People - Forget about Francis and his convenient views and pals.

Read Amir Taheri's piece in today's WSJ, "The Last Helicopter."

Imagine what the world will be like in a couple years with no GW Bush to kick around anymore. People will be forced to come to terms with identifying what they actually stand for, if anything, instead of just being anti-Bush. At least Francis tried to stand for something at one point, despite his recent back-pedaling.

Why haven't the Democrats over-taken the GOP on foreign policy ? Where are the calls to cut off Egypt and Israel ? To be even more consistent than Bush ? It would seem to be so easy.

Can you imagine Fukuyama (or one of his new pals) for President ? Taking the path-of-least-resistance is not an option for today's world- if the American voter goes for it, we'll have another well-deserved Carter moment, but with much more dire consequences.

Does it come as a surprise to anyone that a person arrogant enough to dare publish a book under such an absurd title as "The End of History", would eventually change his mind?

But what I find most fascinating is this daily insistence, after more than three long years of occupation in Iraq, trying to answer the (obviously still unanswered) question, "Why did we go to war?"

Reminds me, sadly, of American soldiers in Vietnam, towards the end of that war, still wondering, after all those years, why they were there!

Shouldn't so much absurdity raise fundamental questions in the mind of every American citizen?

Robert - "Why did we go to war?"

It was the easiest way to guarantee a change of dynamic in the Arab ME.

There were better alternatives:

Cut off Egypt and Israel...
Cut off Saudi...
Rationalize our domestic energy policy...
Start working with Iran at arm's length - despite Isreal...
The list goes on.

However, the question of what to do in Iraq would have loomed large no matter what, and there were and are several side benefits for invading Iraq beside the obvious. For example, it was good to showcase the ineffectiveness of UN, except as a bribe machine.

Dolts like c2tbf exemplify the shoot-first-ask-questions-later ideology that prevails among the bullies running the White House. The easiest way to change the dynamic in the Middle East? Yeah, right. By turning the whole world against you, ramping up recruitment for al-Qaeda, killing and wounding thousands of your own servicemen along with tens of thousands of Iraqis. The "dynamic" has certainly changed in the Middle East, but you'll be hard pressed to find anyone outside the United States who thinks it's for the better.
Further evidence of the deep revulsion around the world toward the war, the U.S. president -- and indeed the entire United States -- can be seen in today's release of a major poll in Canada, once your closest ally:

Canadians turn more sour on U.S.
Globe and Mail
March 29, 2006
Ottawa — Stephen Harper heads into his first meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush tomorrow with a new poll suggesting he keep a healthy political distance from his increasingly unpopular American counterpart.
The Globe and Mail/CTV News survey suggests that Canadians want the meeting between Mr. Harper and Mr. Fox to be far more businesslike, given Mr. Bush's unpopularity in Canada and a series of cross-border irritants. The poll found that 69 per cent of Canadians believe Mr. Bush's election was a bad thing, compared with 58 per cent who thought the same way right after he was given a second term. By contrast, 19 per cent think his election was positive, down seven points from November of 2004.

But focusing exclusively on co-operative matters could be politically risky, given the depth of Canadian concern about Mr. Bush.
The survey, for example, found that in Quebec, 81 per cent of those surveyed thought Mr. Bush's re-election was a bad thing. The poll also found that 70 per cent agreed with the statement that, although they value the United States and its citizens, they disagree fundamentally with the government.
The poll, conducted March 25-26, surveyed 1,000 Canadians and is accurate to within 3.1 percentage points 95 per cent of the time.
Mr. Gregg said the results demonstrate that Canadians and Americans aren't the best of friends.
“We share a lot of real estate. We share a lot of common interests, we probably share a lot of common tastes, but we're also pretty glad that we have a big fence,” he said.

c2tbf

-- "Why do we need to go to war, Mr. President?"

-- "To guarantee a change of dynamic in the Arab ME."

-- "Yes, I see."

Are you telling us the American people have accepted to go to war for that?... That this is the reason why they accepted to send their sons and daughters to die or be maimed in Iraq? Or to come back from there suffering from post traumatic war syndrome for the rest of their lives?

If the answer to the one and only basic question is so obvious, so cristal clear, why the insistence still, to get a convincing answer? Is the majority of the US and of the world population so dumb it could not figure that one out over a period of three years ?

Now should your answer (amongst so many...,and their number growing daily) be the right one, why was it not given to the American people and to the world community originally? Instead of all the other spurious ones?

Fascinates me none of this seems to bother you! Well, it obviously bothers most people, everywhere, and in Iraq as well.

Why not, therefore, see to it that your answer be added to the long list and be communicated to everyone.

It may help, who knows?

The breadth and depth of hard-nosed American realism is deeply misunderstood and under-estimated. I recognize in Bush and Cheney the sort of narrow view of human nature that leads to simple "if they ain't with us they're against" actions and attitudes toward others. The attitude is basically an insult to most people, who are intelligent and persuadeable when attention is paid and integrity prevails. Legislators with ears open to constituents instead of "realist" corporate and religious arguments are in short supply--they do not represent the best in American polity.

Werner - Canadians are anti-Bush and anti-American on a near full-time basis, and with benefits no less. That's fantastic- I'm glad we've got that figured out.

Robert - I've lived in the Arab ME prior to 9/11 and seen our "smelly" relationships with those countries fairly up close, including with Israel. As I said before, there were better alternatives, but I still think we're better off. Sorry that disappoints you. What's your plan ?

c2tbf

For the record: you by no means answer any of the questions. No point to include a plan in this non-conversation, really.

In "the End of History", Fukuyama states that democracy in any society can be achieved following a period of necessary "enlightened" dictatorship (i.e. Spain under Franco); this is desirable to the alternative - chaos or communism -, Fukuyama believes. The problem with Iraq is that Saddam was never going to bring about democracy or freedom in any way, shape or form, and was in fact entrenching his atavistic and bloody dictatorship. By removing him, for better or for worse, America's government has made an example out of him for others not to follow. Cynical yet practical, from that standpoint. Whether or not it was worth it one can only guess...

Mr. Morley,

It is interesting that in the harsh light of day, Mr. Fukurama’s and other neo-conservative illusions about what it takes to establish and run an empire has evaporated. At least he has the sense to admit it. It was amusing but ultimately tragic that these macho types (few if any served in uniform) deluded themselves and many in the country about the ease of establishing American hegemony.

As a matter of fact except for those who serve in uniform this country does not have the spine to do what is needed to persevere in an endeavor as hard as empire building. To illustrate my point do you think that we could rely on average citizens in this country to go through a British style “Birkenhead Drill”. Is there a sense of purpose and shared identity for that type of shared sacrifice and behavior to be expected from all and celebrated. I think not. If we are going to succeed we need to use and rely on our wits because we do not have the guts in this society from top to bottom for any other course. I was reminded of this recently when I was throwing out this years holiday cards and I noticed how numerous, blessed and populated with young folks the Bush family photo was and none of them were in uniform.

"Is there a sense of purpose and shared identity for that type of shared sacrifice and behavior to be expected from all and celebrated. I think not. "

If it was there'd no longer be a USA. We'd have self destructed and turned into just another simple minded dictatorship. Admitedly a larger and more prosperous one then may but still a dictorship.

I don't think I'd want to live in a US that is trying to be an Empire.

Our basic culture of personal choice and freedom is basically incompatable with conqureing a hostile people. The american people in general have shown an aversion to forceably smashing a defeated population. Its not a lack of spine per say but more against our entire govermental system.

Anyone who is still asking the question of "why did we attack Iraq" in anything other than a purely philosophical discussion -- in other words, one unrelated to the making of present policy regarding Iraq -- isn't worth listening to. We're there, trying to help the Iraqis' fledgling representative government stand on its feet, opposed by those who would turn the country into a medieval thugocracy. Anyone who can't keep the objective in mind and contribute to that end deserves to be ignored, at best. The recriminations of those having the benefit of 20-20 hindsight can wait until the job is done. Fukuyama is among the most worthless of these purveyors of non-contructive criticism -- he has to resort to lies and distortions to create straw men, rather than forthrightly addressing his opponents arguments (see Charles Krauthammer's column yesterday).

