Antiwar protests increase probability of war

[slang]

Originally posted by jaguar
Why is little or nothing being done about the DPRK?

Us troops have been and are being deployed there now, my little bro was shiiting himself worrying about being sent. I don't know the numbers, but they have been and I suspect will continue be sent to South Korea for re-inforcement of the existing (miniscule) force there now.

[slang]

Originally posted by sycamore
...... is that morons like you ....

That's insulting Syc.

[jaguar]

If i wrote something on it i fear words like backfire, disaster, foolish and naive would feature prominately.

As i said lang, why is little or nothing being done about the DPRK. They fired up the reactor a day or two ago.

[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Bush's speech tonight suggested that we are really pursuing an Arab Democracy so that the rest of the Arab world gets the example and takes the hint.

Nothing new here. That Frontline report last night made that objective woefully obvious. From background interviews of long ago associated with the Frontline report - an interview of Mark Danner, writer for The New Yorker and professor at University of California:

Some of them are in the Defense Department: Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and others. ...
Those gentlemen are thought to advance a very ambitious view of the Middle East, and of what the war policy on Iraq could achieve in the Middle East -- that is, this would lead to a remaking of the Middle East. Democracy in Iraq would then put pressure on the mullahs in Iran, would promote some kind of democratic outcome there, would isolate the Syrians, would lead to a cutoff of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and eventually lead to a Middle East peace agreement on the Israelis' terms.

As I noted previously, even in China they are asking who is next. This is the concept of pre-emption which means the hegemonous power unilaterally fixes the world. That was an early draft. Later versions tone down the first objective - to make sure that no other power becomes a super power or can challenge US dominance. As the paper began leaking, its initial paragraphs were changed to make them more politically acceptable. But the original concept of pre-emption was from a Wolfowitz 1992 concept paper originally intended to define, size, and direct US military for a future world.

The concept of pre-emption includes, but is not limited to forcing American concepts such as democracy onto other nations.

This concept was in direct confrontation with a doctrine promoted by Powell. 11 September upset the stalemate - and resulted in what is now being called the Bush Doctrine. Pre-emption is to be the first major change in US policy since Pearl Harbor forced the US from isolationism to entanglement. Forcing democracy on Iraq is part of what is sometimes called Phase II. You really want to see that Frontline report also at http://www.pbs.org/frontline

[tw]

Another also notes how this new Bush Doctrine causes conservative Republicans to act more like liberals AND what its ultimate targets are:

John Lewis Gaddis, a military and naval historian from Yale U.:
... something that's quite astonishing for conservatives: the idea that American values are indeed transportable; that democratic values can be made to work elsewhere. This was certainly Reagan's position and I think it is definitely Bush's position. So, by a kind of back-handed circuitous route, this swing of the
conservative movement has come around to an old liberal position, which is that reform of other countries, reform in other cultures, is, in fact, possible -- not just possible, but is necessary.

... definitely not something the administration is saying for publication -- this is a strategy that's ultimately targeted at the Saudis and at the Egyptians and at the Pakistanis; these authoritarian regimes that, in fact, have been the biggest breeders of terrorism in recent years. Iraq has not been; Saudi Arabia actually was.

Originally George Jr campaigned against nation building. And yet what does this new doctrine demand? That the US do nation building, or that allies pick up the pieces after the war and do the nation building?

One thing is implied. The Bush Doctrine is but an American version of the British Empire - once known as the Commonwealth. Forcing American values upon the world where evil exists. Forcing values and culture on another people are not how a nation earns friends. But it is consistent with a fundamental "religious right" concept that "we must save you because we have the religion and know the way".

But what of those nations that don't want to be saved? Not all people crave or demand democracy or American ethics.

[russotto]

Originally posted by Undertoad
Bush's speech tonight suggested that we are really pursuing an Arab Democracy so that the rest of the Arab world gets the example and takes the hint.

I leave it to people much smarter than I as to whether that could happen, would happen etc. I really have no clue.

Not a chance in hell. Though if Bush wanted to make the Saudi's nervous, there's probably no better way.

Unfortunately, we've seen what happens when you get a democracy in strongly religious countries -- they vote in a theocracy.

[tw]

Originally posted by russotto
Unfortunately, we've seen what happens when you get a democracy in strongly religious countries -- they vote in a theocracy.

Some post - WWII or post Cold War examples would be appropriate here.

[russotto]

Originally posted by tw

Some post - WWII or post Cold War examples would be appropriate here.

Algeria.