Their Perspective

[Chewbaccus]

/me stands up and applauds.

Well posted, man. I couldn't have said better.

[Undertoad]

1) China's economy matching the US: not really. When Billy makes his reports on what China is doing he always includes a big dose of insular attitude and protectionism. Most previously-socialist countries of the world are trying to add a dose of capitalism to their mix because they see the gains in productivity. But that is not the only ingredient they need, and they don't see this yet.

2) Europe renouncing NATO: Europe's problem is that most of the European countries have allowed their military to lag severely in order to compete economically. After you do that for many years, your military winds up pretty weak. It's not just one year's worth of spending, but repeated years that lead to such a situation.

Germany: $40 billion, 1.8% of GNP
United Kingdom: $35.1 billion, 3.1% of GDP
France: $47.1 billion, 3.1% of GDP
Italy: $21.5 billion, 2% of GDP
Spain: $8 billion, 1.6% of GDP
USA: $284.4 billion, 4.2% of GDP

Europe, as a military force, would have to undertake massive spending just to get to the point where they were all able to fight at night, or with each other's communication systems, etc. I don't think, with their current tax situation, they would be interested in increasing taxes by 50% in order to get there.

3) This "unilateralism" included most eastern European countries, who were told by Chiraq that they missed their opportunity to shut up. Don't miss another opportunity!*

*I say this in jest. Please keep posting.

[russotto]

Originally posted by tw
Oslo Accords, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, all environmental initiatives domestic and foreign, SALT, protection of anti-American steel companies at the expense of world trade and American steel reprocessors (productive industries), nuclear test ban treaty ... How many more treaties will he destroy in the name of right wing rhetoric? And which country will be invaded next without any good reasons - Syria, N Korea, Iran?

Five years ago, China really had no reason to fear a US attack. In but the past three years, China has every good reason to fear a US attack. The dark side has overrun the country - an MBA named George.

The ABM treaty was no longer necessary, had long since been breached by the Soviet Union, and has provisions for an honorable withdrawal, which Bush took. I don't like protectionism either, but I think environmentalism has gone overboard and we need someone to push back on it.

If the Chinese Communists are worried, let them worry. Is the US going actually to attack them? Obviously not. Are they going to attack the US? Not bloody likely. So if they don't have the kind of warm and fuzzies they had under Clinton, I just don't care.

Oh yeah, and there's no way to invade Syria without any good reasons.

[Nathan Barnes]

Do those economic projections take into account Ashcroft's plans to model Modern America after 1820's France?

Maybe the forecaster should lower his time estimate on the convergence to six years. Make it three if the state-level Super DMCAs really take off.

[Torrere]

I liked how the United States used it's military up until the war in Iraq. What we were doing was deploying our forces widely throughout the world, to protect other nations that we were friends with from military threats. I liked this, because it means that those other nations do not need to build such large militaries of their own to protect themselves. If the United States had continued to use it's military benevolently, and used it to defeat threats to world placidity in the bud (Serbia, by my estimation), then the other first tier nations would be complacent militarily.

I recall reading an essay predicting that North Korea could be a catalyst of an arms race in the Orient. Since I perceive North Korea as a potential threat to stability and complacency in the Orient, I believe that the United States ought to perform it's regime decapitation there. North Korea is also a place that is surrounded by and could be absorbed by stable and prospering countries. By attacking North Korea, we would have been preventing threats.

I see Iraq as a different story. Iraq wasn't much of a threat beyond it's own citizens, the Kurds, and Iran (maybe, maybe Israel). By eliminating the Iraqi regime, I believe that we have made the region less stable (even if much of the stability was based off of cruel regimes and oil). By invading before we had convinced the rest of the world (and especially the first tier countries), we convinced those first tier countries that the United States could be a threat to them. These countries now have the need to build up the militaries to become militarily independent of the United States, and to stave off what might be perceived as an American threat.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally posted by Arctic Wind


Even CIA recognizes in its reports that in around 20 years the economy of China will equate the USA's. Furthermore I can bet that China will develop (and it already does so) its military capabilities closely following its economic growth.