‘Not so, Fukuyama says. He says he never advocated the invasion of Iraq.’

But...
‘...nine days after Sept. 11, Fukuyama signed a public letter to President Bush calling for the overthrow of Saddam “even if the evidence does not link Iraq directly with the attack”.’

His memory of the pre-war arguments he advanced seems as patchy and selective as George Bush’s.

CORRECTION:

I believe he's a tenured professor at SAIS not the Dean. Jessica Einhorn is the Dean.

Fukuyama deserves credit for finally learning to parrot arguments that were vindicated years ago. A genius he is not, but at least he’s not a fantasist. As a supposed intellectual standard-bearer, he knows he can’t rely on the unthinking support of US heartland nationalists and fundamentalists like, say, Cheney does.

But Fukuyama doesn’t deserve admission to the fold of the sane because he’s still looking for ways to undermine the UN.

Essentially he’s saying that having failed to undermine the UN through military adventurism, the US should now try using soft power to damage it.

Is he jealous of the UN for having destroyed Saddam’s WMD?

Mr. Morley
Mr. Duck,

I don’t think the British turned into a dictatorship at any time since Charles the 1st. lost his head. I hope we never have a dictatorship in this country. I do think the neo-conservatives have those types of nasty instincts so we need to be on our guard.

By the way there is nothing wrong with “guts” and having a culture that that takes care of women and children first. It is the essence of being civilized in my view. We certainly could use more of that type of thinking in the USA than the “every man for himself” and “beggar the hind most” which is the current fashion.

No I am not in favor of dictatorships or empires. My point was we do not have the societal guts or cohesion to do an empire. It takes much more discipline that we have as a nation and we don’t see it that type of example from our leadership. After all the British royals Harry and William are serving in the Army and expect to serve in combat if their regiments are deployed. Our own royals are doing what? After all we are at war. Where are they?

RC,

Perhaps the U.S. could have chosen its target in its effort to "remake" the region more carefully, don't you think ? Iran is today going about the process of acquiring nuclear weaponry (with help from China and Russia, I might add), and we - apparently - can't do anything about it now since we're already bogged down in Saddam's booby-trapped playground. Talk about lack of foresight, especially since the official reasons for the intervention in Iraq turned out to be a hoax (no WMDs found).

Whoever said admitting they were wrong makes them a bad person or coward when so much is clearly at stake ?

Fukuyama's arguments were always shallow generalizations which were of little value whether or not he guessed lucky.

Niall Ferguson was pushing the neo-imperialist line as hard as he could a mere three years ago.

The press should be more critical of people whose main claim to attention is a good writing style and a prestigious-sounding academic appointment. Being provably absolutely wrong about a crucial matter of public policy should put them on a "no-go" list for journalists. There were lots of people -- academics, public policy specialists, ordinary people with brains -- who were completely right about Iraq, and it is those people who deserve to be interviewed and featured in serious discussions.

At least until they themselves turn out to be wrong, naive, or mendacious, or even on the payroll of those in power.

There are millions of people opining about current affairs on the Web and there's no reason at all to keep going back to the same few goofs just because they went to Oxbridge schools, the Ivy League, or the Sorbonne. Once upon a time that may have seemed appropriate or even unavoidable. It is now possible to seek out the people who really know how things work and are willing to tell the truth.

What lesson has he learned that warms the heart of the anti-war crowd. He says he was never in favor of the Iraq War, and that he basically just didn't say anything at the time about it. Now though, whatever reservations he had in publicizing his views towards the Iraq war (when did he turn against it again? After 9/11 but before March 2003?) seem to have evaporated. So, no change of heart really, just a vocalization of previously unexpressed views, right?

"Most people are intelligent and persuadable."

Maybe. Then again, maybe not. But much more to the point, some of the nonpersuadables are psychopaths and have armies. Think we should just all have tried a little harder to reason with Saddam? Think if we just sang a few verses of "Kumbaya" with Osama, he would say, "You're so right. All this beheading business and and jihad isn't the way to go, pass me the scissors and let's sew a diversity quilt together instead."

Please. I mean, really. Please.

A good example of someone "intelligent and persuadable" is Moammar Quaddafi. After the US air raid on his emcampments following the Berlin discotheque bombing, we heard rather less from old Moammar. And after the Iraq invasion and the capture of Saddam, he decided to give up his own weapons program.

I am glad that our "allies" ("free-riders" is closer to the mark) in Canada and Western Europe can afford their little Kantian 'paradise' even if it is only the USA's Hobbesian "power" that makes it possible. If they hate us for it, oh well. They're not a danger -- and in a world teeming with truly bad guys, the example of Quaddafi illustrates the general principle that sometimes you have to have the bad guys by the ba**s before their hearts and minds will follow.

In any event, Europe will simply be the westernmost outpost of Islam within the next 25 years. It's not a question of "whether" this will happen. The demographic reality is very clear, and the only question is what form -- moderate or fundamentalist -- of Islam the emerging Islamic Europe will embrace. Given the courage the Iraqis are showing during their current hellish transition, compared to the craven pandering of suicidal Europe, it would not surprise me to see Iraq in 2030 be a far more tolerant and progressive society (not to mention prosperous) society than Islamic Europe.

As for Frank Fukuyama, who I am abashed now to admit that I know, he joins David Brock in the august company of total sell-out publicity and money grubbers -- and bold-faced liars. A pity.

AF - Precious.

It reminds me of Kristof's (NYT) visit to Iran a couple years ago. He experienced overt anti-American hostility only once on his trip... from a group of traveling European schoolchildren.

We have a better chance of finding common ground with Iran over the next 20 years than with Europe. It will be a challenge to to pull them in the right direction, but otherwise no worries. Canada and Fukuyama will attend to whatever prevailing winds are in the offing, and Iranians are more polite and have better food anyway.

The last people to listen to are fire-branded liberals (from any continent), jihadis, and mealy-mouthed academics. Let them have their tenure at SAIS, Harvard, and the other madrassas.

OD:

Yes, Fukuyama's turn-about is certainly a little suspect. But it seems to me that his current overall appraisal of the situation is reasonable. (I don't know whether he's a "genius", but they generally don't give PhDs in Government at Harvard, nor endowed professorships at SAIS, to anyone who walks in off the street.)

More to the point, it's not clear to me that his--and the neo-cons'--skepticism toward the UN is so horribly misplaced. A solid majority of UN member states are not liberal democracies.

What exactly is your vision of the UN's role in the world? If that vision involves any significant UN power in the regulation of world affairs, what does that mean for those of us who enjoy the benefits of liberal democracy--in particular, the freedoms we enjoy?

The Chinese government employs 50,000 people to monitor domestic Internet traffic. Do you want more of that influence in the regulation of world affairs?

For all of its faults, the US allows you, and many others so skeptical (sometimes fairly so) of US power, to say your piece as openly and as often as you'd like.

I think that Niall Ferguson's linked piece in the Daily Telegraph is rather close to the mark in his review of Fukuyama.

Though, Ferguson continues to over-state the problems with the US financial position--the US public debt level as a percentage of GDP is actually lower than most of the other G8 countries. The Iraq occupation is not as much of a financial burden as people tend to believe. It could be sustained for some time without any significant impact on the US economy.

The bigger issue is whether there is the domestic will power to sustain a significant long-term occupation. Probably not.

Yours is an interesting tirade, although the question of 'what does it solve to be so negative ?' applies. Nobody is perfect;even perfectionists have their faults. Of course the world needs America to keep it together as it is, although ramming the notion down their throats is another matter altogether. In fact we live in a world where "soft" power (exemplified by Europe and her diplomacy) goes hand in hand with its twin, "hard" power (interventionism, sanctions, etc.). This process enables the current world order to persist; without the existence of both approaches the world would be doomed to perpetual warfare and chaos. So please spare us the tough talk à la W and go read a book or something, ok ? Rehashing western philosophy is okay only if you really understand where those people came from.

