catapult magazine

Cuba:

We already can’t buy good cigars here anymore. What more do you want? How much more must we sacrifice??

Ah, now I think we’re at the crux of the issue. Why worry about making friends?

If we’re happy to build our missile defense system, keep out foreigners, and take up a siege mentality — then we don’t need any friends. But in my view, having friends is the best security.

There are ways to be in the drivers seat without being obnoxious. I think that was one of the things that Clinton was good at. Does that open a can of worms or what… But honestly, Clinton’s foreign policy was pretty good I thought. He made friends, and America got a lot of respect because of that. (let’s leave the Lewinski thing out of this ok?)

What did you think of Clinton’s foreign policy mrsanniep? jason?

My conscience won’t allow me to be silent anymore. dan, I must join your cheering section.

mrsanniep and Jason are saying that there is nothing wrong with the American supremacy attitude. I completely disagree. In fact, I don’t see how a person can say that the US is the superpower (even though it’s true) and go on to say that that is a GOOD thing. Whenever a person/institution/country claims to be so almighty that they are above any other type of governing, they immediately lose credibility in my eyes.

Perhaps if the US really had done great and wonderful things in the world I would trust them more. Maybe if they hadn’t made a mess throughout Central America (ex. Panama and Guatemala) I would trust their intervention skills. Maybe if they hadn’t lied about the real reason for going to war with Hussein in the Gulf War (oil instead of invasion) I would trust their motives. Maybe if they did actually pour a generous amount of their budget into foreign aid I would believe in their proclaimed altruistic sentiments. But as it stands, even Canada gives more towards foreign aid than the US does! I think one of the problems the US has it that it takes itself too seriously (WE are the superpower, WE must govern the world, everyone must listen to US). I haven’t met a single Canadian yet who hasn’t laughed about the fact that the West Edmonton Mall amusement park has more submarines than the Canadian Navy. It is commendable the way Canada welcomes immigrants fleeing from war-torn, poverty-stricken, oppressive countries. I’m not bringing this up in order to pit one country against another. Rather, I think it demonstrates the underlying philosophy that makes up the respective countries. It is for this reason that when I studied in Russia for a semester, I (as a Canadian) was more warmly received by the Russians than the 12 other American students on our program. It is for this reason that the two Ethiopians I presently live with can’t stand the sight of Bush.

The US is hated, mistrusted, condemned throughout the world. How can this not be a problem? Perhaps if this issue was addressed, we wouldn’t have the problem of nuclear threats or terrorism in the first place.

Not too long ago when I was listening to a news report about North Korea, my convictions on the role of the US in the world were further confirmed. It was announced that North Korea would like to sit down and discuss issues with Bush. Bush replied, and I quote, “We will not sit down and discuss this issue. I have no respect for someone who doesn’t take care of their own folks—they have no rights.” I find this quite ironic, when it is Bush who is putting a stranglehold on important areas in the US, on his own people, areas such as education.

My original point is that perhaps it’s NOT a good thing that the US is a superpower, perhaps the US is NOT doing as much good in the world as its government would like its citizens to believe. And when there is a resounding NO throughout the world regarding the war with Hussein, perhaps the US should stand up and take notice of that, and evaluate the root of the problem: why does the rest of the world dislike the US? Having gone to a Canadian high school and learning a very different version of 20th century world history, I have a feeling my education was much different than that of my American counterparts. That does not make my version wrong. It makes it objective.

So why does the rest of the world dislike the US? Can we brush that aside so easily?

You’re right. We should try to make nice with these nasty allies. That’s a very responsible position to befriend moderate and immoderate dicatorships. As Rich Lowry put it, “With allies like this, who needs enemies? Which, for the Left, may be exactly the point.”

I think Clinton’s foreign policy stretched our commitments and undermined our ability to follow through on them. I have nothing horrible to say about him, really, but nothing extraordinary, either.

All in all, I think liberals are uncomfortable with America’s power and want to check it by any means possible.

SARAH – are you saying democracy, in any form, in any country, is not a preferable system under which to live? If so, what kind of leadership would you prefer to live under?

I better start on my campaign to build a land bridge to Alaska …

One more thing that I don’t get – why is America perceived as the bully trying to encroach its way of life on everyone, when the EU is trying to do the same – impose its Kantian idea of the world on the rest of us?

mrsanniep, can you expand on this Kantian idea the EU is trying to impose on us? I wasn’t aware.

I wasn’t suggesting that we befriend Hussein. I’m suggesting that we maintain good relations with France, Germany, Russia, China. It’s almost as if Bush wishes there were a cold war again: the golden era when America knew what was evil (communism) and what was good (capitalism). He makes a stand-off out of something that could have been a cooperative effort.

Speaking of Alaska, Canadians still feel like they got the shaft 150 years ago with the British giving away that lovely panhandle…

Dan – I wasn’t aware of this perspective, either, until I read the following article in May 2002 (actually, this is just an excerpt). I thought it was very interesting and, dare I say, provocative (I really hate it when people use that word to describe anything but attitude and clothing …). Now, stop making me look things up. I’ve got ice cream to eat.