All these multinational companies investing in China to take advantage of the cheap labor and lax environmental policy are in for a rude awakening. They think they will have the inside track to the huge Chinese market as China prospers and of course they have patents on the products. Nationalism will rear it's ugly head, these companies will be out and the countries they abandoned will have lost their manufacturing capacity. China will be self sustaining with no reason to be the aggressor. Except for North Korea, which has now developed ICBM's with a 9500 mile range.

Rusia, although today is weaken, has still military technology and will allways have nuclear weapons and huge quantities of raw materials, including oil.

Therefore no reason to be the aggressor, if they get their political shit together.

Europe itself will be pushed toward renouncing or undermining (to) NATO and to build its own military structure if USA will continue to take such unilateral decisions like in the Irak file. And here I mentioned only three other big players of the world.

Europe will be like Canada with France like Quebec. Think healthy athlete with severe hemorrhoids, noncompetetive.

In other words, United States are dealing now with an increasingly multipolar world, regardless if they like it or not. Being a superpower for a short period of time (historically speaking), USA will have to choose between "transforming" its world competitors (like China and Europe) into partners or into hostile (even enemy) rivals. The difference between these two options is enormous and it would be possible to clearly see it in the coming future (after 2-3 decades I would say). My warning is that, if America will continue to ignore the others and even its European Allies in taking major decisions, first it will remain alone on the international stage and second, when, in some decades, it will no longer be the only superpower but an equal or even worse of the others (of China for example) it will definitely have to pay for its past arrogance. It will be the price for creating enemies and not partners.

Europe will never be a threat. Russia will never be a problem unless the US sides with them against India or China which would be stupid on our part, but could happen. I don't see why we should be at odds with China since I don't believe they will be aggressive, but insular. Of course Japan or Korea could influence this in a very negative way. Of course if I could really predict the future, I'd play the lottery.

I have to mention I'm an European who considers himself as a Friend and Ally of USA and it's people, Europe and United States being Brothers through powerful ties as Blood, Culture and History. Meanwhile, I can't agree the way United States treated its ally and friend, Europe, in problems like the Irak file, through unilateral decisions and not through common agreement as whithin an alliance everyone should act. Further more, I appreciate that the contemporary international American policy will hurt USA as much as Europe. I thank you for your attention and I wait for your reactions.

There can never be unilateral decisions with Europe until you get your hemorroids under control.

Wind, you write an excellent post. Disregard my previous post about your English. You write like you graduated from Harvard.. oh...excuse me...Oxford. It's a pleasure to read your contributions.

[elSicomoro]

Last week, there was a report on NPR that discussed jobs leaving Mexico for China. Damn, that's funny.

China is reaping benefits now, but there's always someone out there willing to work for less. In 20 years, Billy's job could be moved to some far flung country like the Maldives.

[Arctic Wind]

Well, Undertoad, I think your criticism toward my opinions are pretty articulated. So I decided to defend them. I'm waiting further for your answer.
I would like to mention in the beginning that I live in a Eastern European country and this means I can better answer to your first and third asserts. Lets take them one by one:
1) "China's economy matching the US: not really. When Billy makes his reports on what China is doing he always includes a big dose of insular attitude and protectionism. Most previously-socialist countries of the world are trying to add a dose of capitalism to their mix because they see the gains in productivity. But that is not the only ingredient they need, and they don't see this yet." (Undertoad)
Yes, I agree that Billy (whom I translated CIA) has many times failed to correctly appreciate the world events and movements, and this was mostly because of blindly mixing of national or/and political party in power interests in the perception and analyzing process. This time although, this was not the case. There are enough signs that China isn't a joke put in some serious but tricky politicians mouths.
Firstly, China is a very big country (with more than 7 millions km.2), with the biggest population in the world (1.3 billion citizens) and, as Russia, with huge amounts of various raw materials. And you shouldn't forget that a big power is being able to sustain itself as long as it controls key sources of resources.
Second, lets talk about the relation China-communism. I lived in a communist economical system till 1989 when it fell apart. From my own experience I can totally agree with your subtext which assets that the communist economical system it's uncompetitive and doomed to fail. China is a special case in this context. Officially China is a communist country but the reality is partially different. Politically speaking, yes, China with its monolithically and single party, is communist but from the economical point of view China is almost completely capitalist. In 1979 the communist authorities in China realised that economically, the communist system was facing decline. So, accordingly, after a big congress in 1979, the communist party started an economical reform which steadily headed till today the country toward capitalism. The success of the reform process was to be seen in more than two decades of continuous approximately 7% annual economic growth. So, I woudn't treat China as an inherited disabled child.
2)"Europe renouncing NATO: Europe's problem is that most of the European countries have allowed their military to lag severely in order to compete economically. After you do that for many years, your military winds up pretty weak. It's not just one year's worth of spending, but repeated years that lead to such a situation.