Occam's razor:

The conservative movement, and in particular, its neocon brain trust, is incompetent.

As anyone with a successful background in business can tell you, big ideas are fine and dandy, but execution - well, execution is another thing entirely.

The neocons have spent countless millions of good oil and tobacco industry money manufacturing all kinds of important-sounding ideas about transforming societies, re-mapping the middle east, drowning government in the bathtub blah blah blah etc.

So how are all those big ideas working out for ya, Mr. GOP?

The posts here from the obvious Bush apologistas (you guys really stand out like a sore thumb these days) are ripe with high-falutin' ideology, but a bit wanting for boots-in-the-mud tactics.

Conservatism and the Cheney doctrine are dead. Most doctors recommend removing dead tissue and allowing the body to heal. We have until November to excise this wound.

LWP, I would love to take the time to expound more fully my vision of the UN, but sadly I've already skipped quite enough work for one day and can't find the time. But we'll leave that to another day.

In the meantime: "For all of its faults, the US allows you, and many others so skeptical (sometimes fairly so) of US power, to say your piece as openly and as often as you'd like."

Pardon me? I come from a country that had a vociferous and dogged free press before your country even existed. In fact we invented the concept.

This is the kind of baseless assertion that just puts people's backs up.

I accept that America has its own long and glorious tradition of free speech.

I also know that the current government is doing everything in its power to undermine that tradition.

Why is it someone who speaks and writes coherently (and hustles to makes connections) can readily leap to upper levels of fame, fortune and "respect" ?
Political science is one art form in which you can be way off base but if your argument sounds good, you get published and speak at forums.
It must make Brzezinski crawl up a wall.

AF: 'A good example of someone "intelligent and persuadable" is Moammar Quaddafi. After the US air raid on his emcampments following the Berlin discotheque bombing, we heard rather less from old Moammar.'

Guess you never heard about PanAm flight 103, then, which was blown up over Lockerbie in a terroristic act of revenge for your bombing, which I gather killed Gaddafi's daughter.

'And after the Iraq invasion and the capture of Saddam, he decided to give up his own weapons program.'

He had no WMD program to give up. As British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said when first told of the Bush-Blair plan to invade Iraq over WMD, Iraq had even less WMD than Libya and Libya had nothing.

What happened was this: Gaddafi had been offering concessions to get back into the West's good books ever since the Lockerbie trial. The West saw no reason to accomodate him.

But as Bush-Blair's poll numbers started tanking in late 2003, they realised they were in a weakened bargaining position. They needed a PR coup.

They therefore offered Gaddafi normalisation of relations if he would agree to publicly announce an end to his non-existent WMD program. He jumped at the olive branch that had been withheld for so long.

It was a PR scam to kid the true believers that some WMD had been destroyed as a result of the Iraq invasion.

It's like Donald's Document Dump, of papers that he won't guarantee aren't forgeries. He knows they won't stand up to professional examination. The purpose is to rally the base, who want to believe.

Nobody serious took the Libya deal seriously.

OD:

No, I was not suggesting that the U.S. invented the right to free speech. I'm well aware that the Enlightenment originated in Europe (as did most Americans), and I have tremendous respect for John Locke and J.S. Mill.

Neither was I suggesting that the U.S. guarantees--in a particular sense--free speech in the UK or Canada. My specific point, though I didn't make it as clearly as I probably should have, was that the U.S. government doesn't interfere when you come on a U.S. based Internet site--the Post--and say your piece about the actions of the U.S. government.

My broader point was that a if significantly more powerful UN also means a UN which significantly regulates world affairs (which would likely bleed over into domestic affairs), a more powerful UN would be, in some respects, a danger to the values of liberal democracy given that a solid majority of UN member states, including two very powerful member states in China and Russia, are not liberal democracies.

You may be able to articulate a vision of the UN that does not present that danger, but I don't think most people consider that danger when they complain about U.S. power.

LWP,

Critics of the UN consistently ignore a fundamental tenet of international engagement - in fact, you ignore a fundamental tenet of all relationships, which suggests you've never had a functional one: that is, everything is a two-way street.

China and Russia's participation in the UN, while it's caused some minor hiccups in global relations at times, has generally served to moderate their domestic policies over time; the opposite, however, is not true: the world has not grown more communist or despotic due to the open acceptance of China and Russia in the world community. Quite the opposite.

Conservatives have always had an irrational fear of the UN's power (as little as it actually has), and have based it on an even less rational assessment of the threat of China and Russia using their influence to plunge us all back into the dark ages.

That battle is long since over, and both former communist republics (China is only nominally communist these days) are well on their way to joining the global community. You can thank liberal ideologies of productive engagement for that one.

Meanwhile, the American Conservative movement doesn't believe in evolution and thinks the best discussion is one held at the business end of a smartbomb. Win friends and influence people, indeed.

American Conservatism's irrational fear of pixies and dragons, and commitment to a violent ideology of transformative political aggression based on some touchy-feely B.S. about "the fundamental human craving for democracy", will hopefully soon relegate it to the trash heap of fundamentalist claptrap.

You conservatives are so full of big, bloated ideas it's a wonder you can still fit in the chairs at your desks and convect your bile across the internets.

Your demise can not have come too soon.

OD
You make the assertion about free speech that "the current government is doing everything in its power to undermine that tradition." However, you provide no concrete examples.

By the way, I do not consider questioning a person's motives (i.e., Murtha, Fukuyama) as stifling free speech. There is a price for free speech. Just because free speech exists, doesn't mean that you cannot be criticized. The blowhard, Michael Moore, made millions of dollars criticizing President Bush. I didn't see any cinemas closed, DVD's crushed, or MM imprisoned. The Library of Congress' bookstore has numerous books critical of the W presidency. Funny, this oppressive government cannot even control its own bookstore.

With regards to other governments guaranteeing free speech, I'm a little skeptical. Numerous countries proclaim to have free speech, but have those nasty little caveats, as does the UN. The UN guarantees free speech as long as it doesn't interfere with the goals of the UN. That's kind of like saying you can have your cake as long as you don't eat it. Canada and France put people in jail for saying what they believe if it "offends" someone. Free speech, my foot.

Matthew
You've lost any argument that you might have had for the same reason that most liberals lose arguments. They have no alternatives that are applicable to the real world and, since they have no ideas, they can only resort to name calling in the end.

Matthew, neoconservativism IS traditional liberalism. It's just that what is now passed off as liberalism is not actually liberalism, or at least it's not anything that a traditional liberal would recognize. Most of your fellow-traveler liberals don't value the spread of Western-style liberty beyond its present influence, or at least they don't value it enough to expend any effort to achieve it or to protect it. Self-described liberals were largely absent when presented with an opportunity to take a stand in favor of fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press (or perhaps I missed the NYTimes edition which printed the cartoon depictions of Mohammed). With only a very few exceptions, so-called "liberals" are content to accommodate authoritarian regimes, rather than confront them, content to stand by idle rather than intervene to stop genocide. The dearth of authentic liberals in the Democrat party is the biggest reason why it loses one election after another. Counting yourself among such liberals is quite revealing. If you didn't exist, Karl Rove would probably have to invent you.

Jeff: ‘You make the assertion about free speech that "the current government is doing everything in its power to undermine that tradition." However, you provide no concrete examples.’

The most obvious example is the “free speech zones” into which anti-Government protestors are now herded. Out of sight and hearing of the people and events they wish to protest. They are sometimes even prevented from speaking to journalists.
Until this rule was suddenly announced (no new law was passed), all of America was a “free speech zone.”

I suggest you read this article from American Conservative Magazine, which also appeared in the SF Chronicle. It mentions dozens of violations with names and dates.
http://www.amconmag.com/2003/12_15_03/feature.html

When Bush came to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, “The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.” The local police, at the Secret Service’s behest, set up a “designated free-speech zone” on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush’s speech. The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, though folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president’s path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign. Neel later commented, “As far as I’m concerned, the whole country is a free speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.”

