John Kerry compares Bush to a Terrorist

You say this as if Gore was an exciting guy.

Leiberman is entertaining - just watch his jowels bouce. It's fun for the whole family.

Dukakis was so bland it was painful.

Cool. I thank you.

There IS one little thing in that article you refer to which I hadn't actually thought of before which calls up a question or two.

Kerry brought up the point (let's skip his motive for the moment... not that it matter- we know what his motive is) that the body of the UN is not going to trust "this president, no matter what."
I think it may be a valid point. Whether or not the people of the US collectively think Bush has made an end run around the UN is nearly irrelevant. We do, whether we like it or not, live in a world where relationships matter a whole lot. Whether we agree or not, it seems there is a HUGE international contingent which thinks the US and Bush have acted unilaterally (let's not argue that point, though- I am talking about perception which DOES count) and undermined the UN.
Certianly, regardless of the outcome of this war, the international community looks to be pretty psyched when Bush vacates the office. If he is re-elected, we may be looking at some hard backlash from the international community and I DO think that matters quite a bit.
What do we think?

Mass folks will recall this bumper sticker-
when Dukakis was running for president, a sticker circulated depicting two guys rolling around on the ground laughing- the caption "Dukakis for WHAT?!?!?"
My thoughts exactly. I cannot IMAGINE how this country would have turned out had that boob been elected... not that there was any danger of that.
Dukakis fscked up this state for a fare thee well. I cannot IMAGINE what he would have done to the country.

The simple response from those of us on the other side of the spectrum would simply ask if we will ever bother to trust the UN again...

Both are valid questions.

Wasn't his catchphrase "I will do for this country what I have done for Massachusetts!"?

OK. Skip partisan stuff for the moment. What effect would this have?

So... that would be a fiscal suicide, then?

The song "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert!" comes to mind...

-s*

Well there's always the refreshing alternative of being a Facsist thug, isn't there?

What effect would it have if we (the US) finally were able to have a free and open debate about whether the UN has a value to us?

Personally, I think that the UN is way past it's prime and either needs a total revise or we need to get out. The only thing that it exists to do today is to pull the US down, rather than building everyone up.

Before this, anyone who brought up getting the US out of the UN was immediately dismissed as a right wing nutjob. Now, lots of people see it's weakness.

There is no comparison between Bush and a terrorist. There is no comparison between Bush and Saddam Hussein.

Edit the thread title, it is completely inaccurate.

Lots of AMERICANS see it as a weekness. There's a difference.
I am VERY concerned about the percieved isolationist attitude. I am wondering how much more the international community will take form us (whether or not we are correct is, again, I think, irrelevant).

I think you mean unilateralist. The US is far from isolationist. If it were isolationist, we wouldn't have troops engaged in combat halfway around the world.

On the other hand, I think there has been an upswing in unilateralist sentiment. Many people want the final say on vital issues affecting our way of life to be in Washington, not Paris or Berlin. On the other hand, this can be exaggerated. Most international interactions are economic, not military or political. The US is very committed to international trade and dispite silly talk about freedome fries, that has not changed.

Indeed. WW. Thankee.

I see your argument there, but I am not sure I can go with it. I mean, when was the last time we saw such public pressure on international leaders to quit "yes-ing" the US?
Let's not mistake the facts of what is happining with the actual sentiment. Regardless of whether or not we ARE forcing hands (and I think to some degree we certainly are), we are percieved as the one pushing everyone around. I think this, more than anything else, is fueling what looks like anti war sentiment.

How much WILL this isolate us? Economics aside (there's only so many times the US can say, "well, ok. No soup for you" before it comes back to hurt us).

That's really a mixture of things. I think the administration's approach was both multilateralist and unilateralist. It gave multilateralism a good run (6 painful and embarrassing months), but it always had a bottom line that was willing to be unilateralist. That probably both helped and hurt. Going to the UN got 1441 passed and moving forces into the region doubtless helped get Iraq to accept 1441 and get the inspectors in. But at the same time, there was never any chance that the US would simply walk away from the commitment to disarm Iraq in a short timeframe. If anyone thought that there was any chance at all of a repeat of 1998, they were seriously mistaken. But actually, I don't think that they were mistaken. It is just that Chirac made the calculation that there was more benefit this time from snubbing the US than going along with the plan.

Countries do this kind of thing, you know. Nobody ever said that diplomacy means not playing hardball. The US did play hardball, and so did France. The result ended up being stalemate. The US went to war, but without the cover of a UN figleaf. France got to play champion of the anti-American crowd, but will lose a lot of influence in the UN in the future because no American administration will put itself back in the position of asking the UN for permission again for many, many years.

The question is whether this is going to carry over to other areas of relations. Frankly, I doubt it. The economies of the developed world are too interdependent for a serious trade war. There may be symbolic slaps, but I really don't expect anything more.

Also, even if the UN does wither away or become less ambitious, it doesn't mean there won't be other forums for cooperation. There already are other organizations. Everything from the G7 to the WTO (though I hesitate to say NATO because I think that is the walking dead as well). And anyway, most international economic contacts occur completely independnet of government. Most of our contacts are between businesspeople, not politicians. So life will go on.

How do you know that no American Administrations would put itself back into the postion of asking the UN for permission?

If the original plan was to let the inspectors do there work then how long should we have let them stay? 1 year? 2 years? 3 years? Iraq disobeyed the resolution of the first gulfwar, no one did anything about it. Bush did what needed to be done. I wouldn't call it unilateralism since we DO have a coalition of about 45 countries. that was more than we had in the first gulf war. This is the other thing. No one said anything in the US when we went into Haiti WITHOUT the UN's approval. We bombed some Asprin Factory in the Sudan without UN approval. Why the big stink now? Where was the outrage when our troops were sent in to Somalia? Oh yeah that's right it was a UN action. Where was the UN before our troops got killed?

You and others may see it differently than I but I think Bush took charge of a situation that needed to be taken care of and took care of it. He went to the UN unlike Clinton for his foray into Haiti. Where was the outrage then? Where was the outrage for Bosnia? Was it not Clinton who left the troops there? I belive it was in somalia that he left the troops after Bush said they were going to be returning home?

What benefit did Chiac see from snubbing the US? other than helping his friend Saddam?

Just a hunch.

This may have been pointed out already, but they are actually under no such constitutional requirement. Individual states may place restrictions on what the electors can do, but the Constitution does not specify that they have to vote for anybody in particular. When you vote for President, you're really voting for (well at least in CA) the candidate's political party's group of electors, who can then vote however they want. This is antiquated and has to be changed, IMO. People should vote directly for the presidential candidate of their choosing. [/soapbox]

This post is in no way meant to suggest that Bush was illegitimately elected, but rather that the system should be changed.

This sort of ******** has got to stop.

Why is that bullsh*t? Chirac has called Saddam a "good friend" in the past.

France does have interests in Iraq that would benefit from Saddam staying in power.

France did build a nuclear plant in Iraq, the pet project of Chirac.

So that kind of bullsh*t has to stop, yet the implications that Bush is only after oil and Halliburton got all kinds of contracts (facts be damned) are ok?