phaedrus

*rambling hat on*

The US president continues to drive his nation towards a war on Iraq, saying that iraq is a threat to US. The fact that senate is expected to support this president - is it an indication that most americans support the war? Its a democratic nation right? Should one man and his team of people decided what is 'correct' for an entire nation (or for the 'peace' of the world as dubya puts it). Lets go to "war" for "peace".....nice speech writers i say

Atleast in UK along with the people of the street, the politicians also seem to be standing up to get counted and not get blindly behind Blair without a moral justification. Is UK a better democracy or is it just that for whatever PC american media and some politicians have indulged in, deep inside they support the war?

And coming to democracy....if one looks at the whole world as a single nation and the opinion of the majority should count and the majority say lets try peaceful way of resolving this. Or is it that from now onwards, screw United Nations, any nation can wage war against another to protect its "sovereign" interests. The world took ages to build the institution called UN. Now that its existence is under doubt, is there an alternative? Maybe the white house could become UN

Is this the kind of war mill talked about?


From the guardian...

The president's sombre speech, not without eloquence, will now alert many to the risks being faced. But in the American capital yesterday, at least until the president spoke, the last gasp of diplomacy and the first hot breath of war were not evident outside government offices and foreign policy institutes. The day was marked more by irritation at unusual traffic jams and extra choruses of sirens, presumably the consequence of road closures and alerts for security reasons.

The presidents who took the United States into the two world wars did so with statements that emphasised both the grave threat to America and the reluctant nature of the American response. "The forces endeavouring to enslave the entire world are now moving toward this hemisphere," said Roosevelt in 1942. "The state of war between the United States and the Imperial German government which has been thrust upon on the United States is hereby formally declared," said the Wilson government in 1917.

The United States slid into the Vietnam war after Congress was persuaded that there had been a serious provocation in the Tonkin Gulf, but Lyndon Johnson was later to insist that the war was both unavoidable and necessary. With Iraq, President Bush has in hand a congressional permission in advance.

In his speech, like his predecessors, he emphasises both the necessity of war and the reluctance of the United States to engage in it. But his speech most resembled that of President McKinley on the eve of the Spanish-American War, demanding of the government of Spain that it immediately "relinquish its authority ... in Cuba ... and withdraw its land and naval forces." It was an ultimatum that nobody could imagine the other side could accept.

Rebuilding iraq requires long term commitment, is bush going to do that or is he under an illusion by looking at history and thinking about germany and japan ? The rest of the world will observe alright, maybe in an exasperated state....but they will wait and see, what this man is pushing the world into.

For those who are interested......A Warning from History - Don�t expect democracy in Iraq

Edited to add

NY Times Editorial ....War in the Ruins of Diplomacy

------

"The country now stands at a decisive turning point, not just in regard to the Iraq crisis, but in how it means to define its role in the post-cold-war world. President Bush's father and then Bill Clinton worked hard to infuse that role with America's traditions of idealism, internationalism and multilateralism. Under George W. Bush, however, Washington has charted a very different course. Allies have been devalued and military force overvalued."

"There is no ignoring the role of Baghdad's game of cooperation without content in this diplomatic debacle. And France, in its zest for standing up to Washington, succeeded mainly in sending all the wrong signals to Baghdad. But Washington's own destructive contributions were enormous: its shifting goals and rationales, its increasingly arbitrary timetables, its distaste for diplomatic give and take, its public arm-twisting and its failure to convince most of the world of any imminent danger.

The result is a war for a legitimate international goal against an execrable tyranny, but one fought almost alone. At a time when America most needs the world to see its actions in the best possible light, they will probably be seen in the worst. This result was neither foreordained nor inevitable. "

------------

lunachick

Don't you just love that "go to war for peace" crap? I found myself rolling my eyes at Bush's, "Moment of truth is upon us" nonsense, as well. - As if that man has EVER told the truth about anything!! LOL.

All I can do now is laugh sadly at how ridiculous the human 'race' has become.

Nozferatu

Much like this....