[Grovenet] Is This Why The "Support Our Troops"SignsDissappeared
Ron D'Eau Claire
rondec at easystreet.com
Sun Dec 24 09:55:27 PST 2006
There are many people who live in abject fear of the U.N., or any coalition
of nations that might exercise any sort of authority over the acts of
individual countries. It is their sincere, pervasive nightmare that one day
they will hear helicopters approaching, and over the trees will appear U.N.
"choppers" followed by armed troops that take over our country.
Their fears spreads more fear, even among those who don't share their
nightmare. To them, the most dangerous threat to America was never Communism
or the Soviet Union; it is the United Nations.
I believe the U.N. needs to change and grow with the times. It's a political
structure that was the best our predecessors could come up with in WWII that
avoided the fatal weaknesses of the League of Nations that preceded it, but
it's far from ideal. Still, as others observed, it does good work -
important work - in some areas.
The immediate problem, it seems to me, is not that the U.N. needs renovating
but that those who suffer the nightmare of a U.N. takeover resist *any* body
who can exercise any control over our nation, so they end up deflecting any
interest in revamping the U.N. to make it stronger and more effective. We
all need to understand that we are no longer a truly sovereign power like we
were a century ago. Other states do control our fate, and that control may
increase. I believe it must increase.
It is obviously a sobering concept that we must think about carefully.
Giving up any control means weakening our ability to do exactly what we
choose.
At home, we've always had a strong "go it alone" policy. A century ago it
manifested itself as isolationism. America's policy was that we didn't get
involved in foreign wars. That's why we avoided WWI until the final two
years. That's why we were woefully unprepared when the Japanese attacked
Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor seems to have convinced us that it's not smart to
wait until we're attacked at home, and we began to meddle more deeply in the
affairs of other countries to the extent of toppling their governments and
supporting insurgents. For half a century we have done in countries all over
the world exactly what other countries are doing in Iraq today to topple the
government we support there.
In that political climate, there has been no room for a U.N. in our foreign
policy except to the extent we can manipulate it or when it chooses to do
what we want it to do. (In our defense, we're not entirely alone in that
attitude.) But, when people talk to each other they touch and share
information, even if they try not to. The U.N. greatly facilitated our
precarious balance with the Soviet Union throughout the cold war. It
provided an excuse for us to sit down at a table with the Soviets and their
allies at a time when we might not have had any opportunity to do so for any
other reason.
I believe that what America needs to leave behind today is our "go it alone"
attitude. It's as obsolete and unproductive as isolationism was in 1900.
We're no longer a rich nation who can provide for ourselves. The only way to
get the things we need to maintain our standard of living and satisfy the
American citizens is through cooperation and trade with other nations. It is
no longer acceptable for us to go out and conquer other nations and take
what they have. Like it or not, that would bring the world down on the heads
of the USA as surely as our meddling in the Middle East to control our oil
supply sent those airplanes into the World Trade Center on 9/11. And 9/11
proved that having the world's most powerful military or the greatest number
of nuclear bombs cannot protect us.
So what's left? I believe it is a joining together of nations. The U.N. is a
great first step. But right now the U.N. is like a car with a bad motor that
can only go 5 mph. Many people stand around pointing to it saying that it'll
never work because it goes so slow and burns too much fuel. Others say it's
dangerous because it could run over someone. I say it's time we got to work
fixing it.
Ron D'Eau Claire
-----Original Message-----
From: grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com [mailto:grovenet-bounces at rdrop.com] On
Behalf Of muriel Gordon
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 6:49 AM
To: Forest Grove local interests list
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Is This Why The "Support Our
Troops"SignsDissappeared
I did ask about the un to some people last night and they did mention as you
did, the humanitarian effects. And thank you for your answer, I am actually
learning a lot.
