You know, Colin Powell was the one guy I liked on Bush's foreign policy team. Now I'm not so sure. I know he has to tow the line on this one because he's a soldier, but I'm not buying this whole "if the UN and NATO doesn't go our way, they're making themselves irrelevant." Does that actually work? Let's say they're in a classroom:
Teacher: "Hey Saddam, did you throw that spit-ball?"
Stubborn Saddam: "Uh, nope I didn't do it."
Teacher: "I saw it come from your direction... you better hand me whatever's in your hand."
McDonald: "I saw him do it. I'll go beat his damn face in cuz he's lying."
Teacher: "No McDonald, you're always so violent. Let's wait and see what Saddam has to say..."
Stubborn Saddam: "...I...uh..."
McDonald: impatiently interrupting "I'll rip his face off. I'll do it. Let me do it and take his candy."
Teacher: "Relax Big Mac, you're aways getting in trouble. You beat up Afghan yesterday and accidently gave Canada a black eye, remember?"
McDonald: "Hey, this whole instructional environment thing will be irrelevant if you don't let me beat up Saddam today. He did it. I know he did. I can't wait anymore!"
Rest of Class: "Dude, you should kick-back..."
I guess it's not exactly like that, but in a way, it is. It's the hot-heads vs. the cool heads. I see it like this: we're rushing to wage war while our staunchest allies of the past are holding things up because they believe in a diplomatic, peaceful solution.
The UN, especially, was created by us to solve problems through diplomacy. Half of diplomacy is letting hot heads cool off by taking up time. NATO, on the other hand, was an alliance for mutual defense.
Here we are going on the offensive and waging war... no wonder those institutions are becoming irrelevant. It's not because of France, Belgium or Germany. If there's one reason the UN and NATO would become irrelevant it's because they're set up as institutions for peaceful resolutions; not to be commandeered by the hot heads.
Comments (2)
But that's the nature of this administration. Republicans have never been happy about the whole UN idea because it does not allow for a state to act independently, especially our own. Look at what happened when Wilson brought up the idea of the League of Nations. That got shut down by who... The Republican Party. The American public has never been that enthused about it either, the Democrats had a majority in the house when Wilson was in office and the League was just beginning. Then, right before the treaty was sent to the Senate for ratification, elections were held, Republicans won a majority, and the whole thing was denied.
By the way, my final project for my Historical Analysis class is researching why the Demo's lost the majority that election, and why the treaty was shot down.
Posted by marc | February 12, 2003 1:29 AM
Posted on February 12, 2003 01:29
The hypocrisy of the Republicans is that they love to tell other countries what to do. Clinton recently said that we should use this fleeting moment in history, when the U.S. can dominate militarily and economically, to set up the institutions that will sustain a peaceful and prosperous future. Because U.S.'s dominance is so fleeting it's an opportunity that it shouldn't waste. China, India and the Muslim countries will develop and crowd onto the global stage. Republicans can whine and cry then about how other countries are telling them what to do, but no one will care because if the institutions aren't in place for peaceful co-existence, they're going to have to stick their heads in their own ass and bitch.
Ah, such colorful sophisticated language...
Oh, and Repulicans probably don't like the Bretton Woods system that includes supra-national organizations because it brought unheard of prosperity between 1945-75 to the free world, a time that saw a liberalization of just about everything. Bretton Woods, the post WWII era system of world governance, has been based on the ideas of Keynes - a gay Brit.
Now, I think that would get any red state Republican's blood pressure up.
Posted by teddy | February 12, 2003 2:32 AM
Posted on February 12, 2003 02:32