“Writing in the June issue of Policy Review, Robert Kagan argues:

It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power ? the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power ? American and European perspectives are diverging. Europe is turning away from power…It is entering a post-historical paradise of peace and relative prosperity, the realization of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.”

Immanuel Kant wrote his essay “Perpetual Peace” in 1795, heavily influenced by the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The wars of the French Revolution had already started, and would run to 1815. The two centuries that followed exhibited more perpetual war than peace, but did not stop utopian thought. The Kantian doctrine contains the three basic principles at the core of all liberal models of world order: national disarmament, global free trade, and a world federation government. The goal is to make it impossible for any nation or people to possess the means to act on their own. In Kantian doctrine, unilaterialism is a cardinal sin and the concept of national interest is a heresy.

The creation of the EU was a Kantian labor. Charles DeGaulle first envisioned a united Europe that would harness a pacified German economy to French political leadership. Such a superstate would stand as a third power between the Anglo-Saxons (the U.S.-British special relationship) and the Russians. But DeGaulle was a man of the old right, thinking about power politics. His vision was taken over by more “enlightened” thinkers on the French left, especially by Jacques Delors, a socialist who was president of the European Commission during the critical period 1985-1995. Delors’s top assistant and prot?g? was another socialist, Pascal Lamy. In his sympathetic book Jacques Delors and European Integration, George Ross counts Lamy as one of the “militants [who] use everything they have to win.”

With the Soviet Union gone, many Europeans now see the United States as “the last Superpower” blocking a Kantian future. If American freedom of action can be curtailed through economic pressure and international organizations ? especially the WTO acting as a Kantian world federation, then Europe will be free to pursue its idea of a “European social model” and work to impose it on the rest of world.

Thus President Bush’s visit will be greeted in Europe by hostile commentaries about his crude “axis of evil” speech and his desire to build missile defenses. He will be criticized for his rejections of the Kyoto climate treaty and the International Criminal Court. Bush’s attitude towards Cuba, Iraq, and Iran will be denounced as “reckless” by Europeans who simply want to do business with these regimes in an imagined Kantian world. As Lamy has said, the best way to get applause in the European parliament is to stand up and denounce America. And clapping along are those liberal pundits on this side of the ocean who are always eager to cite European criticism as “proof” of America’s sins.

At the dawn of the new century, the greatest danger to American independence, security, and prosperity may not come from avowed enemies armed with weapons of mass destruction, but from supposed friends bent on controlling the U.S. economy in order to hobble the American giant.

When there’s Starbucks ice cream to eat, mrsanniep would rather copy and paste than summarize in her own words. Lazy bum. Who likes italics.

mrsanniep, i like it better when you’re not eating ice cream.

I can tell I wouldn’t like this fellow much, but his basic point I understand and accept: that Europe is out to protect and expand it’s own interests — it’s not just America.

I could take each sentence and deconstruct it and show it for what it is, but lucky for all readers, I won’t. I’ll just try to get to the spirit of the little essay. That spirit is fear. Fear of conspiracy.

There is healthy fear. Namely that the EU is getting more powerful, adding more countries, etc. That’s reality. But if you see the EU as this monolithic thing that has one mind and is out to get the USA, you’re sorely mistaken. The EU is a rather shaky bit of political machinery where major decisions have to go to referendum in each country. If we’re talking about checks and balances, the EU has them. But it’s countries do not share a foreign policy or share a military. Some of them don’t even share the currency. That’s why people like this Robert Kegan get my goat: because they are fearmongerers.

The world is a big place. Europe has a right to work for economic influence and so does America. They also have the right to work together. In fact, I don’t know what is so scary about this. This ‘Kantian’ ideal doesn’t scare me. It sounds nice actually. Disarmament: balm to my ears. Global Free Trade: might be better than the alternative. World Federation Government: To be without global political bodies at this point in history is truly barbaric.

I’m not sure if philosophers like grant and Kant would be too happy with “Kantian” coming to be a bad word for people that prefer cooperation rather than confrontation. But if that’s what it comes to mean I’ll stand up and be counted as a true Amer-Canadian Kantian.

Unilateral action in our world shouldn’t be necessary anymore, except in extreme circumstances. If the cause is right, nations will cooperate to solve the problem. The fact that one nation wants to act unilaterally against the wishes of the entire world should send off air raid sirens in the heads of those who consider themselves democrats with a small d.

Interesting that you should interpret the essay as essentially a fear of conspiracy, because in my opinion, “fear of conspiracy” is one of the main emotions driving the anti-war movement. Fear of conspiracy in the sense that the government can’t be trusted to act on legitimate reasons and might make stuff up or not be truthful about its real reasons (i.e. Gulf War and oil vs. invasion).

I’d say mistrust of government is a healthy thing, and based on good historical evidence. Republicans normally have such a well developed mistrust of government — I don’t know what happens in times like these to reverse that trend.

Fear of conspiracy is different since it’s not based on evidence, but fear of the unknown.