Merry Christmas Eve
----- Original Message -----
From: Meredith Bliss<mailto:mbliss at agora.rdrop.com>
To: Forest Grove local interests list<mailto:grovenet at rdrop.com>
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 11:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Is This Why The "Support Our
Troops"SignsDissappeared
I don't know that the UN would be a good alternative since it would take
the
unanimous support of the five permanent members of the Security Council,
which includes Russia and China, and I doubt that they would see this as
in
their best interest to be involved. Afghanistan is now a NATO mission,
however, and one might ask why Iraq has not been similarly "adopted" by
NATO.
The UN has been very effective on the health front, caring for refugees,
and
many other roles. Like any big organization, it has its faults, and those
who
oppose it find a lot of easy targets there, but on the whole it has been a
very useful tool in many instances.
And please be patient with the rest of us, too. You have every right to
expect
a respectful answer to a question put respectfully, but sometimes we do
get
carried away ;-) And none of us has an inside line, so no need to feel
intimidated by others who seem to know more ... sometimes they do,
sometimes
they don't ... take what seems useful and ignore the rest.
On Saturday 23 December 2006 21:13, muriel Gordon wrote:
> I have an honest question,,,, who has faith in the UN anymore, they
seem
> as messed up as everything else. I may not have followed politics much
but
> they don't seem to be helping anything anywhere? I do miss a lot of
things
> maybe I missed what they do? thank you, for an answer. geeze I still
have a
> lot to learn lol sometimes my worry takes over but I try to think about
> things openly also. be patient with me. Merry Christmas
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Allen
Warren<mailto:jirow at dsl-only.net<mailto:jirow at dsl-only.net>>
> To: Forest Grove local interests
list<mailto:grovenet at rdrop.com<mailto:grovenet at rdrop.com>>
> Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 3:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Is This Why The "Support Our
> Troops"SignsDissappeared
>
>
> Ron, well put.
>
> Our President sure has placed us in a difficult position. My
perception
> is the only planning performed was how to overthrow Saddam. No research
on
> the make-up of Iraq. No research on the potential outcomes of unseating
> Saddam. Only the continued mantra of needing to "bring democracy to the
> people of Iraq". And for what real purpose? Bring democracy because we
> think it then opens up the opportunity for big oil companies to sweep in
> and get one of the richest oil inventory areas of the world under order
and
> control?
>
> Maybe somebody really did conduct research into Iraq, the 3 primary
> "tribes" that made up Iraq and the different scenarios that could pan
out
> once we pushed Saddam out of control. If so, it's terribly, horribly
sad
> our President and/or whoever else had the information chose to either
> ignore it or not include it in whatever planning was conducted.
>
> And so we sit today with our troops attempting to stay one step ahead
of
> the local insurgents who I'm guessing believe they have absolutely
nothing
> to lose yet everything to gain while the President of our country keeps
> attempting to push our Western Democracy on people without every
attempting
> to understand what they really want. So we're stuck: if we send in more
> troops the insurgents only get bolder. If we pull out troops in shifts
the
> danger to the remaining troops is a direct relationship: the danger
> increases as the troop level decreases. And if we decide to conduct a
mass
> exodus for everyone as quickly as we can get them out we could very well
> end up leaving Iraq in a total state of chaos.
>
> I agree with Ron: best thing would be admit our error, beg
forgiveness,
> and ask both the U.N. and neighboring countries to Iraq like Syria for
> their help and support to get us out of this mess with the least amount
of
> further damage as possible. Unfortunately, our President will never,
ever
> do this. No, he's shown only too well he'll keep doing what he, George
W.
> Bush, wants to do regardless of whatever anyone else states. Hell will
> freeze over and the Cubs will win the World Series long before GW Bush
ever
> admits to himself let alone the rest of the world he made a mistake.
>
> I expect history will not treat kindly the Presidency of George W.
Bush.
> And rightfully so.
>
> allen
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ron D'Eau Claire"
>
<rondec at easystreet.com<mailto:rondec at easystreet.com<mailto:rondec at easystreet
.com%3Cmailto:rondec at easystreet.com>>> To: "'Forest Grove
> local interests list'"
<grovenet at rdrop.com<mailto:grovenet at rdrop.com<mailto:grovenet at rdrop.com%3Cma
ilto:grovenet at rdrop.com>>>
> Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 12:36 PM
> Subject: Re: [Grovenet] Is This Why The "Support Our
> Troops"SignsDissappeared
>
> >I agree about the lack of a cohesive society in Iraq. Yes, Saddam did
> > glue together a bunch of distrustful, even warring, tribes. Well,
> > America along with the European powers after WWI "glued them
together"
> > and then supported a series of dictators to keep them in line,
ending
> > with Saddam.