From the same article: The Justice Department is now prosecuting Brett Bursey, who was arrested for holding a “No War for Oil” sign at a Bush visit to Columbia, S.C. Local police, acting under Secret Service orders, established a “free speech zone” half a mile from where Bush would speak. Bursey was standing amid hundreds of people carrying signs praising the president. Police told Bursey to remove himself to the “free speech zone.”
Bursey refused and was arrested. Bursey said that he asked the policeman if “it was the content of my sign, and he said, ‘Yes, sir, it’s the content of your sign that’s the problem.’”

And more:When Bush visited (St. Louis) on Jan. 22, 2003, 150 people carrying signs were shunted far away from the main action and effectively quarantined. Denise Lieberman of the ACLU of Eastern Missouri commented, “No one could see them from the street. In addition, the media were not allowed to talk to them. The police would not allow any media inside the protest area and wouldn’t allow any of the protesters out of the protest zone to talk to the media.” When Bush stopped by a Boeing plant to talk to workers, Christine Mains and her five-year-old daughter disobeyed orders to move to a small protest area far from the action. Police arrested Mains and took her and her crying daughter away in separate squad cars.

(Cont) One of the most violent government responses to an antiwar protest occurred when local police and the federally funded California Anti-Terrorism Task Force fired rubber bullets and tear gas at peaceful protesters and innocent bystanders at the port of Oakland, injuring a number of people. When the police attack sparked a geyser of media criticism, Mike van Winkle, the spokesman for the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center told the Oakland Tribune, “You can make an easy kind of a link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that’s being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest. You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.” Van Winkle justified classifying protesters like terrorists: “I’ve heard terrorism described as anything that is violent or has an economic impact, and shutting down a port certainly would have some economic impact. Terrorism isn’t just bombs going off and killing people.”

The absurd reason given for herding protestors behind fences is: Secret Service agent Brian Marr explained to National Public Radio, “These individuals may be so involved with trying to shout their support or non-support that inadvertently they may walk out into the motorcade route and be injured. And that is really the reason why we set these places up, so we can make sure that they have the right of free speech, but, two, we want to be sure that they are able to go home at the end of the evening and not be injured in any way.”

Yet strangely enough, those who “shout their support” aren’t herded into “free speech zones”.

This government most certainly is anxious to crush free speech, but I’m not one of those who fears it will succeed in a big way. It can only proceed by baby steps, so fortunately the task is beyond any single administration.

By the way, you said: ‘Numerous countries proclaim to have free speech, but have those nasty little caveats, as does the UN...Canada and France put people in jail for saying what they believe if it "offends" someone. Free speech, my foot.’

Your turn to provide concrete examples. Tell us about the UN’s caveats on free speech. Tell us about these prisoners of conscience in Canada and France.

In addition to this, Bush demands that the taxpayer fund his appearance at so-called "public meetings". But taxpayers can't attend these meetings unless they're supporters. In some cases they've even had to sign papers saying they agreed with the president to get a ticket.

Isn't that what Americans call "taxation without representation"?

By the way, I accept your argument that calling dissent treasonous isn't suppressing free speech. It's merely discouraging it.

c2tbf: It was the easiest way to guarantee a change of dynamic in the Arab ME.

LOL!

I.e., a change in dynamic that is *totally* not in the interest of the USA.

The *vast* empowering of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq and the Al-Dawa parties in Iraq, the electing of Hamas in Palestine, the increasing of the power of the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt, etc are changes in dynamic that are *totally* not in the interest of the USA.

Bush and his supporters, like you, have *inadvertently* fathered a burgeoning extremist Islamic republic with extremely close and long standing ties to Iran which Bush has called an `axis of evil'.

(This is what Americans get as a direct response to the horrific attacks of 9/11? aka, 9/11 + Iraq = Bush's extremist Islamic Republic?)

And as F. Gregory Gause III has shown clearly, there is `no evidence that democracy reduces terrorism and a democratic Middle East would probably result in Islamist governments unwilling to cooperate with Washington'.

Beware of What You Wish For
F. Gregory Gause III
Despite recent unexpected and uncomfortable outcomes in elections in the Muslim Middle East, President George W. Bush strongly reiterated his commitment to spreading democracy there in his State of the Union address (http://www.whitehouse.gov/ stateoftheunion/2006/index.html): "Dictatorships shelter terrorists, and feed resentment and radicalism, and seek weapons of mass destruction. Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror. Every step toward freedom in the world makes our country safer--so we will act boldly in freedom's cause."

As I recently argued in Foreign Affairs ("Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?", September/October 2005), however, Bush's logic is flawed. There is no evidence that states ruled by dictators produce more terrorists or more terrorism than democracies. Moreover, al Qaeda and its affiliates and imitators see democracy as a Western innovation leading Muslims away from government based on Islamic law. They would certainly not give up their jihad even if all Muslim countries became democratic, particularly if the democracies proved to be the kind that the United States would like to see: tolerant, pluralist, pro-American, and at peace with Israel.

In my original article, I also predicted that the administration's emphasis on elections as the measure of success for its democratization policy was likely to produce victories for Islamist political groups, the best organized and most popular political movements in most countries in the region. Election results since then have followed just such a pattern:

* Nearly two-thirds of candidates elected to the new Iraqi parliament in December 2005 won on platforms that explicitly called for a greater role for Islam in politics. Among the 215 Arab parliamentarians elected (the others being Kurds and smaller minority group representatives), 81 percent campaigned on lists that were sectarian and Islamist, while only 9 percent came from former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's explicitly secular, non-sectarian, and multiethnic Iraqi National List.

* In Egypt's parliamentary elections in November and December 2005, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood won 88 seats, 20 percent of the 444 elected seats despite progressively greater government interference over the three rounds of balloting. That figure understates the significance of the Brotherhood's showing. The group had fielded only about 150 candidates as part of a tacit agreement with the government that allowed Brotherhood candidates to campaign openly, and so it won almost 60 percent of the seats it contested. Liberal, leftist, and nationalist opposition parties won a paltry 11 seats, fewer than 3 percent of the total.

* And in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas--the political wing of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood--won a stunning victory against the long-dominant Fatah, the Palestinian nationalist movement founded by Yasir Arafat. Hamas carried 56 percent of the seats against Fatah's 34 percent and 7 percent for liberal, leftist, and other nationalist parties.

In the wake of such clear evidence of political strength of Islamists, many supporters of the administration's policy to encourage democracy in the Muslim Middle East called for U.S. policies to strengthen non-Islamist opposition forces. (I had made similar noises in my original article.) But the problem with this strategy, as Jon Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies has cogently argued (http://www.policyreview.org/jun04/alterman.html), is that the liberal-leftist-nationalist opposition in the Arab world is a weak reed on which to rest U.S. hopes. The results of the elections in Egypt, Iraq, and the Palestinian Authority support Alterman's thesis. True, in Egypt, the government has disproportionately harassed more liberal groups, thereby allowing the Islamists to dominate opposition. But secular nationalists in Iraq faced the same challenges and opportunities as other lists, and they still did not perform well. And Palestinian civil society is probably the most robust in the Arab world, boasting numerous social and political organizations (many funded by Western governments and foundations) and an atmosphere of relative political freedom. Yet Islamists now dominate there. It is hard to escape the conclusion that the non-Islamist opposition groups in Arab countries are selling something that voters are just not buying.

The United States should indeed use its influence with Arab leaders to get them to open up more space for non-Islamist opposition groups. But Washington should not expect quick improvement in the groups' political fortunes, nor should it expect non-Islamist opposition groups to support U.S. foreign policy goals; these days, most of them are as critical of Washington as the Islamists. The United States must face the fact that, for the foreseeable future, free elections in the Arab world will empower Islamists and produce governments that are much less likely to accept U.S. foreign policy goals than the current authoritarian regimes.