Germany: $40 billion, 1.8% of GNP
United Kingdom: $35.1 billion, 3.1% of GDP
France: $47.1 billion, 3.1% of GDP
Italy: $21.5 billion, 2% of GDP
Spain: $8 billion, 1.6% of GDP
USA: $284.4 billion, 4.2% of GDP

Europe, as a military force, would have to undertake massive spending just to get to the point where they were all able to fight at night, or with each other's communication systems, etc. I don't think, with their current tax situation, they would be interested in increasing taxes by 50% in order to get there." (Undertoad)

Again, I have to partially agree with some of your propositions. Western European countries neglected after the Second World War the military aspects, as you showed above. Where I have a different opinion, is at the part with the possibility of Europe of rebuilding a powerful and comparable with USA's army. The most important countries of the European Union kept alive their military industry capabilities which are able to produce weapons with technological levels and efficiency very close to the American hi-tech weapons. Because countries like France and Germany have at anytime the capability to build armies comparable with the American one, because under the umbrella of the European Union, the European countries can joint their military budgets for building a common very powerful army without rising at all or at least significantly their GDP percentages for the military sector, Europe will always have the option to break NATO alliance, if its interests and points of view are systematically ignored.
I appreciate that without some possible strong external factors (like - today- the American tendency toward unilateralism, and toward treating its European ally as a tool for its own interests and not as an equal with whom to cooperate), Europe won't be eager to build a comparative powerful army with the USA and will try mostly to cooperate with America. I warn that the USA - EU friendship is momentarily to some degree endangered, since France, Germany and Luxembourg already proposed (following the Irak crisis) to European Union to build an united European army separately from NATO. The uniteralism is becoming to some extent dangerous for Europe but also for USA which, by following this line, will slowly but surely loose their allies and will remain isolated. A vicious circle will follow. The United States will have to continuously increase their military expenses so that no other power could challenge their supremacy, but these already problematical expenses will (and even today are hitting) hit the economy; the economy will be increasingly weaken decreasing USA power all over the world. The history will be partially repeated as happened with the Russians.
3) "This "unilateralism" included most eastern European countries, who were told by Chiraq that they missed their opportunity to shut up. Don't miss another opportunity!" (Undertoad)
How I said before I'm an East European and that's why, I think I understand pretty well what happens there.
Actually, the East European countries are so weak after decades of communism and other ten years of transition toward democracy, liberalism and capitalism, that they simply couldn't afford to be big or key players in the international affairs. In the same time, because the East Europeans countries were badly abused by the Russians and their dark empire before but specially after the Second World War, these countries would do anything for being defended from the future Russian imperial aggressions/adventures. In this context, NATO was welcomed with big relief and for this safe "umbrella" the East Europeans say everything that Americans want to hear. You just can't say you don't take unilateral actions when you convince/softly force some little and poor countries to aggree with you. United States was adopting an unilateral attitude because, firstly, they totally ignored the world wide opposition of the big political countries. Simply you can not rule as a dictator. Are we facing here double standards? The internal democratic America and the external authoritarian?
About Chiraq, he was unrude because of the international tensions and emotions, but the West Europeans know very well as the East European also know, that at the end, their place is together and East Europe will go soon into the European Union. Our (East Europeans)destiny couldn't be for long time with America if America isn't allied with Western Europe. We can see clearly that USA power is declining relatively to countries like China and even European Union and now it only reached its peach. What will happened when America (lets suppose that United States will divorce from European Union) will be forced to retreat from the most part of the world? Let me tell you! We, your last allies will be the first victims. It wouldn't be the first case like this in our two thousand years tormented history, with five empires competing in different times for world dominance in this region.
Coming back to our theme, I would like to say that underestimating the competitors and acting according to what it would have been desired to be and not with what it is will lead automatically to disastruos consequences and finally with the much hated decline.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Wind, I found that hard to read. I'd suggest you try to break it up into more paragraphs in the future.

