[aclug-L] Re: Richard Reid

[Tom Hull <thull2@xxxxxxx>]

Scott Rarden wrote:
> Ah, now this has become a discussion that, while I don't agree with
> everything, I can immensely enjoy and learn from.  Some points that bug me:
> 
> Has anyone noticed the French acting unilaterally in one of their former
> African colonies?  They sent in troops and paramilitary to take over an
> airport to protect their people.  Where was the international discussion over
> that?  Okay, small potatoes compared to an actual invasion of Iraq.  But
> watch France and Germany -- when they think something is in their national
> interest they will go after it as fast as the US does.  Some things are true
> the world over...and unfortunately national interest often does boil down to
> what is in the interest of the people at the top.

There have been civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia since the early '90s
(or maybe earlier), which have basically been roving gang of thugs with no
ideology whatsoever. Evidently this phenomenon has slopped over into Cote
d'Ivoire, which has long been regarded as the most Francophile state in
Africa, and has been one of the few relatively stable countries along the
West African coast. Presumably the French are there to help restore order,
which may be self-interested but may also be beneficial to most of the
people in Cote d'Ivoire. France had a more equitable relationship with
its African colonies than England ever had. (One telling piece of evidence
here is that if you listen to African popular music, you will hear quite
a bit of French from artists in formerly French colonies, but virtually
no English [except reggae] from formerly English colonies.) As I recall,
France also intervened in Rwanda when no other nation would acknowledge
the genocide there.

Note that I'm not trying to argue against your point here -- just trying
to fill in a few details. The one thing I'm tempted to argue is that the
U.S. has developed a penchant for intervening in situations where it is
hard to find a real interest -- at least one that matters to people back
here.

> Also, about materialism and commercialism, and us spreading it all over the
> world.  Anyone else notice that France and Germany have, at the very least,
> played the knife edge of following the sanctions in Iraq?  Do not for a
> moment thing that their official positions is all about pacifism or giving
> inspections a chance.  Some?  Maybe.  Most?  Possibly.  All?  I don't think
> so.
> 
> And speaking as a conservative -- I think we should pull all of our troops out
> of Europe aside from some liason troops necessary for NATO.  Or, let's put
> them in some of the Central European countries. Are they trying to curry our
> favor by backing our play in Iraq?  Undoubtedly that is some of it, though I
> like to think they are freshly out of communism enough to be a little
> idealistic about experience.   But France and Germany would really like to
> see an EU, dominated by them, that is a major competitor to the US.  So
> taking us down a peg or two would not hurt that process at all.

Well, the EU is dominated by France and Germany, and it is a larger economic
entity than the US -- to no small extent NAFTA was invented to one-up the
EU, and expansion of it throughout Latin America will no doubt follow the
growth of the EU, although it's worth noting that NAFTA aims at none of
the integration that the EU aspires to. (E.g., in the EU people can move
to any member country; not so in NAFTA.)

> Hey, do I believe the US has done things in the past that I wouldn't support.
> Yes.  Do I believe if I knew everything it is doing now, I would support it?
> Hardly.  Do I believe that it will stop doing those things? Hope springs
> eternal.  But one of the things that bothers me about the internal
> discussions about what we are doing and what we should be doing is that it
> usually gives the benefit of the doubt to other countries before ours.

A lot of the people who get accused of "blaming America first" have in fact
spent a lot of time and effort studying history and only reluctantly came to
the conclusion that the U.S. has often been culpable in its dealings with
the rest of the world. On the other hand, many Americans so instinctively
reject the notion that the U.S. ever acts dishonorably that they study
nothing. I've long felt -- and I turned 19 during the height of the Vietnam
War -- that a nation that refuses to acknowledge its mistakes is doomed not
merely to repeat them but to never really understand anything. I think that
that is a big part of our problem now.

> Remember -- it wasn't that long ago compared to the Crusades that there was a
> Muslim empire (Constantinople...er...Istanbul didn't fall to just nobody and
> when you hear Bin Laden mention Spain, there is a guy who needs to get over
> it).  It wasn't that long ago that the French were running almost all of
> Europe (Those Brits and Russians sure do throw a kink in people's plans).
> And it definitely wasn't that long ago that either Germany or Russia had its
> eye on the world.  Have they forsaken all possibility of doing so again?
> They might like to think so, but I doubt it.   Remember that Germany was
> something other than Nazi between the Kaiser and Hitler.

Right. Germany was flat broke during that period. Democracy works better
when there's bread on the table and a little wine and cheese in the pantry.
But I think the long term trend is that most people are getting tired of
war as a method of settling anything. Germany and Japan found that out when
they gave their leaders complete authority and were plunged into utter
defeat. But war takes a toll even on the winners. By the time WWII was
over, Americans had done things that they could not have imagined before.

> And the thought that people should be holding other people responsible for
> things that happened over 300 years ago (my ideal timeline would be much
> shorter) is a bit absurd in my opinion.
> 
> And, since no one is thinking that we may be replacing the Iraqi version of
> Abraham Lincoln (kudos to Jonah Goldberg on that one) and the status quo in
> the Middle East in my opinion isn't too nice to the rest of the world, or its
> own people...well, if we are making a mistake on reasons for taking out
> Saddam Hussein, it isn't something I am going to lose sleep over.  Japan and
> Germany (for all their talk now) have been remarkably nicer to us after
> WWII...so it isn't a certainty that by going in we would ruin things and
> create more problems in the area.

I think that the difference there was that Germany and Japan were able to
blame their leaders for their defeat -- indeed, it was critically important
that ordinary Germans and Japanese be able to dissociate themselves from
the horrible acts of their regimes. Whether the Iraqis will similarly blame
Saddam for their hardships is an open question, but is I think far less
likely. For one thing, pre-WWII the U.S. was isolationist, and therefore
innocent of starting the war. (Indeed, the U.S. had opposed the reparations
that were much to blame for Germany's post WWI impoverishment.) However,
the U.S. has been very interventionist in Iraq and elsewhere over the
last 50+ years, has conspicuously supported Israel against Iraq and Arabs
in general, supported Iran against Iraq while the Shah was in power, etc.
There are also demographic factors (Germany and Japan are homogeneous,
Iraq is split into three hostile camps), economic factors (Germany and
Japan were already industrial nations with strong educational sectors
and professional skills, an infrastructure that Iraq largely lacks), and
basic questions about how long the U.S. might occupy (eight years in the
case of Japan) and how much reconstructive effort will be put into it.

> And thanks for the great discussion!
> 
> Scott Rarden

-- 
/*
  *  Tom Hull * thull2 at cox.net * http://www.tomhull.com/
  */

-- This is the discussion@xxxxxxxxx list.  To unsubscribe,
visit http://www.complete.org/cgi-bin/listargate-aclug.cgi