So what should Washington do with its democratization policy? One option would be to scrap it altogether, recognizing that the United States' knowledge of these societies is extremely limited and its ability to shape their domestic politics is next to nil. (That would be my preference, both on practical grounds and on the general principle that we should avoid interference in others' domestic affairs.) Yet given the widespread belief that authoritarian governments produce anti-American terrorism, it is highly unlikely that any administration would adopt such a hands-off policy.

So, since the United States is destined to continue promoting more participatory politics in the Muslim Middle East, it should at least be smarter about it, focusing on liberalization rather than democratization. This would mean easing up on pressure for elections and adopting somewhat different rhetoric. Continuing to talk about "democratization" while not pushing for elections will simply open Washington up to charges of hypocrisy, while a frank acknowledgment that it favors gradual liberalization but not quick elections benefiting its enemies would at least be considered refreshingly honest.

Washington should also recognize that non-democratic institutions that are generally supportive of U.S. policy goals (such as the military in Turkey and the monarchies in Morocco, Jordan, and the Arabian Peninsula) can serve as very useful breaks on the power of elected parliaments, and can even moderate Islamist political groups over time.

Most important, President Bush should return to a position he took in the 2000 presidential debates. Then, he said that if the United States was an "arrogant" nation, the world would resent its leadership, but "if we are a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us." Humility about what the United States can accomplish on the democratization front, particularly in the short term, would be a welcome change.

c2tbf: I've lived in the Arab ME

You mean you lived in a US military base in the Arab ME.

There is a BIG difference as evidenced by your lack of proficiency in the numerous dialects of Arabic.

More lunacy from Bush's Islamic?Democratic Republic (which he fathered in direct response to the horrific attacks of 9/11):

Iraq's Premier Asserts His Right to Stay in Office
By EDWARD WONG
NYT
Published: March 29, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 29 — Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration for him to step down, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari of Iraq vigorously asserted his right to stay in office today and warned the Americans against undue interference in Iraq's political process.

(snip)

According to the Iraqi constitution, the largest bloc in Parliament, in this case the religious Shiites, has the right to nominate a prime minister. Mr. Jaafari won that nomination in a secret ballot last month among the 130 Shiite members of Parliament. But his victory was narrow; he came out on top by only one vote after getting the support of Mr. Sadr, who controls 32 seats.

That alliance has ignited concern among the Americans that Mr. Jaafari will do little to rein in Mr. Sadr, who led two fierce rebellions against the American military in 2004. Mr. Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, went rampaging in Baghdad after the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra and after a series of car bomb explosions on March 12 in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. The violence left hundreds dead and Sunni mosques burnt to the ground.

Matthew:

Despite your inflammatory response to my posts, I'm not going to get into a childish tit-for-tat with you.

There are, though, a few issues with your post that you should consider:

1) It suggests an unfounded assumption (not arguable, just unfounded--there's a difference).
2) It makes a patently false statement.
3) It suggests that you poorly interpreted my post.
4) It draws questionable conclusions.

1) The Unfounded Assumption:

I'm not a "conservative". Though I'm sure it made you feel better to vent at someone you thought was one of "those", posts I've made on other threads of this site clearly indicate I'm not a "conservative" in the sense you suggest.

I've elsewhere said that George Bush is incompetent, that the U.S. should spend more on social programs, that the U.S. was wrong to abandon the Kyoto protocal, and that the EU countries generally present more "just" forms of internal social organization than does the U.S.

To have more credibility in your posts, you should be careful about the kinds of assumptions you make.

2) The patently false statement:

You suggested that I was "convecting bile" across the Internet. The two posts I made on this thread prior to your post contain, as far as I can tell, no "bile". If you really think they do, please identify where you find it.

3) The poor interpretation:

Your post appears to interpret my posts as indicating a desire to dismantle the UN. That's not true. If you had read my posts carefully, you would have noted that I expressed concern about a UN with a "significant" (a word I consciously chose) increase in power.

I expressed in those two posts why I have concerns about that, so no need to repeat that here.

You rightly note that the UN doesn't really have much power right now (compared to the U.S. anyway). As such, I don't have any significant concerns about it as it currently exists. (Well, I'm concerned about the corruption issues, but those issues are, unfortunately, almost inherent in any organization of that size.)

As it currently exists, the UN serves a very useful function as a forum to bring potential disputes, and as an organization that attends to global health care issues and large scale disasters.

When a solid majority of UN member states are liberal democracies (it will most likely eventually happen; Fukuyama's right in that regard), I'll support an expanded role for it, and I'll gladly see the U.S. scale back its global security commitments.

4) The problematic conclusions:

You appear to conclude that engaging Russia and China through the UN was the primary reason we've seen such dramatic changes in those countries in recent decades. As I noted above, I agree that the UN (and other forums) is valuable in that regard.

I'm inclined to think, though, that the changes seen in those countries were more the result of their eventual recognition of the sorry state of their own societies, and their eventual realization that the liberal democracies were so much more prosperous than they were.

Part of that realization may have come through interactions at the UN, but I think they could have done the math on their own.

sm, you've put it so well. Fukuyama and his entire neocon gang are at this point so utterly discredited that it really is of no moment that some among them, like him, have changed their mind. Why should we give a damn about his supposed credentials (or those of Colin Powell, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld, Bush or any of the other buffoons who led us into this swamp)? These idiots have been proven so wrong, so many times, and on matters of such crucial importance, that their utterances are entirely without credibility.
Anything proposed by any of these jackasses is now, by definition, so utterly suspect that it's really not worth according them any respect whatsoever.
Let's indeed go to those who got this right from the outset. There were so many warnings that things would turn out the way they have. Why do we accord any respect to the fools who went ahead and invaded anyway?

LWP: "When a solid majority of UN member states are liberal democracies (it will most likely eventually happen; Fukuyama's right in that regard), I'll support an expanded role for it, and I'll gladly see the U.S. scale back its global security commitments."

LWP, 122 of the UN's 192 member states are democracies. They outnumber undemocratic states nearly two-to-one.

I've been trying to post this fact all evening but it wouldn't go up. I assume my links were the problem so I don't include them. Simply google "Number of democracies in the world".

Now that's settled, I eagerly await your proposals for scaling back America's "global security commitments" :)

LWP: "Neither was I suggesting that the U.S. guarantees--in a particular sense--free speech in the UK or Canada. My specific point, though I didn't make it as clearly as I probably should have, was that the U.S. government doesn't interfere when you come on a U.S. based Internet site--the Post--and say your piece about the actions of the U.S. government."

No, it doesn't, and it would have zero chance of getting away with such an obvious oppression.

On the other hand, when George Bush came to London his entourage demanded that the UK govt practically shut down the entire centre of the city in an effort to insulate him from protest.

The only other foreign leader in this century to ask British police to remove British protestors was the Chinese PM. And the measures taken to insulate him from dissent were trivial compared to those demanded by the Bush circus.

OD:

Ah, nice try. I believe I said "liberal democracy", though, not just democracy. A "democracy" with one party rule, or with no real guarantee of individual rights, is sort of a sham. (No, I'm not inviting a sarcastic response about some of the problems with U.S. democracy.)

You raise a fair point, though. I'll have to look deeper into the issue of the "democratic" nature of those 122. The last analysis I saw indicated there were about 80 liberal democracies.

As to your other point, that the U.S. government would have "zero chance" of getting away with the "obvious oppression" of censoring your posts on a U.S. net site, I'm glad we both agree with that.

The reason, as you earlier noted, is that the U.S.--its Constitution and its people--has a long and solid history of protecting the right to free speech.

My point, though, was that the same is not true of China and most other UN member states.

LWP, I'm sure the figure of 122 democracies is fair as it's the 2005 figure given by Freedom House, which is hardly an anti-American organisation.

Indeed the only bone I'd pick with them is that I believe they count Iraq as a democracy, when of course no international election monitors were allowed into the country, there were serious discrepancies between polls and results, no government has yet been formed as a result of the elections, and the current prime minister, despite being the candidate of the election-winning parties, has just been informed by the US viceroy that he's unacceptable to King George of Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/international/middleeast/29iraq.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article354245.ece

By the way, LWP, I consider Niall Ferguson’s analysis to be not only wrong but intellectually dishonest.

