The alarming anti-Americanism in Europe

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2003-04-15 07:47am

Perinquus wrote:Let's not forget China's takeover of Tibet, or its half-century long support of North Korea and it's hideous, oppressive regime, or it's support of North Vietnam, which followed up its victory in the war by killing political opponents of the communist regime in carload lots.

There's blame enough to go around where nations and their foreign policy is concerned.

The thing is that you expect that sort of thing from second world dictatorships not from first world democracies. America has activly sponcered this sort of thing just as well as anyone else.

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2003-04-15 07:51am

Stormbringer wrote:
When did I say it wasn't ruthless? The problem I have is people regarding that as some aberation of history rather than business as usual for nations. S

That such behaviour is normall does not make it acceptable. Any person that accepts such behaviour would have to be sevearly lacking in morals.

Stuart Mackey · Post by **Stuart Mackey** » 2003-04-15 07:56am

Perinquus wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:
Darth Wong wrote:I think the number of people who seriously think the CIA would plant evidence is not as large as you think it is. At least not around here, anyway.
Probably not. But I think the number that would believe it if they were told so is much higher than you believe. There's a fundamental distrust of the US these days, I can't say I blame them after our Cold War cover shenanigans.

I have a problem with this as well. We were no angels during the Cold War, by any stretch of the imagination. But we also did not have gulags, nor did we invade and crush our neighbors as Czechoslovakia and Hungary were invaded and oppressed when there were anti-communiist movements there. We also did not have to build a wall around the "workers' paradise, and patrol it with armed guards to keep the workers from running away.
But you were quite happy to set up dictatorships that behaved just like the old USSR in many ways, dictators tha killed of their opponets in the thousands. Hell, you even lent a hand to one guy you resently deposed.

I think people have a tendency to forget who the real villains were.

And that excuses your behaviour, how?

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-04-15 09:03am

Darth Wong wrote:Oh good, you didn't use it as much as Reagan's "Evil Empire". The fact remains that bitching about France's use of the veto is silly when it comes from a prolific user of that veto, even if there was one even worse.

Actually I've little issue with it, since we get done what we wish without the permission of the UN. Personally, I believe it is clever of the US to remain in the UN, for we can then go against what the Security Council wishes when it attempts to block our interests, while simultaneously hamstringing it if it tries to condemn us for persuing those interests despite its permission. Sure, we may make the UN appear impotent in the process, but isn't it so without direct assistance from the US anyway?

Don't get me wrong: I'd rather the UN sided with the US in key issues, but it's good to have that nice escape clause in case they don't...

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-04-15 09:25am

jegs2 wrote:Actually I've little issue with it, since we get done what we wish without the permission of the UN. Personally, I believe it is clever of the US to remain in the UN, for we can then go against what the Security Council wishes when it attempts to block our interests, while simultaneously hamstringing it if it tries to condemn us for persuing those interests despite its permission. Sure, we may make the UN appear impotent in the process, but isn't it so without direct assistance from the US anyway?

Fair enough, but the subject of this thread is why there is so much anti-American sentiment in the world. The leading theory is fear of American strong-arm tactics, and reminding everyone that you can get away with them does not really have anything to do with that theory except possibly to reinforce it.

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-04-15 09:55am

Darth Wong wrote:Fair enough, but the subject of this thread is why there is so much anti-American sentiment in the world. The leading theory is fear of American strong-arm tactics, and reminding everyone that you can get away with them does not really have anything to do with that theory except possibly to reinforce it.

Right you are, Mike. I suppose my overall point is that the only way Americans would be popular (or at least not hated) throughout the world is by being pacifistic throughout the world (nobody likes an empire -- and the US is an empire, IMO). Furthermore, IMO, so long as we have troops garrisoning other nations, at worst those troops become terrorist targets for local Islamists and the like, thus sparing our civilians in CONUS (why fly your terrorists to CONUS to strike the infidels there if you've got infidels in need of striking in your own back yard?), and soldiers are more prepared to handle terrorists than are civilians in CONUS.

At best, we can pull off in Iraq what we did in Germany and Japan, creating a beacon of democracy in the region and slowly ebbing the powers of Middle-Eastern dictatorships and Islamic Fundamentalism. Some will say, "The US is setting up a military governorship -- not a democracy!" Hmmm, that's only a first step, which was also done in both Germany and Japan. However, while setting up that military governorship, we would also slowly reintroduce Iraqi civlian leadership, perhaps helping them to draft a new constitution and parlamentary style of leadership (as was done in Germany & Japan). Why so slow? Well, unfortunately life is not a video game, where upon defeating the endgame boss, things suddenly get rosey. Why do I mention that? Folks have come to expect results quick, fast, and in a hurry. The following cartoon illustrates that thought:

