Posted on 04/26/2003 4:58:12 PM PDT by quidnunc
It strikes me that something fairly big is happening, fairly quietly, in Washington. It amounts to a new diplomatic strategy, post-Iraq of the kind which, given American power, generates in and of itself a "new world order". (The father talked; the son acted.) It emerges less from conscious thought than from years of frustrating trial and error, brought to a head in the Security Council just before the invasion of Iraq. And it begins to reveal itself as a way of dealing with immediate difficulties in Iraq and elsewhere (most immediately, North Korea).
But though not the product of committee foresight, I think it may emerge as the most important single element within the "Bush doctrine" that has been assembling itself since the morning of 9/11, and which may long outlive the administration of President George W. Bush. It may even penetrate into the U.S. State Department, over time.
Until someone has invented a more pretentious expression, I will call this the new "we don't care" policy. It consists of responding to major rhetorical and diplomatic challenges, including organized campaigns against U.S. interests choreographed through the United Nations, with something like total indifference.
But let me explain, not indifference to the challenge, but indifference to the argument given with the challenge. The U.S. will take note of the opposition, and act to defeat it, but without publicly arguing with it. Actual discussion on matters of significance is reserved to allies.
Example: yesterday, when the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, cut a verbal Gordian knot, by stating very simply that the U.S. would not allow a theocratic regime to arise in Iraq. One might deduce that it wouldn't matter whether the thing were voted or not voted, before or behind a façade of "democracy"; or one might fail to deduce that. Either way, the thing itself is repugnant, and the U.S. will stop it happening.
Example: earlier this week, when the secretary of state, Colin Powell, was asked unambiguously by media whether the U.S. intended to "punish" (their word) France for her recent behaviour over Iraq, and he replied in one word: "Yes."
One had to refer to other officials to gather that this would be done most likely by cutting France out of the consultation process in NATO and among other U.S. allies, and by "disinviting" France to other trans-Atlantic fora, thus isolating the Chirac regime diplomatically even within Europe.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
Ahh, shades of Teddy Roosevelt: "Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far." Beautiful!
Thank God for President Bush.
Amen! I almost think any picture of the President is good because you can see into his soul....he's real, he feels, he cares, much more than we probably know, much more than the left will ever give him credit for.
Paul Allen's company, Vulcan, which does a lot of development, has done such a great job of creating jobs and building in S. Lake Union area, that 2 socialist Seattle City Council members wrote a letter saying they felt "uncomfortable." I kid you not. Too many jobs were being created! Wa is fast vying for second most stupid state in the union, following CA whenever possible. We have had rat legislature for 30 years. And people keep voting them in. Seattle lefties also bought and put up a statue of Lenin in a Seattle (Freemont) town square... It's hard to know where to start to clean this place up!
Probably not.
In the first place you're using this out of context.
Here is the whole sentence:
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. "
A "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" does not mean that we must structure our policies so as to meet with the approval of foreign governmants espercially when to do so would be detrimental to our own national interests.
The first duty of our federal government is to protect us Americans, not to cater to the whims and peeves of foreigners.
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Grammarian usually has little to contribute to a discussion and possesses few effective weapons. To compensate, he will point out minor errors in spelling and grammar. Because of Grammarian's obvious weakness most Warriors ignore him.
Damn straight, and we're right too. We don't sacrifice lives to liberate a people in order to turn them over to another style of torturing tyranny, such as that of the Ayatollahs of Iran. There comes a time in the life of a people, in this case the Iraqi's, when their certain inalienble rights with which they were endowed by their Creator need to be recognized and their government structured to protect them.
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