‘Yet when people in other countries are asked: "Would the world be safer if another country were as powerful as the United States?", they generally say "No". We and the Turks are evenly split, but a majority of Russians, Germans and even Jordanians, Moroccans and Pakistanis think the world would be less safe with a second superpower. What all this tells us is not that American hegemony is finished and should be wound up. It tells us that there is no better alternative available.’

Deliberate misreading. It’s like asking a bunch of schoolkids whether their class bully should be joined by another, then when they say no, taking it as an endorsement of the first bully.

The obvious reason why a second superpower would be dangerous is because there would shortly be a Cold War between it and the United States that would drag us all in. How does that make the US’ imperial pretensions a good or popular thing?

‘Pace Fukuyama, the United States does not need to say "sorry" for getting rid of Saddam. What it needs to do is to be more realistic, better informed historically and less fiscally profligate; and to get more boots on the ground.’

Ferguson can’t make his mind up. On the one hand he says the invasion was a bad idea because it was unrealistic and history showed as much, yet on the other hand he suggests the problem is a shortage of boots on the ground.
Why would a bigger army make American hegemony-through-invasion more sustainable, given the problems of public attention span and casualty aversion that Ferguson himself admits?

Ferguson names four deficits hindering American hegemony: fiscal, manpower, attention, and legitimacy. He then says America doesn’t need to abandon hegemony, it just has to fix these four problems. But how? They’ve all proved insoluble for years.

America shows not the slightest sign of curing its fiscal profligacy. Its ADD and casualty aversion will only get worse as Americans get ever richer and fatter. The Army can’t recruit enough soldiers in wartime to maintain even its current strength without sacrificing quality standards, and nobody will touch the draft. And America’s international legitimacy is shot. Who would be allies with Rummy and Cheney?

In fact the war in Iraq and the drive for hegemony has worsened these problems: deficit, recruitment, resolve, legitimacy. This is unrealism on the Rumsfeld scale.

Ferguson says not one word on how to fix these problems, these chronic deficits.

By waving a magic wand? Wishing it were so? This reminds me of Christopher Hitchens’ article the other day, My Ideal War, in which he speculated about how everything would have worked out if other nations had rolled over and selflessly provided their own troops to help the PNACians implement phase one of their US global domination plan.

Like an insubstantial cloud of might-have-beens, he just intellectually wafts by the fundamental obstacle of never-gonna-happen.

Same deal with his fellow Brit Ferguson, who is also a professional superpower-flatterer. Fifty years from today, Brits like these will be living in China telling THEM how great and powerful they are.

OD:

From the Hoover Institute at Stanford's site--www.hooverdigest.org--I found an analysis, also using Freedom House as its source, indicating that as of 2000 there were 120 democracies, but only 71 liberal democracies. As I noted above, there is a fundamental difference between electoral democracy and liberal democracy. Only in the latter do the citizens have real guarantees of their individual rights.

With respect to the Ferguson article, you raise some fair points which I'd be interested in addressing later. It's a little too late now, though.

As I noted earlier, though, Ferguson continues to over-state the problems with the US fiscal situation. US public debt figures in nominal dollar terms are very high--and certainly higher under Bush--because the US economy is so large, but as a percentage of GDP US public debt is lower than most of the other G8 countries.

Iraq may be a bit of a mess, and I would prefer to see the approximately $100 billion per year spent in other ways, but it's not nearly as financially draining as people continue to assert. As I noted to you in a previous exchange, US defense spending now is about 4% of GDP. It reached 11% during Vietnam, 15% during Korea, and reached almost 40% duriung WWII.

Of course, though I disagree with Ferguson's calculations with respect to the US fiscal situation, I still do think most of the rest of his article was on point. I'll probably have to defend that in more detail later.

For a good source with respect to various countries' fiscal situations, The Economist's web site does a country by country breakdown.

Democracy: Iraq votes, Bush vetoes By Ehsan Ahrari

Call it desperation, but the United States has started to take measures in Iraq that would wreck its most cherished goal there: democracy.

(snip)

If democracy is meant to reflect the will of the people, Jaafari, for all his flaws, is a legitimate candidate to become the country's first permanent prime minister. But US President George W Bush is making it clear that his version of democracy in Iraq means having his preferred candidate at the helm.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HC31Ak01.html

“What exactly is your vision of the UN's role in the world? If that vision involves any significant UN power in the regulation of world affairs, what does that mean for those of us who enjoy the benefits of liberal democracy--in particular, the freedoms we enjoy?”

My vision of the UN’s role in the world is the one laid out 60 years ago in the UN Charter. It is also the vision of FDR, Truman, Churchill, Eisenhower and Kennedy.

I am not currently suggesting any change in the rules – merely that your country start observing the rules already in place. Namely the prohibition on aggressive war that was first codified in international law when YOUR COUNTRY insisted it be included among the charges at Nuremburg.

The fact that this rule has been broken on previous occasions does not render it invalid. The law against murder is also frequently broken but nobody suggests that means we should abolish it.

The UN’s job is to see to it that aggression doesn’t pay. In fact that no state is allowed to gain territory by war, even defensive war. Because any state can scam a phony attack like Tonkin Gulf or Hitler’s invading Polish corpses. So Israel can’t just swallow the West Bank. South Africa had to give back Namibia. Indonesia had to give up East Timor. Before the UN came along military conquest was commonplace. Today, wars still happen, but they are never paying propositions.

“If that vision involves any significant UN power in the regulation of world affairs, what does that mean for those of us who enjoy the benefits of liberal democracy--in particular, the freedoms we enjoy?
...My broader point was that a if significantly more powerful UN also means a UN which significantly regulates world affairs (which would likely bleed over into domestic affairs), a more powerful UN would be, in some respects, a danger to the values of liberal democracy given that a solid majority of UN member states, including two very powerful member states in China and Russia, are not liberal democracies.”

Let’s have some concrete examples. When has the UN, either through the UNSC or the UNGA, tried to interfere with liberties in the liberal democracies? In fact, when has the UN ever taken any step to reduce human freedom anywhere? I notice Jeff hasn’t returned to back up his claim that the UN suppresses free speech. Have you got ANY examples? Even one instance of the UN trying to spread totalitarian values?

LWP: “As it currently exists, the UN serves a very useful function as a forum to bring potential disputes, and as an organization that attends to global health care issues and large scale disasters.
When a solid majority of UN member states are liberal democracies (it will most likely eventually happen; Fukuyama's right in that regard), I'll support an expanded role for it, and I'll gladly see the U.S. scale back its global security commitments.”

Your description of the UN’s role (the one you are willing to permit) is remarkably similar to Richard Perle’s view of the post-Iraq invasion UN.

“Saddam Hussein...will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The ‘good works’ part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions....”
Richard Perle
Spectator Magazine March 2003

My biggest problem with your and Perle’s attitude is this. When did you get the right to ignore the law? To abrogate solemn treaties that don’t have a get-out clause?

The UN Charter is the world’s most solemn treaty and the foundation stone of trust between nations.

Even if you wrongly think the Charter is momentarily inconvenient, and would rather plunge ahead with ill-considered wars, you have no right to break it. That is a criminal act.

Everyone is sick and tired of the US attitude that observing solemn laws and treaties is somehow optional, something you do when you feel like it. The Geneva Conventions are not “quaint”, they are the living law. The UN Charter is also the law, and it’s a law largely written by Americans.

The only reason Americans are so calmly discussing breaking these laws and promises today is because they think (thought) their Armed Forces were powerful enough to get away with it.

The whole debate about the war in America is like listening to criminals arguing over the loot from a less-than-successful bank job. It would have been ok if we’d had more troops, or found a bit of WMD, or understood Iraqi demographics etc, etc.

No it wouldn’t. It was illegal and a deliberate attempt to replace international law with the law of the jungle. You don’t have the right to launch aggressive wars even on occasions when you plan them competently.