[Undertoad]

In this context, NATO was welcomed with big relief and for this safe "umbrella" the East Europeans say everything that Americans want to hear.

You're welcome.

[BrianR]

And I notice that when Billy posts about certain topics, his command of the English language becomes MUCH better. Methinks he's quoting some "official" source rather than articulating his own opinion or position..

This may or may not affect your personal positions, but it helps to consider that Billy's posts may not, in fact, be written by Billy himself. Not to mention that I've never met a person from China named "Billy".

Brian

[xoxoxoBruce]

Brian, if you go back to the beginning of Billy's posts he gave us his name and why he chose Billy for his handle.
I agree it's easy to tell which posts are his own words and which are taken from other sources.

[richlevy]

Originally posted by hot_pastrami

In the grand world-view of right-and-wrong, there is a tiny little shred of white and a miniscule little scrap of black bookending a huge gray expanse. Almost nothing cleanly fits into "right" or "wrong" as far as the world in whole is concerned. So obviously it is next to impossible that everybody, or even a majority, will condone any particular action. But when we find the majority of the world, including some long-time allies, condemning our actions as wrong, we might want to step back a minute and make sure our country's moral compass is calibrated.

I agree completely. Political actions, including 'moral' actions, are driven by what I like to call "The Great Middle". For example, for almost 100 years, segregation in the American south was justified by its practitioners and largely ignored by the majority of Americans. Even moral leaders in local houses of worship ignored or actively supported it. Suddenly, the civil rights movement comes on the scene, and two major public events occur. IMO, Rosa Parks being forced to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and the 1963 church bombing were the keys that personalized the issue for northerners and southerners alike.

1963 Church bombing

Essay of Bus Boycott

Rosa Parks was not the first person to be affected by the policy that all non-whites must give up their seats to white passengers in the middle rows and never sit in the front rows. However, she was the 'perfect victim' in that she was a 'decent' woman. The fact that she had to give up her seat to a man placed the bus policy of segregation squarely in conflict with the southerner's view of southern courtesy. People in the middle were faced with a conflict of two 'truths', that a gentleman gives up his seat to a lady', and that a 'colored' person should give up a seat to a white person. The fact that this became national news certainly made things worse, for what was initially an issue of race became an issue of rednecks assaulting decent women on buses.

As you can see from the linked source, the incident itself was unplanned by anyone except Ms. Parks. But the decision to use her specific case was a deliberate choice. If the gender roles had been reversed and a man was forced to give up a seat to a woman, people might have shrugged it off as the enforcement of 'good manners'.

The second issue involved the bombing of a church and the deaths of four 11 and 14 year old girls. This was the more shocking incident which galvanized opposition to segregation. It had the same impact in its time as 9-11 does today, it personalized the issue, drove home the fact that it was happening on our soil, and demonized the perpetrators.

As a result of all of this, it is a 'truth' in this country that segregation, and any vestiges of it, are wrong. Only those on the fringe would even call for its return, and even then only for shock value. Any laws that still remain on the books, such as law against interacial marriage, have only to be challenged once before being struck down, assuming they have not already been repealed. This a a huge change which occured in a relatively short time, less than a decade. It occured because one side won the argument, and 'The Great Middle' shifted. As a result, what was once illegal is now legal, and what was once legal, calling for the practice of segregation, might now be considered a hate crime.


What does this have to do with Bush and Iraq?

