
isolationism and involvement it will end up like a teenager, crying "Why
don't they like me?" But if it thinks in terms of unilateralism and
multilateralism then it will see that it is not unpopular when it adds its
weight to a broad consensus, and only becomes unpopular when it insists on
having its own way, regardless of what the remaining 96% of the planet's
population might think.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the US has to emasculate itself
completely, and simply become a willing dogsbody for world opinion. If it
really can't get by without invading Iraq, or if it really can't see its way
to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, so be it. But let it be for reasons that
the world can understand and respect.

Disinformation will only work with the citizens of the US itself. It will
not convince the rest of the world. If the media are constantly telling US
citizens that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and was somehow involved in the attack
on the World Trade Centre, and largely ignore contradictory evidence, then
US public opinion can be manipulated. If the media are constantly citing the
small number of scientists who disagree with the evidence for global
warming, and largely ignore the far larger number of scientists who consider
the evidence overwhelming then, again, US public opinion can be manipulated.

The result of such manipulation of public opinion is that the leaders of the
US can then say, "Oh, we can't go along with the views of the outside world,
because we don't have a mandate from our people to do that. They actually
disagree with what the rest of the world is saying." But this is a
fabricated situation. The citizens of the United States are brought up on
one diet, but the rest of the world is getting a different diet, including
(for example) the view that the real reason the US doesn't want to curb
greenhouse gas emissions is because it is addicted to oil, and that it
invaded and occupied Iraq for the same reason.

How you decide which is right and which is wrong is a tricky matter. As you
said before, the truth probably lies somewhere between the extremes. If so,
US policy (which allows only of black and white, and acknowledges no middle
ground) is clearly extreme, and as a result has alienated world opinion to
an unprecedented extent.

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com