Doing so makes you the enemies of the peoples of the world.

OD asks 'In fact, when has the UN ever taken any step to reduce human freedom anywhere?' well, there's the recent UN efforts to aid censorship of the Internet, for starters. or its involvement in the Iraqi oil fraud scandal. then there's the farcical human rights commission - maybe not an active agent vs liberty, but certainly a mockery of it.
and you've phrased the question too narrowly. the UN hasn't just worked against freedom, it's abetted or turned a blind eye to mass murder. Look at Darfur. or read P Gourevitch's book about Rwanda. or any book on Bosnia.
The UN has its merits. But don't pretend its track record is perfect.

PREWAR INTELLIGENCE
Insulating Bush
By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, March 30, 2006

Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser, cautioned other White House aides in the summer of 2003 that Bush's 2004 re-election prospects would be severely damaged if it was publicly disclosed that he had been personally warned that a key rationale for going to war had been challenged within the administration. Rove expressed his concerns shortly after an informal review of classified government records by then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley determined that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true, according to government records and interviews.

You have a point about the Internet. But that's your only valid point.

The Human Rights Commission produces reports that are almost identical to those of the US State Dept. The only difference being that the State Dept naturally overlooks American abuses.

The UN was prevented from acting on Rwanda by the Clinton administration. The UN commander on the ground was begging for more troops, but the Clinton administration blocked the SC from using the term genocide, thus preventing any action.

To suggest that the UN has abetted mass murder is just slander. Granted, the UN was prevented from acting in Bosnia by the Russians. But that is the Russians' fault, not the UN.

These great powers, with their vast unilateral power, seek to limit the UN's writ and keep it starved. In fact the whole UN budget, including peacekeeping, refugee work, public health, bureaucracy and everything, is slightly less than the budget of the New York City Board of Public Education.

The UN's occasional failings did not happen because collective security is a bad idea. They happened because certain members, especially the US and Russia, frequently participate in bad faith.

The solution is not to weaken the UN, but to strengthen national commitments to it. Ultimately, the peoples of countries like Russia and the States must rein in their governments' unilateral ambitions and force them to be responsible members of the international community.

There is no alternative. The available choices are: collective security or no security.

I don't pretend that collective security always works smoothly. But look at the alternative.

Compare the legal UN-backed 1991 war against Iraq to the illegal unilateral 2003 war. The first war not only fulfilled its own aims, it even fulfilled the ostensible 2003 aim of disarming Iraq.

The leading participant, the US, won plaudits around the world for its role in 1991. Not quite the same deal today, is it?

Or compare the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, legal under article 51, to the Soviet invasion of the same country.

As for oil for food, you are completely misled about the nature of that scandal. It's more a US scandal than a UN one.

US companies recieved more profit from illegal oil dealings with Saddam than all foreign countries combined, 52% of the total.

And even more extensive oil smuggling went on outside the OFF program and continued until days before the 2003 invasion, with the willing complicity of the US govt.

This US-backed smuggling brought more money to Saddam than the whole OFF program.

Don't believe me? I'll prove it in my next post.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1485546,00.html

The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation.

A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

... Yesterday's report makes two principal allegations against the Bush administration. Firstly, it found the US treasury failed to take action against a Texas oil company, Bayoil, which facilitated payment of "at least $37m in illegal surcharges to the Hussein regime".

...In its second main finding, the report said the US military and the state department gave a tacit green light for shipments of nearly 8m barrels of oil bought by Jordan, a vital American ally, entirely outside the UN-monitored Oil For Food system. Jordan was permitted to buy some oil directly under strict conditions but these purchases appeared to be under the counter.

The report details a series of efforts by UN monitors to obtain information about Bayoil's oil shipments in 2001 and 2002, and the lack of help provided by the US treasury.

...Bayoil's owner, David Chalmers, has been charged over the company's activities.

...Investigators found correspondence showing that Odin Marine Inc, the US company chartering the seven huge tankers which picked up the oil at Khor al-Amaya, repeatedly sought and received approval from US military and civilian officials that the ships would not be confiscated by US Navy vessels in the Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF) enforcing the embargo.

Odin was reassured by a state department official that the US "was aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action".

The company's vice president, David Young, told investigators that a US naval officer at MIF told him that he "had no objections" to the shipments. "He said that he was sorry he could not say anything more. I told him I completely understood and did not expect him to say anything more," Mr Young said.

An executive at Odin Maritime confirmed the senate account of the oil shipments as "correct" but declined to comment further.

...The Pentagon declined to comment. The US representative's office at the UN referred inquiries to the state department, which fail to return calls.

Here's another tidbit, on the even more extensive oil smuggling that took place outside the oil-for-food programme.

Treasury's Role in Illicit Iraq Oil Sales Cited
Senator Releases E-Mail From Parties Involved in Shipments Banned by U.N.
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post
February 17, 2005

The Treasury Department provided assurances that the United States would not obstruct two companies' plans to import millions of barrels of oil from Iraq in March 2003 in violation of U.N. sanctions, according to an e-mail from one of the companies.

Diplomats and oil brokers have recently said that the United States had long turned a blind eye to illicit shipments of Iraqi oil by its allies Jordan and Turkey. The United States acknowledged this week that it had acquiesced in the trade to ensure that crucial allies would not suffer economic hardships.

But the e-mail, along with others released this week by Sen. Carl M. Levin (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Governmental Affairs panel's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, provides evidence that the Bush administration directly abetted Jordan's efforts to build up its strategic reserves with smuggled Iraqi oil in the weeks before the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003.

The illicit oil exports took place outside the Iraq oil-for-food program, which the United Nations administered from 1996 to 2003. While allegations of corruption and mismanagement in that program are under investigation by five congressional committees, the Justice Department and a U.N.-appointed panel, the illicit oil exports outside the program have received less scrutiny. According to investigators, Iraq received more revenue from those exports than from the alleged oil-for-food kickbacks.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/sanction/iraq1/oilforfood/2005/0217treasury.htm

I'd be curious to hear your reaction.

Even Kojo Annan's corruption is very small beer and no reflection on the UN itself.

That would be like saying the US constitution was invalid because a SCOTUS judge's son had been caught smoking pot.

And these claims of UN nepotism sound pretty weak coming from Americans. At least the Sec-Gen's post won't be handed from father to son or from husband to wife.
Can you say the same for the US presidency?

OD, you'd asked "when has the UN ever taken any step to reduce human freedom anywhere?" I offered some examples. Also, Darfur is happening as we type. The UN has done nothing.

but you make a good point implicitly - any group is only as good as its members. and so it is a little naive to expect much of a group that counts Russia and China as members, no? or from your vantage point, apparently, the US.

If I am naive, then so were Eisenhower, Truman and Kennedy, who believed the UN was the only hope for avoiding nuclear Armageddon.

The UN was formed out of the crucible of WW2 by the hard-headed victors of WW2.
Its purpose was not to create a happy pixie fairyland, but to avoid WW3, which was already looking imminent within a year of WW2 ending.

In fact the UN Charter has almost nothing to say about individual liberties or human rights because that was not its purpose.

The UN is not a shelter for battered women but a nuclear blast shelter for humanity.

I believe it has already saved humanity on at least one occasion, by giving Kruschev an avenue to climb down in the Cuban missile crisis. You delude yourself if you think Kruschev would have just submitted to US threats without a face-saving formula.

Darfur is simply a repeat of the problems over Rwanda and Bosnia. The UN has no standing army, therefore it must rely on members willing to commit troops. None are.

I notice that the unilateral powers claiming to be global saviours or policemen (ie you) aren't doing anything about it either. At least the UN has the excuse that it would do something given the troops.

Admit that you were shocked to learn that the UN's budget is so small (about $12 billion). Imagine what they could achieve with real money, or better yet, a standing military force.

As for the US, I see two Americas. One, the great one of the past, set up the UN under the guidance of its visionary leaders of the post-WW2 period. The other, today's America, is trying to destroy the UN out of pure militaristic hubris.

And the crocodile tears that Americans cry over places like Darfur convince no-one.

