Proxima Centauri

The world needs a force to fight tyrants, terrorists etc. The trouble is, the United States is getting too strong. There seems to be too much heavy-handed policing.
In the autumn shortly before a General Election in Germany, the German foreign minister was forced by President Bush to resign because he dared to criticize the United States. Now what's happened to free speech? They're so proud of free speech in the United States. Is free speech only for Americans, not for other people?
I don't mind at all if the United State forces a tyrant like Saddam out of office. Elected leaders of democratic countries are a different matter.
If President Bush were more sympathetic to other countries and other leaders perhaps there would be less opposition to his war/wars.

fidiot

I don't even understand the concept "World Police". Who put the USA in this position? For what purpose? On what grounds? That we have the strongest military? Imagine some other country trying to do the same things that the US is doing.

James Still

Following the Bushies comments regarding Syria this past week has given me a serious case of deja vu in the runup to Iraq. Bush was incoherent in his statement yesterday:

"We believe there are chemical weapons in Syria, for example, and we will... each situation will require a different response, and of course we're... first things first. We're here in Iraq now, and the second thing about Syria is that we expect cooperation."

Daily newspapers cleaned it up for publication but this is what he said verbatim (from pbs.org). Notice the two huge non-sequiturs in which Bush checks himself just in time rather than finishing the sentence with its logical intended meaning. First, he mentions chemical weapons and then says "we will" but then instead of saying what we'll do he jumps to a safe generality about "a different response." Then he all but admits that Iraq's fate will soon be shared by Syria. "First things first [Iraq] ... second" but then if you watched it you saw him quickly shut up, hesitate, and then jump to the "we expect cooperation" generality. You can just feel the handlers cringing and the strategists staring in horror -- shades of the time when he bungled our China policy to announce that we would defend Taiwan if she were attacked.

I'm convinced that they had already decided to take on Syria before the war with Iraq. No way would Wolfowitz have felt free to say what he did about Syria three days before Rumsfeld's thinly-veiled threat which was before Bush's comment above. There is too much agreement. The possession of chemical weapons charge just won't fly. The only reason it had legs in Iraq (at least among the gullible) was due to the implicit accusation that because Saddam "gassed his own people" ten years ago he would do so again and therefore represented an imminent threat. This is not the case with Syria. If the argument is that Syria ought not to have them no matter what then we must extend that to Israel who also possesses chemical weapons. To demand that Syria unilaterally disarm while igoring Israel is just the sort of hypocrisy that foments huge resentment in the Arab world. They already think our foreign policy is a handmaiden to Israel and this would reinforce that (in my opinion accurate) perception. Sure they allowed fanatics to cross the border into Iraq and throw themselves at our tanks -- and we bombed the oil pipeline that goes into Syria. We're even. Anything more is reckless escalation. Someone should wake Bush from his visions of empire and put a stop to his cowboy antics before he causes any more trouble.

Majestyk

Please, elaborate. How was he forced to resign and what was the nature of his criticism?

Gurdur

A small correction

It wasn't the Foreign Minister, it was a different Minister.
And it wasn't a "he", it was a she.

BTW, same thing almost happened to a Canadian Minsiter, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand.

CALDONIA

The danger of the U.S. becoming the world's policeman is not just one of enforcement. What is more dangerous is when the U.S. defines crime and then appoints itself the prosecutor and judge.

Proxima Centauri

I appreciate the good points made here. If all United States voters were as thoughtful as the contributers to this thread there would be no problem. :banghead:
We Europeans and the rest of the world will have to try and find a solution.
Any more suggestions?

James Still

Unfortunately, most U.S. voters are thoughtful about these issues. The problem is that most Americans don't vote. Out of the 206 million people who are eligible to vote, only 156 million registered to do so. Out of those people only 105 million showed up at the polls. So only 1 out of 2 citizens take the time to exercise one of their most fundamental rights. At the same time, polls show that Americans who consider themselves "born-again evangelicals" now number 46% of the population. That's why the apocalyptic Left Behind book series is a runaway best seller, with over 50 million sold to date. Evangelicals vote and over the past 30 years they have succeeded in turning the U.S. in a whole different direction.

My suggestion for Europeans? Stop seeing Americans as an example of a secular democracy well-grounded in Enlightenment principles in which religion plays little role in the machinations of the state. We are a people dominated by a majority of people for whom Providence, not modernity, governs the state. Our President's actions in Iraq are guided by the Book of Revelation not pragmatism or realpolitik. And I think it will only get worse before it gets better. There's a lot we need to do here at home (real campaign finance reform would be a great start) but Europeans need to stand up to the U.S. and denounce its radical policies. The demonstrations all across Europe (and the world) have had an impact here. We Americans like to pride ourselves on the myth that everyone loves us and wants to be like us so it's a shock to see such a reaction.

About two months ago in the parking lot of Intel (where I work) a fellow software engineer named Mike was surrounded by FBI agents with automatic weapons and hustled away in a car. We have a new "Patriot Act" passed after 911 that gives the Justice Department sweeping authority to arrest people without probable cause and to deny them their right to due process. Mike is still in a high-security federal prison. He has not been charged with a crime. Senator Wyden wrote to the Justice Department's attorneys, asking them to tell him why he is being held, what his condition is, and whether he will be allowed to see an attorney. They wrote back and said that they couldn't speak about the case but they might be able to in a few months. End of story. Some people who were arrested right after 911 are still in prison and have not been charged with a felony. They're just being held so the government can investigate them.

I don't want to sound like an alarmist but we're in danger of slowing losing our civil rights. There's a draconian followup to the Patriot Act (see the draft legislation at http://www.dailyrotten.com/source-do...iot2draft.html) that reads like something out of Heinlein's fascistic nightmare novel Fahrenheit 451. And the Administration has the votes for it now that Congress is scared about terrorism and in Republican Party hands.

Amen-Moses

I don't think you'll find many Europeans (well apart from "New Europe", Blair and the Spanish bloke who has all but vanished) who think this anyhow!

Amen-Moses

Proxima Centauri

TERRIFYING!
And you Yanks are so proud of your democracy? And so are those other Americans from other parts of the US who insist they are not Yanks.
I'm scared. The European Union may have to start arming so we can stand up to the Yanks and others.