So what does this all have to do with how the US is perceived abroad? Again, IMO, strength can be hated and yet respected. If what we do in Iraq succeeds as we hope, then our critics will have much less of a base upon which to stand, and Iraq's democracy (I use the term loosley, meaning a democratic republic or some representative form of government) will show to the world that indeed Arabs can live under something besides a dictatorship. If our mission is not successful, then we will likely continue to garrison Iraq, drawing Islamist and Arab nationalist terrorist strikes on our troops there, instead of our civilians in CONUS -- less of a win to be sure, but an improvement over the status quo nevertheless. To be sure, it would be sheer madness to leave unstable regimes, at least partially driven by hate-filled Islamic Fundamentalists, free to continue to build terrible weapons with which to strike our civilians at home. They demonstrated their willingness to strike us at all costs by their actions on 11 Sep 01. Time will tell if this grand experiment will succeed, and we do have precidents, but it will take time. And who knows? Success may breed yet more success.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-04-15 10:15am

jegs2 wrote:Time will tell if this grand experiment will succeed, and we do have precidents, but it will take time. And who knows? Success may breed yet more success.

I agree that it is a potentially worthy endeavour, and I have held the position from the beginning that a firm verdict on its merits is impossible until we've had time to evaluate its results.

I think that once regime change occurs in the USA, others might drop some of their animosity. People in the rest of the world really don't like George Bush. His diplomatic skills are deplorably bad, and divisive, darkly threatening public statements like "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" certainly do not help the cause of American image worldwide.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2003-04-15 10:38am

Darth wrote

I think that once regime change occurs in the USA, others might drop some of their animosity. People in the rest of the world really don't like George Bush. His diplomatic skills are deplorably bad, and divisive, darkly threatening public statements like "either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" certainly do not help the cause of American image worldwide.

My beef with this is IMO That proposing that we should have a regime change at home, only to appease the rest of the world is going against the 73% of Americans that support the Pres and the way he is doing his job http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/15/natio ... ner=GOOGLE
I do understand why they do not like Bush and we live the man we got. To it all boils down to doing what is in the best intrest of each nation.. and they will all never agree/

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-04-15 10:56am

so then what happens if the 'regime' doesn't change, and Bush is re-elected by a comfortable margin? Hell, the Republicans controlled the White House for 12 years in the 80's and early 90's. that could very easily happen again with the way the opposition keeps shooting themselves in the foot.

theski · Post by **theski** » 2003-04-15 10:58am

And Jeb might run in 2008!! Thats alot of Bush!!

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-04-15 10:59am

Col. Crackpot wrote:so then what happens if the 'regime' doesn't change, and Bush is re-elected by a comfortable margin? Hell, the Republicans controlled the White House for 12 years in the 80's and early 90's. that could very easily happen again with the way the opposition keeps shooting themselves in the foot.

If the economy and stock market don't turn around, I don't think Bush will be reelected. People vote their pocketbook.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-04-15 11:09am

He was never elected in the first place. Your constitution states quite clearly that the man with the most votes is President, and he didn't get the most votes. Unless the "electoral college" voting system supersedes that part of the constitution, I don't see how he was legitimately elected.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-04-15 11:15am

Darth Wong wrote:He was never elected in the first place. Your constitution states quite clearly that the man with the most votes is President, and he didn't get the most votes. Unless the "electoral college" voting system supersedes that part of the constitution, I don't see how he was legitimately elected.

Article II Section I and Amendment XII specifically state that the electoral college is responsible for Presidential elections.

jegs2 · Post by **jegs2** » 2003-04-15 11:16am

Darth Wong wrote:He was never elected in the first place. Your constitution states quite clearly that the man with the most votes is President, and he didn't get the most votes. Unless the "electoral college" voting system supersedes that part of the constitution, I don't see how he was legitimately elected.

You are correct. The Electoral College does determine who becomes President, although some Democrats maintain that Gore won Florida but it was given to Bush by the Supreme Court, thus they call him the "Selected" President. The Electoral College was put in place to prevent the most populous states from determining who the national leader would be. Without the Electoral College, Presidental candidates would focus their campaigns solely on only the most populous states (California, New York, Florida and the like), while utterly ignoring the less populous states. It is by no means a perfect system, but it prevents two or three states within the union from calling all the shots.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-04-15 11:16am

Darth Wong wrote:He was never elected in the first place. Your constitution states quite clearly that the man with the most votes is President, and he didn't get the most votes. Unless the "electoral college" voting system supersedes that part of the constitution, I don't see how he was legitimately elected.

The Electoral College DOES supercede the popular vote....little known fact of our Consitition. The Founding Fathers did not fully trust the American mob.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-04-15 11:26am

As if we needed another voice to be added to the "ruthless foreign policy" debate. I agree. America has had a ruthless foreign policy in place during the Cold War. One we were in a war for survival against the Soviet Union. We can scoff about it now but our parents and theirs firmly believed that the USSR would eventually come to get us. This was a war of idealogy as much as anythign else and the Soviets were quite brutal in their own way and we could not be the nicey nice Americans and come out on top.