Bush was given a large amount of leeway by the US and the world after 9-11. In effect he was given an account of goodwill and sympathy on which to draw. The action in Afghanistan was clearly permissible because:

1) We were certain Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden were there.
2) The Taliban never strenously denied he was there and refused to hand him over.
3) There was no legitimate government in Afganistan. The Taliban were little more than religious warlords.
4) The Taliban were already considered assholes by most of the world for running a brutal theocracy, as well as recently purposely destroying 2000-year-old statues Bariyan Statues Destroyed. Everybody hated these guys.

Iraq was a member of the United Nations. Hussein appeared to be complying with every mandate against him, although he walked a fine line. The Iraqi government, while a brutal dictatorship, was functioning as well as could be expected with trade cut off, and no clear evidence was found to the contrary.

The fact the Bush Jr.'s father left unfinished business there worked against him because people were not clear how much personal sentiment was pushing what was supposed to be a strategic decisision. Also, Bush had made an insanely stupid comment about a 'crusade' in the Middle East. From a publicly avowed Christian, this would be similar to a leader in Turkey speaking of a 'jihad' in Cyprus to respond to Greece. It brings a religious connotation to the issue.

There was also the issue of a direct connection between Iraq and Al-Qaeda, which involved the concept of a Sunni dictator of a largely secular Arab nation getting significantly involved with a well-funded and organized group of religious exteremists bent on installing Islamic goverments. He had history to draw on, specifically that of the Jordan-PLO debacle in 1970. Jordan-PLO Conflict Most of the world hated Hussein, but noone considered him stupid. In fact, the mere fact that he survived Desert Storm probably impressed most of the Middle East, even his enemies.

So the US begins an ever more strident call for the invasion of Iraq, gets a few hard-core allies to sign on, and tries piece together enough circumstantial evidence to build a consensus in the UN, or at least among the security council. At some point the US decides it does not need a consensus, and goes in with what many in its own military consider inadequate forces for long-term occupation.

At this point Bush has squandered any goodwill left as a result of 9-11. In the US, opposition to Iraq is still shouted down with 9-11, even though that case has never been made. In fact, I believe that by removing a government and uniliaterally attacking in the Middle East, we are alienating "The Great Middle" among the populations of most countries. Our own citizens, with some goading by representatives of the adminstration, are beginning to build the same kind of case against Saudi Arabia that we built against Iraq. The fact that both of these countries are sitting on a large amount of oil reserves and that our current president was an oil executive with a lot of influential friends in the oil business is also weighing against us.

Bush has basically lost the hearts and minds of most of the world here. Most of what he has done militarily and economically, appear to be providing short-term gains for significant long-term losses. Considering multiple tours in Iraq, some after only short stateside returns, coupled with cutbacks in schools for children of military personnel and VA hospitals, can only serve to drive down recruitment of married reservists, as well as others. We might end up with a draft.

Bush now has to go to the UN to get the support he might have gotten if he had waited. While the adminstration has been making a lot of noise about control of troops, a bigger possiblity is that we do not want to give up political control, especially in the area of rebuilding and oil contracts, which will run into the tens of billions, possibly more in the long term. If you could match up the list of parties on the US side set to benefit with the list of participants in the President's Energy Task Force, which we will never know since the White House stonewalled the release the list, you might find some significant similarities.

Bush has lost most the the middle ground abroad, and is about to do so in the US. He is not a great communicator like Reagan. I thought Reagan was a mediocre president but a great salesman. Bush does not even have that going for him.

As a result, we have a significant number of troops pinned overseas, a poor economy, and a lousy environment. At this point Bush's sole remaining test of leadership is the war on terror, and in this area more and more people now consider him a 'bloody shirt' empire-builder.

[ThisOleMiss]

The Chinese better watch it. If they piss us off we'll just embargo the hell out of all that cheap crap they're sending over here. That'll get their attention. Amazing, isn't it, how all these other countries seem to hate America but love American dollars? One of those things that make you go hmmmmmmm....


As for me, I buy American whenever I can.

Strong words coming from someone who owns an Italian car, a Korean car, and an Indian tractor.....

[xoxoxoBruce]

If they piss us off we'll just embargo the hell out of all that cheap crap they're sending over here.

Wal-Mart won't let that happen.