We all know how an unconstrained American hegemon would act, and one thing's for damn sure, it wouldn't lift a finger to help people in unprofitable war zones like Sudan.

My faith in the UN is not born out of naivete but out of the certain, tested knowledge that everything else has been tried and has failed, and that we are dancing on the edge of the grave.

"To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective—to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak—and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run."

JFK

I should have entitled the post above: "America's broken pledge".

OD:

Well, you've post a lot of thoughts there. After a long workday, I'm not ambitious enough to respond to everything, but I'll give it a bit of a shot.

First, it's not clear to me that we are NECESSARILY in disagreement about how the UN should operate. Though, it does seem reasonably clear to me that we do disagree with respect to how much trust should be put in the U.S.'s use of its power.

Let me try to respond to some of your specific points and we'll see if, in so doing, I can articulate a reasonably coherent overall picture of my thoughts.

"My vision of the UN’s role in the world is the one laid out 60 years ago in the UN Charter. It is also the vision of FDR, Truman, Churchill, Eisenhower and Kennedy."

To the extent we understand that vision in the same way, we're in agreement.

"I am not currently suggesting any change in the rules – merely that your country start observing the rules already in place."

In principle, agreed. Though, for purposes of context, it needs to be pointed out that there's probably not a single large or medium size power that hasn't engaged in some aggressive war in the last 50 years. NATO's intervention in the Balkans probably puts every NATO country in that category.

That, of course, leads to a more difficult issue. Is every "aggressive war" that violates the letter of the UN Charter necessarily an unjust war? Probably not.

I don't know whether the drafters of the Charter gave sufficient consideration to the concept of waging war as a means of humanitarian intervention when UN approval would be impossible because of the veto power of a Security Council member not willing to allow UN authorized intervention. What to do then?

Is the UN Charter so sacrosanct that the international community should always and everywhere sit by and watch genocide because the Security Council won't authorize legal intervention?

"Let’s have some concrete examples. When has the UN, either through the UNSC or the UNGA, tried to interfere with liberties in the liberal democracies?"

Well, as another posted noted, the recent (and previous) calls from member states to have the UN take over ICANN's position vis-a-vis the Internet were certainly something to be concerned about. As I noted above, according to the NY Times China employs 50,000 people to monitor domestic Internet traffic. I'd rather not have that kind of mentality with more influence in decisions about what information I have access to.

More to the point, as I noted above the UN really hasn't had any significant power since its inception, so it hasn't had any real ability to meaningfully interfere with the domestic social organizational structures of the liberal democracies.

That's why I said my concern was not with the UN as it currently exists, but with a UN--with a solid majority of non-liberal democracies--with a signficant degree of greater power, and that's why I asked you to explain what your vision of the UN was.

"Your description of the UN’s role (the one you are willing to permit) is remarkably similar to Richard Perle’s view of the post-Iraq invasion UN."

You know, your posts are more effective when they don't border so close to being offensive. It's not always easy to avoid being a little caustic when provoked--I've certainly done it--but I don't think I wrote anything in my posts that was provocative.

The better part of exchanges like this should allow people to fairly and reasonably consider the views of others. That's difficult when people appear to be insulting you.

In fact, though there may have been some similar use of language between what I wrote and what Perle wrote, there's also an obvious--and fundamental--difference. I don't think Perle expresses any use EVER for an expanded UN role in the world. I quite explicitly said that I would welcome an expanded role when its comprised of a solid majority of liberal democracies.

It may surprise you to learn that most Americans--that I know, at any rate, and I know a lot of them--do not have any particular attachment to the idea of an eternal Pax Americana. What they do have a strong attachment to, though, are their individual liberties--even if they don't always understand them in a very sophisticated way, and even if they don't always appreciate when they're being eroded in a subtle way.

That's the issue you'll find causes the most alarm among Americans when they think of a more powerful UN potentially dominated by non-liberal democracies. That alarm may ultimately be more theoretical then real, but I don't think it's irrational.

"Everyone is sick and tired of the US attitude that observing solemn laws and treaties is somehow optional, something you do when you feel like it."

I think it's dubious to suggest--as this appears to--that the vast majority of the other member states are more committed to the UN or a stable international system than the U.S. is. The challenging assumption loaded into your statement is that if other countries had the same level of power that the U.S. does, the vast majority of them would act more "legally" and responsibly.

We can't test that assumption in the near future, but historically I doubt it's fair to say that any other great powers were more legal or responsible or less predatory in the way they conducted themselves. The opposite is probably true.

"The UN was prevented from acting on Rwanda by the Clinton administration. The UN commander on the ground was begging for more troops, but the Clinton administration blocked the SC from using the term genocide, thus preventing any action."

This also needs a little context. Keep in mind that Rwanda came on the heels--a few months, in fact--of U.S. humanitarian intervention (UN sanctioned) in Somalia. Though Somalia wasn't a disaster, it certainly left a bad taste in the mouth of the Clinton Admin. about the difficulties of such interventions.

And, I think it was reasonable for the Clinton Admin. to be concerned that any significant UN mandated action would have likely put the U.S. in the position of having to do most of the heavy lifting. Other than the U.S. (and possibly Russia), I don't think any other country has the airlift/transport capacity to move a lot of troops quickly enough to intervene in such a situation.

Did any other country or group of countries come forward and say: "Hey, if you [the U.S.] work with us to secure a UN mandate, we'll take care of the intervention"? I don't know the answer to that, but my guess is the answer is no.

"We all know how an unconstrained American hegemon would act, and one thing's for damn sure, it wouldn't lift a finger to help people in unprofitable war zones like Sudan."

Actually, U.S. power may have been at its peak during the 90s. It's difficult to quantify such things, but it's arguable that during that time the U.S. was the most powerful single nation the world has ever known. It was an unconstrained hegemon, so much so that the French invented a new term to describe it: hyperpower.

The distance between #1 and #2 during that time was so great (and it still is in some ways) that I don't know if anyone even thought about who #2 was because it was almost irrelevant.

Nonetheless, I don't recall the U.S. colonizing any other countries during that time. I do recall significant intervention efforts in war zones in Somalia and the Balkans, and I can't think of any way to characterize those actions as particularly "profitable".

No, I'm not suggesting that the U.S. has always and everywhere been a good actor. As I noted in an earlier post on this thread, I see plenty of things to criticize regarding the U.S. (in particular during the Bush II years), and I think there are many other countries with more just forms of internal social organization.

Having said that, and despite the problematic Bush II years, the surge in the increase in the number of democracies during the 60 years the U.S. has been the dominant world power, and the increasing economic opportunities across the world (however still uneven), strongly suggest to me that the U.S. has been mostly a positive force and a reasonably well behaved hegemon--though certainly far from perfect.

Great powers have a tendency to try to shape the world in their own images, and I think the U.S. (the world's oldest continuously existing liberal democracy)has done so, even if sometimes just by setting an example.

If we get through the Bush II years and the American people elect another incompetent, emotionally infantile Republican, I'll join you at the barricades pushing for a significantly stronger UN.

Until then, I'll wait for more liberal democracies.

OD - I think you make some good points, and agree that the UN can serve a useful role. But I don't trust them to police the world, or secure the US.

also, you go overboard at times. take this - 'We all know how an unconstrained American hegemon would act, and one thing's for damn sure, it wouldn't lift a finger to help people in unprofitable war zones like Sudan.'

well, how do you explain the actions in Kosovo and Bosnia in the late 90s? far too late, of course, but there was no oil or profits at stake for the US or the West. Ditto with Somalia in the early 1990s.

Ec and LWP, I can't help but get the feeling that we are talking at cross purposes.

I'm not asking for an extension of the UN's role or powers. Nor am I asking for the US to provide more money or troops. Least of all am I suggesting that the UN should have the right to interfere with your constitution, which it's never sought.

I am very specifically saying that the US has to start obeying the UN Charter's article two, the article against aggressive war.

I am saying that the Bush doctrine of unilateral "preemption" is illega