It was the old trap of becoming what you fight as well as just the political reality thats been with us since the Babylonians. You have to be ruthless in foreign policy to come out on top. Empires are not built or maintained on being the "nice guys". When it comes to world history, nice guys usually do finish last.

America likes to think itself better than that but we're actually not.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-04-15 11:34am

Stravo wrote:
The Electoral College DOES supercede the popular vote....little known fact of our Consitition. The Founding Fathers did not fully trust the American mob.

Just out of curiosity, where does it say that anyway?

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-04-15 11:38am

Darth Wong wrote:He was never elected in the first place. Your constitution states quite clearly that the man with the most votes is President, and he didn't get the most votes. Unless the "electoral college" voting system supersedes that part of the constitution, I don't see how he was legitimately elected.

Mike, the Constitution clearly states that the electoral college determines the President, so Bush is indeed the legally elected President.

The Constitution of the United States wrote:Article II. - The Executive Branch

Section 1 - The President

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector

The 12th Ammendment futher clarifies the issue:

the Constitution of the United States wrote:Amendment XII - Choosing the President, Vice- President. Ratified 6/15/1804.

The Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;

The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;

The person having the greatest Number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death or other constitutional disability of the President.

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice-President, shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed, and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on the list, the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be necessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-04-15 02:09pm

Stuart Mackey wrote:
Perinquus wrote:Let's not forget China's takeover of Tibet, or its half-century long support of North Korea and it's hideous, oppressive regime, or it's support of North Vietnam, which followed up its victory in the war by killing political opponents of the communist regime in carload lots.

There's blame enough to go around where nations and their foreign policy is concerned.
The thing is that you expect that sort of thing from second world dictatorships not from first world democracies. America has activly sponcered this sort of thing just as well as anyone else.

You should expect it from any state. Nations act in what they see as their self interest, first, last, and always. Moral and ethical considerations are seldom allowed to override this. The Italian statesman Count Camillo Cavour once said "We shall astonish the world with our ingratitude", referring to Italy's acting against a nation that had recently rendered it aid. Charles DeGaulle once said, "The state is a cold monster". This may be machiavellian, but it's how nations have always acted. It is naive to expect otherwise.

I have no problem with America being criticized for behaving unethically, what I do have a problem with is America being judged by a different, harsher standard, and people willing to impute baser motives to the United States than to repressive regimes around the world.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-04-15 02:20pm

The Electoral College is an Amendment, it supersedes anything related to the election of the President in the original Constitution. The election of the President was never meant to be a national plebiscite, in any case.

Personally, I would very much doubt that Al Gore's popular vote majority ever existed, with vote fraud being so common in the urban areas from which Gore drew the most support.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-04-15 02:22pm

Correction: Al Gore's popular vote plurality. Neither Bush nor Gore had a popular majority in 2002.

Col. Crackpot · Post by **Col. Crackpot** » 2003-04-15 02:45pm

Durran Korr wrote:Correction: Al Gore's popular vote plurality. Neither Bush nor Gore had a popular majority in 2002.

you're right, and also, IIRC Clinton did not have a majority of the popular vote either, simply a plurality of the three way race.

and regarding your previous post, article 2 section 1 of the constitution (posted above) laid the underpinning of the electoral college system. All that was required of the states was for them to send 'electors' totalling the number of senators and representatives to vote for a Presidential Candididate. It did not state anything else, so these electors were basically puppets of the governors and state legislatures. the 12th ammendment simply provided a methodology in which to choose which party got to send electors to the electoral college.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2003-04-15 02:58pm

Abraham Lincoln also had less than a majority of the popular vote.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-04-15 03:21pm

Durran Korr wrote:The Electoral College is an Amendment, it supersedes anything related to the election of the President in the original Constitution. The election of the President was never meant to be a national plebiscite, in any case.

Personally, I would very much doubt that Al Gore's popular vote majority ever existed, with vote fraud being so common in the urban areas from which Gore drew the most support.

Not to mention a shit load of military and other votes that were never (that I have seen or heard) added or subtracted to Bush/Gore's total. IIRC, California had one million absentee ballots alone that I never have heard the results from and how that would have changed the totals between Bush and Gore.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-04-15 03:25pm

Knife wrote:Not to mention a shit load of military and other votes that were never (that I have seen or heard) added or subtracted to Bush/Gore's total. IIRC, California had one million absentee ballots alone that I never have heard the results from and how that would have changed the totals between Bush and Gore.

How can you have a million absentee ballots that aren't counted at election time? Doesn't that screw up the system? I find American politics very strange.