> >
> > I avoided referencing Japan for a reason. We had the opportunity
(and
> > were smart enough) to leave the Emperor in charge. So, when he
ordered
> > his people
> > to lay down their arms, no matter how horrible the consequences
might
> > be, they did so, to their credit.
> >
> > I thought Germany a more apt example because we did decapitate that
> > government (although we did hire a bunch of Nazis to run the post
war
> > government because there simply wasn't anyone else with the
experience
> > to do it). But first we employed shock and awe in an effective way
> > doing things
> > like incinerating over 600,000 non combatants in Dresden in a single
> > night. That was true "shock and awe" that I'm sure gave lots of
> > would-be German
> > "patriots" pause. That and the fact that we were clearly the lesser
of
> > two evils with the Russians slaughtering everyone in sight as they
> > stormed in from the East. Still we had to field a much, much larger
> > Army of occupation in Germany to ensure the peace than we have
> > considered putting into Iraq.
> >
> > You may be quite right that the German people were a more cohesive
> > society than the two major tribes that make up Iraq (the Kurds still
> > insist they deserve their own country that was taken away from them
> > after WWI). Still, consider that Germany, as a unified nation, was
only
> > decades old when Hitler
> > came to power. The Germanic peoples had a common culture, as do the
> > Arabic tribes in Iraq, but not an especially long history of
peaceful
> > cooperation.
> > In the 1800's Germany was actually almost 300 independent states
with
> > their own currency and governments, the final detritus of the
collapsed
> > Holy Roman
> > Empire. Only in the last few decades before WWI were many of the
German
> > warring states finally pulled together at the point of a gun by the
> > Prussian
> > van Bismarck.
> >
> > I'm left to wonder just how much different they were from the Iraqis
> > today, in terms of cultural cohesiveness.
> >
> > Still, I agree that we Americans don't have the stomach for the
> > atrocious acts required by unlimited warfare, to our credit I think.
> > The intense efforts required to whip American anger up sufficiently
to
> > do that in WWII are testament to our general dislike of playing the
> > role of mass murderers,
> > even in defense. It took a huge, openly racist, campaign on top of
> > Pearl Harbor and the sight of ships being torpedoed off the eastern
> > shores along with the powerful rhetoric of perhaps America's most
> > inspiring President to accomplish that in the 1940's.
> >
> > Setting aside what I expect to happen, what I'd like to see us do
is,
> > as I said before, go back to the UN, "hat in hand" and explain that
we
> > made a huge mistake. It was our political mistake of an inept
> > President compounded by a majority of Americans saying they wanted
this
> > President to "stay the
> > course" at the last Presidential election. It's a national mistake
with
> > national blame. We should ask the nations of the world to allow us
to
> > help them bring peace to the Middle East, and in the process bring
> > peace to America. Notice that I said that we need to help them.
We've
> > demonstrated that American, as a nation, is in no position to lead
the
> > world toward peace, either in our choices for leaders or in our
actions
> > over recent years.
> >
> > It's what "grownups" would do, whether they're individual people or
> > whole nations.
> >
> > It's what a "Christian nation" would do, or any nation who aspires
to
> > be a leader in the world.
> >
> > American needs to learn that being a "superpower" or any kind of
> > "power" in the world means a lot more than simply having the most
> > atomic bombs or the
> > best military.
> >
> > If Santa wants to bring me a Christmas present, that'd by my first
> > choice.
> >
> > Ron D'Eau Claire
>
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--
----------------------------------------
Just happy to be here, but speaking
only for myself!
Meredith Bliss --- www.rdrop.com/~mbliss<http://www.rdrop.com/~mbliss>
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